- The world’s leading motorsport has become a luxury brand as well as a sporting event.
- I attended the Qatar Grand Prix and learned about the growing appeal of Formula 1
In 2016 Formula 1, the most famous motorsport in the world, was a fading brand. Attendances and viewing figures were down, some races were seen as being predictable, the fan base was overwhelmingly male and older. It was 70 years old as an event, and somewhat under-represented outside the home base of Europe.
Since then, under the owner Liberty Media, the fortunes of the sport have been turned around to establish it as a global brand with a huge following and an upmarket cachet. It is a lesson in business strategy as much as sporting appeal.
I attended three days of the Qatar Grand Prix at the end of November, as a guest of the British racing team McLaren. The sport itself is ferociously competitive and the competition is between the manufacturers as well as the drivers. McLaren’s drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris finished second and fourth respectively, having earlier each had a chance of winning. I could feel the anguish of the team over a tactical error that let in Max Verstappen of the Red Bull team, who won the race. In the following and final race two weeks later in Abu Dhabi, however, Lando Norris finished third to confirm himself winner of the F1 title for 2025.
As with all modern sports, data analysis has turned much of the tactics into a science. Every detail of the drive, the driver, the track and the weather is captured on data – more than a terabyte of data per race. A team of 40 analysts, in a centre in the UK thousands of miles away, were monitoring the information, and giving feedback on guidance to inform the technicians at the pit stop.
Being a Formula 1 driver requires exceptional powers of concentration and physical ability. A fascinating detail I learned was that they are trained not to blink while going around a corner – this can lose you vital seconds. You can only blink on the straight sections.
It was in 2016 that Liberty Media took over the Formula One Group, which had been run by businessman Bernie Ecclestone for the previous four decades. The new owner realised that the sport had been under-selling itself. With little profile on social media it was struggling to attract the next generation. It wasn’t truly global, for example attracted just a niche audience in the US, where there are rival domestic motorsports such as Nascar and Indy 500.
Of pivotal influence has been the Netflix series Drive to Survive, which began in 2019. Showing the drama behind the scenes, the drivers became more recognisably human to a new generation of fans. Following this was the motion picture F1 The Movie, starring Brad Pitt. These initiatives, combined with new sponsors and slick social media activities, have boosted the fanbase, and attracted many younger people and female fans.
The statistics all point in the same direction: This year the fan base reached 826.5mn, up 90mn since 2023. The global TV audience for a race is well over 1bn. Growth in support in the US and in the Gulf states has been noticeable. Between 2007 and 2012 there wasn’t a single Grand Prix in the US. There are now three Grand Prix annually in the US, including the innovation of the night race in Las Vegas, and four in the Gulf – Bahrain, Saudia Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
For myself, it was fascinating to watch the astutely crafted architecture of a global sporting brand. No opportunity is missed to monetise an event, an item or an experience. The upmarket packages offer cuisine by Michelin-starred chefs, a chance to meet F1 legends, and members of an F1 team and learn about the science, the technology and the sport.
The tie-ups and spin-offs reveal ingenuity. There are partnerships with toy companies, for example. Mattel’s Hot Wheels brand is clearly a good match – while the range of initiatives co-created with the toy firm LEGO is delightful. Racing drivers have received LEGO models of trophies and even full-scale driveable replica LEGO F1 cars that they drove as part of a parade (thankfully not a race).
A sport that is heavily technological offers opportunities for manufacturers to showcase their innovations. The oil giant Shell, for example, is a long-established sponsor of the Ferrari team, currently worth around €40mn per season. The two firms promote each other’s products, and Shell has developed a specialist fuel for F1 cars, which has helped performance.
F1 has achieved the commercially lucrative dynamic of a luxury brand, in which the higher the price, the greater the demand. Attending a Grand Prix venue positions an individual as successful. Corporate packages for attending a luxurious few days as a guest of an F1 team or sponsor can cost more than $30,000.
This phenomenon is in keeping with a significant commercial trend towards paying a premium for experiences. Much of the activity in new forms of media are to encourage people to attend a live race.
Some people describe a memorable experience as being ‘priceless’. Astute business people have learned how to attach a price tag, and build a global brand.
The author is a Qatari banker, with many years of experience in the banking sector in senior positions.
