Briatore on Trump's role in the New Jersey race project

      Flavio Briatore, the effective head of the Alpine F1 team, told The Race in an interview that he, along with Donald Trump, the current president of the United States, who was then just a well-known and successful businessman, were the initiators of the Formula 1 race project in New Jersey, which, however, was never realized.

      According to Briatore, after the partnership between F1 and the Indianapolis racetrack, which hosted the US Grand Prix since 2007, ended, he joined forces with Trump to present a new American race project to Bernie Ecclestone, the former head of the championship management.

      "Of course, Donald knew nothing about Formula 1, but he is a great promoter," Briatore recalled. "At that time, he was promoting boxing events and everything that was happening in Las Vegas, and so on... And I insisted on a meeting between Donald and Bernie. The conversation took place in Trump's office.

      We showed him a video of Bernie looking for a suitable location for a race in New York, but Donald said that organizing all this in New York is very difficult for a million different reasons, but everything should be done in New Jersey. So Bernie began negotiations with people from Jersey.

      But we never achieved success because Formula 1 was not considered something special at that time, unlike NASCAR or IndyCar, i.e., a completely different kind of business. And Formula 1 was not valued at all in the US back then."

      By the time the New Jersey race project was in its early stages, the construction of a new racetrack in Texas was already in full swing, which became the venue for the US Grand Prix in 2012. The Austin stage quickly gained immense popularity, but even after that, attempts were made to return to the street race project at Port Imperial in New Jersey.

      Representatives from Red Bull Racing, Sebastian Vettel, the reigning world champion at the time, and David Coulthard even tested the under-construction track in 2012 as part of a joint promotional campaign with the automotive brand Infiniti, but the race never took place. The project for the Grand Prix of America – under that name, the stage was supposed to be held in New Jersey – remained in the past and was gradually forgotten.

      The perception of Formula 1 in the US changed after Liberty Media acquired the commercial rights to the championship from Bernie Ecclestone in 2017.

      "Now, going to America, you can visit the Miami Grand Prix, which gathers 500,000 fans over one weekend, you can visit Austin or Vegas," Briatore continued. "As you can see, Formula 1 is undergoing significant changes. Every race is a sell-out, regardless of whether it rains or not.

      What has really changed is the commercial side. Liberty operates much more openly. Bernie was a very strong businessman but greatly limited business development. Liberty has a completely open approach to marketing. If you will, Liberty has established a great partnership with the teams."