Formula One Tv Schedule

CART is expanding beyond North America and becoming more of an international series--but the folks at F1 don't feel the least bit threatened

THE ENTRY LIST FOR A CART FedEx Champ Car race in August at Mid-Ohio featured 10 drivers from Brazil, three from Canada, three from the United States, two from Mexico, and one each from Italy, Sweden, Spain, Japan, Columbia, Scotland, and England.

Earlier that day, about 5,000 miles to the east, Formula One's Hungarian Grand Prix had an equally international cast of drivers: three each from Germany and Brazil, two each from Finland, Spain, Brazil, and Italy, and one each from Scotland, Ireland, Austria, Canada, the Netherlands, France, Argentina, and England.

The 2001 Formula One schedule lists 17 races in 15 countries; CART, meanwhile, will stage 22 races, including a record six outside of North America; with events in Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, Germany, and England.

Is CART becoming a global sport? Is it a threat to Formula One? And is CART doing the right thing by taking its series worldwide?

First things first: The Formula One fraternity does not consider CART a threat, and even if it did, it would not as much. The pundits in Formula One see CART as a series for Formula One castoffs or, as has been the case with the likes of Jacques Villeneuve and Juan Montoya, as a steppingstone.

Formula One czar Bernie Ecclestone delights in taking jabs at CART, which he calls a "domestic formula" in the United States. "We have quite a few drivers who might be interested in CART," Ecclestone says, "after they retire from Formula One."

Ecclestone believes CART will draw a large audience at its new venues in Germany and England simply because of the novelty factor. "It's a different formula," Ecclestone said in an interview in the International Herald Tribune. "It's like when American football comes to Europe and you are going to get people watching it. Formula One is like soccer. It works everywhere in the world."

Still, CARTs growing popularity outside of North America means that the series is more than just a novelty. More than 80,000 people showed up for the opening ceremonies of the Euro-speedway, the site of CART's race in Germany next year, some 60 miles from Berlin. And the new Rockingham oval in England, which will host a CART race next year, has 33 million people living within a 100-mile radius.

But Ecclestone's soccer analogy is apt when comparing CART and Formula One. CART will be a hit overseas, its backers say, because the series provides the fans with so much more passing than Formula One, which sometimes has only one pass for the lead during an entire Grand Prix. Formula One is similar to soccer in that a game can end with a 1-0 score, but the fans still leave enthralled. CART, the Indy Racing League, and NASCAR are more like basketball, with a lot of lead changes.

"You only have to watch the last five minutes of a basketball game" says FoX,hula One driver Eddie Irvine; "because one team runs up one end and scores, and then the other team runs up the other side and scores. And they are 96-95 going into the last five minutes. That is when it is worth watching. I don't see the point in watching it before that.

"If you look at NASCAR, they go round and round and round, and it's only the last two laps that are worth watching. In Formula One, at any stage something can happen, and it just totally changes the whole picture. Formula One is much more like chess. It's a lot less obvious; you need to be a lot more educated to appreciate it. What's the point to passing if you see it a hundred times? It's much better to catch one megafish a day than to catch 400 little ones."

Not surprisingly, Irvine and his Jaguar teammate Johnny Herbert have different views on CART vs. Formula One. Herbert announced this season that he will end his 10-year Formula One career and head for CART in 2001. Irvine, in contrast, says he will never race in CART.

"I wouldn't race in CART," Irvine says, "because it is not Formula One--it's second-rate. You see guys go from Formula One to CART. Nigell Mansell went over there and killed everyone--Alex Zanardi went over there and killed everyone, and came back to Formula One and was nowhere. Juan Montoya has killed everyone, and next year he will be in F1, so we will see where he is at. He does seem good, but Formula One is where you find out. It seems to be quite easy, in a way, to look like a hero in the United States."

Herbert is following former Formula One drivers like Mark Blundell, Christian Fittipaldi, and Mauricio Gugelmin to the CART series. Herbert says he is looking forward to getting into a CART car, which is far less twitchy to drive than today's F1 machines, which run on grooved tires.

"The CART cars are back to how Formula One used to be because they have the slicks," Herbert says. "I think they are more forgiving than Formula One cars have ever been because of the way the aerodynamics in Formula One have always been a very high priority, which just makes them twitchy. And the grooved tires just makes them extra twitchy.

"The CART cars are more drivable. When Zanardi went back there [to the U.S.] to test, he said he could throw them around, and here in Formula One you cannot really do that. It is very easy to overdrive a Formula One car,"

Does Herbert agree with Formula One's perception that CART is a second division? Not really. He ,says this is the next logical step in his career. He has won Grand Prix races and the Le Mans 24 Hours, and now he wants to compete in CART

"I've had my time in F1," Herbert says, "so it is not as if I'm going there because I have nothing else to do. I've come to the time in my career where it is time for a change."

So, from the standpoint of driver talent Formula One is not intimidated by the globalization of CART. Nor is it concerned that CART is moving into traditional F1 markets, partially because CART is required to race only on ovals outside of North America. F1, of course, is a road-racing series.

Like Formula One, NASCAR, and all other major racing series, CART comes under the jurisdiction of the FIA (International Automobile Federation), but the FIA does not interfere with a national series. When a national series becomes an international one, however, then the FIA can and does step in.

In the case of CART going international, the FIA has stipulated that with the exception of the street race in Surfers Paradise in Australia (which has been allowed to remain on the schedule because it was already in place before the new "oval" rule was put into place), CART can only race on ovals. For its part, CART is perfectly happy to abide by this ruling.

But Norbert Haug, the boss of Mercedes-Benz racing worldwide, believes CART is heading in the wrong direction. "For me this is certainly not the right development, and for Mercedes-Benz it is not," Haug says of the globalization of CART. "I think it should be concentrated in America, like it used to be. It should be run at Indy in the 500. That should be the goal, not having races in England and Germany and Australia and Japan. There also needs to be a development of North American drivers."

The lack of American drivers in CART is tragic, hurting the series' popularity in the U.S. With the IRL-CART feud feeding the NASCAR frenzy, just about every up-and-coming American driver sets his sights on stock cars these days. In places like Brazil, Italy, France, or Finland, in contrast, young guns want to get to Formula One.

But there are only 22 seats available in Formula One, making it extremely difficult to break into that exclusive club. CART offers a viable alternative, especially for the Brazilian contingent, which has really embraced the series.

Fans sometimes blame team owners for choosing foreign drivers over those from the USA. But the fault lies not with the owners but rather with the U.S. corporations, which, unlike companies in countries like Italy or Brazil, do not give as much financial backing to up-and-coming drivers in their own country. "The team owners are going to hire the best drivers no matter what their nationality," says Villeneuve.

While CART is expanding and becoming more popular, its TV ratings are still a fraction of those of Formula One, which draws more than 200 million viewers per race. The bottom line is that despite its growing international appeal, CART is not a threat to Formula One. But that is not the point. These are two different series, and each one features its own agenda and focus.

While some members of each side will continue to snipe at one another, everyone else is content to live and let live. And the fans, who are given yet another racing option, are the ones who are the big winners.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Century Publishing
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group

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