Formula One is leaving the U.S.

Formula One will not return to Indianapolis Motor Speedway next year, leaving the international auto-racing series without an American event for now, speedway officials said Thursday.

The announcement ended the tumultuous eight-year run of the U.S. Grand Prix, which the speedway began hosting in 2000 after a multimillion-dollar face-lift to create a 2.6-mile twisty road course that accommodated Formula One racing.

Formula One has a loyal but small U.S. following compared with NASCAR stock car racing. But Formula One is popular on a worldwide basis with an estimated 300 million television viewers for its races in venues such as Monaco, Australia, England, Malaysia and Turkey.

Speedway Chief Executive Tony George, whose family owns the famed Indianapolis track, said he and Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone failed to reach terms on extending their contract and mutually agreed to drop the race from next year’s schedule.

George had set Thursday as the deadline for a new deal, less than a month after rookie sensation Lewis Hamilton of Britain won the last U.S. Grand Prix on June 17.

With no resolution in sight, “to drag it out until September or October doesn’t do us or our fans a service,” George said in an interview.

There is a chance of bringing the race back to Indy eventually, “and I’ll continue to have phone conversations [with Ecclestone] about the future,” he said.

Ecclestone could not be reached for comment, but he told Reuters “we didn’t reach an agreement.... Let’s see if we miss America.” He also said no other U.S. venue was lined up to replace Indianapolis on the 2008 calendar.

But while attending last month’s race, he reiterated his stance that Formula One did not need the U.S. market, and suggested that the series could move Indy’s race to another U.S. city or to another country.

George told The Times two weeks ago that he would have no regrets if Formula One dropped the race, saying it was no longer profitable for the speedway under its existing terms. And Ecclestone reportedly was seeking a much higher fee of $30 million or more to continue the race at Indy.

“It’s a business decision for us, for Formula One,” George said at a news conference at the speedway. “Money is a factor. It’s not the only factor.”

Despite Ecclestone’s stance, many of the sport’s auto manufacturers and corporate sponsors, especially those based overseas, said having a U.S. Formula One race was important to their marketing efforts.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway drew more than 200,000 spectators for its inaugural U.S. Grand Prix on the reconfigured track in 2000, but in recent years about 100,000 have attended.

“In the United States, Formula One is not perceived the same way it is around the world ... and it’s just a tough dynamic,” George said.

Even so, the U.S. race drew one of the biggest crowds on the series’ circuit.

Formula One’s only U.S. driver is Scott Speed of Manteca, Calif.

“Of course it’s disappointing that F1 will not return to Indy,” he said by e-mail. “The only hope is that it will return to the USA in the near future.”

The U.S. event was marred in 2005 when 14 of the 20 drivers pulled off the track just before the start in a tire-safety dispute, angering many fans.

Many also criticized the race in 2002 when seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher slowed on the final lap to let his then-Ferrari teammate Rubens Barrichello take the win.

Ecclestone had complained that the speedway didn’t do enough to promote the race. George conceded that his track could do more but argued that the series also needed to recruit a title sponsor and take other steps to further promote Formula One in America.

“We have a good, solid core base of fans, but to build on that you would need a title sponsor, you would need consistent [television] coverage, you need manufacturer support,” George said.

He added: “Just having those 100,000 hard-core fans come out wasn’t getting the job done.”

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McLaren Mercedes was summoned Thursday to appear July 26 before Formula One’s governing body, the Federation Internationale de L’Automobile (FIA), to explain how it came into possession of secret design documents from rival Ferrari.

The team said it was “extremely disappointed” by the action, arguing that the data “were only in the possession of one currently suspended employee” and that none of it was “used in relation to McLaren’s Formula One cars.”

james.peltz@latimes.com