Dale Earnhardt Jr. Says His Love for NASCAR Did Not Change After Attending the F1 Race at Miami

Popular NASCAR icon Dale Earnhardt Jr. was in Miami last weekend to watch the F1 Grand Prix unfold. After witnessing an interesting race that Oscar Piastri won and meeting with the world champion, Max Verstappen, he has now reassured the stock car racing fanbase that his love for NASCAR has not dwindled in the tiniest bit.

He spoke on Dale Jr. Download about how people have been wanting to know if he found the F1 race to be more entertaining than the typical NASCAR event.

He said in response to all such queries, “Whatever love that I have for NASCAR. Whatever that pie is. It didn’t change.” However, the experience did leave him wanting more.

He said that he would love going to Monaco, or another spot in Europe, to watch a race and experience F1 in its rawest and truest form. Junior doesn’t think that whatever product is brought across the pond to the United States is the most authentic. He used a rather striking example to make his case.

“It’s kind of like, ‘Hey, man! You love sushi.’ Well, that’s not really sushi they’re making here in the States. You’ve got to go to Japan to get the real ****,” he explained. Despite this opinion, he did mention in the podcast that he thought F1 was at the top of the motorsports world and joked about how aliens could be watching it.

Dale Jr. believes he could have won a Formula 1 race

The road course racing in Formula 1 and the traditional oval racing in NASCAR are vastly different. It isn’t extremely rare to see drivers in each discipline try the other and struggle. However, Junior pitched a unique scenario in an interview with Hard Rock Bet earlier this year and spoke of how he could have become a Formula 1 winner.

He said, “If F1 raced on ovals, I could have won. F1 is strictly road course racing. I would’ve had to have trained my entire life to even have been competitive, I believe, but I grew up racing on ovals.”

“That’s really like a completely different discipline. The way you drive an oval versus the way you drive a road course is so different,” he went on to say. We’ll never know for sure if Dale Jr. would have won such a race, but F1 cars around ovals is certainly an interesting idea.

About the author

Gowtham Ramalingam

Gowtham is a NASCAR journalist at The SportsRush. Though his affinity for racing stems from Formula 1, he found himself drawn to NASCAR's unparalleled excitement over the years. As a result he has shared his insights and observations by authoring over 3000 articles on the sport. An avid fiction writer, you can find him lost in imaginary worlds when he is not immersed in racing. He hopes to continue savoring the thrill of every lap and race together with his readers for as long as he can.

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