What is different with F1 now?

There’s a lot of talk at the moment about how F1 is changing; new owners, new rules, new cars, new title fight between teams, new digital strategy, new approach. It’s all quite refreshing to hear. So what is different now and is it for the better?

Last year, I recorded a podcast where I referenced the fact that I thought the sport was in a good place (new teams – Haas, new circuits on the calendar – Baku, Mexico, France, exciting drivers coming through and various other things). But it felt like a battle against negativity within the sport; it felt like the positivity was alien.

There was negativity coming from the media with a variety of angles. The move to pay-per-view and apparent decrease in TV figures, the noise from the cars, the way they looked, the dwindling fan interest… whatever they could find, there was an angle with a negative spin. There was even criticism of Mercedes for dominating the sport, claiming they were causing it to be boring by winning every race, which is just grossly unfair – every team in the sport is trying to do the same thing, they just did it better than everyone else during that time.

Now, there is no Lewis vs. Nico inter-team fight for the media to write fictional feuds about, instead we have a rivalry of Lewis vs. teammate (Valtteri) that is seemingly fair and very much on-track, and in addition, a fight between two teams and the two most successful drivers on the grid (by World titles – Hamilton 3, Vettel 4) for the Drivers title, with a similarly close battle for the Constructors title too. Throw Red Bull in the mix, who also won a race and have been on the podium numerous times, and we have a competitive field. And positive media reactions (Hold the front page!)

What would you want more than a competitive field though? An even more competitive field! Enter Ross Brawn – previously at Ferrari and Mercedes, now leading the technical side of F1 as a sport (as F1 Managing Director of Motorsports) and determined to level the playing field with more teams able to compete at the front. (He’s even talking about digital too). Promising!

After the latest rule change that came into play this year, the cars are now faster, wider, longer and generally look sexier. So on track, things are looking different and certainly for the better.

But it’s off track that the focus is really shifting and an area which I know more about. How has that changed and what’s good about it?

In my opinion, the new owners (Liberty Media) are really starting to make their mark. There are a lot of improvements that are visible to most; relaxing of the rules around content in the paddock/pit-lane that allows teams and drivers to create their own content, increased emphasis on social content from their own channels (resulting in significant daily growth numbers, +2,878 followers per day on Twitter, +18,217 new followers per day on Instagram, +680,873 video views per day on YouTube), more live content, more access to the drivers and now the newly announced deal with SnapChat – it’s all pointing in the right direction and the signs are good.

A lot of these initiatives are ‘experiments’ but welcome ones – changing up the press conference format, interviews on the grid after qualifying. It’s all a bit different, but it has that feeling that everyone is thinking ‘oh yeah that’s good, why didn’t we just do this all along?’. It takes that outside perspective and fresh thinking to bring a new approach and generate that excitement.

Add to this the incredible F1 Live London event and we’re talking about serious change, serious investment and serious rewards.

This is largely being driven by Sean Bratches, (formerly an influential leader at ESPN, now commercial chief of F1) who I have had the pleasure of meeting. A warming and inspirational guy who has a clear vision for the sport “I am encouraged by the manifold opportunities to materially grow the business, work closely with current and future sponsors, race circuits, television rights holders as well as create next generation digital and on-site race experiences to best serve the Formula 1 fans.” [Source]

When I was working as the digital lead within teams in F1, there was always a personal feeling of confusion between promoting the sport as a team and the way the promoters promoted the sport themselves. The feeling came across that the teams were active via social media, promoting the sport as a result, without that really being the brief, or without the support of F1 as a sport (this was before they had an engaging, active presence online). You even had Bernie Ecclestone reportedly quoted as saying “I’m not interested in tweeting, Facebook and whatever this nonsense is,”… “I couldn’t see any value in it. And, I don’t know what the so-called ‘young generation’ of today really wants. What is it?” [Source]. This was in addition to other claimed comments that undermined the sport, which we know may have been political or tactical, but it still felt disjointed.

F1 is different to say Football or a lot of other sports in that teams don’t sell tickets, they don’t sell out the grandstands at the event itself, they don’t have people visit them as much as other sports and they don’t even sell that much merchandise in the same way that other sports do. Couple that with the fact that a lot of F1 fans support drivers as opposed to teams (I imagine that most people that previously bought a Lewis Hamilton McLaren cap, now buy a Lewis Hamilton Mercedes cap – very few will stay supporting a team when a driver leaves – imagine in Football if people supported players and switched their club allegiance based on where they were playing – wouldn’t happen).

But suddenly there’s a different feeling – a feeling that the sport is promoting the sport. It sounds strange and hard to describe, but F1 Live London was supported by all teams and nearly all of the drivers. The teams were pulling together to help F1 promote F1. And everyone loved it!

All of these initiatives; the digital push, change in personnel running the sport, the drivers as heroes, the closer competition between teams, sexier cars, more engaged fans… With more changes set to be rolled out in 2018, I for one think that the sport is a lot different now already and very much for the better. If, as a real life example, my Mum and Dad (who are 65 now) can say to me “I’ve seen F1 seem to be doing a lot more promotion ‘thingy’s’ now” then they must be doing something right.