The future of Formula 1

F1: My personal experience

Since I was born in 2000 I was able to experience how Michael Schumacher, who is the most successful racing driver of all time, won the last four of his seven world championships.

Back then I didn’t understand the cars, the speed and it’s risks but I did enjoy sitting in front of the TV with my parents and watching the red Ferraris corner around Monaco or shoot over Silverstone’s straights at over 180 mph.

Even after 2004 we continued following the F1, this time with Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa.

But as time went by so did our passion for Formula 1; the rest of the world seemed to feel the same way. From 2013 up until this season I hadn’t watched a single race because I only ever heard about first Red Bull and then Mercedes winning consecutive championships.

F1 itself, however, never lost it’s attractivity and I was waiting for something to pull me back in.

Formula 1: Drive To Survive

At the start of 2019 Netflix very silently released “Formula 1: Drive To Survive“, a series about the F1 season 2018.

I went into it expecting nothing but what I got was a high quality, exclusive, up-close and exciting documentation which grabbed ahold of me and, finally, pulled me back in. Just as in “The Godfather 3“!

The 2018 season itself wasn’t very exciting on TV with Hamilton beating Vettel by a mile and Mercedes dominating.

Netflix, however, managed to showcase the interesting characters of the drivers, awakening a desire in me to follow the next season more closely.

Will Daniel Ricciardo, the brave Australian with the big smile, regret his move from Red Bull to Renault?

Can Charles Leclerc perform at Ferrari?

How many Grand Prixs will Max Verstappen win and how man crashes is Romain Grosjean gonna cause?

F1 season 2019

Saying that three out of the nine races so far were worth watching would be an overstatement.

Regardless, I watched every single one, including Qualifying, and I will continue to do so.

What I saw on TV definitely didn’t make want to keep going, but I was persuaded by the F1’s incredibly attractive and professional social media presence.

The social media presence of F1

Race occurrences are online on Instagram and co in real time with professional graphics, adding another dimension to the experience of F1 for the viewer to discuss with other fans while the race is still going on.

A sophisticated interview-system allows the Formula 1 to present a highly exclusive format called “Paddock Pass“, which is already uploaded to Youtube one or two hours after the race or qualifying. Another factor making this possible is the highly charismatic host Will Buxton who never needs more than one take.

The official F1 channel also offers highlights, analysis, vintage recaps of the best races ever and much more.

Yet another dimension is added to the experience of F1 by WTF1, an organically grown platform by racing fans for racing fans. WTF1 (which apparently stands for “Who’s the fastest one?“ and not what you thought“) offers a subjective view on F1, creating a culture with many insiders that can sweeten a boring race. The likeable host Matthew Gallagher makes WTF1 even more authentic.

Every brand should be dreaming about a partner-platform like WTF1 which has the ability to improve one’s trust in the brand and furthermore offers free content.

The future of Formula 1

At first glimpse the Formula 1 seems a bit outdated with it’s air-polluting trips around the world and fossil-fuels. The images of drivers dying on track and boring races don’t add to F1’s attractivity.

But the Formula 1 stopped being the event with loud V12 engines and drivers burning alive on track a long time ago.

Instead the cars are run by 1.6 litre 6-Cylinders, sometimes even using hybrid-turbos. The drivers are protected by a carbon-fiber monocoque, the front of the car explodes into a million pieces in case of a serious impact to reduce the car’s speed. The F1 has also learned from it’s mistakes and the last two deaths of drivers ( Senna 1994 and Bianchi 2015) were followed by serious improvements of safety-regulations like the Halo in 2018.

F1 is safer than ever before.

This is why it becomes obvious that over-the-top rules making exciting races impossible have become outdated; drivers are slowly evolving into footballers screaming for the ref ( the FIA stewarts) at the slightest bit of contact via team radio.

Improved safety could lead to more exciting racing in the future due to risk-reduction.

Some societal trends are surely scaring F1 organizers and investors.

Loud cars are generally detested more and more; the car of the future seems to be quiet and, most importantly, electric. Even autonomous driving is visibly coming closer and closer to taking over the roads of the world with semi-autonomous systems installed in many new cars already.

To many people, however, driving is much more than. Simple mean of transport: it’s a passion.

The passion for speed and loud engines will never be lost, even if one day we won’t need a steering wheel anymore to commute into the city.

Racing fans will keep on living their passion by going karting, using AR-Simulators or by what they watch on sunday.

The Formula 1 must stay the racing event on a sunday but in order to be able to do so it has to be true to itself. There are some ground principles to the brand of F1 that must never be broken: