By this point, it’s well known that Jeff Gordon had at least a pathway to Formula 1 with British American Racing when it formed in 1999 by Craig Pollock.
The story most people know is that Pollock offered Gordon an agreement that would pay the then three-time Cup Series champion to move to the CART IndyCar Series for two seasons before a possible move to Formula 1.
In a conversation with Kevin Harvick on the Happy Hour YouTube show, Formula 1 media mainstay turned IndyCar Series play-by-play announcer Will Buxton shared details he uncovered about the role eventual four-time IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti would have played.
“Back in the late 90s, early 2000s, there was a plan, and I only learned about it recently when I was researching for a book I wrote a few years ago, and I interviewed Jeff Gordon and I interviewed Dario Franchitti,” Buxton told Harvick. “And it turned out that, and this was before the stupid Super License rules came in … You know, Jeff was going to come over to the team Kool Green in IndyCar and run a season or two in IndyCar, and Dario was going to go over to BAR in Formula 1, and the long-term plan was that the lineup for BAR in Fomrula 1 was going to be Jeff and Dario.”
This is before Dario himself made a short-lived an ill-fated attempt at transitioning to NASCAR and certainly before his titles in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011.
Buxton believes that the top rising IndyCar star paired with the top NASCAR star of his era would have made F1 a marquee watch in the United States.
“That would have been box office and that would have broken F1 in America 20 years, 30 years before it finally broke through [with] Drive to Survive,” Buxton added. “You get Jeff Gordon racing in Formula 1 alongside Dario Franchitti, these two great all-time champions out of American open-wheel and stock car racing and they’re racing as teammates in Formula 1? Boom! Job done. That would have been huge.”
But Gordon has said before that he ultimately turned down the deal for two reasons – there was no contractual agreement with BAR for a for sure seat in F1 and that wasn’t worth giving up the best ride in the Cup Series for.
Gordon told Dean McNulty the following back in 2003:
“It was them saying to me ‘We would like to put you in a CART car with a team like Barry Green’s and have you run two years of CART and then come and test for us in F1 and then maybe you could come drive for us.’
“I had already won two Winston Cup championships at that time. I told the BAR people I was pretty much set here. I was on my way, I was with the best team with the best sponsors. I had everything I could ask for here. It would have been a major step backward for me to do it that way with no guarantees of where it would get me.”
