There's an article from Jalopnik about F1 trying to take down IndyCar in the United States.
https://www.jalopnik.com/1882458/f1-declares-war-on-indycar/
They discuss F1's 2026 race schedule, and how they're deliberately scheduling the Canadian Grand Prix against the Indianapolis 500 at roughly the same time on the same day in an effort to cut into IndyCar's hold on open-wheel viewership in the US. In the past, F1 ran the Monaco Grand Prix earlier that day, with it over comfortably in time for US viewers to then catch the Indy 500. Now those viewers have to pick the Indy 500 or the Canadian GP, but not both.
We took some issue with Jalopnik's assessment of the duel, though. Before anyone gets their panties in a twist, yes we know Jalopnik is a major car and motorsport publication while we're just a ragtag group of enthusiasts. They're still only human, though, and that means they're imperfect.
According to the author of the Jalopnik article, "This will unfortunately be the first F1 race I've missed in over a decade because there's no way I'm skipping the Indy 500 to watch the Canadian Grand Prix, and I'm sure hundreds of thousands of fans in the stands and millions of viewers at home will agree with me. I hope that F1 sees the decreased ticket sales and viewership coming its way next year as a sign and corrects action in rapid fashion. This is an absurdity that simply does not need to exist."
We do agree that this conflict doesn't need to exist. We recently celebrated the greatest day in motorsport featuring three huge races from F1, IndyCar, and NASCAR, all scheduled hours apart so racing fans can easily view all three. We at Absolute Zero Motorsport would love for it to stay this way.
We don't agree with the American perspective that the Indianapolis 500 and IndyCar are a massive juggernaut against which Formula 1 stands no chance. Yes, the Indy 500 draws a huge crowd and millions of viewers. In the US it dwarfs F1. Globally, it's David versus F1 as Goliath. In 2024, F1 boasted 826,500,000 unique viewers. I'm told this isn't counting the same person ten times if they viewed ten races, but rather actually 826.5 million individual persons. Granted, not all of those catch every race, but that's a number IndyCar can't imagine.
If 100% of Americans, and by this I mean every single man, woman, and child down to newborns, whether they liked racing or hated it, all watched IndyCar that would still only be 41% of Formula 1's global viewership. 100% of Americans don't watch it, of course. Yes, it's not just Americans that watch IndyCar, but even the Indy 500 doesn't bring IndyCar 826.5 million global viewers.
Is the Indy 500 bigger than F1 in the US? Yes. That's clearly the point in F1's efforts at growing in the US. It is David versus Goliath, but F1 is Goliath. It's just that David happens to have home field advantage.
