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Interestingly enough Nielsen this year listed "Indycar fan" demographics as 42% millennial. That stat was a bit surprising to me when I saw that considering the general moans and groans you hear about aging fans in motorsport.

My takeaway is that if F1 has lost younger fans, it only has itself to blame.

I firmly believe motorsport will be dead or dying within my lifetime.
And even if it goes full green and social media savvy to promote itself to the younger generations, I still feel we'll eventually lose most of our racetracks to housing developments.
It's happening bit by bit, all they have to do is build houses somewhat near, get noise complaints to limit business to the point of not making them profitable and then swoop in when they're in dire straits and offer a token amount to the owners to sell up.

So yeah. Enjoy bitching about all the things you hate in the sport while you can as it wont be massively long before all there is to bitch about is the lack of it

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As long as there are cars/vehicles there will always be a desire to see who can go faster. There will always be motor racing in my opinion, but I do believe your general opinion that it will be less in the future. Frankly it astonishes me just how many small local racing series/competitions there are.

I believe that it will be those that go away, the smaller tracks being housing developments but I think the bigger series will stay, but in what capacity? Don't know.

Yeah, I don't see racing going away. People will keep racing and new people will get involved in it. Overly complex forms of motorsports might disappear, but the purest concepts and entry level formats will most likely stay.

As long as there's two moving vehicles in the same city, they will be racing them somehow, even if it would be illegal. Most likely forms would be the same as over hundred years ago, hillclimbing, point-to-point (rallying) and drag racing. And people will watch it.

Ten years ago I would have said the same thing, when there was risk of two racing venues in Finland to be closed by greenies and one being stuck with not getting their environmental permission granted due same people. But now there's the Kymiring project going on for MotoGP and targeting to get F1 race, old circuits have been updated and improved, some even have been made longer and we have a new high quality drag racing circuit. It makes me think that the future is going to be brighter for motorsports. And if it's going to be brighter in Finland, it can be brighter everywhere else as well.

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"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."

There is a major annual motor race in the middle of Paris, and nobody is complaining about it. Bernie has been dreaming about it for decades. If that can happen, then race tracks will be there to stay, be it because they also provide a green area between racing days (when they aren't tarmacked of course - cf. Monza which is a park before being a track) or because they are somewhere you don't want to build anyway (under powerlines, near airports).

I share the general feeling here that racing will be here to stay. Just under different forms. There's more to motor racing than gas-guzzling engines and big cars. It's also about speed, skill, and being at the limit of grip, and any engine or propulsion system will do. Heck, if it comes to it, people will keep doing gravity-assisted racing (such as downhill mountain biking) so the spirit of speed and racing is going nowhere, only the means you use to propel your motorized vehicle will change eventually.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/14123 ... -direction

Interesting that the one Liberty change that is singled out for praise is their pursuit of alternative funding models (i.e. models where the promoter doesn't take the whole hit). Which strongly suggests that these promoters are about to demand the same.

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

If frickin' NIMBY magnet Laguna Seca is more open to racing events these days, anything is possible.

While I do somewhat agree that auto racing will become more of a niche sport in the future (but almost *everything* is becoming niche), I don't agree it will die completely. Indycar for instance seems to have found an audience floor. There definitely have been some new styles that have actually attracted more of a younger audience (think Formula Drift) and some long running concepts also have more of a younger crowd these days (think Supercross).

F1 may have a bit of decline left, unfortunately, because it was pretty massive before. I do think the series has some advantages (eg a long history with some compelling stories, and some unique picturesque tracks that are good cover for the Instagram generation). From my perspective F1 suffers mostly from Bernie leftovers: too many events on pay TV, too many tracks designed by one single engineering group, too many track events at slapdash tracks built for the uber-rich (instead of actual car culture locales with deep roots), and not enough accessibility. It's a little too early to complain about what Liberty has not done.

I actually don't think the "green" aspect matters a huge amount. Indycar has been "greenish" for a long time due to running methanol / ethanol and hardly anyone cares. Like it was mentioned, you can turn a natural road course into a "green" park pretty easy -- a lot of them already *are* parks. Lower noise racing does open up new markets though (hence Formula E actually running in Paris).

Well said, electrodevo, that pretty much sums up everything quite nicely.

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"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."

Apologies if I've posted this before, but the problem is motor racing just isn't fashionable with young people. The impression I get is that young Westerners are, on the whole, a lot more socially conscious. And I don't even mean that in an environmental sense - I mean that in terms of F1's whole image being built around "glamour", flaunting wealth, treating women like second class citizens etc. Plus I think we all know at this stage that F1 drivers usually aren't thought of as relatable as people because they mostly come from extremely privileged backgrounds

Add all that in and F1 's just not compatible with the values of a vast percentage of young people. Compare that to football, where even with skyrocketing wages and ticket prices, it's still considered an "everyman" sport. There will always be some people interested in motorsport, because people like fast cars, but that doesn't mean it's going to be popular enough to sustain a commercial juggernaut like F1

I don't think people within the sport fully grasp that, because I don't think they're reaching out enough, and even when they do, their ideas are routinely terrible. They don't get that it's an image problem rather than a product problem

And fwiw I don't think too many tracks will be lost to housing, at least in countries like Britain and the US. We're entering a period of protectionism and populist politics where Western countries are moving to shutting down borders, while at the same time "native" Western populations are going into decline due to falling birthrates, fewer people getting into relationships/marriages etc. So I don't think there's going to be a huge demand for that much new housing to the extent that it'll swallow up existing businesses that are doing OK. I don't think we'll ever get to a similar situation to Australia

I think its complete bullshit to say its not fashionable among young people.

I'm convinced the whole reason F1 and racing in general is losing its young audience is because they are all hidden behind fucking paywalls.
When I was young I could chose to watch F1 on Dutch tv, Belgium tv, German TV and Eurosport. Four frigging channels to chose from which where all available in my (well actually my parents) standard cable subscription.
Now I'm glad I can still watch it on German tv but there is talk that RTL is dropping it for a while now so how long will this last.
If I want to watch it if RTL drops it, I need to get a separate subscription. And yes, this is been discussed to death. One thinks its well worth the money and the other thinks its overpriced. Regardless of that, I cannot afford it. And I'm not the only one.

The point is, back when I was young it was easy for me to watch F1. Hell, Eurosport even had NASCAR and Indycar/Champcar. It was easy for me to get into contact with the sport.
For kids today its damn near impossible unless one of their parents already watches racing and has the proper subscriptions for it.
This is why the numbers among young people is low.

Couldn't agree more. If it's not fashionable amongst your friends, then maybe you're in a wrong group.

But with that said, even when Häkkinen was winning titles and F1 was at it's highest popularity in Finland, I remember there was a strong divide to those who liked the sports and those who didn't. And back then F1 was very accessible for everyone in Finland, so my conclusion is that motorsports is popular amongst people who like adrenaline sports and/or mechanics/cars. I never remember anyone saying they watch the sports because of grid girls or glamour...or that it was the very reason they don't watch it.

Last few years I've taken my son with my dad to watch drag racing nationals. My daughter, my wife and my mother couldn't care less, they go to the beach or spa (not the Spa). I've noticed that we're not the only father-son group there. In fact, there's a lot of kids of all ages, teenagers with scooters or with the older kid that already has driver's license to toddlers that are sitting on their father's shoulders. And people like me, on their 30s with their dads that are on their retirement age. I've seen less of this in F1 venues.

So motorsports on pure forms with easy accessibility is as popular as it's ever been or always been. And even though electric power has all the hype now, I'm totally convinced that from 20 years from now there's still internal combustion engines used in motorsports on various levels and forms. People love the thunderous noise so it's not going to go away. The sheer brutality attracts people that are already interested in racing, it's just a fact. Maybe it talks to our primitive senses or something like that. All I know that when we were watching that drag racing event two years ago there was one bike that caught everyone's attention. It was a Nitro-Harley, rider just doing 60ft license test starts on solo. Basically all he did was short burnout (also part of the test) and watched the lights go down on the tree and took of from the line on a 200 m track that he idled through after he passed the 60ft marker. It was the noise that made people watch it every time he was on the strip. The next most popular thing was the semis and finals for the most powerful race cars of the day. So that's going to attract people for the years to come and F1 has noticed the necessity of noise too. Let's hope the next engine generation makes more noise.

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"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."

F1 is a sport for rich men now.

no pay = no see

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And thats why its dying slowly.
I am convinced that the moment they go back to public broadcasting the viewers will increase and sponsorship will increase as well.

Right now, for a lot of companies that can afford it, sponsoring F1 isnt logical. If F1 reached a broader and also younger audience it suddenly gets much more interesting.

I can only agree that availability goes hand in hand with my interest in anything. Personally speaking. If it becomes available to me I can choose to engage in drivers, teams, players etc. I don't pay as much interest in sportsmen personal wealth or not. Subscription-cancer fundamentally turns me off.

I actually don't get a lot of that impression completely. There has been some shifts in how women are treated, and there has been some shifts in what wealth status symbols are. But wealth is still fascinating to many people, as the gossip rags show.

The main angle with this that might be relevant to F1 comes from the "building tracks as status symbol events for rich unethical dictators" part. This was the Bernie angle where he favored GPs in places with hard line, brutal dictatorships (like Bahrain infamously) that opened their pocketbook. In the meantime, Bernie was playing hardball with traditional venues like Monza and Silverstone, threatening to drop them. This is basically a double whammy -- the social responsibility folks might frown at even throwing a penny towards Bahrain, and those with a sense of national pride might get pissed that Bernie couldn't care less about tracks with deep European history (in what essentially is a European rooted sport) in favor of whatever sheikh has the biggest open pocketbook. (IMHO the later angle probably hurt far more than the former.)

On social attitudes, Bernie Ecclestone himself has not been the greatest of ambassadors -- his sexist quotes have been prominent in papers, and there's been stunts like Bernie publicly agreeing with Putin's anti-homosexuality laws. It's hard to say if this has negatively affected the sport or not, and how much... I don't think I've heard anyone say they won't watch F1 because the owner is an old-school sexist. Generally speaking, it is a faux pas for big global business bosses to potentially offend a good portion of potential customers though.

F1 broadcast in Brazil stays on free to air tv because of time advantage, there's simply no competition on sunday morning slots so they take advantage and secure big broadcast sponsorship

but the rates keep rather low because would you wake up sunday morning to watch boring races where only one car wins? I just keep watching solely because of tradition because I'm tired of waking up and seeing only Mercedes winning and that douche Toto Wolff smiling like the douche he is (but anyway, if I miss one race, it'll be Spa 98 and Suzuka 2005 levels)

I also find very funny when I say that I watch every single race and people go like "what? do you still watch that?" because the older people stopped after Senna's death and younger people simply don't care which meet to what you guys are saying

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

We lost live coverage in free TV after the 1999 season. From 2000, until 2015, F1 was only available though a premium subscription. If I put myself in the position of the teenager I was, it ws impossible to get the premium pack to watch the races live. It wasn't until 2011 or so, when I started having my own salary, that I started paying for it.

If I wasn't a die-hard fan, I'd just walked away from it. But I didn't. I watched reruns at stupid hours (mostly sundays at midnight), and once I got better access to the internet, I downloaded clips and full races to watch if I wasn't able to watch the races on TV.

That's what's happening today. Younger fans can't/won't pay for a subscription that allows you to watch one event every fortnight. If it's easily reachable, many will watch. A relatable example is the E-Prix here in Santiago. We are not a motorsport country, F1 (or any motorsport series) isn't on national TV or even mentioned in the news. Yet, the E-Prix has sold out both times. Affordable prices, and it's accesible. When Salazar was racing in the IRL and was shown of national TV, the rating where really high. You just sat down and watched some pack racing at Texas.

Regarding developments near tracks what the theme park industry has been doing of late is buying up the land around their parks and doing nothing with it, thus building a buffer to ward off NIMBY's, you only have to look at Alton Towers history and problems with the Roper family to understand how damaging a single family can be to a business if they take a disliking to it. Merlin has bought up large plots of land around both Thorpe and Chessington for this reason.

I believe Palmer, for all his faults, took a similar stance with Snetterton when he took over Octagon and bought up land surrounding the track to ward off the "Snetterton Town" supports and stop their plans in their tracks.

The kids of today neither have the money or patience to watch motorsports as others have said, my son is of this generation and isn't interested at all, he often says "how can you sit there watching a race for 2 hours", and I answer "same way you watch crap on YouTube".

my 4,5 year old will watch the start with me. Then after a few laps will play with her toys or do some crafts but every now and then comes watch. And if Max is in a position to win she will watch the finish for sure.
I am convinced that as she will get older and if F1 is still easily available for her, she will start watching for longer periods as her attention span will expand. Its an age thing.
I am 100% convinced none of us here had the attention span to watch a race from start to finis when we where really young. But as we got older we grew into the sport more and we developed the ability to watch full races.

But we had the opportunity to watch races, freely, from start to finish. If kids these days cant, they wont grow into the sport and the current group of fans will slowly die of old age.

My sis and gf are teachers. Its obvious to them that the kids of today have no patience. And I feel more odd to everyone around me for each day. Today we have attack mode, DRS, fan boost etc to spice things up, because a race down to pit strategy and tire management isn't appreciated or seen as interesting anymore. I miss the racing of the 80's, 90's and 00's and the claimed procession races. I rather have that then fake racing.

I'm old school and always will be.