F1, since its beginnings in the mid-1900s, has been considered the pinnacle of Motorsport with manufacturing titans such as McLaren, Ferrari, and Aston Martin all competing for the coveted championship. In recent years, however, F1 has been a brand in stagnation and decay. Its viewership peaked at around 600 million TV viewers in 2008 and continued to drop for almost a decade. 9 years later, in 2017, F1 logged one of its worst years in recent history, only managing to attract 350 million viewers, or a bit more than half of its 2008 peak. Since then, however, F1 viewership has once again skyrocketed and is now the fastest-growing sport on social media, even outpacing the NBA and NFL in new followers. In 2020 alone, in the midst of the pandemic, F1 recorded a 35% increase in followers on platforms such as Instagram and Youtube and maintained an admirable 87.4 million views per Grand Prix. Two main factors are credited with Formula one’s meteoric rise: its buyout by Liberty Media and Netflix’s docuseries Drive to Survive.

Liberty Media is an American-based corporation that bought F1 for a staggering 4.4 billion dollars in late 2016. Prior to this, F1 was run by Delta Topco, who had mostly ignored digital marketing and was unable to connect with F1’s fanbase. Bernie Ecclestone, a former executive of the Formula One group, even said “I’m not interested in tweeting and Facebook…  I’d rather get the 70 year old guy with lots of cash.” Formula 1’s new owners, Liberty Media, sought to reverse this destructive course and rebranded F1 to younger audiences. Liberty increased F1’s social media presence through actions such as posting race highlights and educational videos demystifying F1 to new audiences. Drivers, who were formally prohibited from posting on social media, are now encouraged to do so, giving viewers new avenues to interact with their favorite teams and giving the sport a more human feel. Information such as race standings, qualifying times, and podium positions are also made readily available on the internet for anyone to consume, bringing new exposure to F1 and creating an environment suited to a more internet-friendly generation. For hard-core fans who wanted to delve further into the technical aspects, Liberty partnered with AWS data analytics to provide further data points and information. Liberty even changed F1’s 20 year old logo, giving it a more dramatic and modern texture than before. The reinvigorated marketing campaign has worked for the most part. As of right now, 61% of F1’s fanbase is under the age of 35, and 25% are between the ages of 16-24. Recently, Liberty has even launched a streaming service called F1 TV, allowing for more platforms for viewers and supplementing its growing fanbase. 

Liberty’s reform of F1’s image as well as revamping its marketing department has done wonders for the formerly ailing sport. Netflix’s docuseries Drive to Survive has played an especially integral part in this effort, bringing new viewers to the ever-growing sport. Drive to Survive axes the more technical aspects of F1, instead opting for a more ‘reality TV’ view of the sport. The series offers an inside look at F1 teams and depicts the people behind the sport rather than just the racing itself.  Often emphasizing rivalries and conflicts, underdogs and ambition, controversy and glory, the docuseries has been criticized for its overdramatizing of the sport and, occasionally, complete fabrication of events. Despite the criticism leveled at it, Netflix’s series has opened up the much-desired American market to the sport. In a recent poll by the Morning Consult, 52% of American F1 viewers consider Drive to Survive an integral part of watching the sport, contributing to the 8% increase in viewership in the US in the last year. The series currently has 4 seasons with another 2 in production. 

F1’s popularity is increasing at a breakneck pace. Liberty Media’s revamped marketing campaign and Netflix’s Drive to Survive series has exposed a new generation to motor sport, and so far, they seem to like what they see.