{"id":348354,"date":"2026-06-10T01:29:01","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T19:59:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=348354"},"modified":"2026-06-10T01:29:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T19:59:01","slug":"jak-crawford-is-the-only-american-driver-in-f1-he-knows-its-rare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/06\/10\/jak-crawford-is-the-only-american-driver-in-f1-he-knows-its-rare\/","title":{"rendered":"Jak Crawford Is the Only American Driver in F1:\u00a0He Knows It’s Rare"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tJak Crawford is currently the U.S.\u2019 sole driver in the largest motorsport competition on this planet, though you\u2019d be forgiven for considering otherwise.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Texas native has acquired that classic Formula One twang. It\u2019s the product of years spent racing across the globe, including vast amounts of time in Europe \u2014 a blended, nonspecific accent not dissimilar to the cadence of other talented teenagers who grew up on international race tracks, like Britain\u2019s Lando Norris and Ollie Bearman.<\/p>\n

\n\tHaving risen the ranks from F4 all of the approach to F2 \u2014 a championship he narrowly lost last yr to Italy\u2019s Leonardo Fornaroli \u2014\u00a0Crawford, just 21, entered this season with an almost unprecedented amount of experience under his (seat)belt.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter that no-doubt gutwrenching F2 loss, Aston Martin was readily available to melt the blow. They made Crawford their reserve driver for the jewel within the FIA crown (and the one contest these kids put their lives on the road for): F1. His job? To attain Lawrence Stroll\u2019s prized racing team crucial points within the event of Fernando Alonso or Lance Stroll being unable to drive.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a fairly rare thing, I feel,\u201d Crawford tells The Hollywood Reporter <\/em>about being an American F1 driver. He\u2019s speaking from Aston Martin\u2019s lavish team yacht, docked in Monaco. We\u2019re a guest of the team here within the municipality for essentially the most glamorous race on the F1 calendar, the one sporting event on the planet where A-listers (corresponding to, this yr, Cynthia Erivo, Patrick Dempsey, Noah Schnapp, Terry Crews, Olivia Wilde, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas) come second to the spectacle. The conversation is frequently \u2014\u00a0and politely \u2014 interrupted by uniformed staff offering us a choice of extravagant canap\u00e9s, because the C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur sun beats down on a busy harbour teeming with billionaire boats. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMe and Logan Sargeant are really the one ones who’ve been close since Scott Speed was on the grid,\u201d continues Crawford, referencing the previous Scuderia Toro Rosso driver, whose last F1 appearance was in 2007. \u201cSo yeah, it\u2019s been some time. But I\u2019m super proud to represent my country \u2014\u00a0not only in Formula One but in Formula Two over the past couple of years. Being an American, there\u2019s actually so many young U.S. kids that drive go-karts and I feel almost look as much as me, in a way. I feel like I didn\u2019t have that enough. There was nobody from my country to support anyone in F1.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe rarity of Crawford\u2019s position is just more impressive whenever you consider how American the game has develop into over the past decade. In 2017, the Formula One Group was bought by the Colorado-based Liberty Media for an eye-watering $4.4 billion.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tCrawford at F1\u2019s pre-season testing in Abu Dhabi, December 9, 2025.<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Getty<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tFast forward nine years, and there at the moment are three U.S. races on the calendar, in Las Vegas, Miami and Austin \u2014\u00a0greater than some other country \u2014\u00a0and, in accordance with F1, the game now boasts 52 million fans across America, up 11 percent year-on-year. \u201cI even have so many friends, especially my age, [who] had no idea what I did or what I desired to do growing up,\u201d Crawford says. \u201cAnd now they know all about it and are available to my races.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe concedes that much of that is right down to the Netflix doc Drive to Survive <\/em>\u2014\u00a0the success of which tons of of Hollywood producers have tried, and failed, to recreate \u2014 though even Crawford is stunned by the glitzy names which have joined us here in Monte Carlo. \u201cI saw Kim Kardashian,\u201d he tells THR<\/em>. (The truth behemoth and Skims founder is within the paddock supporting Ferrari\u2019s Lewis Hamilton.) \u201cI\u2019ve seen rather a lot <\/em>of security guards. I\u2019ve just been pushed out of the best way!\u201d he laughs. \u201cIt\u2019s been super strict all weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKardashian shouldn’t be a lady who needs explaining to anyone. But Crawford, admittedly, has never heard of The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>. Perhaps our being here’s a testament to F1\u2019s rising celebrity-ness, or perhaps, more simply, a race automobile driver like Crawford can\u2019t get enthusiastic about film and TV news. The latter is more likely, given his interest in padel (a combination of tennis and squash) and running, in addition to a preference for the more lowkey F1 events: \u201cI like Monaco more for the track and the racing, but yeah, I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s necessarily my vibe,\u201d he says. \u201cI like quieter races, however it\u2019s still super cool, in fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt is smart \u2014\u00a0Crawford has already notched up over 2,000 kilometres (1,242 miles) in F1 machinery, but he\u2019s eager to get as much time within the automobile as possible. \u201cI\u2019m able to drive at any point,\u201d he says about potentially stepping in for Alonso or Stroll. \u201cI feel ready, and naturally, I don\u2019t wish anything bad on anyone, but when the chance [were] to arise, I’d definitely take the chance to attempt to show my best.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe step-up from F2 to F1 is, as Crawford describes it, the largest any driver will do of their profession. \u201cThe cars, in fact, are faster \u2014\u00a0you have got more downforce, more power. But I feel the largest thing is more the technology,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd the quantity of individuals you’re employed with. Now we have so many individuals, probably near 1,000 people, that work for the team. In Formula Two, we had 12,\u201d he smiles. \u201cSo it\u2019s an enormous difference.\u201d It\u2019s a discrepancy that has even necessitated Crawford change up his gym routine to compensate for the immense muscle needed within the neck and body to handle the force of driving an F1 automobile.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s also been something of an emotional whirlwind to abruptly be sharing the paddock along with his childhood heroes. \u201cGrowing up, I at all times looked as much as Max [Verstappen],\u201d continues Crawford, \u201cHe was a young guy, really fast, and a variety of the time I relate to that because I used to be quite young once I began. Now he\u2019s among the best drivers on this planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLuckily, as competitive as these 22 drivers are, they\u2019re \u201cpretty nice\u201d and \u201cat all times say hello\u201d to the young American. And racing under the U.S. flag, Jak Crawford is hoping that sometime \u2014\u00a0within the near future \u2014\u00a0certainly one of them will likely be his teammate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jak Crawford is currently the U.S.\u2019 sole driver in the largest motorsport competition on this planet, though you\u2019d be forgiven for considering otherwise. The Texas native has acquired that classic Formula One twang. It\u2019s the product of years spent racing across the globe, including vast amounts of time in Europe \u2014 a blended, nonspecific accent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":348355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20669],"tags":[4861,10113,13241,52671,32815,1026],"class_list":["post-348354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hollywood","tag-american","tag-crawford","tag-driver","tag-f1he","tag-jak","tag-rare"],"aioseo_notices":[{"message":"The permalink for this post just changed! This could result in 404 errors for your site visitors.","status":"warning","options":{"id":"0a2ae5f84bc2c0423042ed7ec22d2e40","isDismissible":true,"actions":[{"url":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/wp-admin\/admin.php?page=aioseo-redirects","label":"Add Redirect to improve SEO","class":"aioseo-redirects-slug-changed"}]},"allowedContexts":["posts"]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348354"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":348357,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348354\/revisions\/348357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}