Indycar and Nascar must watch out.

This weekend, hundreds of thousands of people will follow a historic Miami Grand Prix on site.

-When I grew up, I knew how fantastic this sport is, but at the same time saw what a gap there was between the interest in the USA and the rest of the world.

It is fantastic to see that we have finally cracked the nut and that love is growing in the USA, says Mercedes superstar Lewis Hamilton.

For a long time, the Formula 1 sport has had a hard time competing with classic racing such as Indycar and Nascar, while the F1 world has prioritized a European and South American jet set audience over attracting the Americans.

The United States was completely without F1 competition for four years after Indianapolis was eliminated from the program in 2007. Although since 2012, the US Grand Prix has been run again in Austin, Texas, but it is only in the last three years that interest in Formula 1 has taken further speed in the country.

The series aroused interest

The Netflix hit "Drive to survive" is part of that development.

The reality series, which closely follows the F1 stables, premiered in 2019 and has attracted a new, large audience.

This is shown, among other things, by the competition in Texas, which last year attracted over 400,000 spectators, of which almost 70 percent were there for the first time, Bloomberg writes.

At the same time, television viewing figures increased by 56 percent in the United States last year compared to 2020, reports ESPN.

The latter, however, was more true when Bernie Ecclestone, who ruled over F1 for almost four decades, ruled.

After American Liberty Media took over in 2016, Ecclestone was asked what he thought about the sport's future under the new owners:

-We have steered F1 like a five-star Michelin restaurant, not like a hamburger hook.

But maybe this restaurant will be more accessible.

Maybe it will even taste better, said Ecclestone.

"So much stupid from the US"

But the F1 ball is rolling, and will be difficult to stop.

Although the now 91-year-old Bernie Ecclestone continues to be skeptical.

- It is possible that it will be good, because it comes so much stupid from the US and everyone still seems happy.

But that's not how I handled things, Ecclestone told Bloomberg.

The truth is, however, that American interest is also spreading globally.

The total television audience was measured at 1.6 billion people last year, an increase of 11 percent since Liberty took over.

The end of the season alone attracted 108.7 million viewers.

Liberty's CEO Greg Maffei is therefore not significantly affected by Ecclestone's comments.

- Bernie can rumble as much as he wants.

But the reality is that everyone wants a piece of this cake now, says Maffei.

KLIPP: Verstappen won Emilia-Romagnas GP

Javascript is disabled

Javascript must be turned on to play video

Read more about browser support

The browser is not supported

SVT does not support playback in your browser.

We therefore recommend that you switch to a different browser.

Read more about browser support

Max Verstappen took this year's second GP victory.

Photo: TT