Formula 1 boss Chase Carey says “good headway” is being made with proposals to add a second grand prix in the United States.
Liberty Media, which acquired the sport in early 2017, has sought to expand Formula 1’s reach, with the United States regarded as one of its key markets.
Proposals to hold a Miami Grand Prix for 2019 were unveiled but ultimately postponed, and then altered, with the district around the Hard Rock Stadium now mooted, as opposed to Biscayne Bay.
“We’ve been quite public about our goal with the opportunity in the US,” said Carey during Liberty Media’s Q2 conference call on Thursday.
“Our TV audience has grown well [in the US], digital has been a positive surprise, and there’s more fans here than people believe there are. We’re excited about these opportunities.
“We’ve talked about adding races in destination cities like Las Vegas or Miami. We’ve been engaged for the last year there.
“We’ve made good headway, we are continuing, I have meetings next week with parties there, had meetings a month ago, I think we feel it’s important, we feel we’re making steps.
“Down the road we are talking to new team entrants, as we firm up the business model for team ownership, we have Haas as a US team, we’d love to add a high-profile US team, down the road you’d love to have a US driver, that probably takes longer.
“It continues to be a priority and we’re making good headway on it. We look to potentially add [to] that, probably the first step would be adding that race in a city like Miami or Las Vegas.”
Formula 1 has yet to define its 2020 calendar though it is expected to feature a record-breaking 22 events, with Vietnam and the Netherlands joining, and Germany departing.
“In terms of the calendar, we do expect… I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, we expect to announce the 2020 calendar in the next few weeks,” Carey confirmed.
“I think it’s largely finalised now. In general what I’d say about the calendar is we expect the number of races over the next few races to increase a bit.
“I think there’s a limit to how much but I think we do expect it to go up marginally.”
Carey expects the expanded schedule, and future deals, to bring in further revenue for the championship.
“I think we actually are very excited about the demand interest, the number of places that want to host a race, obviously supply and demand, is important,” he said.
“We value our historic relationships but it is important to carve out opportunities to add a new race when the demand is there and the appetite is there for stepping up for that.
“I think there’s some places where, and I’ve touched on this before, we inherited situations where we were not receiving what we should be receiving when we came in.
“I guess between the supply and demand being in our favour, the increase in our race calendar, and addressing a couple of places where we are not receiving what we can and should be we do expect this to be an area of [revenue] growth for us.”
