In 2023, The U.S. will host three Formula 1 grands prix: Austin, Miami, and Las Vegas. That’s the most in a single year for America and the most ever in a season for any country. Some believe F1 finally entered the American mainstream thanks to Netflix’s Drive to Survive, but the increased visibility started years earlier.
This story originally appeared in Volume 14 of Road & Track.
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Everything was stacked against American F1 fans 30 years ago. From the mid-Eighties to late Nineties, races weren’t always broadcast in real time. Unless you had connections like David Letterman, who would drive to ESPN’s Connecticut headquarters to watch F1 races live off the satellite feed, enthusiasts often had to settle for 20-minute highlight reels.
Speedvision did a great job building the U.S. audience in the Aughts. The cable network broadcast the entire season live, even if some races started at 2:30 a.m. in America. Enter NBC Sports in 2013, with funding for additional shoulder programming to support the series I was lucky to be a part of as a TV producer. Viewership increased, but broadcasters were still bound by old rules set by Bernie Ecclestone, F1’s longtime and controlling CEO. There were few places we were allowed to film. Garages? Not a chance. Trackside? F1-owned cameras controlled that. Want an elevated position? Banned. It was also somewhat comedic for us to be holding large cameras to shoot segments for TV, and sending social-media content from our phones could get our credentials revoked.
No wonder there was pent-up demand for something, anything, beyond race-weekend coverage. So there was a surge of interest when fresh content became available in the form of Asif Kapadia’s 2010 documentary Senna, about a driver who died almost two decades earlier.
Ayrton Senna’s funeral in 1994 drew one of the largest crowds in world history, with more than three million lining the streets of São Paulo for the cortege. Ecclestone got a lot wrong, but he understood mass appeal. The CEO loosened his control on F1 content and opened the archives for filmmakers to tell the story. Senna was an enlightening experience for casual viewers. It wasn’t just about racing; it was about those who gave their lives to F1.
The earliest viewings of the film in the States were private. One of the first was at the New York Times building in Manhattan. The crowd included F1 and Senna fans, but also media decision-makers and industry influencers. Senna highlighted potential F1 business opportunities in America. When Ecclestone’s grasp of the sport ultimately led to his exit, he left behind a product perfect for new leadership, a role filled by Colorado-based Liberty Media.
F1’s new American owners understood the need to modernize their commercial product. One of their first changes was to open the field to new content opportunities. Social media rules were loosened in 2018, and TV race viewership spiked. It also opened the door for Netflix. Drive to Survive may have hit a perfect storm, with its first season released during the COVID binge-watching gold rush, but Senna set the foundation. It was the realization that stories about the people, not just the racing, were the valued commodity.
