New Jersey F1 bid with Trump for Grand Prix of America failed, exposing U.S. struggle
NXTbets Pro | Published On: August 3, 2026
New Jersey bid
Former Renault boss Flavio Briatore said he enlisted Donald Trump’s help to try to bring Formula 1 to New Jersey after Indianapolis left the calendar in 2007. Briatore said he pulled Trump into talks with Bernie Ecclestone as the group pushed a proposal called the Grand Prix of America. The plan centered on a Port Imperial street circuit in Weehawken and West New York, New Jersey, and the layout was set at 5.1 kilometers. The project reached the stage of a video presentation as the group explored possible race sites, a sign that the pitch had moved beyond a loose idea and into a concrete bid. Trump preferred New Jersey over New York for the race because Manhattan was too difficult and buried in red tape, according to Briatore. The race was targeted for a 2013 debut, then appeared again on a 2014 list, but it never took place. The failed bid became one of the clearest examples of how hard Formula 1 found the American market before its later surge in popularity.
Trump role
Briatore and Trump already knew each other from international versions of The Apprentice, a connection that helped put the two men on the same side of the New Jersey push. That relationship gave the project a high-profile backer at a time when Formula 1 was still trying to establish a stronger foothold in the United States. Briatore said Trump’s view of the race location was practical. He wanted New Jersey, not New York, and he saw Manhattan as a place where the process would move too slowly. The bid then took shape around Port Imperial, where the planned street circuit would run through waterfront communities across the Hudson River from Manhattan. The idea was built to sell Formula 1 as a major event for the region, with the race name Grand Prix of America giving the project a clear identity. The plan had momentum on paper, but the race never made it to the starting grid. In Briatore’s telling, the concept showed ambition, but it also showed how much work Formula 1 still had to do in the U.S. market before it could turn a big-city proposal into a lasting event.
F1 in America
Briatore said the New Jersey project failed because Formula 1 was not yet valued enough in the United States compared with NASCAR and IndyCar. That judgment framed the bid as a case study in timing as much as location. The sport had the branding and the backing to try for a New Jersey race, but it did not yet have the commercial pull it needed to make the plan stick. Briatore said Liberty Media’s 2017 takeover changed the way Formula 1 approached the American market and made the series more open and more team-friendly. He pointed to sold-out races in Miami, Austin and Las Vegas as proof that the sport’s profile in the country has grown since the Grand Prix of America never got off the ground. The contrast is sharp. A proposal that centered on a 5.1-kilometer street circuit and a debut that was first aimed for 2013 and later listed for 2014 faded away. A few years later, Formula 1 had built enough traction in the United States to fill major events in three different cities. Briatore’s account ties the old New Jersey effort to the broader rise of the sport in America, and it places that failed bid inside a much larger shift in how Formula 1 sells itself to U.S. fans and promoters.
