Why Don't Americans Like F1?

At the Aspen Food and Wine Classic (see thread in the Rocky Mountain section) foreigners would ask me "Why don't Americans like Formula 1?" and Why are Americans Indy 500 Fans and NASCAR fans?

I had my usual Ferrari hat on with Schumacher's faux signature on it.

Predictably, the Brits were Hamilton fans. The Spaniards were Alonso fans. and the Italians were Ferrari fans of course.

They were all sorry to be missing the US Grand Prix. I taped it.

 

i think americans dont like it simply because it isnt american, and they tend to love other american motorsports nascar indi etc.. but me i personally love f1 been goin to the usgp for the last 3 years

 

F1 is very popular among Americans...Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and most all of South America loves it...just not much in the USA. But, F1 used to be big in the USA in the 50s and early 60s when there were several drivers from the USA and more than one race here. With only one race and one driver to root for its hard for the average Joe to get excited about it. Plus, the sponsors do not push it in the USA much either...even the teams and sponsors like BMW, Mercedes, Honda, Toyota, AT&T, Bridgestone, ect... that have a huge presence in the USA don't seem to use F1 in their advertisements much at all...

 

I think it's more a matter of "market share" and there are so many competing sports events that F1 cannot "have it all" here....as they do in some countries.

It came to me when I could not get the feed at home and went to a nearby Sports Bar where HUNDREDS of TVs were split between Tiger golfing, the Astros at home....ENDLESS pics of dumbazzez playing poker.......LOL!

I was watching the ONE tube tuned to Indy F1 and made do with the captioning system.......

After several Bloody Mary's I felt better.......

 

The media here doesn't give it enough play by airing it at viewer friendly times or promoting it enough. Plus, they go where the $$$$$$$$$$$$ are, which is NASCAR. Too bad.

 

Well, I never DID figure out which FOX it was on, or why I couldn't find it in Lady Valeria's TV package........

640 channels.....go figure!

And he11 I work for FOX you should see all the dishes we are putting behind the building.......LOL!

I'll complain in the next contruction meeting with the Owner's Rep........

 

And what media we have is the FOX.

I was watching it (put to sleep by the droning) and did not even know that it was over until I actually saw with my own eyes the checkered flag.

The commentators were more in love with their own voices than the events taking place on the track.

The LeMans coverage was much better, and more exciting, IMHO - even with the 1 hour rain delay.

 

It seems that the main reason F1 is not huge in the US is the motor sport competition. The US has many racing series that are easier to understand and see. With only one F1 race in the US and the rest televised at "odd" US times, only the fans will figure out when it is on. In the US, many sporting events start at 1pm EST or 1pm PST.

F1 is also very technical and much of my interest is the development of the car, the winglets, the intakes, brakes, etc... I suspect the casual F1 fan would just assume/think all F1 cars look the same. Finally when a casual fan would stumble onto a race, they watch it for a few minutes and conclude
"Why are they just following the leading in a singe file?" .... Not a bad question

I do think that if the US had an American Superstar like Lewis Hamilton, the US media would constantly be talking about him and really grow the sport.

 

This is my take on it as well. I believe there is a finite market for certain sports, anything involving motorsports is one of them. That market must be divided up by other, more accessible motorsports, things that neighbors can relate to, and that would be NASCAR. It isn't coming on NASCAR at all, but it is also saying the good ole boys are more accessible than holier than thou - elite persona of F1.

 

In a nutshell....

One US event
One US driver who is always a back marker
Lousy racing. When is the last time someone made an on track pass for the lead (besides when Rubens was ordered to let Schumi by)?
F1 is run by Bernie (It's all about me) Ecclestone
NASCAR is run by the France (It's all about the fans) family.

Consider.....most all of NASCARS stars showed up for Tony Stewart's charity race on dirt in rural (Eldora) Ohio. Stewart spent 5.5 hours on a tractor prepping the track himself. Montoya was among them to race on dirt for the first time. Team owners had to cooperate as well for this to happen. I suppose it's possible F1 could do something like this......nahhh!

Dave

 

I think in general Americans have a hard time relating to it. It's car racing by a bunch of foreigners. It's probably on par with European soccer with the only difference being they've actually got an event here. Hopefully they don't give up on it.

 

I would have to say that it is sad how little exposure F1 gets. When I tell some of my co-workers about it they usually think that I'm talking about the Indy series. I have noticed an improvement though, for the last two races I've seen clips about the races on the local news when they do sports.

 

The same thing happened to me. I had pretty much tuned out the commentators of the USGP, when suddenly there was the checkered flag. I had no idea the race was that close to the end. My wife walked into the room and asked why I didn't let her know that it almost over, my only response was "I didn't know!".

Stupid Fox.

 

I was in a Sports Bar as I could not locate it in Valeria's TV service..

All I had was the black text string on the screen......perfect! LOL!

 

I can't answer for all Americans, but I don't really like F1 because of several reasons:

#1: The racing is not that exciting.
There is very little passing. Most of the position changes happen as a result of pit stops. The cars play follow the leader the whole race, and passing for a significant position is very rare (although it's often pretty fun to watch the back markers duke it out.) For pretty much the entire season, there are only a couple of teams that have a chance at being competitive. This current F1 season is the poster child for boring races.


#2: The cars are freakish and all look the same. I know that this is heresy to the F1 faithful, but I have a hard time getting excited about the F1 cars. Other than the fact that they have 4 wheels, they don't even look much like cars. Yes, they are wonderfully fast, and the high revving engines sound great, but they are so far removed from any other cars that I can't really connect with them. They are carrying more wing than a fighter jet. It's like watching a basketball game where everyone is over 7 feet tall. It's more like a circus act than a ball game.


I'm a big fan of sportscar racing. The cars look like cars I see on the street. A Ferrari is instantly recognizable, even if it's painted bright blue. Same with the Porsches, Corvettes, Vipers, etc. I like the clear differences in the cars, both in looks and performance. In the better sports car series, the cars all lap the track at about the same speed, but they do it very differently, with wide variations in corner speed, braking, and straight line performance. This makes for more interesting racing, because different cars will be faster at different parts of the track, and there will be more opportunities for overtaking.

F1 also seems to be missing that hard to define element of "soul." There's too much money and too much emphasis on technological gimmicks. Even in driving, the ability to put down a perfectly precise lap is more important than old fashioned racecraft. I've seen many amateur races that were way more exciting than just about any F1 race of the last decade. For that matter, the last vintage race I saw was way more interesting, in spite of the fact that vintage racing isn't really even supposed to be all that competitive. The vintage cars were beautiful and sounded wonderful. The drivers were not all that skilled, but the combination of elan and ego combined for some very ballsy racing that was way more entertaining to watch than the perfectly orchestrated follow the leader of F1.

 

I got the impression that foreigners just can't understand why Americans are not crazy about F1.

Perhaps this thread will enlighten them.

 

I hate F1 (now) as it's boring as hell. If I wanted to watch slot cars, I'd go buy some.

But, I don't. When I watch racing events, I want to see passing, slides, spins, drivers screwing up without a computer to "make it all better" 4,000 times a second, drivers shifting their own gears, and being personable with fans.

F1 is none of that, with a good smattering of safety police nonsense mixed into it for anti-flavor.

If F1 returned to the turbo era of the late 70's and 80's, and ditched the driver aid crap, I'd watch every race, regardless of where it is.

 

If you lose half the teams on the grid because of an issue regarding tire composition before the race begins in NASCAR, it would be a riot and likely a bloody one.

Rooting for an F1 team that has 1/4 of the budget of the top teams and gets pounded repeatedly gets old after a while.

24hr Le Mans is where it's at, anyway.

 

I think this is very similar to the question of "why don't American's like soccer?"

I guess it's because it's boring IMO.

 

Americans are busy buzzy people.
We want something to happen every minute. NASCAR has 50+ lead changes, and Basketball is played
with a 30 second shot clock?.

The rest of the world is more relaxed.
Soccer sucks in the USA...60mins and sometimes not even one goal?
F1 sucks, you can watch a full race 90mins without one pass for the lead?

My logic about the USA needing to be kept entertained every minute (compared to the rest of the world) works as-a-rule-of-thumb until you get to Baseball ??? LOL

 

Matchett got incredibly excited when someone actually passed someone. I love F1, but, frankly, we "groove" on the technical marvel known as the F1 car. As far as intresting racing, I can see why it has a rather poor following here. I was at the first two races at Indy and I have noticed that the crowds have dwindled over the years. From someone who was there, is this an acurate statement? I don't want to see a U.S. race fall from the calender, but I wish there was a lot more drama. Anyway, my opinion only.

 

Haha. I completely agree, though. It's not fast enough for the average American.

I guess i'm the complete opposite, though. My two favorite sports are futbol (soccer) and F1.

To me, yes futbol is exciting when goals are scored, but there's so much more. The footwork. The ball placement. The speed of the players. The strategy.

F1 is very similar in my eyes. So you don't have 50+ passes in a race just like you don't have 20 goals in a futbol game. You have pit crews working their hardest against the clock to get the cars out. The difference in times between laps of the same car. This is all what keeps me glued to the screen (btw the live F1 online is great. I'll never go back to watching F1 on solely a TV).

The fact that F1 is on a road-course makes it much more enjoyable than NASCAR imo. Not putting down NASCAR, but to me it gets a little boring after awhile watching cars drive in circles.

 

I was watching the US Open on Sunday and forgot all about the US Grand Prix. I read through the spoilers thread on here in about 10 minutes and I got all the drama of the race in that nut shell, as well as all the people b*tching about FOX announcers and too many commercials, I don't think I missed much. Tiger trying to make a birdie on the last 3 holes trying to tie Angel Cabrera... that was much more suspenseful.

 

I think the roads in America have something to do with as to why we (not me) like the ovals better than the road courses. Most of us drive on wide high speed freeways or highways. You can drive from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean and never have to stop or turn hard. We relate to that type of racing. In most other places, the road system has more twisties.

Just a thought



12 cylinders or walk

 

YES exactly. And that's why when you're in your Ferrari everyone always asks "How fast does that go".

People here only care about the 0-60 time, the 1/4 mile time, and the top speed. "Twisty" roads are in Europe, we have big wide straight streets with red lights and big wide straight freeways.

If you could figure out a way to combine NASCAR with drag racing, you'd have a hit.