F1 and NASCAR went head-to head on Sunday with two very different approaches, but the day didn't quite turn out how many expected...
The Build-up
On the face of it, this had the potential to be a watershed weekend for F1 and American motorsport. In the critical battle for that juicy TV audience, F1's new (but not newest, *cough* Vegas *cough*) toy, the Miami Grand Prix, was up against what is typically one of the weakest (or should we say, least-anticipated) NASCAR races of the year at Kansas Speedway. F1 was primed to do what IndyCar hasn't been able to, which is present a serious threat to NASCAR as America's most-watched motorsport. Before the weekend even kicked off, it was already looking like things were swinging in F1's favor, and even more so after Saturday.
In Florida, qualifying threw up a very tasty prospect for Sunday's race when Charles Leclerc once again discovered that his Ferrari is not well-suited to staying on track through turn 7, and caused Max Verstappen to pay the price for an uncharacteristic driver error in Q3. With the "slower" Red Bull and Ferrari drivers in the top 3, a feisty Fernando Alonso on the front row, Kevin Magnussen (!) a lofty P4, and the threat of rain, Sunday was shaping up to be epic. Meanwhile, in Kanas, which (even though I can personally say it's a very nice facility since I live about 20 minutes from the track) is hardly the most glamorous place on Earth, we saw once again Hendrick Motorsports lock out the front row and look set to dominate yet another cookie-cutter 1.5-mile track.
Saturday's preview could not have been more wrong, for both parties. Even though the powers that be ran these respective races at the same time, let's look at them in the order in which they finished, starting with F1.
Showtime
From the cringeworthy driver introductions to the endless glamour shots of celebrities we've definitely all heard of, F1 tried to do what it does best (apparently) and spend a lot of time and money on everything but the racing. Despite last year's festivities drawing the ire of many, including myself, F1 plowed on trying to make itself some kind of spectacle for the rich and famous. But thankfully if that's not your cup of tea you don't have to tune in until the formation lap starts at 3:30, and that's what I did, with the intent of watching an absolute banger of a race.
Now, the start was fairly clean and we saw Sergio Pérez lead away for the first stint, but what was immediately clear after about two laps was that this was Max Verstappen's race to lose. On a hot day and having trailed behind his teammate most of practice and qualifying (before an uncharacteristic Max Verstappen mistake in Q3), Pérez did not really pull out too much of a gap to the ever-consistent Fernando Alonso, with the main problem being tire degradation. On full fuel tanks, the medium compound fared worse than expected compared to the hard compound chosen by Verstappen (and a few others, like Hamilton), which performed above expectations.
This meant that Verstappen had almost caught Pérez by the time the Mexican driver pitted, and in clean air the Dutchman not only held the gap but extended it to the point that by the time he pitted and emerged on fresh mediums and low fuel, he was right behind his teammate on old hards and easily breezed past. So much for a fight at the front.
Elsewhere there were some good scraps, and while it was definitely an improvement on last year, the TV direction did not really convey this fully. For only one of a handful of times (less than 15 races since 1950, which includes about 1100 races), there were no retirements or crashes, meaning not so much as a local yellow flag was brought out to spice up the race. Not that racing needs a safety car to spice things up, as would soon be clear a few thousand miles inland at a certain NASCAR race...
Turning our attention to the glamorous Kansas Speedway, for the first of not one but two visits to the track this year, there weren't a lot of expectations for a superb race. Given the 1.5-mile track configuration has not always been fans' favorite, and the race at the similar Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March was nothing particularly special, you could be forgiven for not paying much attention to the race while F1 was on. But anyone who did watch was justly rewarded for what might be one of the best NASCAR races I've ever seen. And I've seen a LOT of NASCAR races.
Now I've been particularly hard on NASCAR on this site many times, because some of the things they've done over the years have not really been to my liking, including their fabulous "Next-Gen" car. I've criticized NASCAR for being too artificial, to gimmicky, too reckless, the list goes on. But somehow one of NASCAR's less-fancied tracks (not for me personally, but the general populous has a disdain for 1.5-mile tracks as a whole) produced a race that will be remembered for all the right reasons.
This race can be best summarized in three phases. At first, the race looked like it was going to be a typical Kansas affair, punctuated by long periods of green-flag running and little else, But what was immediately clear were two things: first, there was no clearly dominant car meaning the lead was never very large, and second, there was a notable, but not extreme, tire falloff throughout a long green flag run. All this led to a constant battle for the lead at a rate that even some superspeedway races would be proud of, all occurring naturally as the race unfolded. It was never clear who was going to win, unlike Miami.
The second phase was characterized by a lot of driver mistakes and some restart chaos which meant that there were a bunch of short runs in the mid-section of the race. Where this became interesting, in addition to there always being some kind of incident every few laps, is the fact that the tire falloff mentioned earlier meant that drivers constantly wanted to get fresh rubber at every opportunity. The problem with this is that there are a limited number of available tire sets per team, so after a while teams had to strategize around this, introducing another element of uncertainty on top of the already competitive nature of the lead battle.
This leads us to the third phase, which I would define as the last green-flag run to the finish; about 30ish laps. As this began, it became clear that one of William Byron (himself having had an interesting day including wall contact and a pit road penalty), Kyle Larson, or Denny Hamlin would probably win this race. After a bit, this settled down to a straight fight between Larson and Hamlin, in the kind of high-speed edge-of-grip duel you expect to see at the Indy 500, not a Kansas NASCAR race. Each corner felt important as Hamlin chased Larson, each driver dancing on the edge of adhesion while trying to navigate lapped traffic and outsmart each other.
Motor racing looks the most impressive to me when you can tell that drivers are really, really pushing the limits. We'd like to think this happens all the time, but realistically I only see this maybe once or twice a year. I'm talking about races like the end of the 2018 or 2022 British Grand Prix, the 2014 or 2022 Indy 500, or the famous 2012 Watkins Glen NASCAR Cup race between Marcos Ambrose and Brad Keselowski. You sit there and can see the drivers and you think to yourself, "holy shit, these guys are crazy" and wonder how the hell they haven't crashed yet. Kansas had this dynamic between Hamlin and Larson.
Lap after lap, Hamlin would close in, then Larson would make an adjustment and pull a gap, then Hamlin would do the same and close up, all culminating in a last-lap showdown. Perhaps controversially, I don't really see an issue with the fact that Larson and Hamlin ended up making contact on the back straightaway here, because Larson was pushing so hard that he actually tagged the wall anyways. Nevertheless, the contact allowed Hamlin to seal the win on the last lap as Larson faded to second place. Would it have been even more epic to have them come across the line side-by-side for the win? Sure, but that's like the 12th cherry on top of the metaphorical sundae at this point.
In conclusion...
What's the point of drawing attention to these two races? Well, it's mainly to say that in the end it doesn't matter if you have the richest, most famous celebrities and athletes in the world, a unique location, and all the Instagram and TikTok followers you can muster. At the end of the day, when F1 spared no expense to put its reputation on the line in a bid to capture America's heart (and more importantly, eyeballs), the real surprise to many, including myself, was that NASCAR's not going down without a fight. Oh yeah, Kansas even had one of those, too. But for once it didn't overshadow one of NASCAR's brightest days in a long, long time.
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