Laurent Mekies, CEO and team principal of Oracle Red Bull Racing, has said he expects the ballooning popularity of Formula One (F1) racing in China to give way to transformative business opportunities for teams and the sport as a whole.
The Chinese Grand Prix, a round of the F1 World Championship, kicked off in Shanghai on Friday, with the number of spectators expected to reach 230,000 during the three-day event, setting a 20-year high.
"We think it's only the beginning. As much as numbers are extremely impressive, we see an extraordinary transformation into the Chinese fan base. We came back to the country a couple of years ago. We see that not only the number of fans has increased dramatically, but also the fan base is now a lot more gender balanced. It's nearly 50:50 between female and men and it's also a much younger fan base. So there has been an incredible transformation in China, and we think it's only the beginning of that transformation. So as impressive as this number feels right now, we are probably looking at something much bigger in the years to come. And what it means for us as Oracle Red bull Racing with our partners is an incredible potential in connections, in businesses with the country," said Mekies.
Mekies said social media, as well as open access to racing facilities and engagement with drivers, are key to winning over F1's young fans.
"We have been scratching our heads for many years on how to engage with the next generations. If you think back 10 or 15 years ago, we had no idea how to talk to that younger generation. We felt they were less interested in taking the driving license. We felt they were less interested in cars and we have no idea how to do that. And then a combination of a million factors, from the social medias to the efforts we have done in the broadcasting, I think open the doors of their facilities and of their operations. The drivers themselves, I think, have been driving that engagement with the next generations. We are now in the positions where we feel it's only the beginning of these connections with the younger boys and girls out there. And we are probably only scratching surface," he said.
Newly introduced rules in the sport are now making F1 even more strategic, increasing excitement and interest from fans.
Just as teams adapt to rule changes, they are also adapting to the new possibilities opened up by emerging fanbases, including business partnerships.
"Anything we do in the team, we ask ourselves the question, does it make the car faster? If it doesn't make the car faster, we simply don't do it. And it's also the way we strike our strategic partnerships. We are looking for teams, we are looking for partners, we are looking for companies that shares these values of chasing performance, pretty much at all costs. You take the product of that teamwork, it' the car, and you take it to race track here in China. You put max in the car, drives around. We are going to be separated by thousandths of seconds with the competitions. We are helping each other on the same next technology. It's material innovations, its design innovations, its software innovations as well, areas where we learn from each other and we push each other," he said.
Red Bull team eyes "incredible potential" in Chinese F1 fanbase: CEO
