No. Drive to Survive was the scaffolding around which a new F1 fandom was built. The fandom is now standing on its own, and the scaffolding is no longer holding it up.
- Social media content is the biggest single gateway into F1 fandom at 22% of new fan journeys, ahead of family at 21% and Drive to Survive at 14%.
- Only 2.5% of X/Twitter conversation about F1 is directly about the show.
- The show’s real legacy is the creator ecosystem it triggered: hundreds of F1 podcasts and YouTube channels that now recruit fans themselves.
- Its biggest measurable effect was geographic. 37% of fans who credited the show were in the USA, where race attendance in Austin rose from about 263,000 in 2018 to 440,000 in 2022.
- 26% of Drive to Survive viewers have limited interest in Formula 1 itself.
In part 1 we asked whether F1 peaked in 2022 after years of explosive growth. Plenty of people attribute that growth to one Netflix show. This report tests that claim against the data, quantifies each factor behind F1’s rise, and asks the follow-up question that matters commercially: if Netflix walked away tomorrow, what would actually change?
Why is Drive to Survive credited with changing F1?
Looking at millions of F1 posts, we found two distinct camps of fans: those who found the sport through Netflix, and everyone else.
The widely accepted view is that Drive to Survive transformed F1 from a niche sport catering to a specific demographic into a global phenomenon, bringing in millions of new fans. The show is genuinely good at what it does and the audience numbers are real. The question is whether it is still doing the recruiting.
How many people actually watch it?
More than 6.8 million viewers, with a demographic profile F1 could not reach on its own.
The gender split is the number that should interest teams and sponsors most. It is far more balanced than the sport’s own audience, and it arrived without F1 changing anything about the racing. (Source: The Athletic, 13 April 2023.)
Where did the show have the most impact?
Everywhere, but overwhelmingly in the United States.
Drive to Survive directly influenced new fans on every continent, but 37% of those who cited it as their route into the sport were in the USA. The UK accounted for 12% and Australia for 9%, with the remainder spread thinly across Bahrain, Brazil, Brunei, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain and Sweden.
The American numbers are the strongest evidence in the show’s favour. 28% of US adults now identify as avid or casual F1 fans, up from 21% in a February 2020 survey. Of those, more than half said Drive to Survive was a reason they became a follower.
Source: US consumer survey cited in the full report.
The knock-on effects are physical, not just digital. Following season one, US Grand Prix viewers rose to almost 1,000,000, 39% higher than the previous season. Attendance at the US Grand Prix in Austin went from about 263,000 in 2018 to 440,000 in 2022.
How do new fans actually find F1?
Social media content is the biggest gateway. Drive to Survive is third, behind family.
Source: Buzz Radar analysis of social media conversation about routes into F1 fandom.
Most people arrive by a combination of factors rather than a single one. A common narrative is a family background in the sport, then several years of disinterest, then Drive to Survive or YouTube reigniting it in the late 2010s. That matters for how teams and sponsors think about acquisition: there is rarely one moment to buy.
Is Drive to Survive what F1 fans talk about?
No. It sits behind teams, drivers, rules and individual races.
Only 2.5% of X/Twitter conversation about F1 is directly about Drive to Survive. Ranked by volume, the leading topics of fan conversation are teams and sponsors, Hamilton’s personality and professionalism, safety cars and rules, the Silverstone British GP throwback, the Italian GP pole battle, Ferrari strategy errors, fastest lap records and Monaco GP celebrations. Drive to Survive seasons 4 and 5 come last on that list.
A show can create fans without becoming what those fans discuss. That is exactly what happened here, and it is why measuring the show’s influence by conversation share alone understates its early role and overstates its current one.
Is there a backlash?
A vocal minority treats the show as manufactured drama, and a quarter of viewers never convert.
There is a section of F1 fandom who do not regard Drive to Survive as a legitimate behind-the-scenes document at all, feeling events are manipulated to create compelling stories. In 2022 there were 1,680 uses of the hashtag #BoycottDTS. Separately, 26% of Drive to Survive fans have limited interest in Formula 1, watching the series as standalone entertainment rather than as a gateway.
“Drive to Survive distorts reality in favour of drama which is completely manufactured and can put drivers in a bad light when it’s completely undeserved.”Blue15 September 2023
“DTS has done a great deal attracting new fans and I can’t blame them too much for twisting the facts and spicing up situations that were not a big deal irl […] people have to learn to differentiate between reality TV drama and an actual sport.”@VarunKumar-ro4llYouTube comment
If not Netflix, what is recruiting fans now?
The algorithm, an ecosystem of creators, and drivers who post like their audience does.
The recommendation algorithm
“I got sucked into F1 via the algorithm” is one of the most commonly cited routes into the sport in online conversation. New fans are served team radio, race highlights, memes, crashes and explanations of car aerodynamics. Viral YouTube clips of Grosjean’s 2020 crash pulled people into Formula 1 for weeks and months afterwards, with fans describing the algorithm surfacing the clip as the moment their interest started.
“Everyone seems to have really nice stories about how they got into F1 involving their parents grandparents or some experience of their own. I however, got into F1 because of the team radio clips recommended to me by YouTube.”@junjun-wt3wcYouTube comment
“The same thing happened to me and now I’m a fan. You don’t decide to get into F1, it chooses you.”TikTok comment2,661 likes
“Why tf is TikTok trying so hard to make me an F1 fan like I don’t have anything against it but the videos are non-stop. I don’t interact with them or anything yet they just keep coming.”@Henry.mcc11.2K likes · 338 comments
The creator ecosystem
The biggest impact Drive to Survive has had on F1 is arguably the wave of content creators it inspired. Coupled with the timing of the pandemic, the show prompted a generation of fans to start making their own F1 reactions and coverage, and to earn a living from it, something previously reserved for a small number of journalists and broadcasters. Hundreds of F1 podcasts and YouTube channels have launched since season one, often speaking to new and younger fans in more relatable terms than traditional coverage. Some now command audiences comparable to broadcast channels with far more dedicated followings. That ecosystem sustains F1’s audience between races and recruits on its own, to the point where Drive to Survive could almost be considered one content strand among hundreds.
Official channels and driver accounts
67 million people follow the official F1 social accounts. A further 139 million follow the current 20 drivers and 166 million follow the 10 constructor accounts. That reach exists because F1 followed the culture change Drive to Survive demonstrated: relatable, behind-the-scenes content that shows driver personalities.
Drivers who are the same age as the new audience
The other structural change is who is in the cars. A run of teenage and early-twenties debuts between 2015 and 2019 gave F1 a grid that new fans could see themselves in.
| Season | Drivers |
|---|---|
| 2015 | Max Verstappen (17), Carlos Sainz (20) |
| 2016 | Esteban Ocon (19) |
| 2017 | Lance Stroll (18), Pierre Gasly (21) |
| 2018 | Charles Leclerc (20) |
| 2019 | Lando Norris (19), George Russell (21), Alexander Albon (22) |
Lando Norris, the most popular driver among female fans and among all fans under 25, describes using his social accounts to give people a look behind the scenes and “give people something that they don’t see with many other drivers”. Fans describe the effect in the same terms: “Max, Charles, George, Lando, they are my generation. They are on social media, TikTok; you feel like you know them and that through them you know the sport.”
Which drivers dominate the conversation?
Leclerc displaced Hamilton at the top, and four of the 2022 top ten were not there in 2017.
| Rank | 2017 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lewis Hamilton | Charles Leclerc |
| 2 | Fernando Alonso | Lewis Hamilton |
| 3 | Max Verstappen | Max Verstappen |
| 4 | Valtteri Bottas | Sergio Pérez |
| 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Sebastian Vettel |
| 6 | Daniel Ricciardo | Fernando Alonso |
| 7 | Felipe Massa | Carlos Sainz |
| 8 | Sergio Pérez | Pierre Gasly |
| 9 | Nico Rosberg | George Russell |
| 10 | Carlos Sainz | Mick Schumacher |
The distribution flattened as well as reordering. In 2017 the top driver took a share more than double the 2022 leader’s, because conversation now spreads across far more of the grid. The same pattern shows in team conversation, which we covered in part 1.
So, does F1 need Drive to Survive?
Drive to Survive was the scaffolding around which this new fandom was built. Now that the fandom is there, the scaffolding is no longer needed to keep it standing.
The show helped create a new audience and energised it, giving the sport a super-engaged online fanbase of creators and consumers. That audience has become self-sustaining. The volume of social content it produces, from posts to podcasts, developed its own momentum and eclipsed the impact of the Netflix show, and that content is now bringing in new fans by itself.
While fans enjoy the soap opera, it is one component among several: a relaxation in how F1 allows its content to be used online, a generation of social-media-native drivers, the spare time created by the pandemic, and the ability to connect with the personalities behind the wheel. Taken together, those gave fans something F1 had always lacked, which is access. The barriers of elitism and inaccessibility came down. Drive to Survive lit the blue touch paper. The data says its influence has since been overtaken.
Social media content is now the most powerful gateway to Formula 1 fandom.
How we analysed F1 audiences
We collect F1 keywords and hashtags across social platforms, forums and blogs, clean the data and run algorithmic analysis to isolate relevant results. Our analysts then work with AI output across audience analysis, trend identification and pain point analysis to produce the findings in these reports. Third-party figures are attributed where used.
This report was published in February 2024. Figures reflect data available at that time.
Frequently asked questions
Does Formula 1 still need Drive to Survive?
No. The show was scaffolding around which a new fandom was built, and that fandom is now self-sustaining. Social media content is the biggest gateway into F1 fandom at 22% of new fan journeys, ahead of family at 21% and Drive to Survive at 14%.
How do most new F1 fans discover the sport?
Through social media content, most often algorithmic recommendations on YouTube and TikTok serving team radio clips, race highlights and historical documentaries.
How many people watch Drive to Survive?
More than 6.8 million viewers. 63% watched at least three episodes in a row, 31% of the audience is aged 18 to 29, and 46% of viewers are female.
How much F1 conversation is actually about the show?
Only 2.5% of X/Twitter conversation about F1 is directly about Drive to Survive.
Did the show help F1 grow in the United States?
Yes, more than anywhere else. 37% of fans who credited the show were in the USA. 28% of US adults now identify as avid or casual fans, up from 21% in February 2020, and Austin race attendance rose from about 263,000 in 2018 to 440,000 in 2022.
Is there a backlash against Drive to Survive?
From a vocal minority, yes. #BoycottDTS was used 1,680 times in 2022. Separately, 26% of viewers have limited interest in Formula 1 itself.
Read the full report
The PDF version of “Does F1 need Drive to Survive?” includes the full chart set, the geographic breakdown and the creator ecosystem analysis.
- Part 1Have we reached peak F1?
- Part 2Does F1 need Drive to Survive?
- Part 3Has the F1 fanbase become more toxic?