Question on focus of F1

[majki2111]

I was searching trough general F1 forum, but I couldn't find the general topic for F1 so I must open new topic because I want to hear others opinion on this. From my perspective (I am form Croatia, so country which is located in Balkans, southeast Europe), it seems F1 is largely focused on England and maybe even US. So primarily on Anglo-Saxon population trough TV coverages and political stands such as Black lives matter and even racism policy which is not recognized here to that extent like in western Europe. For fact, I know that a lot people here follow F1 and if they do not follow, they are surely familiar with it.

And not only for Balkans the talk is also rarely focused in Eastern Europe. I really don't know why. One argument I might have here is that market is not actually small. Half of population of Europe is Slavic.

So, is really F1 neglecting that part of Europe in their decision making process and is f1 even noticing Slavic population/fans of this sport?

Maybe I am wrong because this post is written solely on impression.

Any other thoughts?

[Big Tea]

I was searching trough general F1 forum, but I couldn't find the general topic for F1 so I must open new topic because I want to hear others opinion on this. From my perspective (I am form Croatia, so country which is located in Balkans, southeast Europe), it seems F1 is largely focused on England and maybe even US. So primarily on Anglo-Saxon population trough TV coverages and political stands such as Black lives matter and even racism policy which is not recognized here to that extent like in western Europe. For fact, I know that a lot people here follow F1 and if they do not follow, they are surely familiar with it.

And not only for Balkans the talk is also rarely focused in Eastern Europe. I really don't know why. One argument I might have here is that market is not actually small. Half of population of Europe is Slavic.

So, is really F1 neglecting that part of Europe in their decision making process and is f1 even noticing Slavic population/fans of this sport?

Maybe I am wrong because this post is written solely on impression.

Any other thoughts?

I suppose from a financial point of view, which F1 will take, how many sponsors from which region appears on the cars and tracks?
The largest populations are China, India and Brazil, but there seems to be very little representation on the cars.
Many of them companies are probably owned by Chinese backers, but they sell to a target audience.

[Tommy Cookers]

Russia

[Jolle]

Various reasons I guess. One is money. A country like Croatia is small in comparison to Germany, Italy or Great Britain and the economy is even smaller. Formula one = money, and with the investment needed to incorporate that market (like language, etc) is just not viable.
As for political statements. My guess is that Croatia is still a very young country and, to be fair, was “cleansed” during the early nineties from anybody not from Croatia (and Croatians were cleansed from neighbouring countries). So I would say, it might be very on topic?

[notsofast]

Organizations that make their money by providing entertainment (like F1) focus on markets where there is a large fan base. A good way to get a local fan base is to get a local hero. In other words, a top-class race car driver from Croatia. (There is a Dutch GP on the calendar this year, all because of Verstappen.) In order to get that, you need a culture of racing. Racing has gotten to be so optimized that an individual cannot just get into a car and drive as fast as possible. You need all the support and infrastructure around it. Build a cart track and make it popular. Build more cart tracks. Build tracks for higher racing series. And more importantly, build a fan base. It's a long process, and not easy to do.

That said, one brilliant thing that Liberty has done is allow Sky F1 coverage to be shown in the US. Liberty should do this globally: ensure that top-tier coverage is available around the globe. It is difficult for a new audience to learn a sport if their own commentators do not understand it or don't have the money or access to provide good coverage.

[majki2111]

I can agree with all. As for Croatia only we have 1 real racetrack (Grobnik) only which was supposed to be introduced instead of Hungaroring in 1986. And that circuit still runs today. And we never had any racing driver close to F1. However I cannot agree on small market thing. 320 million Slavic people, 13 Slavic countries of Europe, just cannot be small market. And I would never consider these countries poor.

[El Scorchio]

F1 has to make those political gestures. Most of the money coming in is from those countries who largely agree with them. I won’t go any further into that as this thread will probably descend into an argument and get locked.

I am afraid the Slavic market is very small in terms of the money it brings in to broadcasters and advertisers compared to Western Europe and America, even though it’s big in population. And the money is what matters to businesspeople.

[DiogoBrand]

The focus of F1 if anybody didn't know yet:

[El Scorchio]

The focus of F1 if anybody didn't know yet:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/09/17/e2 ... d7a30b.jpg

100%!

[Ethan Connor]

I respect your point of view but all thing have two side the bright side and the dark side your seeing the bright side the dark side is the investment (money) and popularity of the sports like in Asia Cricket is much much popular than any other sports. If you see top ten Cricket team you may notice one thing that 5 of them are ASIAN at the same time none of Asian team are in Racing team back in decades India and Pakistan lunch their Racing team but due to Financial and different problem they have to step down.

[Just_a_fan]

I was searching trough general F1 forum, but I couldn't find the general topic for F1 so I must open new topic because I want to hear others opinion on this. From my perspective (I am form Croatia, so country which is located in Balkans, southeast Europe), it seems F1 is largely focused on England and maybe even US. So primarily on Anglo-Saxon population trough TV coverages and political stands such as Black lives matter and even racism policy which is not recognized here to that extent like in western Europe. For fact, I know that a lot people here follow F1 and if they do not follow, they are surely familiar with it.

And not only for Balkans the talk is also rarely focused in Eastern Europe. I really don't know why. One argument I might have here is that market is not actually small. Half of population of Europe is Slavic.

So, is really F1 neglecting that part of Europe in their decision making process and is f1 even noticing Slavic population/fans of this sport?

Maybe I am wrong because this post is written solely on impression.

Any other thoughts?

F1 is focussed on England because most of the teams are here and most of the people in F1 are either British or have English as a second language to a high level. Of course, the language makes it easy for the US to join in although there is so much US-based sport that the US isn't that invested in F1. As for focus on Europe, F1 is sanctioned by the FIA which is based in Paris. So there is already a western Europe focus there - teams and FIA.

As for racism policies etc., they are driven by US / western European political changes. Some eastern European have taken political decisions in an entirely different direction as is their right. I would think that the FIA would make it a requirement for any new country on the calendar to at least allow the on-circuit and broadcasting messages, even if they make no changes to their own politics - this happens in other places already so it's nothing new.

It's also worth remembering that much of eastern Europe wasn't accessible for many years and new circuits generally only get added when existing ones stop being available - there are only so many races available each year. Any circuits applying to hold a race also need to meet FIA standards. Many countries have great circuits but they aren't certified to the correct level.

There's no inherent reason why Croatia, for example, couldn't host an F1 race. But there is a lot of work required to make it happen and perhaps no one in Croatia with the necessary political / financial power is interested enough to make it happen.