Other markets, more VIPS and younger audience: due to the urge to innovate, Formula 1 is getting further and further away from the ‘normal’ fan

Where Formula 1 cars drove an hour ago, a van now stops. It is Saturday evening, after a long hot day, some cooling clouds have finally been drawn over the circuit in Barcelona. Four men in fluorescent yellow shirts with reflective stripes get out. One of them runs to the grass on the inside of the circuit, on which a gigantic logo of the crypto sponsor of Formula 1 is applied with blue and white paint.

The man in the yellow shirt kneels, brings out a scissor and starts to update the blades of grass in the white letters of the logo. Cut, cut-Spriet for Spriet, he ensures that a day later there can be no uncertainty with the millions of TV protectors of the Spain Grand Prix about who is the best provider of crypto coins.

But no matter how precise the man cuts, he cannot remove another form of uncertainty: that about the survival of the Formula 1 race on this place, which is held the next day for the 35th consecutive year. After the 2026 edition, Barcelona’s contract expires, while Madrid won a place on the F1 calendar with a street circuit to be constructed until 2035.

As the Race won by Oscar Piastri In Barcelona this Sunday will indeed turn out to be the penultimate one, is that a big loss for Formula 1? And what does it say that more traditional racing tracks are disappearing?

Summit

Formula 1 is after almost ten years under American ownership and a breakthrough supported by Netflix in a new, young target group is extremely popular. Racepromotors are in line to buy a spot on the calendar for their circuit, in which Formula 1 prefers spectacular locations, unadvived markets and parties that can deposit the highest sum of money. In the meantime, multinationals are paying grif to get their brand next to the circuit.

In that environment it is difficult to compete for old -fashioned circuits. The schedule is full with 24 races: an old road must be made for every new destination. Not only Barcelona (opened in 1991) is under pressure. The picturesque Imola held his last F1 race two weeks ago. Zandvoort After 2026, the investment no longer dares. From 2027, Spa-Francorchamps in the Belgian Ardennes will only receive visitors every year. Despite their history, the German Nürburgring and Hockenheimring have been out of the picture despite their history.

Let circuits in that category are just the most popular among the drivers. Barcelona too. It has an attractive mix of slow and fast turns – it was not for nothing that it was a favorite of teams for years to test their new cars in the winter. Max Verstappen, who once won his first Grand Prix in Barcelona, ​​tells the press in De Paddock that he finds it « a very good circuit », « very nice to drive. »

In turn nine, Campsa, you see what Verstappen is referring to. The asphalt bends off at right angles to the right, quite hilly. When sending the bend you cannot see the end of it. If the drivers choose the right line, Campsa can be raced in the qualification with little gasoline in the tanks. At 260 kilometers per hour, the cars will rattle over the cerbsthe red-white brick strips on the outside of the track. In some places, the surface of the KERBS no longer feels rough, but smooth: it is completely worn away because the undersides of the extremely low adjusted cars always touch the ground.

In such a challenging turn, something is really at stake for the drivers. Those who misunderstand campsa can crash hard. An F1 season without Barcelona, ​​Verstappen concludes, would be ‘a loss’ from a rider perspective.

Whether the new circuit in Madrid will soon provide the same adrenalinekick is the question. On A demonstration film In which someone with the necessary trouble sends a car over a virtual version of the course, it can be seen that the bends are either relatively slow or easy to drive. Both not the most exciting for a driver.

« When constructing a new circuit, it is easy to be next to it, » says Lewis Hamilton as NRC Asks him what he thinks about the possible disappearance of Barcelona. « At least 90 percent of the times it is not an improvement. »

Industrial estate

But what the drivers think is irrelevant; The picture on TV is more important. Formula 1 wants to go more often, as marketing people call it, Destination Locations. Places of which viewers and potential sponsors think: I have to be there too. Miami and Las Vegas, respectively since 2022 and 2023 host of a race, are such locations.

Not Barcelona. Unlike the name suggests, the Barcelona-Catalunya circuit is not in the city, but about fifteen kilometers above, on a dusty industrial estate near the village of Montmeló. Tufts spectators who are on their way to the circuit in the morning first pass a trade in aerial platforms and a company that rents out cooling trucks, before they have to turn left at the distribution center of a regional supermarket chain.

On the website From the Madring – as the new circuit in the Spanish capital is called – you immediately see that the organization wants to check all marketing compartments. Fans awaits’A Unique Experience« , In a » European capital « that is » ready to beat F1 twing, « and where you can also go for » concerts, fan zones (…) and exclusive merchandise stores.  » And all that “sustainable« .

It is not listed that the Madring is also not in the heart of Madrid, but on and around the vast exhibition site of organizer IFEMA. For the commercial value that the event has for Formula 1, it is mainly about Madrid, such as the sport On the own website sayssoon « is » the only European capital with a Grand Prix « .

Barcelona can’t compete with that. It has none Unique Selling Pointor it should be his history. Michael Schumacher who in 1996 one of the most impressive natural races ever Reed. The collision between Mercedes teammates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg who paved the path for Verstappen’s first win. The amazing triumph van de Venezuelan crash king pastor Maldonado in 2012.

« It’s good that Formula 1 goes to new locations, » says Spanish public favorite Fernando Alonso. « But we also have to keep the traditional circuits where the history of Formula 1 is written. »

Flavio Briatoree has less trouble with such sentiment. The 75-year-old Italian, who came to work in Formula 1 in the late 1980s and recently Back is as an interim tamb boss At Alpine, the development of sport finds ‘incredible’ in the past ten years. « Many young people follow Formula 1. In our time that was not the case, then the average age was something of 50 or 55 years, » he says during a press conference. « Formula 1 is in much higher appearance. Look at the United States. We used to drive in Phoenix, further on was a horse race. The people who should have come to Formula 1 preferred to go to the horses. (…) Now we have taken a big step forward. »

Briatores memory is not entirely true (it was not a horse race in Phoenix, but an ostrich festival That more attention was attracted than the F1 race), but he does express exactly what the emphasis is on today for Formula 1. More and younger audience, more followers on social media, more sponsors, more VIPS in the pits-more income. Thecending F1 train has less and less time to stop at smaller stations such as Barcelona.

Grease

Thick black ants trip over the white lines on the asphalt that mark the edge of the circuit. In almost the same way on Saturday evening, behind the crash barrier and a few fences, a hundreds of meters long row of Ferrari shirts and alonso caps to the exit.

The grasschers around the circuit also run empty. In those places around the rolling circuit you can use the cheapest tickets, About 180 euros For three days, pick out a place yourself. A man drags a self -brought camping chair into the hill. Another is dropped with his feet on a cool box. Further on someone folds a picnic dress.

It is Formula 1 on its simplest. Sandwiches and a bottle of water in the backpack, sunscreen, folding chair under the arm, walking a piece from a crowded parking lot somewhere on a lawn and then watch racing cars all day. On almost all old -fashioned circuits, from Silverstone to Zandvoort and from Spa to Imola, thousands of fans with camping chair together take together on hills, dune tops and between the trees.

That is perhaps the most essential element that is lost when places like Barcelona disappear from Formula 1. Because new jobs have no freely sorting out, relatively affordable seating spots on hills – if only because those hills are not there, since those types of circuits are in city centers, or on pieces of wasteland and large parking spaces. If you want to go to Miami or Las Vegas, you can leave the folding chair at home and pull the wallet for an expensive grandstand. This way, Formula 1 always gets a little further away from the ‘normal’ fan.

‘Forty years’ year’

Is there no hope for Barcelona anymore? Maybe. In addition to Spa, Formula 1 also wants to give other races on rotation base a place on the calendar. That would offer another chance for the Catalan circuit.

Fernando Alonso is confident. « I don’t think we’ll lose Barcelona, » he says to NRC. Alonso is ambassador of the circuit, so he has an interest in a positive message. On the other hand, his certainty suggests that he knows more about the negotiations behind the scenes. « Barcelona has been there for three decades, and there will be ten, twenty, thirty or forty years. »

Tens of thousands of spectators will flow on the race track on Sunday afternoon. The race is over, the security has opened the gates. Fans pull the styrofoams from the grass next to the course with plates with fat figures how many meters it is still until the first corner. A boy with a green alonso shirt lays down his camping chair, takes the board that indicates ‘100’ and takes a picture with it. Then he leaves it behind; There are more people who also want to take photos.

Then a group of boys arrives in white pants and running on Suede Loafers. One of them turns the sign: the logo of the Saudi state oil company appears. He poses laughing. Then he clamps the plate under his arm, and disappears with it in the crowd.

To share

Mail the editors