Formula 1’s increased push for relevance and popularity in the United States has been steady with Colorado-based Liberty Media as the sport’s commercial rights holder. We have three races in the country, a U.S.-flagged team — with a second on the way in the form of Cadillac — and thanks to Netflix, there’s a general increased awareness in the mainstream, too.
Despite all of that, a sustained American driver presence remains elusive. Logan Sargeant managed one full season before being let go just after the halfway point of last year. Before him Alexander Rossi made a five-race cameo at the end of 2015, and there was a similarly long gap before Rossi, too, with Scott Speed racing for a season and a half with Red Bull’s Toro Rosso team in 2006 and ’07.
“I love that so many more people here know what it is,” Speed tells RACER. “When I did it, it was so unknown. When I came back to America, after racing F1, to NASCAR, no one really knew. It was actually really nice, because I like the anonymity of just kind of getting to start over. But no one knew who I was.”
Having made it to F1 and NASCAR’s top ranks, Speed knows all too well how difficult it can be to make it to the top and stay there. Nowadays, alongside fellow Red Bull NASCAR alum Josh Wise, Speed runs a performance consultancy business helping prepare the next generation of professional racers. While F1 is bigger than ever in the U.S., there remains a preferred route for young drivers in the country — one that doesn’t require laying down millions of dollars.
Up-and-coming talents like Connor Zilisch would naturally get fast-tracked to F1 in most countries, but in the USA the pull of NASCAR is hard to resist. Meg Oliphant/Getty Images
“I think the reality of the situation is, if you’re a young kid, 14 or 15 years old, and you’re coming out of go-karts and you want to make a career in motor racing, your best chance of doing that is to go stock car racing America,” says Speed. “We’ve done this now with kids like Connor Zilisch, and the path is well established. Basically, if you have some talent, and you have the drive to do it, you don’t need tens of millions of dollars to make it in NASCAR.”
Nevertheless, Speed insists it’s not impossible for an American to be successful in F1 if that’s what a youngster wants to do, but the established NASCAR route is hard to turn down.
“I’m a big believer that anything you want to do, you can do — and if you really wanted to make it to Formula 1, you’re going to find a way,” he insists. “I really believe in that. I hate when people say that something’s not possible, especially coming from my situation where I made it there with literally zero U.S. dollars put into my racing career.
“So, I know you can. If you really want something bad enough, you can make that happen. It’s just a lot easier to go the stock car route. Stock car racing is still bigger than Formula 1 here, so I think that’s a big driver. The barrier to entry is so high, and here in America, [F1] still doesn’t carry the same weight as stock car racing does.”
With Cadillac on the way next year, a lot of talk has centered around the team employing an American driver. IndyCar driver Colton Herta has been a long-time favorite for a seat with the team, but Speed is curious to see if a proper talent pipeline could develop in the long term — and it’s something he’d be keen to be involved with, too.
“I think it’s something that I’m very curious about myself, and hopefully down the road, I’ll be able to have some involvement and learn more about what that process could look like,” he says. “But at the moment, my primary work is taking kids and grooming them for stock car racing. Hopefully in the future I’ll know more about what that process looks like, and we’ll be able to help bring some along on that path. That’d be a really fun project.”
Speed crossed the Atlantic after forging a relationship with Red Bull and emerging from its American driver search program in the 2000s, and he suggests a similar initiative could increase the country’s on-track representation in European open-wheel racing and F1.
“I think that a lot of it’s about connecting relationships and having something like the Red Bull driver search program that we had, something to help support kids on that path over there. And I think there’s a lot of opportunity there to do it, I just haven’t got my hands on it yet.”
One major difference between Speed’s time and today is the emergence of off-track things like social media and Netflix’s “Drive To Survive” docuseries. They’ve undeniably elevated F1, but Speed admits he’s relieved it’s not something he had to deal with.
“Oh, man, I am unbelievably grateful that I grew up in an era of F1 without social media,” he says. “I value my privacy so much. It’s an unbelievably huge challenge for these guys that I think, goes unappreciated. It’s a real challenge having so many people having access to you, and the lack of privacy that comes with that, and the openness and dealing with the judgment on social media.
“There’s a lot of different challenges that guys face now that we just didn’t have to, so, yeah, I’m glad that I didn’t have to do that.”
Speed achieved a lifetime ambition by racing for Scuderia Toro Rosso in F1, although it didn’t earn him much fame back home. Gareth Bumstead/Getty Images
While there’s a lot of focus on getting an American driver into F1 again, the new Cadillac team opens the door for talents in other roles, too. Cadillac’s operation will be significantly based stateside, away from the traditional “Motorsport Valley” in the UK that plays host to nine of the other 10 teams, either in full or in part.
With him and Wise working out of the GM Charlotte Technical Center, Speed has had an early peek at the new team’s development. He’s impressed with what he’s seen so far and doesn’t think the decision to base the team away from F1’s conventional talent pool will be a downside, especially with F1’s revitalized business model.
“It’s going to be difficult,” he admits. “It’s no different than NASCAR here in America. All the NASCAR teams are based here in Mooresville or Concord, North Carolina, and so, when you do that, you get this environment where a lot of industry folks are in the area, and that cultivates talent and gets a lot of things done. It’s more difficult to do that outside of that area.
“That being said. Ferrari’s done pretty good in Italy on its own, so it’s not an insurmountable task for one team. It’s not going to be an easy task, for sure, but we’ll see.
“It’s really, really exciting,” Speed adds. “It’s cool to see how that’s all been progressing and that level of involvement. It’s kind of a no brainer, I think, now that Formula 1 has the budget cap, and it’s an unbelievable business model now too. So it’s creating opportunities for teams to come in.
“The series seems unbelievably healthy, so it’s really cool that an American team is now going to go in there. And I think that’s going to be massively important for the sport here in America too.”
Since his F1 adventure, Speed went on to compete in NASCAR — where he contested 163 races across NASCAR’s three national series — rallycross where he won three X Games gold medals and four championship titles, and even Formula E, where he took a podium on his debut in Miami 10 years ago. While his F1 stint ranks highly, he’s also grateful for his opportunities to sample other disciplines.
“I think that the ability to experience different racing cultures, whether that’s NASCAR — which is for me, the most competitive racing series in America, easily — or rallycross, or even drag racing, I love experiencing and understanding different motor racing cultures these days,” he says.
Speed got a chance to sample some more of that variety when he took part in Red Bull’s recent Showrun in Curitiba, Brazil, where he got behind the wheel of an RB-liveried 2011 Red Bull RB7.
“The unique thing about the Showrun in Brazil is the Brazilian motor racing fans are unbelievably passionate. And I kind of forgot what that felt like,” he says. “100,000 people came out to watch cars drive around the road. That’s pretty special.”
Speed got re-acquainted with F1 — and F1 fandom — at the Red Bull Racing Showrun in Curitiba. Bruno Terena/Red Bull Content Pool
The event marked the first time Speed had been in a grand prix car since the 2007 European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring.
“It brought back a lot of memories,” he says with a smile. “Obviously a Formula 1 car is a lot different to a stock car and a rallycross car, and so it was kind of cool to remember how different that felt in every way. Not just like physically being in the car, but also just being in that environment. I felt just an overwhelming sense of gratitude for such an amazing career and being so lucky to be able to experience all these different racing cultures.”
It might’ve been nearly 20 years, but getting back in the saddle was a familiar experience for the Californian.
“A Formula 1 car is more of a scalpel and stock cars and rallycross cars are more like chainsaws,” he says. “The way it feels inside, and how much movement you have and how tight things are is just a lot different.
“I got to do a test beforehand to get a feel for the car again, to get used to the controls, accelerating and braking. I think, honestly, if it was the same car I drove or that, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference — it was the V8 still, the same type of controls, but very F1.”
The run brought about a reunion with one of his former Red Bull Junior Team sparring partners, as well.
“The cool thing is Patrick Friesacher was also there. I’ve known Patrick since my very first day at Red Bull,” he says. “Patrick was like the number one or two Red Bull Racing drivers in the junior program, so it was cool to have him. And he’s done so many Showruns. He’s really great at it, so it was really cool to catch up with him and also to have someone to help speed up the learning process for me.”
There was one funny memory it also brought back, one that not many would think all that striking.
“It was funny to be buckled in again,” he admits. “In my whole career, getting into race cars, it was being buckled by someone. And then when I went to stock car racing, I remember my very first race, I got in my car at Talladega and I was waiting for the guys to buckle me in, and they were looking at me like, ‘Hey, are you gonna buckle?’ like, ‘What do you mean?’ I got my helmet on, I’m supposed to do this myself? So that was interesting.
“That one’s part of a big process, isn’t it? It is the last moments before you’re going out to perform, so it’s very much part of your process. Whether you’re sitting there and someone’s buckling you in, or you’re or you’re actually buckling yourself in, those are, like, the last things you’re doing before you go. So it kind of becomes this automatic routine, to sort of let your body know it’s about ready to go.”
Back in an F1 car two decades on from his debut for Red Bull at the 2005 Canadian Grand Prix, making it to F1 in the first place remains Speed’s proudest achievement, and F1’s increased popularity at home only solidifies it.
“Ever since the Netflix show, so many more people know about it. That’s cool for me, because at the end of the day, that’s always going to be my greatest accomplishment in motor racing,” he says. “I went over to Europe as an American, I won championships and I outright raced my way into a Formula 1 team against the best Red Bull Junior drivers in the world.
“That always, for me, will be the peak of my motor racing career by a landslide, so it is cool that people here in my country are starting to grasp what that meant, how cool and how big Formula 1 is. That feels good, like there’s some relatability there now with people.”
