F1's Social Revolution

The way we watch F1 is about to change, but mostly on your phone.

- Rob Ladbrook

When the new Mercedes F1 W08 growled its way out of the garage to start the second day of testing at Barcelona back on March 1, a new era of Formula 1 began. And it began on Nico Rosberg’s mobile phone.

The reigning, yet retired, world champion stood just beside the garage doors as Valtteri Bottas picked up the revs and trundled out toward the track, flicked him thumb over the ‘Tweet’ button, and posted a video of an F1 car... moving. It was only 17-seconds long, but it said all it needed to.

“So good that we can finally film in the pit lane and the garages – thanks Liberty Media! Great start,” said Rosberg with a smile.

The way we watch Formula 1 is about to change in a big way. Ironically though the biggest impact will be in the way we watch it when it isn’t on our TV screens.

Liberty Media’s first act as F1 owner that actually impacts the fans was to relax Formula One Management’s super-restrictive social media rules. Previously, only licensed and paid-up TV broadcasters were allowed to film anything inside the circuit, paddock, or anywhere near the pit lane. In UK terms, that left just a handful of outlets – mainly just Sky and the BBC – as the only eyepieces for the sport’s British fanbase.

But one thing Liberty has picked up on is the hunger for F1 on social media. Lewis Hamilton inadvertently produced the best examples of this appetite was during the Mercedes car launch event at Silverstone in February.

Hamilton, love him or loathe him, does more than the rest of the grid combined to reach out to his fans on social media. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook – he’s all over the lot. In the global list of the top 100 most followed athletes on Twitter, Hamilton ranks 78th. He and Valentino Rossi are the only motorsport personalities there.