INDIANAPOLIS (2000-07)
With the Indianapolis 500 running to different regulations, few regular-season teams and drivers entered the race when it was an anomalous feature of the ‘F1’ schedule between 1950 and 1960. This entry therefore focuses solely on the Indianapolis road course that joined the GP fold at the turn of the millennium.
It had been a full decade since the previous US GP and there was evidently pent-up demand for F1’s return when a then-record crowd of over 200,000 fans flocked to the Brickyard in 2000. The run thereafter was a little rocky: the proximity of the 2001 race to the 11 September attacks, Ferrari trying to stage a dead heat in 2003, and shifting dates in 2004 as F1 learned its place in relation to NASCAR and the Indy 500. It often felt as though the GP paddock was merely squatting in Indycar’s back garden.
But it was the tyre debacle of 2005, when only six cars took the race start, that soured the taste most of all as spectators booed and ripped up their tickets in disgust. Somehow, F1 returned the year after but with a damaged ego. Enormous hosting fees and the venue’s struggle to attract blue-chip sponsors meant championship organisers and circuit bosses grew apart in their valuations of hosting the race. It dropped off the calendar after 2007.