Over the last few years, Formula 1 has become increasingly popular in the United States thanks in no small part to the Netflix show “Drive to Survive.” Yet even though F1 already has an unprecedented three U.S. races, there is some thought that it can add a fourth, and speculation has gravitated towards New York City.
F1 already has races in Austin, Miami, and Las Vegas set for this year. While Austin has hosted the United States Grand Prix for a couple of years, the Miami Grand Prix debuted last year and was a huge hit. Referred to as the “Super Bowl of F1,” the Miami Grand Prix packed in enough glitz and glamour to rival the Monaco Grand Prix.
However, it was also a ratings hit with the Miami GP averaging a 1.3 rating and 2.58 million viewers on ABC, marking the largest live F1 audience ever on U.S. television and the second-largest F1 audience overall.
With the Las Vegas race set to debut this year, F1 CEO Stefano Domenecali hinted in an interview with Sky Sports that he was open to exploring additional cities in the U.S.
“There is a lot of interest in far East Asia, more interest in the U.S.,” he said, adding that “we have three [in the U.S.], which I think is the right number for the next couple of years.”
While Domenecali doesn’t want F1 to become only focused on holding races where people are willing to spend the most money, he also said that the sport can’t be blindly focused on tradition without thinking about the future.
“When ‘historical’ is only connected to looking behind, that is a problem.”
There’s also some support around the sport for a race in New York City.
“It would be amazing,” said Red Bull principal Christian Horner, who was in New York when his driver, Sergio Perez, took a Red Bull car around the city streets. “A race here in the Big Apple, for example — what a spectacle that would be.”
F1 director of media rights Ian Holmes agreed, telling Front Office Sports last year, “Who wouldn’t want to race in New York?”
In fact, Liberty President and CEO Greg Maffei confirmed that “The Eric Adams administration has reached out asking for [a race].”
However, the initial bid was rejected, and there are a few reasons that Maffei believes adding a race in New York could be “very difficult.”
For starters, the F1 calendar may be near capacity with 23 races this year and there’s interest in bringing a race to South Africa, which could fill the void left by the cancelation of the Chinese Grand Prix.
Another concern is location. The initial bid from Mayor Eric Adams proposed a race on Randall’s Island in New York City, which Liberty Media didn’t seem overly interested in.
“Their proposal, Randall’s Island, is probably not our perfect venue,” Maffei said.
As most New Yorkers know, Randall’s Island can be a bit of a pain to get to and it is relatively barren, without any of the amenities and sight-seeing that attracted F1 to Miami and Las Vegas. Instead, F1 would prefer to have a race, at least in part, in Central Park, which appears to be a non-starter with Mayor Adams.
“New York is a wonderful venue,” said Maffei, “but it’s hard to see that they’re going to shut Central Park for us.”
F1 also has a few races that take place on city streets, like in Monaco and Las Vegas, but that appears highly unlikely in New York given the grid-like-structure of the city streets and the traffic nightmare that would ensure if whole portions of the city were shut down for a full weekend.
As a result, while F1 does appear interested in expanding its U.S. footprint, and New York is interested in hosting a race, the match may not be one that makes too much sense in execution.
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