The prospect of Formula 1 adding a fourth round in the USA was raised earlier this month when it emerged the series had trademarked the title of a race in Chicago.
Formula One Licensing B.V. registered the titles ‘Chicago Grand Prix’ and ‘Grand Prix of Chicago’ with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on January 19th.The series has expanded its presence in America since being taken over by Liberty Media in 2017. The existing US round in Texas was joined by a second in Miami two years ago and a third in Las Vegas last season.
NASCAR broke new ground by holding its first street race last year in Chicago on a 3.5-kilometre circuit which passed alongside the lake front.
However local politicians told the Chicago Sun-Times they consider an F1 race in the city unlikely due to the series’ contract demands.
“I’m told that F1 typically requires a 10-year minimum deal,” said Brian Hopkins, alderman for the second ward which lies north of the NASCAR track. “And that appears to be non-negotiable. The conversation [with the city] did not get much past that.”
NASCAR, which previously held rounds at the Chicagoland oval outside the city until 2019, agreed a deal to race in the city from 2023 to 2025, with an option to extend the contract for a further two years.
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An F1 street race in Chicago, America’s third-largest city, would fit with Liberty Media’s strategy of adding rounds in ‘destination’ venues. The latest addition to F1’s calendar, announced last week, is a hybrid street and road course in Madrid, which will begin a 10-year deal in 2026.
F1 agreed a three-year contract for its new round in Las Vegas for which, uniquely, it is also the promoter. However it subsequently gained approval from the city to continue using the local roads which comprise most of the circuit for up to 10 years.
Although NASCAR’s Chicago circuit is not homologated for F1 use, it is the minimum allowed length for a grand prix track. However Hopkins does not believe the circuit could easily be upgraded to world championship standard.
“What we did with NASCAR, welding manhole covers and smoothing over potholes and calling it a track — that doesn’t work with F1,” he said. “More complicated, thus higher price tag.”
F1’s decision to trademark titles relating to a race in Chicago may be an attempt to prevent them being taken up by other parties which could lead to confusion between its race and NASCAR’s.
Red Bull performed a show run in Chicago last year which included placing one of their cars on the city’s L train.
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2023 Red Bull Chicago show run
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Formula 1
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Chris Horton
30th January 2024, 11:10
No. No. No. Not another one.
FIA Formula 1 US National Championship.
some racing fan
31st January 2024, 5:46
If there is going to be a fourth US round hopefully it could be at an updated Road America, Laguna Seca, Road Atlanta or Indianapolis (with a different layout at the latter than last time).
black (@black)
30th January 2024, 12:07
Why didn’t Liberty just buy NASCAR or Indycar instead of F1 in the first place? If they are so keen to have races mostly (if not exclusively) in the US, just buy the existing US-based franchise and go nuts with them, add 10 races in Las Vegas and 15 in Miami and leave F1 out of this madness…
Honestly I’m starting to miss Ecclestone, for all the bad qualities he had, at least during his reign, we mostly had 1 race per country and when we did have 2 races in the same country, at least they were in actual and great circuits (Brands Hatch, Nurburgring, Donnington, Jerez, Imola… only Valencia was objectively bad).
Yes (@come-on-kubica)
30th January 2024, 13:02
Oh f off. Sick of Liberty.
some racing fan
31st January 2024, 5:50
What about CVC? Remember them?
Asd
30th January 2024, 15:48
I’m curious – What’s the lesser evil for you though: GPs in the US or GPs in the Middle East?
some racing fan
31st January 2024, 6:07
GP’s in the Middle East. That should not even be debatable. Wow
some racing fan
31st January 2024, 6:08
*GP’s in the US are the lesser evil (and not even a lesser evil). That should not even be debatable. Wow
BasCB (@bascb)
31st January 2024, 10:55
Phew, thanks for making that clear, you had be baffled a moment there!
MichaelN
30th January 2024, 20:12
What, other than the timezone, is the problem with having races in the US? It’s a big country, has 320+ million people, and is a great market for the traditional F1-related companies due to how similar it is to the core European audience and market. There are four races in the Middle-East and five in North-America, the same number as the nine in Western-Europe alone.
black (@black)
30th January 2024, 20:29
China and India combined have close to 3 Billion!, they are big countries and great market for the traditional F1-related companies because they have huge customer base… Should we maybe have 10 races in China, 10 in India and maybe 1-2 for the rest of the world?
F1 is a world championship, not a US-oriented one. I definately don’t like the 4 races in the Middle East – Bahrain alone was more than enough – and I definately don’t like the 2-3-4-…-10 races in the US (and the timezone is honestly the least of my concerns).
some racing fan
31st January 2024, 5:56
F1 is a European-oriented sport, and it is a world championship. That’s where it originated, and that is what it will be as long as it is around. It will never be a US-oriented sport, even if there are seven US GP’s at some of the best historic circuits here.
There has to be at least 3 GP’s in a country that has the same economy size as the EU and has a history of car racing that dates back as far as GP racing. The demand for it is there. China and India have a racing history that only dates back to the 1990’s- the demand is not nearly there as much as it is in the US.
black (@black)
31st January 2024, 7:25
No it doesn’t.. when did the F1 calendar turned into the Forbes 500, to choose how many races a country will have based on its economy? Why should US get preferential treatment and have 3-4 races, when there are countries with racing history and/or a large fanbase and 0 races? Countries such as Malaysia, India, Germany, France, Portugal, South Africa, Argentina?… you know countries with actual great racing circuits and no souless car parks.
Oh please, I have no bias against the US or anything non-European, I love the races in Melbourne, Suzuka, Montreal, Austin and Interlagos and I would have complained the same if they added 4 races in the UK or Japan for example.
But it’s no secret that Liberty is really trying hard to pander to mostly US-based rich fans who love the fake drama of Drive to Survive.
And it’s super naive to believe that Liberty is going to use the ‘great’ American circuits (Road America etc) when we all know full well, they’d rather drop most actual circuits to make room for car park street circuits in cities where the fans treat F1 as a WWE show rather than a sport.
some racing fan
31st January 2024, 19:53
I would love to have GP’s in all those countries (except for Malaysia, Sepang’s overrated) too.
MichaelN
31st January 2024, 9:45
Another race in China and a return to India would be great, as would an African race. A street track in West Africa could be cool.
Yes, F1 is mainly an English sport, but there is also still a bit of fluff on the European side. Spa is two hours from Zandvoort and superior in every way, same with the Red Bull Ring and Hungaroring, or Monza and Imola. Ditching those latter three would create enough space to spread around the calendar a bit more.
some racing fan
1st February 2024, 21:37
Another race in China would NOT be great. That’s not as important a market as it used to be, and China is economically and politically in a worse position than they were 5 years ago. A race at the Inje Speedium in Korea and a race in India would be great.
some racing fan
31st January 2024, 6:11
There are a lot of people on this site who seem to have issues with any GP that isn’t in Europe, Suzuka, Australia or Brazil- the US included. These people also don’t seem to know about other circuits in the US other than the ones that have been used for F1 throughout its history (Road America, Road Atlanta, VIR, Laguna Seca, Sonoma, Daytona and a number of others).
Colin
30th January 2024, 14:00
So you’re saying its a shot in the dark? How appropriate for Chicago…
Jez
30th January 2024, 14:02
I can’t wait for all this American DTS madness to pass and we can get our sport back.
some racing fan
31st January 2024, 6:57
Remember CVC?
Dex
30th January 2024, 14:20
Add Detroit too, after al, it was a Motor City. Why not a race in Wyoming? Sure, it’s empty, but it deserves a race more than Germany or France. This is all well-deserved. I mean, Europeans always rush to sell everything to the Americans, after selling their own cultures in the past century. Later they sold most of their economy, now they are selling their sports too. You can’t expect to sell something, yet keep it yours. It’s kind of a poetic justice, perhaps a lesson for the future. They make fun of our sport, turning it into street racing (a la Indy), a reality show (a la Kardashians or whatever), and they are slowly packing it and shipping it to their own country. But hey, we will keep watching, keep buying tickets (while we can) and help make it happen.
lynn-m
30th January 2024, 14:32
Welcome to Formula Liberty show over sport car park circuit formula!
Jere (@jerejj)
30th January 2024, 19:05
As I suspected & making definitive conclusions was hasty anyway.
Besides, three in a single country is more than enough regardless of land mass.
MichaelN
30th January 2024, 20:15
They could do with another race more in the northeast, but there aren’t a lot of great venues there.
Indycar has the same problem; I suppose Montreal will have to fill that spot.
earthling (@34rthl1ng)
30th January 2024, 20:56
How about one per state? Is there room enough in Rhode Island?
Tristan
30th January 2024, 23:53
Ridiculous, Europe might as well be one country and then we can have serious talks over how many “countries” have a grand prix.
Seriously, European countries are essentially states with how easy it is to get around there.
Jere (@jerejj)
31st January 2024, 5:34
Tristan Good point regarding relative size comparison between US & Europe, but should US have several, so should some other big countries or at least two.
RH
30th January 2024, 19:11
Sits well with the theory that Liberty are increasing street tracks to make F1 competitive. On these tracks margins shrink and mechanical platform matters more than aero platform allowing cars to be close in performance.
ykiki (@ykiki)
30th January 2024, 19:37
With the F1 talks with the Chicago government going nowhere (especially with Chicago seemingly happy with their NASCAR arrangement), I wouldn’t be surprised if this copyright action was just F1 preemptively registering the name to keep NASCAR from using it.
some racing fan
31st January 2024, 6:06
What most people in Europe don’t understand is that the United States is not comparable to one single European country. It is so vast and expansive that it is more comparable to the entire European continent- it is about the same size, and the US has about the same economy size as the European Union, but Europe has more than twice the population density. Most people on each coast have not been to the opposite coast over here.
Just one Grand Prix in the US doesn’t work if Liberty is really trying to sell it, even if it (Austin) is in a centralized location. No. There needs to be one race on each of America’s coasts- it takes 5 1/2 to 6 hours to fly from one East Coast city to one West Coast city, over three time zones. Miami is a great location, but the circuit’s layout needs revamping and they need to hold the race earlier in the year if they’re gonna make it work. Las Vegas produced probably the best race of the season but I’m not sure how long that race will go on for, and it is not properly photographed. I personally would like a race at Long Beach or Laguna Seca if it’s gonna be on the West Coast (so it can be paired with Montreal), and maybe even a fourth GP at Indianapolis, which is the racing capital of the US.
BasCB (@bascb)
31st January 2024, 11:03
Talking about the musts there, while we have more races in the ME region than in the whole rest of Asia (and technically Africa combined!) is really not a solid argument though.
Sure, a better spread of where races are, and I’m fine with 3 (or even 4 if they are really good venues) GPs in the USA, but when we talk about time zones, then you should take Canada and even Mexico into the picture as well (Brazil is probably too far away for that to make sense), making it 5 already …
At the same time, we have only China, Singapore and Japan in Asia (ok, if realistically Baku is also somewhat Asian, even if they pretend it is a “european race” for some purposes) and no races at all in Africa, only one race in south america.
It just goes to show that yeah, the sport is rather Europe central (and currently almost as ME central) although it is in places over the whole world.
THe bigger issue with most of these ideas for races recently is that none of them have shown us much consideration for making a good RACE track, that goes for Vegas, Miami, most of the races in the ME and yeah, it also goes for that Madrid race if it goes ahead.
some racing fan
1st February 2024, 21:34
Yeah F1 absolutely needs a race in Africa, and that there are too many races in the Middle East. I don’t think you’ll get disagreement from anyone about that. And as for the Asian races you forgot Singapore.
some racing fan
1st February 2024, 21:33
Yeah F1 absolutely needs a race in Africa, and that there are too many races in the Middle East. I don’t think you’ll get disagreement from anyone about that. And as for the Asian races you forgot Singapore.