• Interview with Mario Andretti

Finding F1's American home

© Sutton Images

Enlarge

Since its final visit to Watkins Glen in 1980, F1 has travelled coast-to-coast looking for a spiritual home in the USA. Long Beach offered thrills and spills, Indianapolis a historic backdrop and Las Vegas a hotel car park. Try as it might, F1 has never settled down for more than eight years since leaving The Glen. But, according to 1978 world champion and all-round racing legend Mario Andretti, the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) outside Austin should change that.

"My favourite way of describing it is that Formula One has been a gypsy for so many years here and never really had a base," Andretti explains. "Now it does, and quite honestly, I think the community itself really has embraced it. This is the best thing that could have happened for Formula One in this country."

F1 and Austin have built a solid relationship in their three years together, with both sides having something to offer the other. Since it left Indianapolis under a cloud in 2007, F1 was ashamed not to be racing in the world's biggest consumer market and was looking for a way back in. Austin proved to be the perfect venue, priding itself on embracing all things weird - including a grid of carbon-fibre, hybrid-powered prototypes.

However, interest across the rest of the country is still too small and plans to get a second grand prix in the US - originally in New Jersey and more recently Las Vegas - have generated hype but so far failed to deliver. In COTA, however, Andretti believes F1 has solid foundations on which to build.

© Sutton Images

Enlarge

"The prospects of having another event in these United States? I'll wait until I see it. Even if it goes to Vegas, if it's a temporary circuit, even the word temporary is exactly that. This event [in Austin] is solid now and on Monday morning the track is still here. You don't pull up a tent and it becomes regular streets with traffic. I just can't stress enough how important it has been to have this investment here. For us fans and for Formula One we can rejoice that this is real.

"The business model seems to be pretty solid because they need it to be. This is quite an undertaking financially when it's a free enterprise - we don't have Putin pumping in some roubles in here."

But that's not to say that F1 can sit back and expect the fans to come. Andretti believes it should do more to drum up support in the USA, and has a suggestion of how to do it based on his own experience in the sport.

"Formula One has many options that they are not exercising at the moment, such as freeing up perhaps some guest drivers. Can you imagine what that would do for the promotion? The one thing that I keep saying is what if Mercedes, which obviously has the car to beat, invited a guest driver? If they could pick an IndyCar driver who is familiar to be at this race - that's what I did when I started.

"People say things have changed, but you know what, as much as things change they remain the same. A decent IndyCar driver in a car like a Mercedes might surprise in how well they do. That would be an interesting factor all around and I have to say that every newspaper in the country would write about it. I was talking to Brian Williams from NBC, who broadcasts news across the country, and I said 'you'd be talking about it' and he said 'yes, yes, for sure. It would be big news for us'."

Yet F1 arrived in Austin amid a developing crisis in the sport. The series' two smallest outfits, Caterham and Marussia, were unable to make the trip after going into administration last week and there are genuine concerns that more teams could follow. Three teams even discussed the nuclear option of boycotting this weekend's race, which would have brought back potentially devastating memories of the six-car grid in 2005 at Indianapolis - the race that effectively sealed F1's fate at the Brickyard. But Andretti has been around long enough to know that motor sport series rarely operate without a financial crisis looming somewhere in the paddock.

"It's a negative, for sure, but are we really that surprised? No. Is it something new that smaller teams are struggling in F1? No. That's been there since day one and has always been the case. It is what it is and they'll fight back, I'm sure they'll be back.

"It's never easy and it's never a utopia, it's always a struggle. NASCAR has their struggles, IndyCar has their struggles as far as the cost factor goes and so forth. That's forever there. The thing about the foundation of Formula One and the established teams is that that's solid. That's not going to interfere with the show. You'd like to see more cars on the grid but as far as the ultimate integrity of the show, it's not going to make a difference."

However, one change this year that might disappoint American race fans is the noise ... or lack of it. F1 cars are now powered by turbo-charged 1.6-litre V6 engines with a hefty dose of electrical boost provided by complex energy recovery systems. The engines are technological masterpieces that have made a 35% fuel saving on last year's V8s, while producing more torque and similar power outputs at lower revs. But all that has come at a cost for the fans.

"Let's say it like it is, you cannot discount the excitement of the sound of a Formula One engine," says Andretti. "You cannot compare the sound of normally aspirated 18,000rpm engines like we had last year to what we have today as far as the excitement for the ear of the casual fan. Does the technology supersede that? That's a big question and I say no. The entertainment value is important as well and you cannot really afford to lose that.

"I don't think you should discount the importance of the sound of a racing engine. Bernie [Ecclestone] and I were talking last year and our vote was to keep the V8s, but that vote didn't go anywhere."

But the overwhelming message from Andretti is a positive one. If F1 embraces new ideas and remains fresh in the minds of its American audience, it can make big strides. The ball is in the sport's court.

"It's about using some of these options and all of this would be a big help for the promotion side. This weekend we have a big NASCAR race down the road [at Fort Worth, Texas] and I think we are going to outdraw the hell out of them. I really do think that. That in itself speaks volumes for what Formula One really is in the United States. Don't underestimate the interest that's here."

© Getty Images

Enlarge

Laurence Edmondson is deputy editor of ESPNF1

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.