NASCAR president Steve Phelps had stated that he does not see either the F1 or IndyCar as competition to the Cup Series, despite many believing the opposite.
NASCAR remains the most-watched motorsport in the USA, but IndyCar and F1 have seen huge growth, with the latter holding three races a year in the country.
Phelps has previously been warned that NASCAR is under threat of being taken over by F1, with drivers wanting to see changes made to the sport to continue to add excitement and bring new eyes to the product.
But Phelps does not see the other two as competitors, rather believing that the likes of Netflix and streaming services are who they truly most contend with.
Sign up to our NASCAR newsletter here.
Phelps said: “Yeah, for us, I actually don’t view them as competitors. Our competitors, I view as more holistically. And I think it’s really not just motorsports, actually not even just sports, it’s entertainment. And we are competing for that dollar.
“We are competing for your time and other people’s time because if they’re not watching NASCAR, are they watching Netflix? Are they watching movies? Are they watching CNBC? “What are they doing when they’re not doing that? So it’s super competitive.”
NASCAR is banking on their races, which they intend to hold more outside of the US, while aid their growth around the world – while hoping international drivers join the circuit – as Shane van Gisbergen has done so successfully.
“I believe that global expansion for us is important,” he added. “Like most people don’t know, we have four racing series around the globe.
READ MORE…
“We have a series in Canada. We have a series of Mexico. We have a series in Brazil, and we have a series in Europe. All meant to do three things: driver development.
“So, getting drivers from other countries to come to our national series, like Daniel Suarez, who graduated from our Mexico series and then went up and raced in our national series and has won races in our national series. He was our Xfinity Series champion.”