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"Critics have labeled Formula One as arrogant and elitist at times, which can seem unfair. Then you see decisions like the one F1 made with its 2026 calendar on Tuesday and think: “Eh, maybe not.”
F1’s 2026 schedule features a breathtakingly disrespectful move: a direct head-to-head conflict between the Indianapolis 500 and the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal — seemingly at the same time, on the same day, on the same continent.
The Indy 500 typically has a start time of 12:45 p.m. ET and runs for about three hours. This weekend is, coincidentally, the Canadian GP in Montreal. It has a start time of 2 p.m. ET, and a typical F1 race lasts about 90 minutes to two hours. If those time slots remain next year, they’ll directly overlap for the entirety of the F1 race.
F1 doesn’t appear to care. In a post-“Drive to Survive” world, the series has become an international behemoth, gaining a substantial fan following in the United States. A country in which Michael Schumacher could once go completely unrecognized now hosts three grands prix and sees the drivers treated like rock stars; fans pay record-breaking ticket prices and shell out jaw-dropping amounts of money for merchandise sales just to be part of the trendiest sport on the planet.
F1 immediately becomes the biggest event at each stop around the world. At the top of the motorsports food chain, F1’s actions give the impression of a lion that does not fight with hyenas.
Except in this environment, shouldn’t F1 care? It’s not as if F1 leaders are unaware of the Indy 500; the race is part of the Triple Crown of Motorsport, along with the 24 Hours of Le Mans (sports cars) and F1’s Monaco Grand Prix. Two-time F1 world champion Fernando Alonso skipped Monaco in 2017 to try to win Indy — which would have been his third crown jewel. He tried again, unsuccessfully, during his stint away from F1 in 2019 and 2020.
And yet F1 — which is owned by an American company, Colorado-based Liberty Media — is now choosing to trample over what many regard as the biggest auto race in the world.
Sure, maybe it won’t hurt Indy domestically. Montreal probably isn’t going to pull many U.S. fans away from the 500, which had a sellout crowd of nearly 350,000 people this year and got its highest TV viewership in 17 years (more than 7 million people). Montreal had 1.8 million viewers in the U.S. last June.
Still, why would F1 even consider this? Its calendar needed to pair the Miami Grand Prix and Montreal to reduce travel headaches, and as my colleague Luke Smith reported last week, Canada couldn’t move any earlier due to concerns about mid-May weather. Instead of weighing the optics, too, F1 never hit the brakes on its quest for motorsports domination and plowed right into a head-to-head battle with one of the most cherished traditions on the international racing calendar.
Maybe F1, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, forgot the Indy 500 always runs on the last Sunday of May. Easy to do. After all, the Indy 500 has only been around for 109 years.
Motorsports fans are constantly pitted against one another by those who argue one series is superior or claim another is inferior, when the reality is that a racing fan should be a racing fan. Each series offers something unique, and the racing world isn’t big enough to tear itself apart; motorsports are at their best when fans get to sit down and watch a variety of series.
That was no better illustrated than during the annual “Motorsports Christmas” in the United States, when even NASCAR fans would get up early to watch the Monaco GP before the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 as part of their annual tripleheader tradition. In fact, when F1 announced in November that Monaco would move to June starting in 2026, there was even speculation it would clear the way for an interested F1 driver to race at Indy.
Who would have thought the actual development would be to run an F1 race at the same time?
This is the exact type of thing that happens when a racing series begins to fly too close to the sun. And F1 sure is soaring. Liberty Media reported the sport’s revenue rose to $3.65 billion in 2024. The summer blockbuster F1 movie starring Brad Pitt will be released in late June. The series just struck huge deals with Disney and Pepsi. Brands and celebrities alike are falling all over themselves to be associated with F1.
It seems like there’s nothing that can slow F1’s speed, and maybe that’s true. But it’s worth reminding everyone what happened to NASCAR in the early 2000s.
Back then, NASCAR was the hottest sport in America and had designs on challenging the NFL for sports supremacy in the United States (yes, this was really a thing at the time). “Cars” and “Talladega Nights” were summer blockbusters in the same year. Jeff Gordon hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 2003. Racetracks could not build enough seats for the millions who attended races each year. Fortune 500 companies flocked to have their logos on race cars in $30 million deals.
But NASCAR overestimated the strength and longevity of its popularity, and suddenly, the general public moved on to the next thing. Almost overnight, NASCAR was no longer cool in pop culture. TV ratings tanked. Companies left. Racetracks “right-sized” their venues by removing grandstands.
NASCAR has spent nearly the last 20 years trying to overcome some of the poor decision-making brought on by greed, ego and a belief that their run was only just beginning.
F1 isn’t going to take a dive anytime soon. Even if Americans tune out at some point, it’s still wildly popular around the world and will remain so for quite some time.
But the motorsports ecosystem is fragile, and every racing series is only a few poor decisions away from steering itself toward the wall at high speed. Choosing to challenge the Indy 500 seems like one of those choices for F1."
what many regard as the biggest auto race in the world
Who? I’m not sure anyone outside of the US feels that way.
It has a race attendance of 350,000 making the biggest crowd for any motor race in the world.
I took it to mean the amount of interest worldwide, not necessarily the number of bums on seats.
That’s impressive though, more than Le Mans.
The speedway is the highest permanent-seating capacity venue in the world too, sporting or otherwise.
It’s also the longest running race.
Can’t see this making a difference really. It’s one race. I watched this year’s 500 but tbh it’s too long. Too many stretches where nothing is happening. Problem is they’re locked in to the format now and people would kick off massively if it suddenly became the 300 (which I’d watch!)
Yeah it would never be shortened lol. I was also not really sold on the 500 when I first started watching it some years back, but over time I’ve grown to appreciate the race (and all of the practice and qualifying sessions leading up to it) more and more. I get it though.
More than anything else, I’m bummed that I can’t sit down for the entire day and go from watching Monaco to the Indy 500 to the Coke 600. It’s become a tradition for me and many others I know.
That being said, it’s been really interesting to see some less American perspectives via this thread. Tbh I thought Indycar might have more value outside the US considering the variety of driver nationalities, especially with how many former F2 and F1 drivers are in their field.
I definitely watch indycar but I would watch almost any F1 or F2 session as the priority.
One thing I find particularly strange is the safety aspect which seems needlessly disorganised for Indy in general. There are good reasons why F1 has no refueling for example; the footage of pit crew getting burned and mashed against the walls in this year’s 500 I found really upsetting
That’s fair, the whole “pit wall” concept in American motorsports is interesting, has its pros and cons. Because of race length (and considering the amount of full throttle on ovals) refueling is pretty necessary, but in general, pit lane safety can be rough. Indy is also one of the most narrow oval pit lanes, despite the size of everything else at that track.
That being said, don’t look at Nascar lol. I’ve been watching it for 5-6 years now and the pit lane safety standards still irk me a lot.
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No they’re putting the Canadian grand Prix on at the same time as the 500. As an f1 fan that’s an easy call
A lot of people here seem to be unaware that F1 got scared by Indy car. and started meddling, leading to the split.
They literally bought out Mansell’s contract. Because he was drawing eyes away from F1.
This isn’t even the first time they’ve done this recently. They started rescheduling the Azerbaijan race alongside Le Man, because of Hulkenberg.
I remember the Le Mans clash reschedule. Was (and still is) frustrating.
Typical USA bollox. Just because it’s in the USA it must be massive. No.
The number of fans of US sports outside of the US is not even a statistical rounding error. Your sports are not global - they are village sports for village idiots.
The IPL is bigger than baseball. Association Football bigger than the NFL. I bet Rugby Football is too. Because cricket, football - both codes; are international. The world champions can come from anywhere in the world. NFL, baseball, basketball ball : one country.
The biggest stadium in the world is in North Korea. Does that make sports there the best in the world?
F1 is the pinnacle. Indy/Nascar is where the failed F1 drivers go. With the exception of Lance Stroll, you have the best drivers in the world on merit. 1.8 seconds to change 4 tyres; 3 seconds is considered slow. The front jack costs €250,000 and saves around 2 tenths of a second. US$10,000,000 to go a tenth quicker. Each car a feat of engineering and excellence.
Once again we have US people completely forgetting that that 7.7 billion people don’t live there and can not give a single fucking iota of fucks what happens there.
The NFL, NBA and MLB are the top three leagues in the world when it comes to revenue though. So they got that going for them. Premier League doesn’t even come close. Remember Americans like to measure everything in money. Like how they think Germany is as poor as Mississippi because they have similar GDP per capita.
Meh, the 500 might not be relevant to the wider international audiences but to motorsports people it is. There is a reason why in the F1 Monaco post-race press conference the drivers were like “lets cut this short, we want to watch the race”.
It is weird that F1 would put the Canadian GP in direct conflict with the 500.
Paywall
Oh rip I could read it without being signed in so I didn’t realize, I’ll copy the article in.
It was previously the same weekend as Monaco, next year it’s the same weekend as Canada. What difference does it make?
The difference is that Monaco finishes before Indy starts. Canada will race at the same time as Indy.
Archive link, https://archive.ph/3T7pp
