Formula 1 is gaining traction with each passing day in the United States market. Certain reports even suggest that it could overtake NASCAR as the most popular motorsport in the country within a few years. That all of this might have happened decades earlier — had Jeff Gordon chosen open-wheel racing — highlights just how costly F1’s miss really was.
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Will Buxton, the play-by-play announcer for Fox Sports’ IndyCar Series coverage, was a guest on Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast recently. He spoke about the opportunity that came up in the 1990s for Gordon to become an F1 racer before the FIA Super License came into existence for the first time.
Buxton had gotten to know this story first-hand from Dario Franchitti. The plan in the late 90s had been for Gordon to come over and race in the IndyCar Series. Franchitti, who was racing in CART back then, was to go over to race with British American Racing (BAR) in F1. The long-term plan was for both drivers to get accustomed to their new surroundings and then team up in F1.
Buxton said, “Daario was going to go over to BAR in Formula 1, and the long-term plan was that the lineup for BAR in Formula 1 was going to be Jeff and Daario.
“He (Gordon) was going to do a couple of seasons in IndyCar to train himself up. That would have been box office, and that would have broken F1 in America 20 years, 30 years before it finally broke through Drive to Survive.”
Why was Jeff Gordon reluctant to join F1?
By the late 90s, Gordon was already an established superstar in NASCAR. Giving it all up to learn open-wheel racing and move across the pond to race in F1 just seemed like a daunting task.
Gordon’s thoughts were, “OK, I’m with the best team, winning races, winning championships, and I’m going to have to leave this and I’m going to have to start my career all over basically and go learn how to be a road racer in an open-wheel rear-engine car?’”
He also admitted on the official F1 podcast, “I thought it was too steep of a climb to accomplish. The opportunity somewhat did come along.” As per Gordon’s account, it had been F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve who came to him with the offer to race in the IndyCar Series in 1997, with the possibility of making it to F1 in 1999.
He was presented with the chance to race for Barry Green’s frontrunning team, which later became Andretti Autosport, in the IndyCar Series. Gordon picked the logical and safer option. It’s hard to argue that it was more F1’s loss than Gordon’s.
