How I Fell for Formula 1

Netflix got Americans like me to finally care about auto racing. The NFL might want to take notes.

- By Amanda Mull

As recently as June, I had never heard of Daniel Ricciardo. The fault was mine, not his: Ricciardo is a world-famous Formula 1 race-car driver with millions of Instagram followers and a zillion-watt smile, whereas I am from the United States—a nation traditionally standoffish to international sports, and to anything that seems suspiciously European.

F1 and most of its drivers run afoul of these sensibilities. The last time an American had notable success in the series was in the late 1970s, the heyday of the Italian-born immigrant Mario Andretti, who won his only championship seven years before I was born. In the decades that followed, F1’s American potential was squandered, and the sport remained a niche pursuit. But Ricciardo is Australian, a spiritual plane closer to American ness than, say, being Finnish or Dutch. His driver number is 3, an homage to the NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt and an exhilaratingly American choice in a sport that reeks so intensely of European aristocracy that true fandom requires a basic understanding of Monaco’s whole conceptual deal.