36 Roaring Engines, Raging Fans: Unleashing the Fury of Fans at the Las Vegas Fo
36 Roaring Engines, Raging Fans: Unleashing the Fury of Fans at the Las Vegas Formula One Race. – Tyler Martins
Roaring Engines, Raging Fans: Unleashing the Fury of Fans at the Las Vegas Formula One Race.
Tyler Ventura Martins
The audience of Formula 1 has seen immense change in the last three years. According to Yahoo Sports and Nick Ashbourne, the sport saw an increase of nearly 55% of viewers on ESPN in 2021 compared to 2020, and again another increase of 27% in 2022 (Ashbourne, 2023). This exponential growth shows a huge increase in fandom in North America. The sport itself dates back to 1946 and has consistently been a hallmark of European sports. The fandom has always been adapting the sport and wanting changes to regulations to foster more competition and better spectating. The sport has had some popularity in the United States and North America they have even had races there for years. But the sport saw immense growth with the release of “Drive to Survive”, a Netflix documentary-style series where the true dynamics and drama of the sport were revealed to the world in a more dramatized Hollywood fashion. Many ‘original’ F1 fans criticized the series, and many said the fans that it brought in were not true fans. The series grew the sport within North America, but in doing so discourse online regarding the direction of the sport has bloomed.
The recent race in Las Vegas has brought up a massive amount of backlash and anti-fan discourse. Originally fans were disappointed mostly because they didn’t see the location as a fit, but as the race weekend went underway issues accumulated that made fans and anti-fans even more skeptical of the success of the event. This paper will address the fandom of F1 and argue that although some fans are against the Grand Prix it is not solely because Las Vegas is ‘unfit’ for racing, but because those fans do not want to see the change in the sport and a focus on America. Additionally, this paper will break down the participatory culture, fandom, and anti-fandom to highlight how the fans identify with the sport and affectively negotiate their own identity through it.
This discourse and fandom’s overall debate is centred around the evident presence of the F1 board and leadership changing the ways the sport is done. For instance, over the last two years, the sport has introduced not only one but two additional races to the United States in Miami and Las Vegas. These additions meant that audiences would see fewer of the usual races and more new ones, which some fans did not appreciate. F1 as a sport has been around since the 1950s and is constantly evolving not only in skill but also in technological output, the fan base in Europe has grown to love the sport and it has become a staple of many people’s lives. When the Netflix series drew mass attention from the United States for the first time F1 was quick to notice the potential market growth if they were to cater to American fans. With this many races away from the