What is sport without fans? If the Etihad Stadium was empty for a football match between Manchester City and Manchester United, it wouldn’t really be any different to Sunday league football at the park. Fans create the atmosphere – not an atmosphere, but the atmosphere. Without them there wouldn’t even be a commercially viable sport in the first place.
If you watched the Mexican Grand Prix last weekend you may have heard the cheering roars from the grandstands, all amplified by Nico Rosberg’s charming sombrero. The atmosphere and ambience at the track was sensational. Better, even, than the tifosi at Monza.
Formula 1 hasn’t been to Mexico in 23 years, and the Hermanos Rodríguez Circuit was home to the race between 1986 and 1992 (Mexico had been on the calendar since 1962). Thanks to this, the circuit can essentially claim “traditional status”, despite it being totally renovated by Hermann Tilke in time for this years’ Grand Prix.
Tilke is the de facto choice of circuit designer, and from blank canvas has given us brand new circuits in Malaysia, Bahrain, China, Turkey, Valencia, Singapore, India, South Korea, Russia, USA and, of course, Abu Dhabi. That’s half the F1 calendar. He also redesigned the old Hockenheim Ring in Germany, striping its soul out in an effort to modernize it. It was not well-received.
One major criticism of Tilke’s tracks has always been that they lack natural character. It’s not an entirely fair gripe and certainly isn’t true of all of them, but there is a degree of truth to it. Some circuits, for all the “wow-factor”, end up lacking a soul, the kind you get at the traditional venues like Spa Francorchamps, Silverstone, and Monza.
Fortunately, Tilke’s efforts to update the dated and crumbling Hermanos Rodríguez Circuit have been proven to be a success. The 30,000-seater stadium section around the complex was a triumph of simple, fan-friendly design, and the red, white, green colours that peppered it revived feelings of a bygone era of sport. The surrounding trees were reminiscent of Suzuka, Monza, and old Hockenheim and gave the place a warm and gooey vibe, charged by several million volts of electric ambience.
The fans were out in force to cheer on their man, Sergio “Checo” Perez, but they were equally just as vocal for the sport to be there in the first place. Over the weekend, a staggering 340,000 people turned up, with nearly 140,000 on race day alone. That is epic, and in context, by 2014 data, is only beaten by Spain and China, both with a recorded attendance of 150,000.
As a result, driver and team boss interviews were laced with praise for the fans, and you could almost sense tones of excitement in their voices. Niki Lauda told the media that Bernie Ecclestone should use Mexico as a template for all the other races.
He’s right, but you can’t choose your fans. If you take Formula 1, or any sport for that matter, to a country that doesn’t fully “get it", then no matter how good the venue, you’ll never get the atmosphere. The Mexicans went wild for F1 because they love it.
And how do you make a country love something that much?
