America still a dream for F1

LONDON, England (CNN) -- For Formula One, the United States remains the toughest nut to crack.

In the same way the absence of a race in Africa is an anomaly, F1's inability to bed down in the land of the motorcar is a black mark against its claims to be a true world championship.

But it's not for the want of trying -- and, with a huge car-buying market waiting to be tapped into, with good reason.

The American dream has seldom been realized in F1 since the first U.S. Grand Prix in 1959.

And despite finding seemingly the perfect partner in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the U.S. GP was dropped from the 2008 calendar, with F1's promoter Bernie Ecclestone declaring his preference to go "east rather than west."

The relationship between F1 and the U.S. has not always been so frosty.

The Indianapolis 500 was part of the world championship from 1950 to 1960 and the U.S. is the only country to have hosted three grands prix in a single season (1982).

Races at venues across the U.S. came and went, sometimes owing to safety concerns, in the case of Watkins Glen, sometimes owing to finance, in the case of Long Beach.

Events at Las Vegas, Dallas and Detroit failed to capture the imagination and legend has it that the last race at Phoenix in 1991 was out-attended by a local ostrich festival held on the same day.

When the race was resurrected in 2000 at Indianapolis, a crowd of more than 200,000 turned up. But the farcical 2005 race landed a potentially fatal blow when only six cars took the start after the Michelin runners withdrew over tire safety concerns.

Nonetheless, it survived for another two years before Indianapolis owner Tony George, scrabbling round for a title sponsor for the race, baulked at Ecclestone's reputed $20m asking price to stage the 2008 event.

"Discussions will continue, but it must be on terms reasonable to all groups," speedway spokesman Ron Green said after the race was omitted from the 2009 F1 calendar.

While wrangling over venues has been a feature of F1 in the U.S., so too has the inability of the U.S. to influence F1.

In Phil Hill and the Italy-born Mario Andretti, the U.S. has had two F1 world champions, but they are very much the exceptions. Scott Speed was the most recent failure.

The handful of U.S. teams who entered, primarily in the 1970s, all came up well short; the last to try in the mid-80s, Team Haas, folded after 19 races owing to a lack of sponsorship cash.

To the tune of around $158m a year, Ford entered F1 under their Jaguar brand in 2000. But after 85 mediocre races, the cost of failure proved to be too great for the Michigan marque and they sold out to Red Bull in 2004.

Goodyear bucked the trend of underachievement, though, and they bowed out in 1998 as comfortably the most successful tire manufacturer in the sport's history.

Despite all this, U.S. companies are still keen to be associated with F1.

The most notable is the Philip Morris-owned Marlboro cigarette brand, who title-sponsor Ferrari, although they are the last tobacco company left in F1. Other notable firms include Exxon Mobil, Intel, Dell and Microsoft.

Based in Dallas, Texas, telecommunications provider AT&T have title-sponsored Williams since 2007 and view the link-up as vital to growth outside their traditional U.S. market.

"Our Williams sponsorship provides us with a global platform that allows us to demonstrate our global networking capabilities and create the right type of brand association," said Tom Hughes, AT&T's director of sponsorship.

"While a U.S. GP would allow us to demonstrate our capabilities in an additional market, the primary focus of our sponsorship is to support our global business units.

"It is unlikely that we would be involved with the sport at the same level if we were a company with only U.S.-based interests."

The real money, though, in F1 is provided by car manufacturers. No U.S. car manufacturer since Ford has shown a willingness to spend the millions of dollars needed to join.

Ford, Chrysler and General Motors choose to spend their motorsport budgets in the hugely popular NASCAR series. And the U.S. already has its own F1 equivalent in the Indy Racing League.

But the key to getting the U.S. to tune in to F1 is in the personalities.

Thirty years on from Andretti's sole F1 title, a top-class US driver needs to be given his chance in a race-winning car.

"I can tell you that most teams would like to have an American driver," said team boss Frank Williams after inking an $80m deal with Budweiser in 2003.

The return of the U.S. GP would help and the race's absence irks the car manufacturers in F1, desperate for a slice of the American pie.

But until the U.S. produces its own Michael Schumacher, all the sponsorship money in the world is not going to make the Land of the Free fall in love with F1.