A Chicago politician has moved to cool rumours of a potential Chicago Grand Prix after Formula 1 registered several trademarks for an event.
Trademark applications, “Formula 1 Grand Prix of Chicago,” “Grand Prix of Chicago,” “Chicago Grand Prix,” and “Formula 1 Chicago Grand Prix,” were filed by Formula One Licensing B.V. on January 19.
The trademarks have fuelled speculation that F1 is looking to add another American-based event, but according to a politician who spoke with The Chicago Sun Times, a deal between the series and the city looks unlikely.
2nd Ward Alderman Brian Hopkins said: “I’m told that F1 typically requires a 10-year minimum deal. And that appears to be non-negotiable.
“The conversation [with the city] did not get much past that.”
Of the current Grand Prix set in the United States, Miami is amid a 10-year deal which began in 2022.
The Las Vegas Grand Prix, which debuted in November last year has set out on an initial three-year deal, but local officials have granted permission for that to be potentially extended to 10.
Meanwhile, the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas has a deal which is set to expire in 2026.
F1’s trademark applications come less than a year after NASCAR held its very first street race in the Windy City, with a 3.5 km lakefront circuit and the deal struck there is three years long.
Hopkins believes that hosting NASCAR is an entirely different prospect to F1, from the scale of the venue to the cost of hosting.
“What we did with NASCAR, welding manhole covers and smoothing over potholes and calling it a track — that doesn’t work with F1,” Hopkins said.
“More complicated, thus higher price tag.”
42nd Ward Chicago Alderman Brendan Reilly added that “It would have to be one or the other,” when it comes to the city hosting stock car or single-seater racing.
F1 has recently seen a growing interest from fans and commercial partners in the United States.
When COTA made its debut in 2012, F1 had been absent from the US since a Grand Prix was held in 2007 on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course.
With the aid of Netflix’s behind-the-scenes docuseries ‘Drive to Survive’ which aired for the first time in 2019 and helped spark U.S. interest when the world of sport was impacted during the Covid pandemic in 2020, F1’s popularity stateside has grown and seen the emergence of the Miami and Vegas events.
No other country hosts three Grands Prix per year and whether that is too great a number for one nation is heavily debated amongst F1 fans.
The potential of a fourth US event in the form of Chicago would most certainly spark further discourse, as would the potential for it to replace COTA on the calendar – given the recent trend of street venues replacing so-called ‘traditional’ F1 circuits.
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