F1 News: Former world champion questions PASSION of new Drive to Survive F1 fans

Guenther Steiner - Drive to Survive season 6 — Photo: © IMAGO

Former world champion questions PASSION of new Drive to Survive F1 fans

Drive to Survive has attracted a new audience

Originally written by Stuart Telford. This version is a translation.

Tuesday 23 April 2024 22:00

The next generation of Formula 1 fans are more interested with stories away from the track according to a former four-time world champion.

F1 content has surged on digital platforms in recent seasons - GPFans was the fastest growing sports publisher in the UK in 2023 - but that hasn't necessarily been due to with fans watching the action itself.

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ESPN said last November that the 2023 F1 season was the second-most watched in the sport's US television history with an average viewership of 1.11 million over 22 races.

Drive to Survive - a documentary series produced in collaboration between Netflix and F1 - has been credited with attracting a new generation of followers.

Drive to Survive gives fans an inside look

Prost's doubts about nerw F1 fans

He is glad to see new followers, but questioned their interest in an exclusive interview with Sports Illustrated.

"I think it was one thing I really thought about very often because it's very simple in our generation. We only had fans of Formula 1 and obviously we were passionate, but mechanics, engineers, drivers obviously, but even the media, they were really passionate about our sports," said the Frenchman. "You know, let's say the old generation.

"And now slowly we came to the, let's say, Netflix story during the Covid time, which made Formula 1 very interesting because we had a lot of people and really young generation very interested about our sport. But, you can be a fan, but are they going to be traditional lovers of our sport?

"Are they going to be more and more interested about the human side? The technology? You [only] have a little bit of the whole part of this story."

McLaren Williams Drive to Survive Ayrton Senna Alain Prost