In 2018, a new series of business rocked Formula 1. The economic benefit did not come in the short term, but it attracted new appearances: “Drive to Survive”, a documentary series, produced by Netflix, behind the scenes of business and the development of the highest category of motorsport, which is shown It premiered on March 19 its third season.
The ten teams of the circuit exist within the orbit of the cameras for a week each, so that the fan has one foot inside the stopping area and the operating rules.
F1’s sporting director Ross Brown insisted that the benefit of documentaries is not, at present, money, as it is a company that pays only a fraction of what the major TV channels covering the World Cup do. The deal includes another kind of value, as they discovered that it “was very attractive to non-contestants: in fact, it turned them into fans,” according to data collected by Motorsport.com.
Then there is the added value, which means giving fans additional content that differs from what is popular on the track or in interviews.
The same medium reported that in 2019 F1 promoters in the United States and Mexico noticed an increase in interest in F1 thanks to the production influx.
“And while Netflix itself has not been a very profitable company to us, it has been great in terms of providing more coverage for F1. This is the kind of initiative we’re taking, we’re thinking of a holistic view of how to raise F1.”
The first season of “Drive to Survive” aired with uncertainty about the reception of the most popular fans and whether it would be interesting to attract a new audience. The result was satisfactory when, during the first race of 2019, the public noticed that the characters, who were not necessarily the drivers, were required by the public to sign autographs and take pictures.
