F1 fans and their origins - the ultimate survey aka where do you come from and why do you cry after that particular blorbo every other weekend Hello. My name is Maïna and I happen to be a stats nerd sometimes in my spare time. I fully emerged myself in the F1 community over the last year and I wanted to know about all of you fellow fans, where do you live, how did you get here, why did you stay, how did that influence your choices. Introduction Does every new fan comes from DTS? Do people go for their fellow countrymen? Are winners more likely to be few words to start followed first? We are about to find that out. This survey was conducted via google form from the 7th of January to the 27th of January 2023. The answers were mainly collected on Tumblr and Discord. The results are being posted on the 1st of March 2023. Note : English isn’t my first language and we use commas instead of dots for our numbers. That’s why you will find commas in the graphics. Otherwise, I tried my best to be consistent. Any mistake remaining is my own. I am not a professional in Data or a journalist or anything remotely close to someone whose job could be doing this and while this is mostly an objective piece (duh, it’s numbers), I do give my opinion every now and then. 2 Thank you Note Alright, I know this is not a thesis (might as well feel like one, I will submit this in my application files when I finally get into Data Analytics) (this is a joke, for the most part) but anyway, I still wanted to do a thank you note so here we are. I am grateful for every person who took the time to answer to the survey (and spread the word through reblogs/retweets), couldn’t have produced this without you. Thank you to the Discord friends (I’m sure you will recognize yourselves) who I’ve shared some pages with along the way and who hyped me up and discussed the numbers with me, which occasionally prompted me to add to the next and look into making more graphics. That was very useful, as much for the final result of this as for my motivation to actually go through with the whole thing. I spent a certain amount of hours working on redacting the results (putting this whole thing together) and I will appreciate a lot every single reblog (post here) but also every comment you may have on this. I would love to discuss those results furthermore or even look at more numbers if you have ideas. NB : In case anyone was wondering, I did this on Google Slides and I think that, with how much I used the following sites, this thing could be sponsored by Pinterest, FlatIcon and the datawrapper app. 3 I. About people who answered the survey 5 Table of II. Geography 10 III. Getting into F1 14 Contents IV. The Favorites 25 V. F1 & Media 36 VI. Motorsports 39 the program VII. Miscellaneous 42 4 I. About people who answered the survey who are they Gender Non-Binary Prefer not Female Male Spectrum to say 77.7% 4.1% 16.6% 1.6% Age Average of 24.4 years old As evidenced by Figure n°1, half of the people surveyed falls into the 18-24 category age. Another quarter is in their late twenties. Figure n°1 : Age of people surveyed - Repartition by Categories (%) Figure n°2 : Age of people surveyed - Repartition by Age (Number of People) 6 where do they come from 53 countries represented Map n°1 : Number of people who answered the survey per country USA (65 - 20.7%) France (12 - 3.8%) UK (56 - 17.8%) Ireland (11 - 3.5%) Netherlands (18 - 5.7%) Italy (9 - 2.9%) Germany (16 - 5.1%) Canada (8 - 2.5%) Australia (13 - 4.1%) Brazil (8 - 2.5%) 7 repartition by continent Figure n°3 : Continent of origin - Numbers of Figure n°4 : Continent of origin - Relative % answers per continent I do believe (and as you will see in the following sections, the data supports it) that the geographical origin** of someone will be of influence towards their experience of F1. In order to make proper comparaison, I needed to create proper groups to be compared. I settled for three of them and here is my reasoning for each of them : - Europe : crib of F1, place where a majority of the GPs happen (and where a majority of the drivers come from). Bigger exposure to F1, for a longer time. Easier access to the sport. - Americas (North America + Central & South America) : In some super preliminary study of the results, I left North America on its own because, you know (or, to be more professional : cultural differences, not having stars the way Brazil & Argentina did for example, etc) but in the end I put everyone together because they do share the same time zones and the fact that there is one GP per country but the countries are immense (and I didn’t want to complicate it too much). - Asia - Oceania : Pretty much the same reasoning as for the Americas, but in a new time zones area. While Americas has to get up early for Euro GPs, this is the getting action at night gang. Also a couple of GPs but not many of them. I received 5 answers (1.6%) were people said Africa for their continent of origin. In terms of timezones, they’re close to Europe, but the access to F1 is not the same at all (among other things, the last race in Africa (Kyalami, South Africa) was 30 years ago (1993)). For these reasons, I didn’t include those answers with another group or create a new one to look into. These answers are of course taken into account in the general stats. I’m sure there were other ways, probably better ways even, to deal with this but this will be what we will be rocking with. **I’m conscious that both the ideas of country/continent “of origin” is not perfectly ideal. Perhaps we need a new wording or instead ask people where do they live (but then you lose that connection with what was available to you/in your environment when you were a kid). Another thing I’ll try to work on for potential future works. 8 have they ever assisted to a GP Map n°2 : Location of circuits which have been used for an F1 race at least once during the 2018-2022 seasons Globally, about one in four person surveyed has attended a GP. We’re closer to one in five for the Americas and one in three for Asia - Oceania. I will admit that those are not necessarily the results I expected. As evidenced by Map n°2, the offers/possibility to access a GP are much higher in Europe (in terms of numbers and overall proximity). Of course other factors come into play. Having a GP close to you doesn’t mean that you have the money to attend it or manage to obtain tickets for the event. Figure n°5 : Comparison of the % of people who attended a GP by group In the next part, we’ll take a closer look at the difference between countries. 9 II. Geography attending GPs Is there an F1 circuit in your country** ? yes for 76.1% of people **where there has been at least one GP in the last 5 years surveyed yes for 20.4% If your country hosts a GP, have you ever been ? of people surveyed % of people % of people who size of the country who went to went to a GP sample their home GP (home or not) everyone 314 20,4 24,2 For the comparison by countries, I only looked at United States of 65 15,4 21,8 the most well represented America because as you can see, the United Kingdom 56 28,6 32 size of the samples go down Netherlands 18 22,2 27,8 quite rapidly. Germany 16 12,5 28,6 Australia 13 46,2 46,2 3 out of 4 people (75.4%) Table n°1 : % of people attending their home GP or just a GP - who went to see at least one Comparison by countries GP, attended their home GP. This % stays relatively similar no matter the geographical group. % of people % of people who size of the country who went to went to a GP sample their home GP (home or not) 12% of people who don’t everyone 239 20,4 28,2 have a home GP attended Europe 133 21 28 at least one GP. Americas 84 15,7 23,8 Asia - Oceania 22 34,3 45,5 Table n°2 : % of people attending their home GP or just a GP - Only considering people who have a used circuit in their country - Comparison by zones 11 supporting the team(s) associated to one’s country yes for 52.0% of Is there a team associated to your country ? people surveyed If there is a team associated to your country, do you support yes for 33.5% of them ? people surveyed % of people following number of country people teams associated one of the teams Red Bull associated Austria 3 Red Bull 33,3 Alpine France 12 Alpine 50 Germany 14 Mercedes 35,7 Mercedes Alfa Romeo, AlphaTauri, AR, AT, Ferrari Italy 9 77,8 Ferrari United Aston Martin, McLaren, AM, McLaren, Williams 56 48,2 Kingdom Williams United States Haas 61 Haas 9,8 of America Table n°3 : % of people supporting a team associated to their country - Comparison by countries (Numbers) I think Red Bull’s case may have caused a few misunderstandings considering the amount of UK people who said “Yes” at supporting a “home” team and had RB as their favorite. Red Bull Racing is a British company that races under an Austrian license so I fully understand where people were coming from. I also had a lot of UK people answering Yes having Mercedes as their favorite team, which I suppose might be because their factory is based in the UK. Every Italian who said Yes was a Ferrari fan. For the UK, the order for favorite team now is : Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren, Williams/Aston Martin. Shootout to Haas, who does not seem to have won over Figure n°6 : % of people supporting a team associated Americans’ heart just yet. to their country - Comparison by countries 12 supporting drivers from one’s country Map n°3 : Countries represented in the 2023 grid Is you country represented by one or several drivers?** yes for 64.6% of **In the survey, I indicated to people that they could answer Yes if they a driver from their country on the grid back when people surveyed they started watching the sport. Several Drivers - Hi, this is the part where I tell you One or More Yes I support all of how I shot myself in the foot with the Drivers - No I don’t them setting up of that question. I will let support them you do whatever you want with the results. The impact of successful athletes on the interest of people in a sport has been studied before and I just One Driver - Yes I wanted to take a look here. support him Only 28.1% don’t support any of Several Drivers - I their fellow countrymen. Are the only support other 77.9% supporting their one/some of them favorite(s) out of patriotism or by pure coïncidence, I won’t be able to Figure n°7 : % of people supporting drivers from their countries tell right there. 13 III. Getting into F1 when As further evidenced by Figure n°8 at the bottom of this page, a big part of the people who answered the survey started watching F1 recently. Over a quarter did so last season (27.5%) and about half the people surveyed got into the sport over the last two years (48.8%). We also have to keep in mind that 58.8% of people surveyed are 24 years old or under, which limit the possibilities of answers for the earlier years. Figure n°8 : Season when people got into F1 Figure n°9 : Season when people got into F1 - Comparison by geographical groups Asia - everyone Europe Americas 31% of Europeans surveyed got into Oceania F1 before 2009 against only 10.8% of Will Start in Americans and 12.5% of people from 0,6 0,6 0 2,7 2023 Asia & Oceania. That’s 1 in 3 people 2022 27,5 19,5 38,7 32,4 against 1 in 9 and 1 in 8. 2021 20,7 20,7 20,4 21,6 2020 8,7 6,3 15,1 5,4 This has a consequence on the other 2019 3,6 4 3,2 2,7 side of the scale : 74.2% of Americans started watching F1 in the last 3 2015-2018 7,4 8,6 6,5 5,4 seasons, against only 40.8% of 2010-2014 8,7 9,2 5,4 16,2 Europeans. The number goes up to 2000-2009 16,8 21,8 9,7 10,8 81.5% if we only look at people from Before 1999 5,8 9,2 1,1 2,7 the USA. Table n°4 : Season when people got into F1 - Comparison by geographical groups (numbers) 15 at which age Figure n°10 : Age at which people got into F1 To analyse this results, we have to keep in mind that 58.8% of people surveyed were under 24 years old and 86.3% under 30. On average, Europeans get into F1 much earlier, 42.6% before 15 against 17% for Americans and 24.3% for the Asia-Oceania group. Overall, half of the people surveyed (50.7%) got into F1 between the age of 16 and 25. 78.4% of people who got into F1 before Figure n°11 : Age at which people got into F1 - Comparison by they were 15 started thanks to their geographical group family. average age everyone Europe Americas Asia - Oceania 0-10 20,8 28,4 9,6 13,5 everyone 18,02 11-15 11,5 14,2 7,4 10,8 Europe 15,76 16-20 29,5 29 21,3 45,9 21-25 21,2 17,6 28,7 21,6 Americas 22,21 26-30 10,9 9,7 18,1 0 Asia - Oceania 18,62 31-40 5,8 1,1 13,8 8,1 41 and over 0,3 0 1,1 0 Table n°5 : Average Age at which people got into F1 - Comparison by Table n°6 : Age at which people got into F1 - Comparison by geographical group 16 geographical group (Numbers) main reason people got into F1 Family (39.8%) Friends (17.8%) A majority of people surveyed started This category can work in combination with watching F1 thanks to family members others (DTS, social media) but I think it’s a (often their dads, sometimes also siblings). good spot here anyway. Whether people On average, they start watching F1 at a got hooked by a PPT or by being forced to much earlier age (12.5) than people who watch a race, it all worked in the end. answered something else (21.7). Drive to Survive (15%) Social Media (11.7%) Two fun facts for you : - 2 in 3 person surveyed watches A non-exhaustive list : Twitch (especially DTS. during lockdown), Youtube videos of the - 25.5% of people who got into F1 drivers, tiktok edits, posts on Tumblr from thanks to DTS have Daniel other fandoms’ mutuals. Thank you beauty Ricciardo as their first driver of the Internet. followed. Prior interest in another Other Reason (9.2%) motorsport (2.9%) For everything not in the offered list in the Seems like the jump is more easily made survey. Rush (the movie) was mentioned from F1 to others but people did mention several times, as was Top Gear. Also first starting with Formula E, Top Gear, general curiosity after hearing about a cars in general. certain driver all around, finding an F1 race on TV randomly. RPF (2.9%) Books (0.6%) Most popular 1st pairing is Maxiel (40%), Only 2 people chose that option. One was then Lestappen (25%), then it’s a mix. fiction (Throttled), the other F1 books. 17 A look into the differences between groups EUROPE AMERICAS Family (26.3%) Family (48.6%) Friends (23.2%) Friends (15.8%) Social Media (11.3%) Drive to Survive (22.1%) ASIA - OCEANIA EVERYONE Family (35.1%) Family (39.8%) Friends (18.2%) Friends (17.8%) Drive to Survive (16.2%) Drive to Survive (15%) 18 Figure n°12 : Main reason people got into F1 - Comparison by Categories Figure n°13 : Main reason people got into F1 - Comparison by Groups Family remains the main reason for people getting into F1, no matter where they come from but it’s much predominant in Europe than in the Americas (with Asia - Oceania falling in the middle). Considering most people who answered Family started watching it with their parents/grand-parents, this highlights the difference between generations and how F1 wasn’t as popular/so accessible outside of Europe before. One in six person surveyed started watching F1 thanks to Drive to Survive. In the opposite way to the Family category, the % goes higher for Americas, it’s more than halved for Europe and then Asia - Oceania is in the middle. 19 year people got into F1 everyone Before 2000 2000-2009 2010-2013 2014-2018 2019-2020 2021-2023 number of answers 314 18 52 22 28 39 155 Family 39,8 88,9 82,7 59,1 50 38,2 16,9 Friends 17,8 0 1,9 9,1 17,9 17,6 26,1 DTS 15 - - - 3,6 26,5 24,6 Social Media 11,7 0 3,8 4,5 14,3 5,9 15,5 Others 9,2 5,6 9,6 22,7 3,6 8,8 8,5 Prior interest to another 2,9 5,6 0 4,5 10,7 2,9 1,4 motorsport RPF 2,9 0 0 0 0 0 5,6 Books 0,6 0 0 0 0 0 1,4 Table n°7 : Main reason people got into F1 - Comparison by year people got into F1 (numbers) Figure n°14 : Main reason people got into F1 - Comparison by year people got into F1 As we can see above in Table n°7, the main reason people got into F1 has evolved with the years. Meanwhile Family was a huge factor for most people in the past, we can see the % drops down with time (nearly 90% for people who got into F1 before 2000, down to 50% in 2014-2018 and only 16.9% in the two most recent years) in favor of other reasons. Friends and Social Media have been much more at play with creating more fans of the sport. The part of friends has been over 17% since 2014 meanwhile social media was responsible for arrival of 15.5% of new fans the last two years. Lastly, Drive to Survive has obviously come to play a huge part in developing the sport across the World. The show came out in March of 2019 but I’m going to assume people chose 2018 as the first season they got interested in F1 because that’s the first season that DTS covers. Since the show came out, about 1 in 4 new fans come from the Netflix show. 20 getting into F1 : with family “My dad always put f1 on during my nap “In Hungary you can watch it for free basically so a lot time, so I started watching it since I was of people watch it. In my case, my dad and 3 out of 4 born. He wasn't home during the first grandparents are fans so I really didn't have any years of my life during the week because options, kinda had to watch it but around 2012 I of work, so it was the few moments we started following more actively. Started as a Vettel fan spend together” just because my dad supported Alonso and my grandma supported Hamilton and I found it funny but it sticked.” “my dad said let’s watch this race (Zandvoort 2021) and i was like okay and i fell in love” “I’m Irish, I think every Irish “my mom is a huge fan and I started household with a “Went to go ask my brother a passing interest was watching with her” question, got sucked in watching. A a Jordan fan! My few weeks later, he barged into my parents had grands prix on on Sundays room “YOU HAVE TO WATCH! Max and I’d watch with and Lewis crashed, and Max’s car is “i was born like an hour before the them” on top of Lewis!” (Did I know who australian gp in ‘01 the first thing my these men were? No. Did I want mom did when she was done was clarification? Yes.)” turn on the tv to watch the race ” getting into F1 : with friends “a friend started watching at the start of the 2021 season “I'm from Perth so I followed Daniel and always after watching drive to survive and she gave us a wanted him to do well (Aussies are very patriotic powerpoint presentation of the basic of the sport and why when it comes to our athletes), but I didn't start she enjoyed watching and following it, i love when she talks following F1 properly until 2021 when my friends to us about one of her interest but didn't start watching until i dragged me to watch a race at a sports bar one saw drive to survive with her and kept watching alone and time” then it was september 2021 and my first live race watching was spa ! and believe it or not i was hooked. i'm also on tumblr since more than 10 years and the fandom seemed “Partner was into it for a while, made me watch fun and i read a bunch of fic before watching my first race.” DTS first (was alright, I guess) and then I had to commentate a race for him while knowing “A friend did a fuck-all about it. Did make me appreciate the PowerPoint, strategy elements, which piqued my interest.” “My best friend has watched F1 for a long told me to time and back in 2010 she mentioned I watch DTS to should watch it because she thinks I'd know more really like this one driver called Sebastian and then “My girlfriend watched DTS during COVID made me and then spent a year trying to convince Vettel...she was not wrong” watch a race.” me I would love it... Turns out I love it.” “they forced me to watch quali with them “wanted to impress a crush ahah” and afterwards i was HOOKED” 21 getting into F1 : with drive to survive “Newspaper wrote article saying “after watching “After Abu Dhabi 21 lots of friends at work etc. DTS, you’ll know the name of «she from spice we're talking about f1. A few people online were girls’s» husband”. I was back in my spice girls in the fandom and I knew they watched DTS. I era. Then the documentary “girl power” came, decided to watch it and DTS was what got me and I wanted to learn about “«she from spice into f1 and made me start watching races, but I girls’s» husband”” wouldn't have done this if I wasn't aware of the sport first.” “Doctor Mike on youtube made a video “the netflix “My dad used to watch f1 all the talking about car race crashes and algorithm got me” time and my then-partner was mentioned drive to survive s4, so I really interested in anything decided to check it out and now my life racing. I guess, DtS was the will never be the same.” push I needed to understand “Daniel hot” why they liked it so much” “It's a mix, I grew up watching V8 “my brother was watching dts on the background while he was writing his Supercars so F1 was always in my thesis paper and my severely depressed ass miraculously got out of bed peripherals but DTS peaked my and i watched a bit and saw lewis hamilton—i recognized him—sat a bit interest more.” and got hooked and here we are” getting into F1 : with social media “i had been watching a lot of illegal drag racing videos “I started getting videos (funny moments, on youtube, the algorithm showed me more racing compilations, edits, etc) on my TikTok fyp, and I stuff, including some of danny ric's interviews with discovered that the drivers are really nice and wired and gq or whatever. i thought his personality was funny people. So then I decided to watch an great so i decided to get into f1, but as soon as i found actual race and I fell in love with the whole out lewis hamilton existed i've been supporting him sport.” exclusively ever since.” “ESPN and other sports networks in “First watched Lando’s GQ essentials video, the us were really advertising the then segued from there into Drive To Survive” Miami race and I was also in a discord “People server with people who would talk thirsting over about f1 so I was like, this is a sign to drivers watch (lol) and so I watched the Miami during the Australian “Tiktoks of the twitch quartet kept race and became obsessed” Grand Prix ” appearing on my fyp and i was sucked in” “I follow a lot of football fans on Twitter, and a lot of them are also F1 fans who tweet about it “Saw a video of Max confronting Esteban after the a lot. Especially during AD21 and its build up” 2018 Brazilian GP on twitter and it got me intrigued.” 22 getting into F1 : from interest in another motorsport “My older brother brought me to formula e nyc in 2017 (shoutout to sam bird for winning that race “I was a huge fan of Top Gear and in 2015 it got on Saturday, bc now he's my #1), and later that taken off air and I wanted to watch something year I started getting into f1 cause I'm like. with cars and saw f1 was on and remembered Welp, this is what everyone else watches on Jenson Button was on Top Gear and decided to tumblr, so might as well” give it a go. I caught the end of quali and the next day watched the race on BBC 1.“ “Wanted to watch WRC but couldn't find “I’ve had an obsession w cars since i was 6 and then i kinda a streaming service that wasn't super stumbled across f1” expensive and showed the races” getting into F1 : for various reasons “Stupid story.. twas my grand dads birthday, didnt feel like celebrating, “From the same town as one of the new drivers - hometown monaco gp 2022 was on, acted like i support.” was really interested, fucked myself that day because i was apparently really interested.. “ “Started to sporadically hatewatch it (initially) to spite my ex, a big f1 fan, to "prove him" that i “I got into F1 because I saw that Sebastian Vettel wore could enjoy it too. Eventually, the spite became that Same Love shirt at the 2021 Hungarian GP, and I enjoyment.” heard him say that he didn't care if they disqualified him for it - he'd do it again. I became an instant fan of Seb, and because of him became passionate about “I decided I wanted to get into a sport and chose F1.” it at random. Picked a driver to follow based off a roster and knew nothing about him (it was Lewis lmfao by total chance. I was shocked when he started winning everything).” “tbh it was cause i saw a yukierre tiktok and I was like "oh f1? wonder if “Rush there's fanfic about that" and then I (2013)” “i wrote george harrison fanfic and i started saw how good it was and needed to looking at f1 because he liked f1 and i wanted see what it was made out of.” to write an AU where he was an f1 driver” “watched Malaysia 2015, saw red car, saw how Sebastian Vettel “I read an article and wanted to find out cried on podium and immediately fell in love” more about it— and then got hooked” 23 what F1 is doing right to engage their fans social media (Youtube, grill the grid challenges drive to survive Twitter, Tiktok) driver content F1TV highlights behind the scenes secret santa content pre-show bringing back the cool podcasts down room feed teammates challenges interviews use of memes what they need to fix sprints were mentioned in both categories (DTS too but more often in the good things) sticking to the rules their stance on and clarity on how political statements they apply them cost of tickets, accessibility of GPs toxicity racism social media abuse sexism homophobia the assignation and the FIA choice of circuits the lack of diversity and catering to minorities corruption do more for women in motorsports prioritize fans and the Cash is King the sport over mentality marketing/TV media bias the calendar TV rights, the the number of races safety (of fans & Sky deal drivers) 24 IV. The Favorites favorite teams Figure n°15 : History of the current F1 teams on the grid Before introducing the results, I wanted to put a small reminder of how F1 teams have evolved through the course of the last 4 decades. I could have listed every single team separately (ie. have options for Brawn, Minardo, Renault, etc…) but to make my life easier and because I thought it was okay to assume people stayed when the team changed names, I only kept 10 options for the first team followed question. For an easier reading of the graphics, only the name of the current teams has been conserved. For information, as an F1 team : - Ferrari goes back to 1950 - McLaren goes back to 1966 - Williams goes back to 1977 26 I took a look at the evolution of people’s first followed team depending on when they started getting into F1. The results are presented by periods in Figure n°16 and Figure n°17. The exact numbers are given in the following pages along with different ways to analyse the data. Figure n°16 : First Team Followed - Evolution of each team per period (when people got into F1) 27 Figure n°17 : First Team Followed - Comparison of teams by periods (when people got into F1) 28 Table n°8 : First Team Followed - Comparison of teams by periods (when people got into F1) - All Numbers A couple of observations for each period : - Before 2000 : Williams much more popular than now, getting much better results too (9 WCC between 1980 and 1997), Ferrari a strong team (9 WCC between 1961 and 1999, 9 WC between 1952 and 1979), McLaren doing well too (8 WCC between 1974 & 1998, 11 WC between 1974 and 1999). - 2000-2009 : the “Michael Schumacher gets 5 titles in a row and then everyone gets a title Era”. Ferrari on top (6 WC and 7 WCC), McLaren only has one title with Lewis Hamilton in 2008, Renault gets 2 WC and 2 WCC thanks to Alonso (2005 & 2006), and then Brawn (future Mercedes) with also the WC and WCC in 2009 thanks to Jenson Button. - 2010-2013 : Red Bull domination Era. Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel getting 4 WC and WCC in a row. Sample is on the smaller side but it’s undeniable that this era created a big number of RB and Sebastian Vettel fans. We note the decline of Ferrari who wasn’t doing so hot anymore (sorry Fernando, finishing 3 times 2nd in the Championship over that period). - 2014-2019 : Mercedes domination Era. The only reason 2020 is not included there is because I had big enough of a sample to treat 2020 alone. Over those 6 years, they get all WCC and WC (all to Lewis but 2016 for Nico Rosberg). Mercedes is an interesting case because their % of fans relative to other teams doesn’t change much over the years. Do I have an explanation for that? No, I do not. Ferrari numbers haven’t moved much, McLaren is doing okay. The Red Bull % has been halved but they’re still the first team followed by most people surveyed. An explanation for that? No. - 2020 : pandemic year. The last year of the Merc domination era. McLaren taking the first sport for the first time. Personally, I’ll mostly pin that on Lando Norris, whether it is the Twitch content he published during the pandemic, his personality in the McLaren vlogs or literally every interaction he has with Carlos Sainz. That said, I believe that both Lando and Carlos have been huge for McLaren in recent years, along with the “family aspect” that the team have tried to put forwards with their social media content. As a result, other teams numbers have to go down, that’s the case for both Red Bull and Ferrari. I would need a further study/more numbers to solidify the point but I do also believe that Daniel Ricciardo leaving RB hurt them on a PR point of a view. - 2021 : the year of the great Lewis Hamilton/Max Verstappen battle. Made more people get an interest in Red Bull. McLaren goes down after their good year in 2020 while Aston Martin has a peak that could be attributed to Sebastian Vettel’s arrival within the team (out of the 6 answers, 4 people have Seb as their first driver followed, one Sergio Perez, one Lance Stroll). - 2022 : Ferrari gives us hope before fucking up, Red Bull dominates year. Huge boom by Ferrari. Charles Leclerc’s popularity has skyrocketed, partly thanks to his good results at the beginning of the season but also by people being endeared by their personality. Ferrari has upped its PR game (thirst traps hello) and both drivers (Charles finished 2nd in the Championship, Carlos 5th) had a great year. I haven’t talked a lot about smaller teams because the data received for them is not significant enough (considering the numbers of people who answered) to have conclusions worth something. 29 Figure n°18 : Comparison between first team followed and favorite team now Without any real surprise; Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull are first whether it is as first team followed or favorite team now. The one team who lost a lot of fans after first grabbing their attention is McLaren, more than halving their part (going from 19.2% of fans to only 7.4%). These numbers comfort the ones gathered by the formula1 subreddit in their 2022 census. I won’t put my 2 cents on the matter here because I believe other creators have already done it perfectly (@ Zak Brown & McLaren organization : you know what you’ve done). Table n°9 : First Team Followed vs Current Favourite Team - A look into the numbers The results presented in Table n°9 highlights further point out McLaren’s issues with keeping their fans. Meanwhile globally, 46.9% (about one in two) of fans stay with their first team, the number even going up around 65% for both Ferrari and Mercedes, McLaren only keeps 12.5% of their fans. Something interesting to note is the fact that only 31.8% of their current fans started with McLaren as their first followed team, meaning that 68.2% of people come from another team. 30 favorite drivers First Driver Followed Daniel Ricciardo (15.4%) Michael Schumacher (6.9%) Sebastian Vettel (15.0%) Lando Norris (6.2%) Lewis Hamilton (12.4%) Kimi Räikkönen (4.2%) Charles Leclerc (11.8%) Jenson Button (2.9%) Max Verstappen (10.5%) Fernando Alonso (2.6%) people who started people who started watching F1 before 2014 watching F1 after 2014 Sebastian Vettel (29.1%) Daniel Ricciardo (20.5%) Michael Schumacher (18.6%) Charles Leclerc (16.4%) Lewis Hamilton (14.0%) Max Verstappen (14.5%) Kimi Räikkonën (10.5%) Lewis Hamilton (11.8%) 31 Favorite Drivers going into the 2023 season (by votes) Charles Leclerc (173) George Russell (79) Lewis Hamilton (131) Yuki Tsunoda (65) Max Verstappen (107) Carlos Sainz (61) Alex Albon (105) Pierre Gasly (59) Lando Norris (79) Valtteri Bottas (55) note : every person surveyed could vote for as many drivers as they wanted People surveyed consider The reason why I wanted to ask the question on themselves… the left is the comments I’ve seen, not only in F1, about people who believe you should only support one team and stick to it no matter the Team-based (3.5%) drivers in it. I believe this is more of a consideration of the past and that generations now are different. Driver-based (53.2%) Evidenced here by the presence of drivers like Alex Albon, Yuki Tsunoda or Pierre Gasly, when neither Williams, AlphaTauri or Alpine are among Both (43.3%) the most favored teams. 32 favorite races Silverstone 2008, 2018, 2020, 2022 Nürburg 2007 Spa 2019 Spielberg 2019, 2020, 2022 Hockenheim 2019 Budapest 1997, 1998, 2021, 2022 Monza 2008, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 Imola 2021 Monaco 1996, Mugello 2020 2018, 2021 Barcelona 2016, 2019 Map n°4 : Favorite Race - Europe Istanbul 2020 Sakhir 2022 Jeddah 2022 Qatar 2021 Abu Dhabi 2010, 2016, 2017, 2021 Map n°5 : Favorite Race - Middle East 33 Montreal 2011 COTA 2021, 2022 Interlagos 2008, 2012, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2022 Mexico 2022 Map n°6 : Favorite Race - Americas Suzuka 2005 Buddh 2013 Shangai 2011, 2018 Sepang 2015 Singapore 2013 Map n°7 : Favorite Race - East Asia Some categories that we can identify for favorite races : - A lot of 2021 and 2022 races, which was to be expected considering half of the people surveyed started watching F1 during those years, - Title-clinching races (AD 2010, India 2013, AD 2016, AD 2021), - First wins (Spa 2019, Monza 2020, Budapest 2021, Barcelona 2016, Silverstone 2022, Brazil 2022…), - Comebacks (Brazil 2019, Brazil 2021, Canada 2011…), - Races with huge battles and impressive drives. 34 favorite circuit Sao Paolo (22.9%) Singapore (5.9%) Spa-Francorchamps (19.8%) Austin (3.1%) Budapest (1.7%) Monza (9.4%) Sepang, Nürburg, Zandvoort, Monaco (6.9%) Jeddah, Spielberg (1.4%) Montreal, Mexico CIty, Suzuka, Baku (6.3%) Hockenheim (1.0%) note : the results are not fully correct because I somehow managed to not include Silverstone in the list (my apologies). I did a poll on tumblr with the 9 most mentioned circuits here + Silverstone and after favorite f1 season 175 votes, Silverstone was 4th (11%) behind Interlagos (27%), Monza (19%) and Spa (18%). people who started everyone watching F1 before 2020 2021 (19.2%) 2012 (17.9%) 2022 (18.8%) 2021 (13.0%) 2012 (13.7%) 2022 (9.8%) 2020 (8.6%) 2010 (8.1%) 2010 (7.5%) 2020 (7.3%) 35 V. F1 & Media who is doing well and what do fans want The things that came up the most in terms of appreciated content were the BTS/weekly vlogs videos and the teammates challenges. The efforts of teams on social media like TikTok and Twitter have also been noticed. People aren’t really impressed with AR & Alpine. McLaren’s videos are very popular, though. Figure n°19 : Teams with the best media content TikToks (edits and interactions with fans, unboxed videos, head-to-head ability to be on top of trends), amazing drivers challenges pictures, insider videos, inclusion of their reserve drivers in their content C2 challenges, TikToks, thirst exhibition videos (where they do traps, admins’ interactions with things with the car), behind the fans charge videos all access videos, podcasts, track use of memes, Twitter posts maps, garage playlists, Twitter posts weekend vlogs and how they TikToks and the humor in them name everyone on screen Overall, list of things that people want more off, for all teams : - see a day in the life of an engineer/people explaining data - show drivers outside of the track more and have them loosening up - have better merch - work with more content creators - do more videos with other categories (F2/F3, MotoGP...) - see the drivers together more - engage more with the fans 37 drive to survive Figure n°20 : % of people watching DTS - Figure n°21 : % of people watching DTS - Comparison by continent of origin Comparison by age group Figure n°22 : % of people watching DTS - Figure n°23 : % of people watching DTS - Comparison between people getting into F1 before Comparison between people who got into F1 DTS came out and after through DTS and others first driver followed - people who got into F1 thanks to DTS Overall, about two thirds (66.9%) of people surveyed watch DTS. Americans have a slightly higher % than the rest of the World but not by much. Age wise, over 31 and under 18 were our 1. Daniel Ricciardo (25.5%) smaller samples but on average, we have more 2. Max Verstappen (12.8%) “older” people watching the show than teenagers. 3. Charles Leclerc & Lando Norris People getting into F1 after DTS aired watch DTS (10.6%) more, which was to be expected. Also, people 4. Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton & who got into the sport thanks to the series seems George Russell (6.4%) to be sticking to it (89.4% of them said they were still watching it). 38 VI. Motorsports only watching F1 or not Only Formula 1 Formula 1 and others 45.5% 54.5% watching promoting series Only Formula 2 Formula 2 & Formula 3 Neither 17.5% 22.9% 59.6% watching other series It is worth noting that both Formula E and IndyCar have quite the number of ex F1 drivers among their ranks. Out of 7 different FE Championship winners, 6 have driven in F1. 5 former F1 drivers participated in the 2022 Indy500 and the race was won by Marcus Ericsson (who drove in F1 from 2014 to 2018). Figure n°24 : Series watched by the people surveyed (number of votes) note : every person surveyed could vote for as many series as they wanted 40
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