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Many racers, but not all. A schoolmate of mine got pretty far in his racing career after doing well in the local cart circuit. He wasn't dirt poor, but not rich by any standards. It did involve a lot of work by his father, and finding a patron in the country's rally car circuit: Spain had few success in F1, even though there were big names in other motorsports. Good results in lower formulas brought sponsorships. Ultimately get got a seat in a back maker team because of those sponsorships: One of those drivers that pay for their seat. Fernando was apparently pretty good though, so he got into better teams. I hear he has a decent career.

The difference talent detection isn't just about money though, but general interest and how difficult it is to detect the talent. I bet there are a lot of people that could be great at baseball in Europe, but surprisingly, nobody there plays baseball. The best possible soccer players in India are probably not playing soccer either... and the issue in those two isn't money. Starting training early at the right thing is often more crucial than talent outside of, say, basketball and volleyball, and when your father is already in the sport, it's far more likely that you'll try from a young age, get good coaching and access to sponsorships. It's more that than, say Carlos Jr's father being rich because of his continued Rally driving. There's a lot of people that are more than rich enough: they just don't try.

Related aside: the genius of the Soviet school of finding athletes (emulated by others, like DPRK) is that you don't depend upon a kid trying something like Olympic weightlifting and discovering they have an aptitude for it. Instead, you screen & test the entire eligible population and focus people in the right direction early on (then keep them focused with various incentives and counter-incentives, like a nice place to live instead of a communal apartment).

One might have some incredible Olympic rifle shooters or kayakers or weightlifters or what have you, but because those sports are niche in many countries those talents may never surface (so Madeleine's amazing fast-twitch weightlifting nerves/muscles are 'wasted' on volleyball instead). When you really care about medal count, all sports are important, so you want to maximize your chances of finding the right kids to put on the national squads years in the future. It's really smart, but depends upon political/economic structures thankfully not present in other locations.

There are more racing leagues in the world besides F1. I personally enjoy SCCA, rally, and off road more than anything.

> Now imagine the equivalent of the US basketball or football system, where hundreds of thousands of kids start the sport young and are gradually filtered out all the way up to college and then pro leagues, ensuring the absolute best of the best are ultimately selected.

The barriers to these sports are becoming higher and higher, just like there are high barrier costs associated with karting/racing.

The reality is that all motorsports are expensive. It's not easy to do karting in the US and work your way into the domestic racing scene. It's going to involve well off parents, parents who sacrifice a huge portion of their time, sponsorship, or some combination of those items. I saw this first hand with someone I went to middle & high school with. He eventually stoped karting because his family couldn't afford it anymore.

There's a small-time racetrack near us (I think, theoretically, it is somehow tied to NASCAR, but no idea) and the drivers are small-town locals, usually funded by a few sponsorships that are clearly not "cost effective" in that there's no way they're getting that much in value back but they do it because it's a son of a friend.

There are types of motorsports that are quite cheap. E.g. folkracing in Sweden has a rule where anyone can buy a competitor's car for $800. This means there is no incentive for spending lots of money on making your car better than the competition. No drivers license is necessary, age limit is 14.

Yes it still requires sacrificing a lot of time and some money, but not worse than many regular sports.

That's very interesting, thanks for sharing!

And yes, always need to be careful about making definitive statements.

I think you're right, and the reason it's unaffordable is maintaining an automobile (even one that you don't race) is fundamentally very expensive both in time and money. Now consider the cost if you're pushing it to the actual breaking point all the time. Even lemons cars (which are supposed to be basically the least expensive way to go racing) are pretty expensive to keep going.

People are trying to address the pipeline problem you've highlighted by scouting talented drivers from simulators, which is great, but ultimately there's a huge cost to racing a physical car/kart/motorcycle compared to basically every other sport.

That all assumes that potential greatness at driving is evenly distributed across the entire human population, which probably isn't the case. Also, why do you care about how "accessible" a sport is - is it not enough for the action to thrill and the emergent stories to give meaningful context to that action?

Parent poster didn’t seem interested it meeting some arbitrary diversity metric, it was that huge amount of potential talent is entirely unknown.

Because the barrier to entry is low, talent filters up better in many other sports. We probably know who the best hockey player in Canada is, but who would be the best dressage rider is a mystery because few kids have access.

This argument just seems like the sports version of Infinite growth - sports will get infinitely better as we lower "barriers to entry" until we have the supposed best version of the game. How do we know that by lowering the barrier to entry we aren't just flooding the sport with less interesting to watch teams? Alternatively, what if the mechanically best version of F1 far less interesting to watch than what we have now?

Not to say we should never fix anything, but I need more convincing that this is a real problem.

The problem with this argument is that it's equivalent to saying to someone in the Olympics that they're just there because of sample and survivor bias, which ignores the intrinsic counterfactual assumption.

Yes, under some counterfactual condition, there are better Olympians, but that imaginary world is not equivalent or meaningful in the real and current one. This is the basic conceit of a lot of critical theories and ideas, they aren't rooted in the real.

It’s not like you need to be an elite or billionaire to enjoy watching it. I mean, I can enjoy watching the Blue Angels even though I can’t afford a fighter jet.

I also disagree with the idea that you have to come from immense wealth to be a driver. The lower levels of racing are where you start out prove your talent are karting. I see some racing karts brand new online for about $2k. You’ve got to maybe be middle class or the low end of upper middle class to get into it, and if you’re good then the levels above that basically sponsor you.

It’s not like you have to personally own and operate the cars to drive. Look at Lewis Hamiton’s background and biography for an example.

Yeah, and it's not just the drivers. It's that everything is about money first and foremost in the sport. That seems to be what happens with any sport once it grows big enough.

The drivers, incredibly skilled as they are, will also frequently do things like go on the radio during races and complain about their car to their team, i.e. the persons responsible for said car. Not offer any constructive input, just... complain. Often. On the other hand, that's one of the few times they actually show any emotions or say what they think, with all the media training and endless PR events and making sure the sponsor logo on their hat is clearly in view in interview after interview after interview... Yeah, I'm ranting. But it's all just so incredibly blatantly commercial. Again, like any sport once it grows big enough.

(Another commenter wrote about the interesting technical side of the sport: I agree that there would be so many more interesting stories to tell there: about car development, strategy, manufacturing... but whenever these things are touched upon, it's done in a very shallow way, to prevent people quitting their subscription in horror at having to digest some actual information. Instead we get things like PR events with drivers having to pretend they enjoy whatever ridiculous competition they're put in against their teammate as part of their contractual obligations. It seems there could be so much more there... but perhaps this way is more profitable.)

The racers are not all "nepo babies". Lewis Hamilton, for example, comes from an ordinary middle class background.

Quick search of about half the grid...

Verstappen, Sainz, Leclerc - fathers raced cars

Alonso - father was amateur kart racer

Norris, Stroll, Perez - wealthy families

Hamilton, Russell - middle-class parents

Like most sports, being born into it helps a lot, as done wealth. But, it's not a guarantee and there are F1 drivers from relatively normal backgrounds.

F1 is competition of (rules-) lawyers, engineers, and drivers, in that order. The drivers are great marketing, but about as relevant to the sport as jockeys are to horse racing. They make a difference on the margins, but it's what's under them that really counts.

But moreover, so what? Why should the inaccessibility of a sport matter to a spectator's enjoyment?