Formula One is doing an excellent job at evolving and adapting to the new fans gained in America, according to The Times' Rebecca Clancy.
The United States Grand Prix in Austin over the previous weekend illustrated the growing popularity of the sport in America, with a reported over 400 thousand people in attendance.
While the docuseries Drive to Survive will undoubtedly take some credit for the increasing popularity of the sport, what has also been evident is the increasing Americanisation of each Grand Prix weekend.
Speaking on Tuesday's OTB AM, Clancy discussed the importance of growing the sport in America.
"It is an enormous market to tap," Clancy said. "A population of more than 300 million, and most of them seem to be obsessed with sport.
"So, why would you not want to try and tap into that region? Liberty have done really, they have got the race in Austin which existed before them, but now they have a semi-street race in Miami as well.
"There are quite a lot of rumours and from what I understand they are very strong, that talks are going on about Las Vegas. Apparently they met with the potential Las Vegas promoter in Austin.
"One of the stumbling blocks there is that they want to use The Strip, and the casinos as you can probably imagine are not too keen on the footfall dropping potentially from having a race on The Strip."
The dichotomy of the sprint race
One of the biggest influences that American sport has had on Formula One has been the introduction of the sprint race in certain weekends.
While some more traditional fans are not excited about these new, shorter versions of the main event, they have increased the number of viewers that Formula One has enjoyed this season.
"With the Americanisation, I suppose, part of that is the sprint races that we have seen," Clancy said. "We've had two races thus far this year, and we are having it again in Brazil.
"I was talking to Ross Brawn [F1 Motorsport Director], and he was saying that it had been a success."
Weekends without a sprint race see practice taking place on the Friday, which consists of two, hour-long sessions with little consequences for the rest of the weekend. The pole position is then decided by qualifying on Saturday.
On weekends where there is a sprint race, qualifying is moved to the Friday evening, with the sprint race itself taking up Saturday.
The sprint race is a third of the total distance of the main race, and the winner of that sprint race then starts in pole position for the main race.
"There was a huge fan survey done this year," Clancy said. "Avid fans, as one would call them, they didn't like the sprint race. They didn't like the traditional format being tinkered with.
"A big problem came from qualifying, as qualifying normally determines the pole position. Pole position now comes from whoever wins the sprint race, so actually the drivers don't like that either.
"But, Ross Brawn was saying that the sprint race has been successful, and it was particularly successful for new fans. What we are getting from America is a lot of new fans."
For Clancy, the Americanisation of the sport has proven to be a success, as it has not only drawn in more casual fans to watch more often, but also introduced the sport to en entirely new set of fans as well.
"We've got sort of 14-15 million people watching races, so it is really important to tap into the larger group," Clancy said.
"The younger audiences don't necessarily want to sit down and watch races for an hour and a half. So, you have to give them something else; you have to keep evolving. Evolve or die as they say.
"That is the Americanisation of it;, how you can make the weekend bigger. It is all part of this 'Superbowl'. This idea of expanding weekends, of bigger parties, it does seem to be working. "
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