Kallmann: Sebastian Vettel’s ideas about Road America and Formula One are as fun to think about as they are preposterous

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen rounds a corner on his way to victory in the Miami Formula One Grand Prix on Sunday.

It’s fun to think about.

Twenty of the world’s most technically advanced race cars, screaming through the forest and fields on four miles of asphalt, as rural Sheboygan County takes part in the $5 billion circus that is Formula One.

Why not, right?

Road America is a great track and the most like the traditional European courses of any in the United States. It has a 66-year racing tradition and a fiercely loyal fanbase that includes plenty of world-class drivers.

So when a four-time world driving champion drops a casual reference, ears perk up. And on the surface, Sebastian Vettel was not wrong.

“Certainly the money that was spent to build this could have easily, you know, brought the standard up in great places, like Road America,” he said at the start of the inaugural Miami Grand Prix weekend.

“And from a driving point of view, I think they would be a lot more thrilling.”

Yes, it could, and yes, it would.

But hopefully no one was taking Vettel’s words as anything other than a compliment or the idea as anything more than an enjoyable dream.

In this day and age, the event Formula One would want to put on and the race Vettel envisions are entirely different animals.

Road America doesn’t have the resources of Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, who reportedly spent $40 million to build a temporary circuit and stands — and even a fake marina — on the Hard Rock Stadium campus. If quaint Elkhart Lake has anything in common with glitzy Miami it’s a little patch of sand.

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“Are you going to get David Beckham and all those film stars to Elkhart Lake and Road America as opposed to downtown Miami? I don’t think so,” said David Hobbs, a former color commentator for American Formula One television broadcasts and competitor in seven grand prix races in the 1960s and ’70s.

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“That’s what Formula One wants more and more and more these days is the show. Whether they’re going to finally go overboard … well, it’s already spoiled as just a Formula One race, isn’t it? It’s a spectacle now.”

Red Bull driver Sergio Perez, left, walks in the Formula One paddock with Puerto Rican reggaeton musician Bad Bunny on Sunday in Miami.

That’s not to say what happened Sunday in Miami was a bad thing.

The race was entertaining with teams split on strategies and tire choices and with an on-track pass for the lead and a good battle won by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, the reigning champion, over Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, the points leader.

“It was a hell of a lot better than I’d have thought,” said Hobbs, an Englishman who was drawn by Road America’s lure to settle in Wisconsin.

It just wasn’t at a place where a family of four can picnic without a four-figure tab or on a track where thousands of average Joes and Janes also have had the opportunity to turn a wheel in competition.

And that brings us to the other place Vettel’s flight of fancy and reality collide: the track itself.

Josef Newgarden pushes through Turn 12 on NTT IndyCar Series weekend at Road America in 2021.

Many of the characteristics that make Road America a proper road course worthy of a top-level race also make it a dinosaur in the modern F1 world.

It’s a marvelous, challenging combination of straights and corners of all types, but the lack of runoff area in the Kink would be a nonstarter, the effort to bring Turn 12 “up to standards” would require moving a hillside, and many an oak would become an afterthought.

Asphalt, concrete, artificial track limits and chain-link fencing are hardly what Vettel was thinking about.

In Miami, they took a parking lot and turned it into a racetrack. At Road America, the opposite would occur.

“(Formula One managers) kind of really do some funny things,” Hobbs said in a telephone conversation after the race.

“But when you’re Miami and the Miami Dolphins owner is coughing up millions to spruce the place up a bit, everything seems to take a bit of a backseat.”

Eighteen months from now, Las Vegas will try in a first-time nighttime race on the Strip to outdo whatever Miami has done in two tries.

The newest homes for Formula One in the United States are as synonymous with money and makeup as any two cities. The promotional arm of the sport already is spending $240 million on a 39-acre square of land east of the Strip to build permanent pits and paddock facilities. So expect to see Paris Hilton, Post Malone and a whole lot of other folks you’ll never see at Road America.

Driven by the popular Netflix series “Drive to Survive” — sort of a documentary/“Summer House” mashup — Formula One interest in the United States has grown exponentially in the past few years, especially among a desirable, younger audience.

Vettel, continuing his answer to a question about U.S. race venues, went on to concede he has a different perspective from people who are going to pay a thousand dollars for a ticket or use their status to hobnob with other A-listers in the paddock and at the parties.

“The last time I sat on the grandstand to watch the race was in 2001,” Vettel said, referencing the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim when he was 14. “So I guess it’s more for the fans in a way to decide. But certainly from a racing and driving thrill, I’d love to go to proper tracks.”

A fan takes a selfie with Aston Martin driver Sebastian Vettel after the first practice session of the Miami Grand Prix weekend.

If nothing else, Vettel’s comments and the Miami weekend had the racing community buzzing and in some cases turned the conversation toward events that actually do take place at Road America (such as the June 10-12 IndyCar weekend).

“If you love @F1, then you will love @IndyCar,” two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Josef Newgarden tweeted. “I love and respect both. Seeing the rise in popularity for the F1 side is such a positive for open wheel racing as a whole.”

IndyCar driver Graham Rahal and his father, team owner and former driver Bobby Rahal, even offered to put Vettel in a car for a test at Road America.

It’s hard to imagine such a drive actually happening, at least while Vettel is an active F1 driver. But it’s fun to imagine that, too.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Sebastian Vettel says Formula One at Road America would be great