Formula One's American Dream

Formula One and the United States of America. The two have not made comfortable bedfellows in the recent past, although the onset of next weekend’s United States Grand Prix at the brand new Circuit of the Americas promises to begin to change this state of affairs.

The inaugural race at the all-new, Hermann Tilke-designed Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas has a lot riding on it. Since Watkins Glen left the F1 calendar at the start of the eighties, the sport has struggled to establish a permanent home across the Atlantic in a market that the sport is understandably desperate to break into. After a litany of unsuccessful street events and an ill-fated stint at Indianapolis, a purpose-built circuit has been constructed in the States for the first time with the express purpose of hosting a Grand Prix.

After exploratory events at Sebring, Florida and Riverside, California in 1959-1960, the upstate New York-based circuit known affectionately as 'The Glen' played host to the US Grand Prix from 1961 to 1980 and initially proved popular amongst fans and teams alike. However, by the mid-seventies, it had fallen out of the teams’ favour in the wake of fatal accidents for Francois Cevert and Helmut Koinigg at the 1973 and 1974 events respectively.

The race continued for several more years before eventually being struck from the calendar amid unpaid debts to FOCA (Formula One Constructors Association). By that time, a second race – the ‘United States Grand Prix West’ – had been established on the streets of Long Beach, California. The initially running of the event in 1976 proved an instant hit with the locals, and although the event was dropped after the 1983 event due to the expense of holding the race, it continues to be a popular fixture on the IndyCar calendar to this day.

After Watkins Glen vanished from the F1 calendar, another US race at Las Vegas was added to the calendar in 1981. The event proved to be a disaster however, as the intense desert heat combined with a dreary track layout situated in the car park of the Caesars Palace hotel and near-total disinterest from the locals made it a total flop. It was unsurprisingly axed after just two races, and a similar fate befell the Dallas Grand Prix after a single running in 1984 when the track surface disintegrated in the extreme temperatures.

The Detroit Grand Prix of 1982-1988 fared somewhat better, but a disagreement with the race organisers over facilities saw the race defect to IndyCar in 1989. F1 then decamped to Phoenix, Arizona for another street fixture in 1989, but this failed to engage the local population to the extent that the Grand Prix was beaten for spectator figures by the local ostrich festival; the event was discontinued after 1991. The sport wasn't to return to the US for another nine years, when an agreement was struck to hold a US Grand Prix at the world-famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

F1’s stint at Indy started auspiciously enough – over 200,000 spectators flocked to IMS on race day during the inaugural event in 2000 to see Michael Schumacher take the spoils. The Grand Prix continued to attract a very respectable 125,000 fans over the following years before the sport’s reputation in the eyes of the US public took a near-fatal blow in 2005 as just six cars took the start of the race while the remaining fourteen Michelin-shod entries withdrew due to safety concerns over their tyres.

Needless to say that the paying crowds were suitably infuriated, and after the original contract between  circuit owner Tony George and Bernie Ecclestone expired after the 2007 event, both parties unsurprisingly agreed not to renew it. That left F1 without a home in America once more, much to the chagrin of the manufacturers, who, for commercial reasons, were keen to ensure the sport had a presence at what was at the time the world’s largest car market (that honour now belongs to China).

All that means that the United States has, up until now, hosted a grand total of 51 Grand Prix (excluding the 11 Indy 500 races that counted for F1 championship points between 1950 and 1960), putting the country only behind Belgium (57), France (59), Monaco (59), Great Britain (66), Germany (73) and Italy (89). What’s more, in all those races, there’s been just a single American winner to quicken the pulses of the home crowds – Mario Andretti at Long Beach in 1977.

Of course, that’s not to say there haven’t been any other successful American drivers: Phil Hill won the drivers’ title for Ferrari in 1961, technically making him the only American-born driver to do so (Andretti, who won the title in 1978, was born in Italy), while Richie Ginther, Peter Revson and Dan Gurney were all race winners in the mid-sixties and early seventies.

Nonetheless, there hasn’t been an American race winner since Andretti took his final victory at the 1978 Dutch Grand Prix, although Eddie Cheever did score nine podiums over the course of the eighties. Since Cheever switched to CART in 1990, only two other Americans have been seen on the grid: 1991 CART champion and Mario's son Michael Andretti, whose struggles with McLaren in 1993 are well documented, and Red Bull junior driver Scott Speed, who vanished into obscurity after a season and a half at Toro Rosso in 2006-2007.

So, why the relative dearth of American talent in recent times? The best explanation is probably that the burgeoning popularity of IndyCar and later NASCAR meant that young American drivers felt little need to move to Europe to advance their careers. After all, why take the huge risk of moving thousands of miles away from home in pursuit of an F1 drive when you would have a better chance of becoming a household name in the States by simply rising through the ranks of domestic motorsport?

F1 is unlikely to re-establish itself in America without a successful home driver on the grid, but luckily there are several promising up-and-comers who could come to fill that role within the next few seasons. World Series by Renault race winner Alexander Rossi is the most obvious candidate, as he is already a test driver at Caterham. The 21-year-old seems set to graduate to GP2 next season, and the commercial possibilities associated with an American driver could see him land a drive with Caterham or another team in 2014.

In addition, Conor Daly, son of former Williams driver Derek, has performed well in GP3 this year, winning a race at Catalunya en route to sixth in the standings with the Lotus-backed ART team, and has completed a small amount of testing with Force India. Michael Lewis won a F3 Euroseries race this season, finishing eighth in the championship; both he and Daly are a few seasons away from an F1 seat at the moment, but the potential is definitely there.

Austin really is F1's big chance to finally regain a foothold in the States. NASCAR, which has dominated the US motorsport scene since the turn of the century in the wake of IndyCar's infamous split, is starting to decline - America's economic woes have meant that NASCAR's core fan-base, the middle-age, southern white male, are having difficulty attending races. The younger, urban population of America meanwhile seem somewhat disinterested in stock cars, making the 'Austinites' a potentially valuable demographic for F1 to tap into.

The race is sold out for its initial running, but the real acid test will be whether the US Grand Prix drives enough interest to continue to fill the grandstands for years to come. That will likely depend on the presence of an American driver, and a competitive one at that. It will only take a Rossi or Daly to be given a drive in a midfield team to set the media coverage ball rolling, and that point F1 could begin displacing NASCAR as the country's most popular discipline of motorsport.