Ticket sales for this month’s United States Grand Prix in Texas “took off’ after Max Verstappen stopped winning, according to race promoter Bobby Epstein. Red Bull’s Verstappen started the Formula 1 season in dominant fashion, winning four of the first five races and seemingly set to wrap up his fourth F1 driver’s title well before the end of the campaign. However, the Dutch 27-year-old, who won 19 of 22 races last year, has failed to win any of the last eight, with McLaren’s Lando Norris his closest challenger and now .
Epstein, whose Circuit of the Americas (COTA) hosts a sprint race weekend on 19-20 October, told reporters: “Our ticket sales really took off when Max stopped winning, and it got more competitive.” The promoter had feared a “weakest year in four since the pandemic” but said there had instead been a ‘hockey stick’ effect of sales trending upwards. The Grand Prix will also be the first since Red Bull-owned VCARB dropped Australian Daniel Ricciardo, a big favourite of the U.
S. crowd, last month and replaced him with New Zealander Liam Lawson. Epstein hoped Ricciardo might still attend in some other role: “I’m not sure necessarily people are buying tickets to come see him race if he’s not in a competitive car, right? If you’re coming, though, because he’s part of the F1 community.
” Ricciardo can still be part of the F1 community in a meaningful way Epstein added: “Ricciardo is really, really loved in Texas, and I think he lik.
