Anyone attending a Formula One race today will notice that the profile of fans has changed dramatically since Liberty Media took over. They are a lot younger and more female than five years ago. Research and audience data bear that out; the average age of an F1 fan is 32 years, younger than sports series like NFL and NBA. The Netflix Drive to Survive series is widely credited with this transformation, but is that the whole story? How should F1 speak to its young female fans? And are these new fans in for the long haul, or is there a risk that they will drift away?
For an event at Soho House in Austin we brought together four figures to debate this. Former F1 team principal Otmar Szafnauer, F1 broadcaster and face of Drive to Survive Will Buxton and female content creators Toni Cowan-Brown and Cristina Mace.
Szafnauer first spelled out the building blocks of the Liberty revolution that brought us where we are now: “Number one, putting the sport and the backstories on Netflix really, really helped. The sport has always been the same, but under the Bernie era was a well-kept secret. Netflix exposed the sport and what it's about to everybody. I think the other thing Liberty did, which was a stroke of genius was to introduce the cost cap, so that the wealthiest teams didn't have such a big advantage. And we can compete. That really helped and it will help in the future. There's a cost cap coming in 2026 for the powertrains as well, which should help get the field closer together. And the third thing is the money distribution is a bit more even.”
Source: Autosport