Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
Flooding cancelled the Formula One race from Imola. Yuki Tsunoda did his part helping clean up in the aftermath. A future teammate of Tsunoda's was a winner. Tomoki Nojiri missed the Super Formula race due to a collapsed lung. Ferrari stunned the Germans. Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport will run a second Acura LMDh car next year. Shane van Gisbergen is coming to America. Many people were out in Speedway, Indiana. Álex Palou won pole position for the 107th Indianapolis 500. Excitement is there, but people are lying to themselves, and that is on my mind.
Hypocrisy
This month started with the second Miami Grand Prix for Formula One on the temporary course set up around Hard Rock Stadium, home of the Miami Dolphins. Year one was a success. High attendance, good ratings, plenty of buzz. Year two was more evenkeel.
Announced attendance was higher than the 2022 race, but in the buildup to the event there were numerous stories about ticket values decreasing on the secondary market and sellers having difficulty offloading tickets. Meanwhile, the ABC television rating was down after what was a less than memorable grand prix.
Too many people took joy from such an occasion.
Formula One has been on an upward trajectory in the United States since the start of 2020. More people are tuning in and know the drivers better than ever before. Team principals are known. Formula One teams are being used in American commercials. There is an American driver full-time for the first time since 2006. It is a grand time for Formula One in the United States. Not everyone is thrilled.
Call it hypocrisy. Call it jealousy. This new found Formula One fame is not being universally celebrated in this country even if this is what we always dreamed. People care. People with no previous interest in motorsports care. That is what every series wants. Why is it so divisive?
Be careful of what you wish for. Everyone wants to be bigger, but no one is quite sure what bigger will be. In all likelihood, bigger will mean different. With Formula One, bigger means people consuming Formula One differently, being interested in different aspects of the series. It isn't so much about the racing, what is seen on-track, but it is about the off-track passion and glitz of the series. Everyone loves shiny things.
Outside of the Formula One bubble, those with disdain, admit it is envy. Formula One ballooned in no time at all. It went from one grand prix with a respectable crowd to three grand prix, one of which is setting records and the other two are at least going to make a pretty penny. All three American grand prix will likely draw over 90,000 spectators on race day. Some domestic series don't even draw three races with 90,000 spectators.
The growth has nothing to do with the actual racing, and that is ok, but comparing total passes, number of winners, the championship picture and accessibility is a losing battle. People are not tuning in for those things. They made a connection with Formula One, racing be damned, and that is why they are interested.
Admit it, if IndyCar was on the verge of having a street race in Las Vegas where tickets would be going for thousands of dollars and over 300,000 spectators would attend over three days, IndyCar fans would be stoked. They could make a profit on flipping tickets for once.
The same audience Formula One attracted is what IndyCar, NASCAR, everyone else is going for. Formula One will always have the advantage of being something foreign. It isn't homegrown, an import. There is a novelty to it. Sometimes being the home team has its disadvantages.
Prices are out of reach, but that is the point. The demand is there and people want to feel exclusive. They want something that feels valuable. They can drop $40 or $80 any weekend. But $600? $1,250? $3,000? That is a one-time thing, a destination weekend. The beauty about averages is that is the middle. Sometimes you have to aim at the top. Average is good. Every now and then you chase a big fish. There is a little more meat on those bones.
Gloating isn't going to work turning people into IndyCar. Diminishing the interest someone has found in Formula One isn't going to work either. Let those who enjoy Formula One, regardless of when they started watching or how they got interested, enjoy it. Telling them off for spending hundreds on merchandise or perhaps thousands of dollars for tickets or hawking passing numbers isn't going to make them watch IndyCar. If anything, it is only going to turn them off. I don't know many times shame has worked in attracting an audience. It usually works the opposite way. Nobody wants to hangout with assholes.
If roles were reversed, and IndyCar was on a three-year upward swing, no one in IndyCar would be talking about increases in attendance and television rating being a bad thing, but this is what growth looks like. If IndyCar grows in any way, it will look like what Formula One is going through, not necessarily at the same level, but it will be people who aren't interested in motorsports and are not necessarily going to read Racer Magazine or tune into Trackside with Curt Cavin and Kevin Lee or care about how many days of practice there are for the Indianapolis 500. It is going to be people who don't know or really care about the same things or care with the same passion. That doesn't make their presence or their views less valuable.
Someone who is tuning in for the first time isn't going to know much, let alone everything, and in motorsports too often we use knowledge as a measuring stick of fandom. This time of the year might bring out the worst in people. Competition for "Who's the biggest Indianapolis 500 fan?" comes down to whether or not someone remembers how many T-cars attempted a qualifying run for the 1987 race. It is cool to know, but it is also ok not to know it. Nobody new is going to know what a "T-car" is, and it hasn't been valuable information in over ten years. It is also ok if they do not care to learn about it either.
We must be comfortable with that. Some people will only want to watch the races. They aren't going to eat, sleep and breathe motorsports. They will like one series and not spend every Sunday watching different series from around the globe, two wheels and four. They aren't going to listen to podcasts or have any interest in a race that occurred 25 years before they were born. That is true in all sports. There are plenty people who watch football, play fantasy football but don't care about the Johnny Unitas, Hank Stram nor the '85 Bears. We should be ok with different levels of fandom in a motorsports series. That is ultimately the sign of a healthy series and really any sport.
I am not one to care about television ratings too much. I think too much is read into them and nine times out of ten people are not viewing them in proper context, but while Formula One still drew nearly two million viewers, the Grand Prix of Indianapolis dropped over 200,000 viewers from 2022 to 2023, and was hovering above 700,000 viewers. You can knock a series all you want but when it is doubling your audience size by drawing the people you ultimately need to be watching, you should probably quiet down.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Álex Palou, but did you know...
Kyle Larson won the NASCAR All-Star Race from North Wilkesboro, his third All-Star Race victory. Kyle Larson also won the Truck race, his third career Truck victory and his first since 2016.
The #30 Frikadelli Racing Team Ferrari of Earl Bamber, Nicky Catsburg, David Pittard and Felipe Fernandez Laser won the 24 Hours Nürburgring.
Liam Lawson won the Super Formula race from Autopolis, his second victory of the season.
Will Brown (race one and three) and Broc Feeney (race two) split the Supercars races from Symmons Plains.
The #120 Wright Motorsports Porsche of Adam Adelson and Elliott Skeen and the #93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura of Ashton Harrison and Mario Farnbacher split the GT World Challenge America races from Austin. The #51 Auto Technic Racing BMW of Zac Anderson and JCD Dubets and the #2 Flying Lizard Motorsports Aston Martin of Jason Bell and Michael Cooper split the GT4 America races. George Kurtz and Jason Daskalos split the GT America races.
Coming Up This Weekend
The 107th Indianapolis 500.
The 80th Monaco Grand Prix.
The 64th Coca-Cola 600.
Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters has buried its season opener at Oschersleben, the first visit to the track since 2015.
