Why is F1 so popular?
F1's recent surge is credited largely to the Netflix series Drive to Survive, which since 2019 has drawn in a younger, more global and more female audience and helped drop the average viewer age from 44 to 32. Liberty Media's ownership since 2017 added new American races and a big social-media push, and a run of close championship fights kept the new fans watching.
The Drive to Survive effect
The clearest driver of F1's recent boom is Drive to Survive, the Netflix series that launched in 2019 and is widely credited with creating a surge in the sport's audience.[1] By turning each season into a character drama, it pulled in viewers who had never watched a race, and the average age of an F1 television viewer fell from 44 to 32.[1]
A younger, more diverse audience
The new audience looks different from the old one.[2] A 2025 study found around a quarter of American adults now follow F1, with Gen Z the largest single group, and more than half of those younger fans said behind-the-scenes shows had encouraged them to start watching.[2] Women have driven much of the growth, making up a large share of new fans and the fastest-growing part of the audience.[3]
Liberty Media, new races and the racing
The boom was not an accident. Since buying the sport in 2017, Liberty Media has opened it up on social media and added high-profile American races in Miami and Las Vegas to go with Austin.[3] On track, a run of close and dramatic championship fights gave all those new viewers a reason to keep coming back.[2]
:::analysis What Drive to Survive really changed was the entry point. For decades you had to already understand F1 to enjoy it; the show let people care about the personalities first and learn the racing later. That order, people then sport, is the template every league now studies, and it is why a once-niche European motorsport became a genuinely global pop-culture property.
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Related reading
- [1]How Drive to Survive drove F1's popularity (The Conversation) (the-conversation). Accessed 2026-06-20.
- [2]One in four Americans now watch F1, led by Gen Z (Newsweek) (newsweek). Accessed 2026-06-20.
- [3]F1's popularity is exploding among women (Newsweek) (newsweek). Accessed 2026-06-20.