In recent years, Formula 1 has grown massively, especially in the United States. With 366 thousand American viewers in the 2013 season, the sport amassed an average of 1.1 million U.S. viewers in 2023.
In the current 2024 season, 10 teams and 20 drivers travel to 24 tracks all around the world. Three of which (Miami Grand Prix, U.S GP, Las Vegas GP) are in the United States, further adding to the sports’ national popularity.
For the past few seasons, Belgian-Dutch racer Max Verstappen has held dominance alongside his team, Red Bull Racing. Verstappen’s dominance has been a controversial topic in recent years.
“A lot of people have been saying that [Verstappen’s dominance] is really bad and not entertaining,” said junior Lars Hoogenraad, an avid Verstappen fan. “But they never said the same when [British racer] Lewis Hamilton won seven world championships.”
However, others have a different perspective on Verstappen’s prominence.
“At this point, I watch [F1] from the perspective of second place since I always expect [Verstappen] to win,” said junior Chloe Laddaran. “I definitely think he is in his prime right now because of Red Bull’s aerodynamic engineering.”
Like other sports, F1 is incredibly popular within the Aragon community. Therefore, different fans found their enthusiasm for F1 in different ways.
“I have an older brother and he showed me a video on YouTube explaining the science behind F1,” said senior and F1 Club president Paul Feghali. “And I am into science and engineering so that video got me pretty interested.”
Similar to how Feghali had another interest which led to him getting interested in F1, sophomore Noel Padilla found himself in a similar situation.
I’ve always been interested in cars and motorsports in the first place, so F1 kind of just fell into place. It’s a motorsport, so I felt compelled to watch it.
Noel Padilla
With many F1 fans at Aragon, there are a selection of drivers and teams that fans support.
“Personally, my favorite driver would be Checo [Perez],” Padilla said. “He is from Mexico, a country that I have roots in. And in general, I just like his driving style and his defense [on the circuit].”
Similar to Padilla, Hoogenraad’s favorite driver is one who shares the same roots with him.
“I am kind of biased but I like Red Bull and Verstappen since he is Dutch, and I am also Dutch,” Hoogenraad said.
Despite Verstappen’s dominance, F1 has seen many interesting and entertaining seasons in the past five years. Many older and newer fans seem to agree that the 2021 F1 season was one to remember, as it hosted a championship battle between Verstappen and Hamilton all season long.
“To be honest, one of my favorite [F1] moments was in 2021, during the last race between Max and Lewis since they brought it down to the wire,” Feghali said, referring to the season finale in 2021 where Verstappen took the lead on the last lap of the race to secure his first ever F1 championship.
With F1’s fan culture growing at Aragon, it only made sense to establish F1 club at the beginning of the 2023-24 school year.
“The reason I started [F1 Club] was to introduce more people to the sport,” Feghali said.
It’s awesome to see more fans from America following the sport so I wanted to contribute to the growth.
Paul Feghali
F1 Club meets on Mondays during lunch where the members and officers discuss recent races, drama, engineering and the science behind F1.
It’s clear that the popularity of F1 is increasing at Aragon and around the country. To watch F1 races live, ESPN broadcasts all of F1’s practice sessions, qualifying sessions, and races live. F1’s next race will be the Monaco Grand Prix on May 26.
