Over the past few weeks, the debate of which form of motorsport is best has been taking over social media.
Respected journalists, such as Chad Neylon and Simon Chapman, and even Scott McLaughlin have seemingly taken the side that NASCAR is more entertaining to watch.
So, what sparked the great debate?
In late February 2024, NASCAR saw one of the greatest finishes in motorsport history, with a three-wide photo finish at Atlanta Motor Speedway between Daniel Suarez, Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch, with Suarez taking the win by just 0.003 seconds.
The footage of the finish was trending on social media all over the world, with fans in awe of just how close it was.
Thus, the debate. ‘Would you rather watch this, or watch the same guy (Max Verstappen) win 23/24 races in a year?’
Max Verstappen. (Mark Thompson/Getty Images)
Formula 1 fans defended their sport, but the support for NASCAR was so much stronger.
In 2022, NASCAR introduced it’s ‘next-generation’ car, which saw a whopping 19 different winners in a 36-race season, the most in the sport’s history, while F1 in 2022 saw just five different winners, and in 2023, three different winners.
While NASCAR is a sport that can be difficult to understand, a lot of motorsport fans across the world overlook just how difficult it can be, with lots of people saying, ‘they just turn left’.
To a small extent, this is true. But what most don’t understand is the complexity of drafting, aerodynamics, setups, and general race craft.
One major thing F1 lacks is the use of the drivers’ race craft, and the ability to pull off a clean move without help.
The sport uses DRS (Drag Reduction System) that helps the cars go faster in a straight line, by opening part of the rear wing and reducing the amount of drag on the car.
Drivers have the ability to use this when they are within one second of the car ahead in the DRS zone.
A lot of the time, the drivers can push this button, see a little bit of resistance from the car ahead, and fly by without a second thought.
The use of this tool was actually brought up by the pair of Daytona 500-winning teammates Joey Logano and Austin Cindric whilst commentating the NASCAR Xfinity race in Las Vegas this weekend.
“He’s (Riley Herbst) got a chance with this thing, as long as he stays within one second, which is Formula 1 DRS range…”, Cindric said as Logano laughed.
“What? We’re not doing that!”, Logano said.
“This is so much better!”
This comes off the back of Verstappen winning the first F1 race of the year in Bahrain over teammate Sergio Perez by a whopping 22.45 seconds.
It may take a while before ‘the pinnacle of motorsport’ baton is handed over to NASCAR, but the real question is, can F1 really improve?
Blink
Roar Rookie
I think the Australian version of NASCAR are Sprintcars on the dirt. Oval type tracks and full on but over quickly. NASCAR have some road circuits but spectators appear to prefer ovals where you can see whats happenning the whole time. Which makes sense!
Blink
Roar Rookie
Gotta say NASCAR is pretty ordinary but no more so than our own Supercars. We're only talking Australia, USA where-as F1 is International, eg the whole world, way beyond most of our followers imaginations. But as always if you watch highlight packages they both can be pretty good as can every other class of motor race. Just that all the best drivers in the World race F1. Why? Because they want to be the best. Only an American cares who wins NASCAR.
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
Great stuff James, I think it is nice to have the conversation of comparison from time-to-time. I recall in 2015 I wrote here about MotoGP having more entertainment and better racing than F1 at that point - only to get lambasted for making the inference and advise not to watch F1 then. While NASCAR isn't quite my cup of tea for the time being and I'll admit to not being any sort of expert, I certainly have grown to respect it as an overall product a lot more. The Netflix series they did about the Playoffs was great and didn't shy away from showcasing the drivers in a way that they're all ruthless and will demonstrate it on track and off it. Just shows how simplicity sometimes is best and much can be learned from it. With F1 however, my perennial hope is that it delivers on the raceability pillar that Ross Brawn and co sold us with their vison for the ground-effect technical regulations. I do believe the cost cap is a good thing for the sport - it's just the teams currently chasing Red Bull seem to want to kick stones around and drum up negativity about it, rather than trying to utilise/maximise their resources in such optimal way. If McLaren and Aston Martin can make exponential leaps to join the top teams, then surely they along with Mercedes and Ferrari all make that final step towards being on par with Red Bull.