FOM considered animated series to engage with youngest fans

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In the round-up: Formula One Management has considered the idea of commissioning an F1 related animated children’s TV show to help appeal to younger audiences.

In brief

FOM considered animated series to engage with youngest fans

Formula One Management has considered the idea of commissioning an F1 related animated children’s TV show to help appeal to younger audiences.

FOM’s director of media rights and content creation, Ian Holmes, discussed how FOM was looking to expand the sport’s fanbase beyond gaining new audiences through the Netflix documentary Drive to Survive while speaking at the BlackBook Motorsport Forum in London on Wednesday.

“Essentially, we want people to engage with our sport in any way that they want to,” Holmes said. “We want to make sure our offering is as broad as it can be.

“Drive to Survive has been a very successful pillar of that, but we also want to engage with children, for example. We want to do an animation series. We want to do something in travel or whatever it might be – it needs to have a link with Formula 1.

“But essentially we want as many different touchpoints for the sport as possible. So we need to make sure, from a content point of view what we push out – over and above and around Drive to Survive – engages with the fans that come in from that direction.”

Krack surprised rivals don’t scrub race tyres

Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack is bemused that the other nine Formula 1 teams are not following their tactic of scrubbing in tyres for races this season.

The team regularly send out drivers Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll to complete slow laps on new tyres to scrub them in ready for races. Krack says the team will continue to use this approach for the rest of the season.

“We do it because we think it’s the thing to do,” Krack said. “Why others are not doing it, you have to ask them. But it’s a good observation that we do that. For us, we think we are better off that we keep doing this.”

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Comment of the day

Sergio Perez may be being soundly beaten by world champion team mate Max Verstappen midway through 2022, but @sjaakfoo says Perez is playing his role at Red Bull just fine…

I feel people are harder on Checo than they need to be. He is never going to beat Verstappen or be in the same category as him, so that’s not his goal and never should be. I know people get upset about “team orders” and whatnot, but you can’t run a WDC challenging team with two contenders unless there’s no other competition. Max is always going to be the one winning the races and championships and Checo’s role is only to be there when Max – for whatever reason it may be – isn’t.

That’s why he’s been doing a good job both this and past year. Yes, his pace could be a bit stronger, but overall he’s gotten some crucial jobs done. He’s won races when he needed to (Baku last year after Max retired, and Monaco this year after Max just couldn’t come to grips with the car on the narrow streets in the same way and had a poor qualifying result), been a thorn in the side of Ferrari this year and Lewis last year, just all in all he’s done the job they need him to do.

I don’t think Red Bull are particularly upset Checo is not on the same pace as Max. They really don’t need another Max, they’ve already got one. They need a wingman.
SjaakFoo

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Adam Smith, Hsvlvr and Pink Peril!

Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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25 comments on “FOM considered animated series to engage with youngest fans”

  1. To add to SjaakFoo’s comment, Perez is in his thirties, a father to three children, with investments everywhere, so this position of “wingman” is also good for him. His ratings every weekend are a bit of a headache because he is always matched to VER (and he should be). The problem there is that you’re comparing a very good driver (PER) to the best driver in generations (VER). This last comment is controversial, I know, but VER is definitvely way above anyone currently on the grid.

  2. This is some scintillating stuff here. Great reporting.

    “We do it because we think it’s the thing to do,” Krack said. “Why others are not doing it, you have to ask them. But it’s a good observation that we do that. For us, we think we are better off that we keep doing this.”

  3. F1 Cartoon series? Good idea. Already have the cartoon design elements with the stretch limo profile – as Sainz confirms to the camera. ;-)

    1. I always like the Michel Vaillant series in comics if you could animate that with a update i think that would score very high!

  4. Hard to know what to think of it but Emmo Fittipaldi is running for Senator in Italy:

    https://old.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/wp3aij/emerson_fittipaldi_running_for_senate_in_italy_by/

  5. When Tsunoda tested for Mercedes?

    1. Joe Pineapples
      18th August 2022, 14:37

      hehehe (was about to post the same)

  6. F – Motori in pista (“Efu”) by Noboru Rokuda was released almost 35 years ago. Just get it on Netflix, for starters. Also, while FOM talking about it, Formula Japan announced anime about future open wheels series (Highspeed Etoile).

  7. Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack is bemused that the other nine Formula 1 teams are not following their tactic of scrubbing in tyres for races this season.

    But is the team tailing a lot of races in the rear maybe they should stop it as the others are ahead of them. The tyres scrubbing with normal race tyres sure but these Pirelli’s are very strange as they work only when you have new bring them up temperature slowly and they work diversing from that is making a new kind of tyre and probaly not for the good one.

    So with scrubbing they make the tyre a bit harder ( I think that is why they do it) so they can go further at the cost of speed …. You can beter turn it around because the time winst you get from that is beter then go further……….

  8. Animated series, I wonder what’s considered next, a live-action series?

    Aston may find getting tyres up to temperature (the most likely true intention) easier with scrubbed than entirely unused ones that still have the layer on, but this isn’t necessarily the case for other teams who may feel more indifferent towards these two options.

    COTD couldn’t be more spot-on.

    1. Animated series, I wonder what’s considered next, a live-action series?

      Maybe a reality series?
      “So you think you can Drive”
      “Ru Paul’s Drag Race”
      “The Helmeted Singer”

  9. 2019 Japanese GP race day.

    1. Meant as a reply to @Miane, but somehow became separate.

  10. I don’t know how accurate it is but the list of F1 salaries link is interesting. The standout surprises to me are Lando Norris on £16.5 million (the joint 3rd highest!) compared to George Russell on £4.1 million. Then there’s Daniel of course on £12 million.

    1. These are all guesstimates, and taken from the Sportac site (they also have all the other years: https://www.spotrac.com/formula1/).

      But by changing the currency to GBP (and forgetting that the original data was rounded in millions) you suddenly get something that appears much more ‘accurate’ (GBP825k seems more accurate/detailed than USD1M).
      And other sites have quite different estimated numbers with variances of 50% and more for some drivers.

      1. If you’re British that makes sense I guess.

        1. Best practice is NOT to change the currency when referencing numbers from other sources, but you can include (e.g. in parentheses) the most relevant equivalent for your audience.

          And in science it’s a big no-no to increase the level of accuracy of numbers.

          But as it is a link to The Sun I guess we should celebrate the fact that they made it to the round-up ;)

  11. I loved seeing racing-inspired cartoons when I was a kid. As someone that’s always idolized driving as a kid a Formula 1 cartoon back then would have been amazing. I didn’t care so much for cars themselves (i.e. I wasn’t fawning over brands or cars themselves as much), but actual driving them was something I desired as a kid. So I had a lot of toys like that. Those tabletop steering wheels they had in the 80s, a mat with roads and stuff on them to play on with toy cars. Absolutely fascinated me for hours and hours. Later on of course video games with a steering wheel peripheral.

    So yeah, F1 cartoon is probably a great idea for kids today that were like me. That just love seeing anything with cars going fast. Has to be very appealing. I know I would’ve been all over that.

  12. F1 Animated Series? Bring back Tooned! Loved back then, it’s still good.

  13. Does anyone else here watch Mini Drivers on YouTube ?? That’s a great little animated series ?? Also wasn’t there a Spanish animation that used to go out before each race, but was like a brief satirical look back at the the events of the previous Grand Prix, it was around late 200’s I think, Alonso (obviously) featured in a lot of them.

    1. Yes, I remember watching those, some were really funny. It was called Los Quemagomas – there are a few episodes on YouTube if you search for them.

  14. Has no one said Wacky Races yet?

  15. “Essentially, we want people to engage with our sport in any way that they want to,”

    No, you want to promote your product among children to expand your target audience and even further monopolize the motorsports market.

    1. Which motorsport has flourishing engagement from the children’s market that would be threatened by F1 growing its own appeal to that market?

  16. Mclaren already did tooned and F1 race stars is the perfect game for kids. Still marketing is an important thing and I think the new series will be a some sort of a hit

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