Very disappointing audiences, ultra-select club, should IndyCar continue to go to Thermal?

Moving from the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, to the desert of Thermal, California, perfectly illustrated the gap between what works in IndyCar and what doesn't...

Already last year, when the Thermal Club hosted the "$1 Million Challenge", the Californian track was not the most transcendent for observers. If the drivers appreciate it because it allows them to test all the components of a car, like Barcelona or Bahrain in Formula 1, it's hard to say that the setting was truly suited to an "All-Star" style exhibition. Today, after a race that this time counted for the championship, the question of simply including Thermal on the calendar clearly arises.

The Californian track has a rather unusual concept. For the purchase of a house on its property, you can drive the circuit year-round, with your own supercars and hypercars. It's an exclusive and select environment, not originally intended to host races. And unfortunately, it shows. With very few grandstands (more than last year, however), the entire weekend sometimes felt more like a major practice session. It's a far cry from the true "Spring Break" that the opening round in St. Petersburg is every year. The grandstands are crowded, colorful, noisy; the party is complete. At Thermal, however, things are a little more challenging.

If Formula 1 decided to create a Grand Prix dedicated solely to extremely wealthy fans, it would succeed in creating a setting that would arouse envy in front of the screen, and would serve as a true showcase for the sport. None of this happened at the Thermal Grand Prix, where the safety rails were the same as year-round and the stage was empty, despite the presence of some of the mountains of the Coachella Valley in the background.

The viewers were not mistaken. While the first round had been hailed for attracting an audience of 1,4 million viewers in the United States, nearly half of them deserted this second round. 704 spectators were in front of Fox, with a peak of 000, when Álex Palou came back from Pato O'Ward for the victory. The peak was reached after the broadcast was interrupted for a good fifteen minutes due to electrical problems at the circuit. These problems therefore did not realistically impact the figures significantly.

Less audience than all other disciplines, or almost

Broadcast on the Fox network's main channel, theIndyCar was largely beaten by the NASCAR, which was on the same network's cable channel, FS1. 2,5 million viewers tuned in to watch the round at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Worse still, the Thermal race was beaten by NASCAR's other two divisions, the Xfinity Series and the Truck Series, which ran on Friday and Saturday. Proof that the combination of a three-week hiatus and a circuit that didn't attract a large audience didn't help.

Finally, IndyCar can't even boast of being the most watched single-seater competition this weekend. It was the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix that achieved this distinction, with 824 viewers, 000 more than IndyCar. Just to clarify, the Chinese event took place at 100 a.m. on the east coast of the USA, midnight on the west coast... Only a delayed broadcast of the North American Drag Racing Championship recorded lower viewership. The arrival of the Arlington Grand Prix in March 000 will already help limit the gap between the first two rounds of the championship on the calendar. But even more effort will be needed, because after Thermal, the Long Beach race will also take place three weeks later, even though it is held in the same state, California.

These huge breaks at the beginning of the season, when viewership should gradually increase until reaching its peak at the Indy 500, don't make much sense in normal times, and even less so in a series that ends at the end of August. The pace will therefore be frenetic from May onwards, and the mechanics will finish exhausted, with races or test sessions almost every week. If Thermal allows for a logical and regular sequence in the first part of the season, keeping it on the calendar would be a good thing. But while IndyCar must sell itself as the accessible alternative to many other motorsports, spending a weekend on a test circuit in the middle of the desert and a few wealthy owners is clearly not the right path to take.

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