Formula 1 Popularity Spikes with help from Netflix’s “Formula 1: Drive to Survive”
The highest class of open wheel single seater racing, Formula One has been a global phenomenon for decades. Despite popularity across the world especially in the likes of Europe, the sport struggled to find its footing in North America, specifically the United States. In recent years a few impactful events occurred giving the United States its first serious taste of Formula One making the sport more popular than ever.
The growth of popularity in the sport can actually be assessed by looking at the Wikipedia pageviews of the Formula One page over the last 8 years or so.
The plot above displays the pageviews from 2015 to present time on the Formula One Wikipedia page. With an initial glance of the plot, there is a clear upward trend in pageviews especially between 2019 and 2023. The years 2015 to 2019 on the other hand show a pretty stagnant pattern among page views. The actual beginning of increase in views can be seen starting around 2019 and 2020. The juicy stuff all comes at the end of 2021 with a ridiculous spike in page views with smaller spikes in 2022 and all of 2023 holding a very high search count so far. There are a couple of events that can explain the spikes as well as the overall trend of these pageviews in recent years.
The one unusually large spike in searches at then end of 2021 for Formula One can be attributed to the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and its controversy. This race was the finale of the 2021 season with Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen being tied on points going into the race. Whoever won the race between the two is who would be crowned champion. The race itself was decided by a very controversial last lap race to the finish that will go down in Formula One and sports history as one of its most controversial moments. It is no surprise that this moment on the timeline had the highest amount of pageviews on the Wikipedia page.
The overall trend of Formula One searches increasing over time though is most likely the result of the sport finally reaching its American market bringing more and more fans to the sport. In March of 2019 Netflix released a Formula One based docuseries called “Formula 1: Drive to Survive”. This series blew up in popularity on Netflix, obviously creating more interest in Formula One in general. As we can see below through the “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” search on google trends, the trend line is almost identical to the Wikipedia page views for Formula One. There is a continuous upward trend with these searches with the peaks happening at the beginning of each year which corresponds to the beginning of the season as well as the release of the new seasons of the show.
Some of the other explanations of the constant growth due to the increase in the US market can be attributed to the announcement of two new Formula 1 races in the United States. In 2021 Formula 1 announced there would be a race held in Miami, Florida with the first race at this location occurring in 2022 with a 10 year contract eventually being signed to continue with the race. Later in 2022 it was announced that Formula 1 would hold another US based Grand Prix in 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada with a contract to hold the race until 2032. Before these announcements the United States only ever hosted one Grand Prix a year being in Austin, Texas and the announcements of three United States based Grand Prix definitely added to the growth of the US market for Formula One.
This analysis of mine showed how interesting it is to see how much a page view time series can say about a topic. As of now, Formula One is growing at a fast rate and I personally don’t see it slowing down anytime soon. If media such as “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” keeps pushing out quality content and the sport continues to expand in the United States market the sport will see massive gains. Not to mention the 2023 season is one of the first seasons in a decade or so where the sport has an American driver in the lineup. Thanks to “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” and Formula Ones dedication to North American expansion, the sports is one of its moments of peak viewership.
