American in Formula One

[QuickSilver]

HHF, DC and EI - all grand prix winners on several occasions.

fair enough, and all thoroughly outclassed by their respective teamates.

tell you what. you take EI, DC and HHF, i'll take MS, MH and JV and let's go racing.

[Kicking-back]

Never said that, but they can't all be world champions!

Anyway, the thread's about an "American driver in Formula 1".

Hopefully it'll get back on topic.

[QuickSilver]

Exactly my point. I've been around long enough to see F1 slowly turn from racing, with passing and fiery pilots going wheel to wheel at 280kph, into a huge marketing machine that parades its billboards around the track at 280kph.

when will an American pilot be in a seat? When the sponsors say so. When a feasability study on some marketing guru's desk says they can sell more of whatever product with an American driver in the car than they could with anybody else.

Talent alone will not get the exposure necessary to demand this new, young driver must be in F1.

No bucks, no Buck Rogers [The Right Stuff].

[freud]

Well, Quicksilver, Imho look at the australian drivers. I mean didnt they make it to F1? Against all odds, they had the fortitude to drive in european circuits. You know why.. because F1 is genuinely popular in that country and many young australians see f1 drivers as role models.

That never was and is not the case in the US. For one reason or another, F1 just does not fascinate the average american. Period. Infact, imho, most americans do not like any european sport.

[JohnSSC]

Gee willakers! Us 'Mericans like all kinds of sports like ski'in, kayakan, Football (Yuropeen version) eksetera. Fact is thoug if'n we liked everything yinz Yuropeens liked we'd be Yuropeens 'stead of 'Mericans! So we like some of yor stuff and yinz likes some of ours (basketball, thinking President Junior is silly, wonderin if Britney Spears' next marriage will last more than 55 hours).

Seriously, F1 is not much on the radarscope here because for many years there was not even A race here, let alone the many (but dwindling #) in Europe. Also there were some natural attention grabbers here like USAC and the Indy 500, NASCAR, etc. F1 has always been looked upon as something that is done "over there."

Europe and America are different in many respects culturally. The arguement about one gropu preferring or not the sports of another works both ways and it would be equally silly of me to say that Europeans don't understand oval racing because they don't like baseball either.

I do like it when folks generalize and just assume they have us figured out based on what sports y'all think we like.

Maybe the true answer is that F1 never went too much out of it's way to market itself here. Since there was not much of a presence (even though races were well-attended at place like Watkins Glen) we actually went and paid attention to other things. We are like that. Bernie for whatever reason has not made this market the same priority that he has made the market in Dubai.

Tell you guys what, come on over here and I will take you to some Sprint Car races on tracks made of real dirt. You want to see skill, agression, passion, passing and generalized excitement than that is your ticket - you may never watch Dolt Slowgartner do the rolling chicane thinhg again!

[freud]

John.. you sound more like a european-american.. anyway I agree with you that europeans keenly follow american sports.

Actually its not about american vs europeans. Its just that a majority of americans just dont care about europeans sport... and thats a fact. I've come across countless number of surveys where most americans did not know about major european sports events. Schumacher winning the canadian GP got a very small inch on the bottom half of the last page of its 8 page sports supplement of the NY times. To be honest, I have never met an american who knows what formula-one is. Its just how things are. May be thats just my personal experience but to me its important.

[JohnSSC]

Where you stand depends on where you sit!

You are right though, Americans as a rule are a parochial lot and pay little attention to the rest of the world except under certain circumstances which I refuse to get into here!

Needless to say I agree that when a manufacturer/sponsor decides an American is necessary in F1, they will go out and buy one.

[grumpy1]

Funny how all the sprint car fellas that come down to Aussie always go back liken there wounds.
I agree with you John my boss is a Yank and he had no idea about F1 till this year.He soon learnt and hes hooked.(Hes only been in Aussie 11 months)
Its all about promotion and in the US there is to many other motor sport events that take up the interest.Put an American in a Ferrari with a chance of winning and interest will blosom just like here.

The Grumpy1

[Attila]

Johnson I was an European-American, spending my childhood in the States. I was hooked on F1 before I moved there and actually had trouble following the sport. However, one has to admit that following the sport became much easier in the last 5 years. Dirtracing is amazing, those guys are good and brave. Of course nowhere close to a roadracer in skills. Actually, I find sprint car racing closer to rallycross than roadracing.

By the way, you are right about the American sports. I would love to watch Monday Night football, or football in general. Nobody really cares here though, which is a shame.

Anyway, we (Americans and Europeans) are different, but the avereness of F1 is only question of promotion $ spent.

Johnson by the way, please don't be so hard on Baumgartner (Slowgartner for you), I managed him when he got into F3000. I always feel bad when I hear people slamming him, it is not his fault but mine and his dads :-). I should shoot myself for choosing him and not another driver called István Rácz, but at that time chosing money over talent seemed like a good idea.

Cheers,

[QuickSilver]

To extend on JohnSSC and Attila's posts, I agree wholeheartedly. If you want to see good racing watch Sprint cars or Superbikes or even NASCARs when they hit road circuits.

Maybe one of the reasons F1 never caught on in America is the actual races are bloody boring. You have to look back a fair ways before you find any kind of excitement in F1, and back that far the broadcasts simply weren't available in the U.S. Recently, anybody checking out the sport initially would have been sadly disappointed.

Nothing attracts American sports fans more than a close battle. IMHO, the American fan base is directly proportionate to the excitement on the track. Lack of passing, lack of close racing, predictable results and MS fartin' around at the USGP all just put the fans off.

Good racing leads to fans
Fans lead to sponsors
Sponsors lead to American drivers

The talent is there, sadly the interest is not.

[Attila]

I do not like Nascar at all, I do not think it is topline racing. Now do not get me wrong, some of those drivers are very very good, but not all of them. I went to the Petty Academy to try out one of those cars with a limiter on them of course and had no trouble following the instructor at all. Of course I have serious racing background but still. When I tried out an old (1994) F3000 car I had trouble keeping it on the road on my fast lap, Nascar was much easier. Of course this is just a biasd opinion of mine :-).

[Kicking-back]

Driving's one thing, racing's another.

That's the difficult side of NASCAR.

[Attila]

Kicking-back - yes you are right about that, but I also race in gokarts since I am 5, with 35-40 carts travelling very close to eachother. In Nascar the speeds are much higher, but in my opinion all it takes is to get used to it. The hard part of Nascar is when there is a mistake and the driver does not have a lot of time and room for correction.

[Kicking-back]

I think there's a bit more too it than that, or everyone would be doing it!

[JohnSSC]

Attila, since you asked nice, I will ease off on Mr. Baumgartner! However, don't blame yourself - it takes more of a man to admit when one is in over one's head.

I appreciate your comments - you make some excellent points and your insight about the lack of kart facilities here is a good one and something I find annoying as I really like karts - just am not able to buy one right now! Thinking about it a good sprint car driver probably has skills close to a good rallycross driver - I had not thought of it that way till now.

I am not much of an American football fan, but you are ever in town let me know and you can come by and watch a game!

[Attila]

Thanks John I will sure call you if I get to Pittsburgh. I don't think I have ever been there. Probably just drove by a couple of times.

Anyway, if you want to buy a cart, buy it in Europe and ship it in. It will be cheaper in my opinion, at least that is what I have done.

The only problem with Baumgartner is he took away the opportunity from the above mentioned Istvan Racz, who is a mega talent with 0 money. Baumgartner's fater used to be one of the richest Hungarians before he started paying for his son's racing. Actually, racing is the dream of the dad and not Zsolt, this is the reason for him being slow. Zsolt is good on slow corners but lifts on fastcorners, I think he simply is too scared :-).

Anyway, thanks for the invitation.

Cheers,

[Kicking-back]

Have to admit I hadn't heasd of Istvan Racz - what's he done up till now?

[Attila]

Kicking-back he has done Porsche Supercup and GT championship. He is much better in a Formula car than in a Porsche, but he has no money at all, has never payed for driving. Coming from Hungary it is still a good achievemnt.