“They all want to race in Formula One,” Former NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick “concerned” about ever-growing popularity of F1 in US
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Max Verstappen at Jeddah on Friday
Kevin Harvick the former IndyCar Champion has recently stated his opinion on the growing fanbase of Formula One in the United States and has indicated how the sport has started affecting other categories of motorsport racing.
The hierarchy at Formula One has recently made it their mission to grow the sport as much as possible and in a bid to do so Liberty Media has started adding new venues to the F1 calendar and the latest being the Las Vegas Grand Prix which is scheduled to take place in 2023.
With the introduction of the Las Vegas Circuit, the US is going to have three races in a calendar year from 2023 onwards. The increasing effort from F1 is being done in order to tap into the US market which has got a lot of growth potential.
Because of the growing popularity of Formula One, drivers of other motorsports categories are concerned and Kevin Harvick has also said that Netflix’s Drive to Survive series has also played its part in making the sport popular in America.
Kevin Harvick: young talents in America look up to Max Verstappen
Kevin Harvick is a huge fan of the Drive to Survive series but is worried that Formula One could badly hurt people’s interest in other categories of motorsport racing.
Harvick while talking about the whole situation even gave an example of his young son who aims to become a Formula one driver and race alongside his Idol Max Verstappen.
“I live close to the karting track and none of those kids want to drive IndyCar; they all want to race in Formula One.”
“They all want to drive for Ferrari or Red Bull. I was talking to Jim France [CEO of NASCAR, ed.] about how we can make sure all those young talents whose dreams don’t come true still become racers. How can we get the great ones among them to NASCAR.”
Harvick believes today it is really hard to become a Formula One racer and feels that in order to pursue this dream people have to move to Europe which is something that everyone is not capable of doing, considering the massive costs that one is required to pay to get into decent driving academy’s.
The former Indycar champion is a bit dejected by the state of affairs and to close his recent interview he said, “In karting, they don’t have the dream of racing in NASCAR and they don’t have the dream of racing in the IndyCar Series.”
Harvick being from IndyCar is worried about his sport and given the way Formula One’s popularity is increasing in America, things could get worse for the other racing categories.
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Rishabh Negi
(3244 Articles Published)