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After a Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix that was less than stellar – especially when compared to the same day’s NASCAR Cup Series AdventHealth 400, Pit Straight co-hosts Jack Swansey and Alex Gintz throw away their copies of L’Etranger and debate something really existential: is Formula 1 really that special?
Obviously yes … or maybe, no, actually? Max Verstappen dealt the field another crushing victory in a season where so far, only he and teammate Sergio Perez have had anything resembling race-winning speed.
But as F1 attracts more and more American eyeballs and the series promoters edge closer and closer to trademark infringement with each passing week, the question remains: can a series with as many on-track passes in a full race as there are in a single lap at Talladega Superspeedway be considered “the pinnacle of motorsport?”
Well, yes. But it all comes down to that lack of an “s.” Drawing from knowledge of international politics and cross-cultural motorsports linguistics, Gintz and Swansey make the case that F1 is special, for exactly the reasons that make that claim difficult to understand.
The Pit Straight is Frontstretch‘s F1 podcast, available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts the Tuesday after each Grand Prix.
About the author
Jack Swansey primarily covers open-wheel racing for Frontstretch and co-hosts The Pit Straight Podcast, but you can also catch him writing about NASCAR, sports cars, and anything else with four wheels and a motor. Originally from North Carolina and now residing in Los Angeles, he joined the site as Sunday news writer midway through 2022 and is an avid collector (some would say hoarder) of die-cast cars.
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