Jack Whitehall could not have summarized it better. “I can hear the purists already moaning,” said the actor and the friend for the evening joked during his accommodation of “F1 75 Live” at the O2.
He was not wrong. Formula 1 has seen a colorful team starting in the years. The Spice Girls have an overview of the salaries of David Coulthard at the Alexandra Palace in London in 1997. Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso paraded in front of 250,000 fans at the back of the Mercedes SL55 in Valence in 2007. Honda “Earth Car” by Jenson Button’s Mild-Fated by Jenson Button “that same year. The list continues.
But it had never seen anything like this. No matter the purists. The sight of Flavio Briatore, a man who once ordered a driver to crash on purpose, looking at time while Brian Tyler (no, me neither) did what F1 described Like “an immersive audio-visual experience like his alter-ego, are we dream”, will live in memory for a long time. The latest F1 foray into the new courageous world of social media and American salons was F1 for the Netflix generation. Influencers, popstars, lived live, celebrities. Very few cars.
The teams had seven minutes each to launch their new deliveries. But most of this time was taken up by light shows, live music or video montages they had filmed earlier. The Aston Martin pilots arrived adapted and started on the melody of the Bond theme.
When the show sometimes made a head of the sport – it was an event to celebrate 75 years of F1 after all – it was rather incongruous. Video editing from Williams from Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill and Al, with Murray Walker commenting for example. The nights like this, the sport of Mansell and Piquet, Prost and Senna, looks like a distant memory, not to mention Moss and Fangio.
In justice in F1, it was not a show for purists. It was without shame for the new F1 subscribers, for the Survive Fans, especially those of the United States, which have become absorbed by the F1 soap, in what Lewis Hamilton carries and who carries Lando Norris.
Some of Whitehall’s gags landed better than others. He had fun taking out the mickey from Max Verstappen, who had not made any secrets earlier in the day that he prefers to be anywhere in the world but the O2.
Like Christian Horner, its director of the Red Bull team, Verstappen received a handful of hoots from the live public.
The host of the show also had fun in the sense of fashion of Lewis Hamilton (“Peacocker his way through the dressed paddock like a Fortnite Character “), the idol in the morning of Charles Leclerc looks (” the man my wife imagines when we make love. Hell, the man I imagine when we make love “) and The name of Mike Krack (who knows, maybe we will see Mike Krack later “, Boom Boom). But the funniest moment of the evening was probably involuntary – the director of the Williams team, James Vowles, launching a little by the great introduction of Whitehall and delimiting on stage with a “good evening, London!” As if he were a professional media threshing man.
They know what they are doing, however, the American owners of F1 Liberty Media. Formula 1 is booming and events like this will only add to its growth. F1 75 sold in 20 minutes, the 16,000 tickets, which were originally between £ 58 and 113, but which changed hands for more than £ 600 on resale sites in the hours preceding the launch. The F1 could probably have been able to sell the Wembley stadium. Maybe they will do it next year.
Formula 1 announced on arrival that his YouTube channel had attracted an audience of a peak of 1.1 million simultaneous viewers on F1 YouTube alone, and 4.6 million viewers in total on Youtube through live broadcast. Its highest live event ever high was 289,000 in Peak.
If they will look again next year is another matter. The live comments on YouTube were hilarious. Many of them were “Dérfest!”, “WTF”, “enough with the machine gun Kelly, I’m only there for cars”. But there were also those who praised F1 for calling for a younger demography and for having gathered the 10 teams and 20 pilots together for a night for fans.
And it is ultimately that Liberty tries to appeal. Not for F1 purists, cynical journalists, nor jaded drivers. These kinds of events, and breeds such as Las Vegas, that F1 also promotes, is what Liberty wants more; Light shows, live music, celebrities. Like it or not, it seems to work. There are a lot of sports that would sell their souls to exploit the F1 public.
“I mean, look where we are,” Horner told journalists earlier during the day. “We are launching 10 O2 teams. If you tried it 10 years ago, I don’t think you would have had some some of the teams south of the river. But sport is in a different place now. Twenty-four races, three American races. Take these skeptics.
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