American driver is Formula One's missing link

As Formula One expands its reach into the United States, there's still a missing ingredient that could keep some fans away from the crowd - an American driver on the grid. There hasn't been an American in Formula One since 2007, when Scott Speed drove for Toro Rosso. But the pressure is building for an American to make the jump now that the US successfully hosted a grand prix in Austin, Texas, last year and is set to hold a second grand prix in New Jersey as soon as next year.

"It would be a tremendous boost for Formula One to have an American driver," Mario Andretti, the Formula One champion in 1978, said. "It would not only be good for America but also Formula One. No question about it. The US is a very powerful nation from the standpoint of the financial situation. Every company in Formula One now does business in the Unites States."

Scores of Americans have given F1 a try but few have succeeded. Andretti was the last American to win a drivers' championship and before him it was Phil Hill in 1961. More common were the likes of Andretti's son Michael, who raced 13 grand prix races for McLaren in 1993 with a third-place finish as his best result. Speed never scored a point in the two years he raced in F1.

There was talk in 2010 of creating an American team dubbed USF1 with strong backing from YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley and featuring Danica Patrick and possibly Speed as drivers. But USF1 struggled to attract sponsors amid the global recession and ran afoul of F1 when they didn't race in 2010.

The dearth of drivers - Alexander Rossi and Conor Daly are the only Americans in all the F1 feeder set-ups - is blamed on the a mix of cultural and financial factors. Among the biggest challenges is raising the millions needed to fund a team from American corporations.

"It's extremely difficult for an American mostly because there is no American support from companies," said Speed, who now races in Nascar and Global Rally Cross. "Why would an American company spend X amount of money in Formula One when they can get 10 times that exposure in America racing Nascar? It makes zero sense financially."

F1 drivers and executives said it could also be difficult for an American to make the transition to F1 since they were raised on tracks and a system that grooms them for IndyCar and Nascar rather than the serpentine circuits of Europe.