Good morning America ... F1 has arrived

Only last year Formula One embarked on its first grand prix in Malaysia, where annual car sales are around 150,000. It was seen as an important springboard

In the US, annual car sales top eight million. So you begin to see why Formula One wants to re-establish a foothold in the American marketplace.

But the task is a tough one. The easiest way to attract American attention to your sport is to have an American in it - preferably a winning American.

Formula One fails on both counts. Indeed, no US driver has taken part since 1993.

The only driver in the current field with a background in American racing is Canadian Jacques Villeneuve of BAR.

Sunday's race marks his return to the site of perhaps his greatest race triumph, the 1995 Indy 500 in which he came from two laps down to win.

Two seasons later, he was Formula One world champion.

But he is the only one to make the transition from CART, formerly IndyCar, to Formula One (Nigel Mansell did it the other way around when he became the first driver to win both titles in 1993).

CART drivers have a recent history of making a right hash of Formula One, as the likes of Michael Andretti and Alex Zanardi will glumly testify.

Hence the feeling that Formula One has been out of mass-market American consciousness since the 1960s, when Jim Clark and Graham Hill won the Indy 500.

Some Americans probably believe the last US citizen to take part in Formula One was James Garner, in the film Grand Prix.

That is why Ford - the force behind the Jaguar team - are working particularly hard to wring every drop of publicity from Sunday's race. Ergo the photo opportunity appearance of a Jaguar Formula One car on Fifth Avenue on Tuesday.

The team even managed to get driver Eddie Irvine a coveted slot on the super-influential David Letterman show - not bad in a country where Michael Schumacher's name prompts expressions of blank unfamiliarity. Irvine may not be experiencing the most glorious of seasons, but the Letterman show was exactly the type of arena in which he could be relied on to thrive when others would have died a toe-curling death.

He put across the kind of image to make the Jaguar marketing department break out the champagne - funny, savvy, hip and glamorous.

The ancient anecdote about Ayrton Senna taking a swing at Irvine after the Irishman's first ever grand prix went down especially well. The old ones are the best.

It may be short on romance, but the fact is marketing is what the US Grand Prix is all about. Hugo Boss and Tommy Hilfiger will be more than mere sponsors' names on the chassis of McLaren and Ferrari respectively this weekend.

The race is regarded as so crucial a marketing opportunity that the two men themselves are expected to attend.

Furthermore, teams will be hoping to pick up new American sponsors.

No doubt any new partners will fall over backwards at the price - upwards of £36 million for a title sponsor and around £7m for associate sponsors - but they will be tempted by the prospect of the global television audience of 350m.

Hewlett-Packard couldn't resist and signed up with Jaguar.

"It is a perfect technology showcase," explains Rick Parfitt, who appears to have tired of strumming two chords with Status Quo and is instead carving out a new career as Formula One programme manager for HP.

"It's a global sport that works on inaccessibility. It's exclusive and aspirational. People want to find out more."

Parfitt and a thousand others in Formula One will be praying that last statement holds true.

The coast-to-coast impact of America's grand prix on its own nationals remains to be seen.