
F1, like soccer and the metric system, is OK for everyone except Americans - antr
http://qz.com/31446/formula-one-like-soccer-and-the-metric-system-is-ok-for-everyone-except-americans/
======
rickmb
This isn't just a lack of interest in F1, it's an almost complete lack of
modern motorsports in general.

Oddly enough, for a country where cars are sacred, the US has barely any
capability to develop racing cars of any kind (NASCAR is low tech, Indycar,
like most other US racing series, buys its cars from Europe), and there is
little to no serious competition.

There are no modern racetracks (besides Austin), the facilities at ovals, even
Indy, are cheap, low budget and utterly outdated compared to modern racetracks
around the world.

There is very little competition outside the major series compared to the many
dozens of competitive racing series around the world, and no way for talent to
develop.

NASCAR's commercial success aside, the US is a third world country when it
comes to racing.

~~~
lumberjack
>NASCAR is low tech

Isn't that a common myth?

~~~
snowwrestler
Nascar is low-tech in many ways. The car bodies must fit production sedan
templates, so the the chassis is welded tubular steel instead of carbon
monocoque like on F1 or Indycar. The engines are carbureted instead of fuel
injected. There's no turbochargers (although Indy just got those back this
year as well). There are strict rules about spoiler size and type.

They do make extensive use of sensors and telemetry, but the cars themselves
are pretty retro.

~~~
adestefan
NASCAR moved to fuel injection this past season.

------
nicholassmith
As someone who's been an F1 fan for a while (although less so at the moment,
but I digress), I've always found it curious that it's never really taken off
in America like it could have. Americans love cars, and love racing, it's easy
to mock the love of the oval and NASCAR but American teams show up in Le Mans
quite a lot, and have a long history of racing on the long, winding and, well,
non-American tracks.

Maybe it's just a quirk of culture, something that slipped under the radar and
never made it back into vogue. No American drivers, previously no American
tracks, no American teams, there's little to get a fan hooked in. F1 suddenly
got a lot more coverage in the UK when we had a couple of drivers, and oddly
more coverage still when we had drivers doing well, maybe having one _really_
good American driver would change it.

~~~
objclxt
> No American drivers, no American tracks, no American teams[...]

F1 was run at the Circuit of the Americas two weeks ago, in Austin. I think F1
is to the USA as NFL is to the UK: there's a dedicated, small audience in both
(judging from my Twitter feed), and they're both trying to extend their reach
- F1 with more races in the US, and NFL with more games in Wembley. I think F1
is planning a New Jersey street race in 2014 as well.

~~~
nicholassmith
Sorry I should have said 'previously no American tracks', was typing a bit too
fast and I'll fix it.

~~~
chaosprophet
There was also an F1 GP held at Indianapolis between 2000 and 2007.

~~~
dnm
I've been an F1 fan since I watched Ayrton Senna get killed 10 minutes after I
turned on my first race in '94. Weird, but I was hooked. The last time F1 was
run at Indy in 2005 was a disaster. Michelin brought the wrong tires and 14
cars did one lap and pulled into the pits quitting the race.

~~~
patrickk
Senna was before my time, and I'm not even a F1 fan, but watching him in
action is a mind-blowing display of skill.

Here's an on-board view of an on-board lap in Australia:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOkvo5v5-VU>

1400hp engine (in a car body weighing half-nothing), manual transmission
(Senna would drive with 1 hand on the wheel a good chunk of the time), no
electronic driving aids...pure driving. I've watched documentaries where he
would make the car 'dance' in the rain and destroy everyone on the track.

One commentator described his cornering technique - Senna would flick the
wheel in the direction of the corner before turning into the bend - allowing
him to get the tightest possible racing line, so he would brake less than
other drivers.

His famous heel-and-toe technique:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8By2AEsGAhU>

~~~
timdoug
That latter video is one of my favorites on YouTube: Senna on Suzuka in an NSX
wearing loafers! His skill is truly unmatched, but to be fair, heel-and-toeing
is a rather common technique in performance driving. Hell, I do so to match
revs on every 3->2 downshift before a corner when driving around town, and I
wouldn't call myself a skilled driver.

------
nikcub
> Racing isn’t like professional soccer or curling; something that Americans
> don’t do.

Soccer it top 5 in the USA in most played for both men and women

> and driving a French car (Renault).

Don't tell Red Bull that their car is French

> Americans are too fond of their ovals

Both NASCAR and Indy race on regular racing circuits. The majority of the Indy
season this year, 10 of 15 races, is on regular circuits.

> a 120,000-person capacity track. But, said Weaver, a large part of that
> audience was from Mexico, Latin America, and South America.

Ridiculous and unsubstantiated. I know a large number of US based fans who
went to the race. It averaged 2.2M viewers in the USA.

This article is furthering poor generalizations from both sides of the
Atlantic about the various sports.

For a better and more accurate take on F1 in the USA see The Economist:

[http://www.economist.com/blogs/gametheory/2012/07/formula-
on...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/gametheory/2012/07/formula-one-united-
states)

~~~
k-mcgrady
Just to clarify a few things:

> "Don't tell Red Bull that their car is French"

It's not. They use Renault engines but the car is built in Milton Keynes,
England by the team.

> "Ridiculous and unsubstantiated"

I'm not sure it's been confirmed but it was talked about that 40% of the
tickets to the Austin GP were bought by Mexicans.

------
smoyer
I'm American, like F1 _and_ NASCAR but rarely spend time watching either (or
any other television). I also prefer to drive on a winding country road in a
European touring sedan versus more boring routes.

I played soccer (shouldn't he have said football?) when I was younger and I'm
fine with the metric system (the real question is why they taught it in
elementary schools starting in the '70s, but didn't bother switching).

I think there are a lot of people in the US like me, but we don't spend enough
money to get sponsor/advertiser attention. When was the last time you saw F1
tee-shirts, or F1 drivers on beer cans? Which events are offered is all about
the almighty dollar.

~~~
sjh
It's 'football' in the UK, but in most of the rest of the Anglophone world,
it's 'soccer'. Australia has its own 'football', as does Ireland.

~~~
nicholassmith
Oddly in most of Europe it's 'football' as well, EUFA, IFA, Ligue de Football
and so on, seems to be quite fractured depending on whereabouts in the world
you are, and with the rise in people learning American English through
TV/movies/etc I can see it becoming more popular to call it soccer.

~~~
riffraff
it's football in south america too ( Fútbol,Futebol).

Maybe of interest:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_for_association_football>

------
guelo
I guess its the international America-hating crew on HN at this hour but come
on, this story has nothing to do with tech and is not even a good sports
story. It is just a way for smug Europeans to feel superior. Get over
yourselves.

~~~
criley
It's so rare Europeans get to be superior -- let them have it. They do in fact
have superior motorsports. It's okay, whenever an American feels bad, they can
just look at the moon or Mars and smile.

~~~
ohwp
Every heard about Wernher von Braun? ;)

~~~
arethuza
And Sergei Korolev - perhaps the greatest rocket designer of them all?

------
vishnupr
Man, this website has the worst navigational experience ever. I accidentally
flicked my magic mouse upwards and I was on another article, I tried to
correct it by scrolling to the bottom but I ended up at yet another article
instead of the original one.

Before I knew it, I was just lost.

~~~
wheaties
Agreed. Can't use my android phone to nav around. It just flips articles.

------
josefresco
No real meat to this article. Americans don't love F1 because the track isn't
oval? Really? And the shot about how poor F1 drivers do well in NASCAR ruins
the credibility of the argument even more.

------
debacle
I think the culture of NASCAR really prevents people who would be more
interested in F1 from approaching motorsports.

The reality is that the Venn diagram of people who shop and Wal*Mart and
people who watch NASCAR is probably closer to a circle than a lot of people
are comfortable with.

------
sabret00the
"You don't have Javascript enabled" so let's show you just how badly we can
make rendered HTML look. Great work there Quartz!

As for the article, it's an article about racing, not sure why they mentioned
football or the metric system at all, but to mention it in the context they
have, they should've called it by it's proper name "Football" and then perhaps
added "Soccer" in brackets.

~~~
sergiotapia
If you don't have Javascript enabled that's a conscious decision you've made,
fully aware of what the tradeoff is.

Either turn it on for websites you want to read properly, or just accept the
fact that it's 2013 and the vast majority of websites use it.

~~~
errnoh
I do have JS enabled but still run into problems. Probably some script
blocking plugin that's causing them but the cause doesn't really matter, what
does is the fact that it's preventing one from reading the article.

There's really no reason at all to obfuscate text based information in such
way unless you want to display ads or track the user. It even shows the actual
article behind the loading screen but you can't read the article itself since
the loading never finishes. That's just bad design.

It's not the first time I've had to open lynx in order to read an article
that's behind some javascript nonsense. (note: the text data is fine, it's
actually only broken on modern browsers which actually handle js)

~~~
sergiotapia
_shrug_

What can I tell you? If you are using a script blocker this is what you get in
the current landscape. There really _isn't_ a reason why text should be
mangled without javascript, but that's just the way it is with some sites.

------
vaadu
I'm an American and love F1. I hate NASCAR because ovals are boring, like
soccer. Hockey is even better. NASCAR also sucks because it uses spec cars
instead of letting teams be creative. NASCAR should include real muscle cars
and allow the Camry to be front wheel drive if that's what Toyota wants.

------
paulyg
Just another thought on this. We had an American in F1 just a few years ago.
Scott Speed drove for Toro Rosso. Unfortunately I think he was mediocre and
drove for a mediocre at best team. American Alexander Rossi tested for
Caterham F1. And American Conor Daly is enjoying success in GP3.

------
bobochan
I am a little surprised that Grand Prix Montreal did not even get a mention in
the story. F1 supporters travel all over the globe to watch their teams, so it
seems odd not to include an event in a great city within easy driving distance
of fans in the northeast.

------
Tloewald
Driving on complicated non oval tracks is just in-American.

What I don't get is how a racing sport derived from bootleggers outrunning
police on back country roads turned into driving around an oval track.

~~~
zalew
Streetracing is a topic I'm hoping to somehow appear in Boardwalk Empire in
the future. I will be disappointed if it doesn't get mentioned even as a
third-rate scene or side joke.

------
jacques_chester
Thanks to the sheer weight of numbers of people in the Indian subcontinent,
I'd say cricket is second only to soccer in global popularity.

------
coliveira
The story of sports in America is the story of television interests. The
reason the media doesn't promote F1 is that they cannot control the sport from
that point of view. What TV (other than specialized channels) is interested in
a sport in which half of the races happen before dawn (in Asia)?

The only sports that do well in America are the ones with a powerful league
that can control all the TV rights and make the necessary deals with TV
networks.

------
nir
Just to note, any discussion of the issue that does not mention Talladega
Nights is incomplete.

------
alpeb
An article like this on the homepage is probably the result of someone gaming
the system. This is when a down voting arrow would come in handy.

~~~
antr
feel free to check my submission/comment history. good day

------
unkoman
Americans getting defensive ITT

