FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, November 12th, 2013

NBC SPORTS GROUP FORMULA ONE UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX CONFERENCE CALL TRANSCRIPT

Chris McCloskey:  Thank you, everyone, for joining us today for our NBC Sports Group Formula One conference call previewing the U.S. Grand Prix. In a moment we’ll be joined by our on air team of Leigh Diffey, David Hobbs, Steve Matchett and Will Buxton as well as our F1 Producer, Rich O’Connor.

It’s been a great first season for NBC Sports and F1. We’ve shown nearly every practice, qualifying and Grand Prix race live this year with four races ultimately being on NBC. This one, the US Grand Prix, is the third of those four.

Earlier this year, as you likely know, we broadcast Monaco live on network television for the first time. And despite its 7:00 a.m. start, it was watched by 1.5 million viewers making it the most-watched F1 race in the US in six years.

Coverage on NBCSN has also been strong with viewership building throughout the year and culminating with the Abu Dhabi race last week. That was NBCSN’s most-watched grand prix of the year with over 350,000 viewers.

So for today’s call we will have a transcript available in a few hours at nbcsportsgoruppressbox.com. And if you want a replay of the call you can access it by calling 719-457-0820, passcode is 9531796.

But now let’s begin our call and we’ll start with Producer, Rich O’Connor.

Rich O’Connor:  Thanks, Chris. And good afternoon everybody, or good morning depending on where you are. Thanks so much for joining us today on a very special week for us. I was thinking about this over the course of the past couple of days what an interesting 11 months to the past year that we’ve had because since our F1 journey started, we’ve had this weekend marked on our calendar for quite some time.

We’ve had a lot of great races this season and a lot of fun and special shows, but this being a true world championship that’s spanned the globe, we’ve been looking forward to televising F1 here in the United States.

It’s been a great season in following Sebastian Vettel’s incredible journey with his fourth world championship and incredible winning streak that he’s on right now. We know that bringing this race and his quest for even more victories to our audience is going to be special.

I went to this event last year, and I’ve been involved in NASCAR many years, in IndyCar for many years. Last year’s United States Grand Prix was the first F1 race I had ever been to. When I walked away from it, it was just incredible to me not only what a great race it was, but just what an incredible event the weekend was.

I’ve been a part of Super Bowls and Olympics and Final Fours and Kentucky Derbies over the years, and just the continuous weekend-long electricity and activity at the track and away from the track was just incredible. You walked away and knew that for the entire weekend you had been to a great event. And that really is a tribute to what the folks at COTA have done, and also the city of Austin. I think for fans that went to the event last year they came away knowing that they had been to a great race, a great event, and an incredible weekend that really offers such a high mix of sport, music, entertainment.That factors in when the United States Grand Prix was named the 2012 Sports Event of the Year by the Sports Business Journal. I think that’s really a tribute to them.

We knew what we wanted to do was make this as much a big event as it is big race. And there’s just no problem doing that with what the folks in the city of Austin have done. So what we’ll be doing especially on Sunday in our special 1-hour pre-race show is conveying certain aspects of that – of what Austin is doing through the weekend, through the events that go on at nighttime.

Last year, the University of Texas was away for their football game. This year they are home for their football game Saturday against OklahomaState. So it’s going to be a unique mix of when F1 meets college football and Longhorn football.  So we’re just trying to convey the sense of place of what’s going on in Austin during the course of the whole weekend because there’s just no shortage of that. As far as show we’ll have a couple of other special elements in it. Of course this has been a great year for Universal with regard to the movie Rush. We saw that very early on in the year and have used elements of the movie within our telecasts this year. And we’re kind of tying it all back in. Ron Howard, the director of Rush, has voiced the open for our race coverage on Sunday so we look forward to presenting that.

Jay Leno was at COTA in October and we recorded Jay riding along as a passenger and also taking a McLaren street car out on the course. Leigh Diffey is sitting down with Sebastian Vettel for an extended period on Thursday and we’ll have an up-close interview with Sebastian on what an incredible season he’s having and, and his place in the sport which is just incredible.

Danielle Bradbery, a winner from the Voice, is singing the national anthem. And those are just some of our key elements that we’ll be having in our pre-race show. What we’re really trying to do is convey to the audience not only what a great race Austin is, but what a great event it has become in F1 and overall racing.

Chris McCloskey:  Thank you, Rich. Now we’ll go with Leigh Diffey.

Leigh Diffey:  Thanks, Chris. Doesn’t seem like that long ago that we were speaking with you at Monaco or even at the beginning of the season, but the year has certainly flashed on by.

For me, coming to this event and building and gearing up for this event it makes me think about a couple of other categories within the sport, namely NASCAR and Sports Car which have their Super Bowl, if you wish, right at the beginning of their racing season so with the Daytona 500 or the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

And for us, you know, we’re at the other end of the season. And although this is not the season finale, we’re close enough. And definitely for us, this is our Super Bowl. If you were to put it in athletic terms or use that as a comparison, we’re gearing up for the biggest game of our year.

And that brings with it a lot of excitement, but it also brings with it quite a bit of anticipation and making sure that we bring the best possible show we can. What instills extra confidence in us is the job that we did and how well it was received from Monaco.

We were tasked with a real sense of place urgency – bring it out, bring out the most glamorous event in Formula One, and take that into people’s living rooms and really get that message across of course with all of the editorial storylines.

We feel pretty confident that we did a decent job on that, but we’d like to even go better now with our home grand prix. So I’m looking forward to that challenge. We’ve really grown as a group and a family this year, so as we approach the 18th round of 19 round,s our little family has gelled very, very well, with Will being at all of the events along with our on-site producer, Jason Swales, and the group that we have in Stamford, Connecticut at the NBC Sports Group headquarters.

You know, we have those not very attractive hours in the middle of the night, but then we get to have the cream like going to Austin, Texas. So personally and professionally, it’s a very challenging weekend, but it’s going to be a very enjoyable weekend. And we hope that we deliver a product that’s certainly suitable and well received – that’s what we’re all striving for.

Chris McCloskey:  All right thank you, Leigh. Next up, David Hobbs

David Hobbs:  Hi, everybody. Nice to meet you all. And great to be with such a fantastic team. The very first US Grand Prix I called was in 1976 with CBS, so I’ve called a lot of US Grand Prixes over the time, and I’ve called a lot of Grand Prixes around the world over the time for a lot of networks. I do have to say that when I joined NBC this year, I was very proud to be asked to go there in the first place, but I was absolutely knocked over by the incredible effort that’s gone into the Formula One shows this year by NBC.

The studio layout, the group of people, the whole thing has been absolutely outstanding; by far the best that I have ever worked for over the last 30-odd years. So I think you can expect a tremendous production from COTA this weekend, the US Grand Prix, the second US Grand Prix down in Texas.

As you all know last year was a smashing success. As Rich has already said, the sports event of the year. But from a more meaningful point of view from COTA, they had a quarter of a million people who came in on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday last year with 117,000 on race day. And I would expect this year to be the same sort of crowd if not bigger.

And notwithstanding the fact that they do have a home game this year, which is obviously going to make the city pretty busy old place, it’s been a great place to work. But  with Rich especially, and Leigh, and my old pal Steve Matchett, and Will Buxton who I’ve worked with many times before, I think we’re going to put on a great show this weekend.

I know that people are a little bit discouraged watching Sebastian Vettel win all these races but I’ve compared it to Tiger Woods. And when Tiger Woods was at his peak and as he was getting to his peak, he’d be raising his own goal even higher, and everybody thought they were looking at history, they’ve never seen anything like it. And I think the way we have to look at Sebastian Vettel is that we’re looking at history made here with a young guy who’s obviously a genius behind the wheel and coupled with another genius, Adrian Newey, obviously the genius at the drawingboard end of things. And we’re seeing history made here. There’s lots of good racing that goes on right down to the field as well, so I’m really looking forward to the event this weekend. I think it’s going to be just an absolutely smash hit.

Chris McCloskey:  Thank you very much, David. Now to Steve Matchett.

Steve Matchett:  Thank you. Thanks, guys. And thank you for joining us today on the conference call. I can only really echo the comments we’ve heard so far actually. You know, it’s going to be a great event and a great event for several reasons.

As David says, we’re seeing history being made or another wonderful element of the history of Formula One unfolding before us over the last few years, and certainly this year with the way that Red Bull and everyone on the team and the drivers, Webber and of course Vettel have done just an outstanding job of locking up and securing the Constructors’ Championship, but also from the Drivers’ Championship.

We’re seeing Vettel absolutely in a league of his own right now. And that view is echoed up and down the pit lane from rival engineers, designers and mechanics that I’ve talked to not just from the Red Bull guys, everybody is frankly in awe of what this guy is doing. And as David has said, we’re seeing something absolutely phenomenal unfolding in front of us. Some people will say, ‘well, you know, I really wish somebody else would get a shot at taking the fight to Sebastian Vettel and winning the race.’ But to me that’s the fun of Formula One. The fun is that you never take your foot off the pedal, and you always just make everything better and faster and lighter and more reliable.

If you look back through Formula One’s history you have to go back 10, 15 years to see that same period of dominance with Michael Schumacher and Ferrari. And now people will look back on that year with rose-tinted glasses and say the same thing. ‘Wow, what a phenomenal time it was,’ when you look back at Michael and Ferrari what they did, and you look further back and you see the same with Prost and Senna with McLaren. And on and on it goes.

The opportunity to be able to go to the US Grand Prix and see this kid in action, I’m going to say 15, 20 years from now, those same people are looking back and saying, ‘yeah, wow I was there and I saw it and it was phenomenal.’ And it is going to be a phenomenal event. Of course, for a lot of our American audience this is likely to be the one race of the year that they will be able to attend, the US Grand Prix on American soil of course. And it’s going to be a phenomenal event. I can’t wait to be there. I know everybody at NBC feels exactly the same. It’s going to be fantastic opportunity for us to meet a lot of motor enthusiasts that we don’t get the chance to see during the year. We talk to each other on Twitter, but to go out and meet the people in the paddock and say hi, it’s going to be great.

Chris McCloskey:  Thank you very much, Steve. And finally to our world traveler, Will Buxton.

Will Buxton:  Thanks very much, guys. And thanks for joining us today. I’m already in Austin, and it’s amazing to see the city already embracing Formula One this year. Banners and flags up all over the place. And I think it’s reflective of just how popular Formula One is becoming on a week by week basis here in the States.

It was here in Austin last year that I had the pleasure to be introduced to Rich O’Connor and the guys from NBC for the first time. It seems amazing that we’re a year further down the line. We’re coming to the end of NBC’s first season showing Formula One, and what a joy and honor it’s been to be a part of such an incredible team of people thoroughly committed not just to broadcasting the sport, but to the furtherance of the sport and to the furtherance of its roots here in the United States.

We live in this era of social media at the moment. It sounds silly to say it. But over the last 12 months my own personal Twitter account has doubled in size. And about 90% from what I understand of those new followers are from the United States. And I think that is incredibly reflective of the job that everybody has done this year on NBC to bring this vibrant exciting passionate sport of a country which is embracing it and is loving it. I can’t wait for all the fans to arrive here in Austin for them to see cars and the drivers, the smell and the sound and really experience Formula One.

Because as the guys have said, for many people this will be their first experience with Formula One, or if not their first then certainly one of their only opportunities over the course of this season to experience it in the flesh. That’s what we try to do week in week out – take people off their couches and put them in the paddock with us. This weekend they have that opportunity to see and hear the cars for real. And I can’t wait to see all the fans and to watch this Grand Prix unfold before us. It’s going to be a great weekend.

 

Thank you very much. First of all guys I just want to comment on what an outstanding job you’ve done throughout the entire first year. I mean it’s been flawless and very entertaining. My question is that Americans love superstars. And certainly Sebastian Vettel is a superstar. What do you think makes Sebastian and the Red Bull team of this season so special?

Leigh Diffey:  I think it’s the question that only Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel can answer and the rest of us cannot. Steve used the analogy of Tiger Woods, and we’ve all sat on the couch at some stage and watched Tiger in amazement at what he can do, or it might be a football quarterback, and you say, ‘how do they do that?

That has been the most asked question this year. How does Sebastian Vettel put two seconds on people like Louis Hamilton and Fernando Alonzo on the opening lap? How does he win by 31 seconds like he did at the last Grand Prix? Just how does this guy do it? Is he that much better? Is the car that much better? Is the team that much better? I think that’s the allure and the attraction, because people are in amazement.

David Hobbs:  Well to throw my two pennies worth in, I think the fact is that Sebastian Vettel is obviously an outstanding young kid. You know, he was winning go-kart championships when he was like 9. As soon as he was into cars, he started winning championships.

He was fortunate enough to be picked up by Red Bull in the driver academy, drove it for Toro Rosso, which is the second team, and got a pole position at Monza, a very high speed track, not a particularly great place to drive in the rain, got the pole and won the race with a McLaren alongside him on the grid. And we all said well now we’ll watch him slide back Brisbane. Now he went on to win the race.Then the year after that he joined Red Bull and Adrian Newey. Newey is an acknowledged genius with car design there’s no doubt about it.

I think that Adrian Newey has really used his genius and coupled it with Sebastian’s genius, and I think Adrian’s designed the car to suit Vettel’s driving skills. Because when Vettel joined the team, he and Webber were pretty much even steven on time. And as you can see this year Sebastian Vettel is winning the championship by 200 points nearly and Mark Webber’s fifth. It’s just that the car, combination of car and driver has become absolutely supreme.

I must say it’s a question that I’ve asked myself many times over the years, because if I’d known how he did it I wouldn’t be talking to you now on the conference call. I’d be reclining in my palace at the Caribbean.

Steve Matchett:  Yes well I mean just to echo those points. I mean we’re dealing with an incredible talent. And every now and again the sport, Formula One, any sport I guess, but in our terms here in Formula One throws up an incredible talent. And, you know, be it Prost or be it Fangio or Michael Schumacher again during his era, we now have another one.

But it’s very difficult I mean – I was thinking about this the other day –  I kind of worked with Michael and Russ Broom and those guys were together at Ferrari during our mutual time together at Benetton but that was ten years ago. And I keep thinking, you know, wow, Sebastian Vettel has come along in a heartbeat and is beginning to threaten Michael Schumacher’s position of dominance in terms of championships and race wins. But it was ten years ago – it was a decade ago.

And I think now the sport is just ready for another incredible talent. And I agree 100% with what David is saying that Adrian Newey and the guys at Red Bull are working incredibly closely with Sebastian Vettel. Vettel himself has taken a lot of very, very good advice from Michael Schumacher himself. Michael has taught Sebastian, I’m sure, how to ingratiate himself with the team, how to become a part of the team if you’d like and how to become an intrinsic part of that team.

Not all drivers can do it. Some drivers are very, very fast and very gifted, but they don’t gel with the team. Schumacher did it with Benetton, Schumacher did it with Ferrari, and Sebastian Vettel it is now doing exactly the same with Red Bull.

And so there is no question in my mind that the car is being tailored towards Sebastian driving style. Of course it would be – why would a team not want to give the driver every possible opportunity to feel more comfortable and more gifted in the car, and therefore bring the results home?

It’s all coming together for them now absolutely. We’re in the absolute sweet spot I think of Red Bull and Vettel’s time together.

Will Buxton:  Yes just to reiterate those points, but also to make an observation that I get every weekend from seeing Sebastian face-to-face. He is humble out of the car. He is funny, he is engaging. He is a young man who is enjoying every facet of his life at the moment. But when you put him in a car he is a ruthless operator. And that is I think what makes this superstar quality of the guy.

He’s likable outside of the car, but he is unflinching in his determination to win at all costs at times, and really not just to win by a small margin, but to completely demoralize and obliterate his opposition.

He is the all-around sporting superstar, physically on top of his game, mentally unchallenged, and from a driving perspective just a joy really to behold week in, week out.

With regard to the 19 different circuits that the F1 runs, how difficult is it to run on some continents, so many different types of circuits over a  5 1/2  month period?

Steve Matchett:  Well in terms of setup all the tracks are different. But the teams are now very familiar with the circuits they’re going to.

They’re going to be very familiar now with the layout of Austin from last year because they all have terabytes of data that they’ve taken off the cars from the previous Grand Prix, all of which will now be back at their factories and has been encoded and put into their simulators.

They will have done endless, endless labs to get the gear ratios correct, the down force levels correct, the winning settings correct, et cetera, et cetera. There’s the suspension, the bumper and rebound on the dampers the springing. All of that is pretty much a known factor before the teams arrive at any track.

The first time the guys get onto the track is always a steep learning curve because the unknown – the unknown, factor X, is a the Pirelli tires or anybody’s tires frankly. And also the grip factor may change how much dust is on the track when was the track last used, et cetera. But the teams will have a pretty good idea before they get to any event of how they want to set the car up.

Will Buxton:  Yes if I can just jump in obviously as someone who’s fortunate enough to go to all the races with all of these teams – it is an incredibly hectic and arduous schedule. And it’s not just the racing season itself. The racing season begins in March. It finishes the final week of November, and it is nonstop. We have about a month off in December, and then it’s car launches in January, testing February, and we’re back racing again in March. So the trick is to not really think about it. You just get on with it. It is a never ending cycle of race, home, prepare for the next race for all of us in whatever job we do be it mechanics, engineers drivers, journalists…

And it’s, you know, it is just that constant push, push, push to every race. That’s kind of the way the season goes. And you have to be on top it.  You have to be mentally and physically fit in order to do it no matter your job. Get the job done. And those who are the best prepared will normally get that job done.

Want to echo the incredible job you’ve done bringing Formula One to this country. How do we get an American driver into the Formula One circuit? With the paid drivers these days what are our chances?

Will Buxton:  Should I jump in on that because I know the young guys quite well? Investment – investment from the earliest of opportunities. At the moment, the two American drivers with the greatest chances of ascending to Formula One are Alexander Rossi, who took the first win for American driver ever in the GP2 feeder category last time out in Abu Dhabi.

You have Conor Daly, who finished third in the GP3 series this year which has seen Daniil Kvyat as champion promoted to an F1 seat next year. Neither one of them has insured budget for next season in order to carry on racing in GP2, or indeed to ascend to Formula One. It needs investment in these guys. It needs faith in these guys from US companies who see the opportunity to back a driver, to support him in the junior categories, and to get the coverage through those junior categories, but then to carry that relationship through into Formula One.

Even the greats like Schumacher, like Vettel, they needed that backing in order to position themselves in Formula One so that the world could see what they had to offer, so that other teams in the sport could see what they have to offer. And without investment, without the support, these young drivers will not stand a chance. You know, a season of GP2 costs pretty much what a season of IndyCar will cost. A season of Formula One will cost you anywhere between $10 million and $15 million just to get your knees under the table in Formula One.

So these guys they need investment. They need support. They need faith put in them by big US corporations who want their name to be shown on the biggest global stage of all. Because, you know, this is a sport watched by 500 million people annually. Half a billion people watched Formula One last year. Only those Soccer World Cup and the Olympics have more viewers. They happen every four years. This happens every two weeks.

It is a fantastic global advertising opportunity and to invest in young American talent. It would be wonderful to see and I think that’s the best and possibly only way that we will see an American driver is sent to Formula One.

Leigh Diffey:  And there really isn’t a better time. I mean now is the time for these companies are individuals or whoever can supply that money and that budget now is the time.

You know, we’ve got a home of the US Grand Prix. We’ve got a good home of Formula One broadcasting on NBC.

The time couldn’t be better. As Will said, you’ve got two guys who have won races in both those juniors feeder categories in GP3 and GP2.

If there was nobody in Europe representing the United States, or we didn’t have a United States Grand Prix, or the TV on an annual basis was a little shaky, then you’d say all the ingredients aren’t there – but all the ingredients are currently there.

So now for a CEO or a chairman who might be on the fringe and thinking about it – the time could not be better than what it is right now.

With two more weeks of a eight cylinder engine, and then we’re going to go into a V6 1.6 Liter turbocharged, what can we expect racing in the 2014 season? What changes do you see?

 

Steve Matchett:  Well this is a bit of my David Hobbs answer if I knew the answer to that et cetera, et cetera.

We’re all very much, all of us observers of the sport engineers of the support designers, are all very carefully watching each other to see how it’s going to play out next year.

At the moment, the answer is – I simply don’t know, because none of these engines have been run on the track. I think reliability could play a colossal factor in the racing next year.

This is a brand new era for Formula One – obviously the end of the naturally aspirated V8 engine as you say it. And incomes as little V6 turbo engine. But of course, you know, Formula One being Formula One – they’re going to push the engineer into the absolute n-th degree with also the electronic generator on the back of it. And keeping that reliable for a race distance is going to be key.

Everybody will want to make the cars as lightweight as possible. They either want to keep the cooling down to an absolute minimum ,because that will aid the down force and make the car more slippy and take drag off the car. But if you start to reduce the cooling you start to overheat these components. And so it’s always going to be – again it’s that trade-off between aerodynamics and cooling efficiency, and reliability of the cars.

Now who’s going to come out on top? You know, when you start to design a brand new race car — and David has mentioned this several times throughout the year — it’s very unlikely the Adrian Newey, this brilliant genius of aerodynamics, is going to forget how to design a race car. And when you have a brand new set of regulations, this is the time that the genius absolutely comes out of him because he can use his full creativity to look at the new regulations and create something from nothing. That’s what makes Adrian Adrian. The rest of field of these things always are playing catch up looking at Adrian’s ideas and saying, ‘oh you know what? I kind of see where he’s going with that. Let’s do our version of it.’

So we’re not going to see the newly designed car until everybody’s car is made. So we could see some very interesting diverse shapes and styles of car in a dissimilar way to what we’re seeing now, because the rules have been reasonably stable over the last couple of years in aerodynamics. And the cars have all begin sort of come to a central, sort of, design style. We could see very different designs next year. They’re all going to be made to the same regulations – Formula One regulations of course.

Who’s going to come out on top? I’ve got to say Red Bull are going to be at the forefront. But that will depend not so much on the car design, but the reliability of the Renault engine. I’m not suggesting Renault are incapable of making a better reliable wonderful engine, but they’ve got some strong competition around them.

 

Can you tell me what NBC and NBC Sports Group has done to elevate F1 in the US?

 

Rich O’Connor: We’ve done a couple of things and extended some of our programming.  Austin will be the third of four races that will be on the NBC broadcast network. We’ve done production with other platforms on (NBCsports.com). This weekend we’re working on having Lewis Hamilton on The TODAY Show on Friday morning.

What we’ve come to realize with these events, and like I said before this being a true world championship and the way that it expands the globe, is that each one of these event is a big event. Austin is not only a great race but a great event. We’ve just tried to make sure that comes across that any time F1 races, we’ve tried to make it a big event in all of our coverage.

First off just want to applaud NBC Sports for just a great job this first season with F1. You guys have gelled together incredibly in bringing F1 here to the United States and showing F1. What is the secret for F1 to succeed in the US? How do we get those hidden sort of F1 fans out of the shadows and bring them out into the forefront?

 

Leigh Diffey:  I think it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, and that is having an American driver in the sport. You know, I can speak from my home country of Australia, that obviously we had two Formula One world champions in the past – Alan Jones and Sir Jack Brabham. But particularly for Sir Jack to even be – wasn’t a real feature back then. For Alan Jones, it certainly was. And over the decades, since then, TV’s only gotten better around the world. The interesting Formula One in Australia pre-Mark Webber to post-Mark Webber, and now there’s Daniel Riccardo, was night and day.

So, you know, obviously we had Scott Speed in Formula One several years ago. And I can’t speak to those numbers, but I just think that would give us an incredible launch pad, because it would give people something to grab onto. You know, we’re all very cognizant of the fact that we’re up against a stiff challenge with other sports. We know that it’s a hard challenge and it’s a tough challenge. But having that American driver in there would be a huge bonus.

 

Will Buxton:  Yes I completely agree with Leigh on that point. I think what NBC is doing in sense of promoting Formula One across platforms, is advertising it through different sporting events, is hugely important in terms of bringing Formula One into the conscience in the United States.

Formula One doesn’t make life easy for itself. That has to be said. It does see itself as the big event, the number one sports of motorsports event in the world. Coming into a territory like the United States which has so many popular sports that have really firm roots established over here and saying, ‘Well, we’re better than all of that,’ it doesn’t make life easy for itself. But it really is one of the best if not the best racing product in the world.

And I think the job that NBC is doing highlighting us and showing us to people and saying, ‘Get on board with this because it is fantastic,” I think that is helping the sport hugely. We’re seeing it in the figures, which have never looked stronger in the United States. Hopefully with an American driver, who knows, maybe more than US Grand Prix. If we have one on the west coast and the east coast, that would certainly help things along. But, you know, it’s about small steps – building – not getting ahead of ourselves too early, and realizing that we have a fantastic product here. And just keep building it – keep pushing it and hopefully the fan base will grow along with that.

Leigh Diffey:  I think too the manufactures and the various sponsors that are involved are also doing their bit along the way. I was telling this story just last week that I met a gentleman who was a CEO of a very large company, and he just happens to be car guy. He likes premium brand cars – high end cars. And bought himself a Mercedes SLS – the latest version of it.

And as a thank you because he’s been such a good customer over the years Mercedes Benz is taking him to Austin – and a group of other VIPs – taking him to Austin this weekend. Not only did he not follow Formula One – he didn’t even know what Formula One was. And so then he said that he watched our last Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi, and since then he’s been researching all about Formula One on the internet.

So I mean just – and I know we’re talking a single individual. But, you know, a wealthy and influential individual, and with thanks to Mercedes, there’s a new person going to Austin that didn’t even know what the sport was. So, I just think across the board everything that we’re all trying to do we do know, and we do acknowledge that it will be slowly, slowly but we can only try.

Steve Matchett:  Yes I absolutely agree guys. And I think the other thing that we need, and thankfully now we have it, is a permanent stable home for Formula One to be in America. I think that’s been America’s biggest problem with taking a greater interest in Formula One, was, ‘well where is it?’ And my personal experience with this is to turn things around the opposite way.

When I was a young lad growing up in England back in the early ‘80s I would like to watch the NFL. But we hardly had any exposure to it. And I would talk to people at work, you know, ‘Hey did you see the Redskins playing last night?’ And they would look at me like I was, you know, from another planet – what are you talking about? Because we simply — over in Europe — didn’t get the exposure of the NFL.

Now look what the NFL are doing – holding those games over in Wembley – getting teams over to Wembley to expose the NFL to Europe. That’s exactly what Formula One needs to do in North America is you’ve got to have races in North America to get Americans to go to see it, because it’s all word of mouth at the end of the day. Just like Leigh was describing with the Mercedes customer – we have one happy customer. He’s going to tell his friends and he’s got five more and on and on and on it goes.

And thankfully now with COTA, we have the permanent home of Formula One, hopefully for a very, very long time. But let’s build on that. And as Will was saying let’s have two – let’s have three races if we can find venues for them. We need more races in the States.

Rich O’Connor:  The other thing that we’ll be trying to do this weekend is that there are incredible story lines and dramas and rivalries between not only the drivers, but the teams. But obviously the season that Sebastian Vettel has had, and the career that he’s had these past four years is incredible, and we have to build upon that. And that’s why you’ll see this weekend a lot of our pre-race coverage is dedicated to what Sebastian has accomplished, and the greatness that he’s capable of.

And, you know, we have a Sam Posey essay that discusses his greatness. And we’ll be doing a graphic on great athletes at the age of 26. The Tiger Woods and the Wayne Gretzkys and the Michael Jordans, and kind of what they’ve accomplished at the same age. And then of course Leigh’s sit-down with Sebastian as well.

So I mean we’re really trying to get people to understand and just where Sebastian sits – kind of in the overall sports world of what an incredible weekend – what an incredible story will be this weekend. Going up against Lewis Hamilton, who’s the defending champion on the only race of this track, and Lewis has won the last two races in the United States, kind of wants to hold on to that as well. So again there are incredible rivalries and incredible stories. That’s what we have to do not only this week but every week in bringing those to the audience.

 

With that said in getting what we were talking about earlier was Alexander Rossi who we’ve had on our show before being sort of I guess in my opinion a front runner to proceed hopefully in the next year or so. Do you think we also need this momentum going to get a team – an actual American team involved back in F1?

 

Will Buxton:  I think American team would be great in Formula One. But I don’t think it can be born out of nothing. I think it needs a heritage element to it. It needs to be a Penske, a Ganassi, an Andretti. A team that already has traction, that already has a fan base here in the United States to take that history – to take that pedigree, and to go and compete on the ultimate motorsports stage would be fantastic.

I think simply creating a team and saying this is an American team – there were attempts to do it in the past and it didn’t come off for one reason or another. Personally I don’t think it’s the right approach. I think if we can get a Penske, if we can get a Ganassi someone like that into Formula One, it would be absolutely huge. And you would carry with them sort of so much love – so much passion that has been accrued over decades in the US. And I think that would be a fantastic thing for Formula One.