The Real Birth of Formula One?

In the age of electric vehicles and sustainability targets, Formula One—a sport dominated by male protagonists flying around the world and driving in circles, using up resources—is remarkably experiencing quite the renaissance. This is due in no small part to the reach of Netflix’s dramatised documentary series Drive to Survive and a takeover in 2017 by the social media-savvy Americans at Liberty Media. Take the United States, for example, which went from struggling to sustain a single race on Formula One’s international calendar to now boasting three races: Austin, Miami, and Las Vegas. The 2018 US Grand Prix in Austin, Texas saw just 263,000 hardcore race fans attend across the weekend. A mere four years later, the same race sold out completely, with attendance nearly doubling. Not to mention last year’s inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix, where the Caesar’s Palace Emperor’s Package was valued at an eye-watering $5,000,000.