America in Formula 1
- 4 minutes ago
- 4 min read
I was watching Sprint Qualifying for Miami earlier this afternoon and seeing how the teams are stacking up after a month off. This got me thinking about how the Americans are doing specifically, since Miami is one of three Grands Prix in the United States in 2026. We're not represented very well, as there's no current American driver, and our team and/or manufacturer involvement remains limited, though better than it has been in a while.
Ford is powering the Red Bulls, so that's something. Red Bull isn't as strong as they have been in the past but doing alright this season. We do have a Cadillac team, but only the chassis is from Cadillac. Ferrari powers it. As of this writing, Cadillac is in 10th out of 11 teams in 2026, with 0 points so far. Then there's Haas, which is on their eleventh Formula 1 season. They've done somewhat better than Cadillac has so far, but none of their stuff is actually American. Their chassis is from Dallara, which is Italian, and their power unit and pretty much everything else is from Ferrari, which is again Italian. The only component of the Haas team that's American is the owner, Gene Haas.
This got me looking back over the Haas F1 team's performance in the sport, especially since there's now over a decade of it. Folks familiar with the sport know better than to expect a new team to do well right out the gate, but they've had over a decade now, not to mention they developed their car for some time prior to their debut season and didn't technically start from scratch to begin with. For example, they bought the bankrupt Marussia team's headquarters and technical assets in 2015, and they had a partnership with Ferrari, who again produced most of their car's components.
The part I then found myself dwelling on was the American perspective of Haas entering F1 starting with the 2016 championship season. The relatively few of us American F1 fans had more realistic expectations, but folks not particularly well-versed in Formula 1 exhibited the usual American arrogance and confidence, expecting to enter Europeans' motorsport and show them how it's done. A proper racing team from a guy experienced with real racing here in the US was going to enter the realm of macchiato, doilies, and crepes and walk all over everyone with American bravado.
It didn't happen that way.
Haas F1 has had some moments of decent performance, but most of the time they've been at or near the back. They entered F1 in 2016 with a respectable 5th in the constructors championship, giving Americans unfamiliar with Formula 1 false hopes. They did not stay they, and gradually drifted further backwards. They finished last season in eighth place, again out of ten teams. Now in their eleventh season, they're off to a decent start that they can't realistically maintain and will undoubtedly drift backwards as they've done in the past.
Watching people expecting big success for Haas F1 and then not getting it was somewhat amusing. I suppose maybe it was like watching a guy picking fights, strutting around chest-beating and running his mouth like he's something Herculean, only to get knocked out cold from a single punch to the face. The part that really aggravated me, however, was how the drivers were treated by Haas fans. These fans, bearing in mind their unfamiliarity with the sport, assumed that Gene Haas couldn't have put underwhelming cars on the track, so the problem must have been mediocre drivers. This was disgusting and unfair to the drivers, who were not the problem.
In the beginning, Haas F1's cars were piloted by Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez. Admittedly, they weren't world champions, but they knew how to drive a Formula 1 car. They belonged on the F1 grid as much as anyone else out there. Admittedly, Gutierrez hasn't had the most remarkable career, but he can drive the car alright. Grosjean, on the other hand, has scored a respectable amount of points in Formula 1, ten F1 podium finishes (by my count), two of them were second place, and six of those podiums were in 2013 alone.
According to Haas fans, Grosjean was incompetent and had no idea how to get a good result. The records show just how utterly wrong that was. Neither him nor his teammate were responsible for poor results, and they deserved none of the disrespect and ill words spoken of them by Haas fans. In their second year, Gutierrez was replaced with Kevin Magnussen, who took over receiving fans' criticism and undue hate. I was not a fan of the team, but I repeatedly rushed to defend their drivers on social media. Fans spent several years dunking on these drivers for poor performance that wasn't their fault. Max Verstappen couldn't have dragged a Haas car to the front of the field.
In 2021 Haas replaced Grosjean and Magnussen, and after that fans seemed to finally figure out that perhaps the drivers weren't the problem. No matter who drove the Haas cars, they ended up hanging out towards the back. Romain Grosjean went on to drive elsewhere, including in IndyCar and IMSA, and the fans that formerly criticized him at every opportunity finally started figuring out that maybe he wasn't so bad after all. It was a bit too little too late, though. The trash they spoke shouldn't have happened in the first place, from people that had no idea what they were talking about.
Arrogance and ignorance are stumbling blocks for us Americans. We tell each other and anyone that will listen that we're the greatest and best at anything we do. With this cocky arrogance we go in boastful, expecting victory, but sooner or later we end up force-fed humble pie. We need to do better. I would like to one day see a serious commitment from the United States, with a proper F1 team well-funded and tackling the sport with realistic expectations and respect. I like to believe we can do it, if we really want it, but it would take a very serious commitment.
I think Ford could do it. They had a history as a prolific engine supplier in F1's past, they've participated in a broad range of motorsports around the world, and the current turbo-hybrid feels right up Ford's alley. Maybe some day they'll jump head-first into F1, contributing more than a power unit for Red Bull.
