• The United States Grand Prix takes place this Sunday (9 p.m.) at the Austin circuit in Texas.

  • Formula 1 has always had great difficulty establishing itself in the United States, a country where car culture is concentrated around Nascar and oval circuits.

  • But the takeover of the discipline by the American media conglomerate Liberty Media, which "Americanized" F1 around the spectacle, has made the United States a new El Dorado with three Grand Prix on the 2023 calendar.

From a “chaotic” Grand Prix to one of the best attendances in history, in a country where Formula 1 had the greatest difficulty in establishing itself before becoming a kind of Eldorado.

Or the condensed history of the United States Grand Prix, on the Austin circuit in Texas, which will take place this weekend for the 2022 edition. But also that of F1 with the USA.

This year, the promoters of the Grand Prix hope to repeat their attendance record for the 2021 edition with nearly 400,000 spectators gathered over the weekend, one of the best attendances in the history of Formula 1. A rather incredible performance when we know how "chaotic" the beginnings were, recalls a former team manager present in 2012, the date of F1's return to the USA after several years of absence.

Nascar Culture

On this Austin circuit, specially designed for the discipline, many feared a flop.

"Nobody knew if the stands were going to fill up, it was a bit complicated and everyone was wondering if it was going to work," recalls Arnaud Remy, founder of the us-racing.com site, which specializes in motor sports in the USA. , and present for the first edition of this Grand Prix on the Austin circuit.

The attendance of 265,000 people over three days in 2012 had also gradually reduced to 224,000 in 2015.

And for good reason, the motor sports culture in the USA is radically different from ours, with “the ovals, the Nascar”.

“It's the number 1 motor sport there by far, while Indy Car [often described as the F1 of the USA] brings together very knowledgeable fans, but with an anecdotal audience.

I often picture saying that there are as many Nascar fans in the United States as people in France, ”explains the specialist in American motor sports.

The former team manager believes that F1 has too often been perceived as a sport "too expensive, too technical and too elitist" in the United States.

“Always the same driver who wins at the end”

The difficulties for F1 to establish itself in the United States show this well.

In the 1950s, almost no European driver came to compete in the Indianapolis 500, which was on the F1 calendar from 1950 to 1961.

The discipline then developed in the 1980s under the impetus of former boss Bernie Ecclestone, before disappearing again during the 1990s. The return of Indianapolis, but on a circuit laid out in the heart of the 2000 oval in 2007, is only in its infancy until the installation on the circuit of Austin, in 2012.

“There is a lack of accessibility.

In Nascar everyone rubs shoulders with the drivers, exchanges with them, takes photos, without having to pay a supplement to have access to them.

Many Americans came to see the F1 races without really understanding, with brands they did not know and with always the same driver who won at the end, ”explains Arnaud Remy.

The Liberty Media Revolution

The arrival of the American team Haas F1 Team in 2016 made it possible to make the discipline a little better known in the United States.

But it was above all the takeover of Formula 1 in 2017 by Liberty Media, a large consortium of American media, which made it change its dimension across the Atlantic.

To "crack" the American market, they decided on a series with Netflix,

Drive to Survive

, and massively developed social networks to make F1 more accessible, and above all more spectacular.

This aspect is essential in the United States.

This is what saved the Austin Grand Prix from its gradual decline in attendance with "a genius idea" in 2016: a mega concert by Taylor Swift. 

The best example of this transformation is the Miami Grand Prix, contested on a street circuit built in the parking lot of Hard Rock Stadium, the first edition of which took place last May.

A race “not really fabulous for people who love motorsport”, but a success in terms of “buzz”, with “many celebrities and a circuit in town”, underlines Arnaud Remy.

Results, very good audiences “among those under 30”, but which do not yet reach “the level of those of Nascar”, whose age of the spectators is more around 60 years old.



Faced with this success, a third race in the United States has been added to the 2023 calendar, the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

“Liberty Media has achieved its goal, to the point of organizing a race itself, without using a promoter.

This is the first time this has happened!

With the aim of showing its know-how on its local market”, believes the former team boss.

When F1 makes Nascar evolve

This success and this dazzling development are even beginning to overshadow the untouchable Nascar, which is considering adopting the same strategies to reduce the age of its audience.

“They can't reach a young audience with races that last between 3 and 5 hours, so they've been testing a lot of things for five or ten years.

The format of the races, the communication, by getting closer to the cities with a race in the streets of Chicago, with a championship format whose winner is not known until the 36th and last race of the season, ”lists the specialist.



But Formula 1 is not to be outdone, and would be on the way to realizing one of the greatest dreams of American spectators: to have one of their drivers behind the wheel of an F1.

If Colton Herta, the youngest winner of an Indy Car race, was expected to replace Pierre Gasly at Alpha Tauri, the FIA ​​finally refused him a waiver to obtain the superlicence.

"But it will happen much faster than we imagine," warns the former team boss.

A seat seems available at Haas with the probable departure of Mick Schumacher, while the American team has just announced MoneyGram, an American company, as title sponsor.

All that's missing now is the pilot.

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