The "total shift" driving America's F1 interest surge

Formula 1 in Miami is a big deal. It’s a lively, happening city with great vibes that I discovered for myself in the late 1990s while commentating on races from Homestead. F1 has managed to immerse itself into an even more central part of town and connect with an existing sports environment that provides a real gem. Add in the glamour and it’s an event that was a sell out before tickets were even printed.

Growth of interest in the United States was always going to be key for F1 owner Liberty Media when the company took over from Bernie Ecclestone in 2017, and it has clearly made rapid progress. There was record attendance at Circuit of The Americas in Austin last season and now a third American race – in Las Vegas – will join the calendar from 2023; the US market is becoming truly significant.

PLUS: Why the Miami GP is a central chapter of F1 2022's biggest storyline

Much of the surge in interest stems from Netflix’s Drive To Survive docuseries. One person who has seen that change in the flesh is Sean Kelly (@virtualstatman on Twitter) who grew up immersed in motorsport in the UK, became fascinated by facts and statistics and has been a key provider of information to commentators and TV channels for many years.

Sean moved to the States in 2007; he started meeting people in his local gym in San Diego but when asked about his job and mentioning F1 he saw a lot of blank faces. He soon began referring to it as ‘TV and motorsport’, which got a nod but also a similar lack of interest.

That all started to change in 2019 and particularly during the subsequent year when COVID regulations applied around the world. “I don’t know whether it was coincidence or a contributing factor but during lockdown there suddenly seemed to be an increase of interest in F1,” confirms Sean, “because everybody was sat at home binge-watching stuff and Netflix was one of the biggest suppliers of that.

Last year's United States Grand Prix enjoyed its biggest-ever crowd at COTA for an F1 race

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

“By the time we started to come out of lockdown, I would go to the gym and my friends were suddenly saying stuff like ‘So I watched the Austrian GP, was that the first race of the season?’ I would confirm it and ask why they had watched it ‘Oh, I watched this show called Drive to Survive on Netflix, have you heard of it?’ And then it was just a snowball effect. Once something catches on like that, it becomes culturally significant and completely changes things.”

ANALYSIS: Why the Miami Grand Prix weekend will be a game changer for F1

Last October, Sean had various roles at the US Grand Prix in Texas which included hosting events on stage for a crowd which had grown so quickly over the previous couple of years that circuit organisers were dealing with logistical challenges simply getting people in and out.

"This was a total shift in the US market. It’s gone from appealing to petrolheads to being something which appeals to the younger generation" Sean Kelly

“When on stage, I would often ask people which of them were at a grand prix for the first time in their lives”, Sean relates. “Half of all hands would go up. When I asked them to keep their hands up if they had become F1 fans because of Drive to Survive, almost every hand would stay up.

“This was a total shift in the US market. It’s gone from appealing to petrolheads to being something which appeals to the younger generation. When I walked down the pitlane in Austin, there were all these teenagers and young kids and they weren’t just there for Lewis Hamilton; they were excited because of Charles Leclerc or Haas or they were frantic Pierre Gasly fans, and I just thought, ‘incredible, you are all invested in this’.”

Kelly used to refer to his F1 work as ‘TV and motorsport’ to his friends in the USA

Photo by: Andy Balfour / F1 Experiences

Several of Sean’s friends attempted to get tickets for Miami – the same pals who used to have no interest in what he was doing on NBC or Speed TV. Now he’s getting very different reactions.

“In Bahrain at the start of this season, half an hour before the start of the race I was getting direct messages saying, ‘My six-year old is up, wearing his Lewis Hamilton hat, ready for the off!’ And this was at 8am on the West Coast, yet they were up to watch it.

“Completely different: two of my friends who I work out with are in their twenties. They are going to university in Barcelona this year, and they said ‘Oh, we have to get tickets for the Spanish Grand Prix this year’. I thought, ‘what’s going on here?’. We’ve got people in San Diego who are going to the Spanish Grand Prix let alone Miami. I can’t believe this is happening!”

Sean also sees the Las Vegas event becoming another potential gamechanger as it will be a night race, ensuring coverage will go out at prime time in the United States. “That one will be the biggest F1   entertainment event there has ever been, because to bring the narrative onto US prime time television for the first time will be astonishing. We’re just completely breaking new ground at that point.”

The shift in Formula 1’s recognition in the US does seem to be genuine, as discovered by this key number cruncher. Analysing statistics weekend after weekend, he’s only ever watched one episode of Drive to Survive. But he’s still a supporter.

“It’s not for people embedded in the sport and it doesn’t need to be,” he says. “It’s for people who don’t know anything about it and the effect I’ve seen in the US has been startling – so whatever they are doing, they need to keep doing it.”

The Drive to Survive influence has led F1's surge of interest in the USA

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images