Diagonal Diary: BlackBook Motorsport Forum
Last week, Diagonal’s Managing Director, Matt Bishop, attended the 2025 BlackBook Motorsport Forum in London – the flagship business event for stakeholders in global motorsport. The all-day conference offered a chance for industry professionals from a plethora of motorsport disciplines and sectors to network with like-minded individuals and learn more about the industry in which they operate.
Matt was a guest speaker, appearing on a panel hosted by BlackBook’s Cian Brittle alongside three talented individuals – Otmar Szafnauer, the former Team Principal of the Force India (later Racing Point and Aston Martin) and Alpine teams in Formula 1; Kate Beavan, a board member and strategic advisor for More than Equal – which delivers a bespoke Driver Development Programme to talented women drivers – and the former right-hand woman to long-time F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone; and broadcaster Jennie Gow.
Matt, Otmar, Kate, Jennie, and Cian’s panel began with a toast to Eddie Jordan, the founder of his eponymous F1 team, Jordan Grand Prix, who went on to become a pundit for the BBC and Channel 4, and sadly died a week before the conference on 20 March.
Having raised a glass to the charismatic Irishman, Matt delivered a live edition of ‘On This Day’, the series he has coined on social media where he looks back on the interesting pieces of F1 and motorsport history which happened #OnThisDay in years gone by.
The panel progressed with a variety of topical F1-based discussions, including Red Bull’s decision to swap Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda ahead of this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix. The controversial decision attracted criticism from key figures in the F1 paddock, including reigning world champion Max Verstappen. The Dutch driver, who now has a third different team-mate in four races, recently made his views on Red Bull’s handling of its second seat clear when he liked a piercing Instagram post by ex-F1 driver Giedo van der Garde which described Red Bull’s decision making as ‘closer to bullying or a panic move’. Earlier this week, Verstappen stated that his public support of that comment “was not a mistake”. By demoting Lawson after only two races this season, the Kiwi becomes the fifth driver to be demoted from the premier squad mid-season after Daniil Kvyat (2015), Pierre Gasly (2019), Nyck de Vries (2023), and Daniel Ricciardo (2024).
The panel shifted gears to discuss Liberty Media’s success in promoting F1 since it agreed to buy the Formula One Group for £ 3.44 billion in 2017 and end Ecclestone’s reign as the commercial rights holder. The panel unanimously agreed that the American media conglomerate has done a brilliant job promoting the sport, commercialising it in the digital age, and engaging fans both new and old. F1 remains one of the fastest-growing sports in the world and is thriving in almost all metrics.
However, Liberty Media is not slowing down the deployment of transformative comms, PR, and digital marketing strategies. The F1 75 Live event – a first-of-its-kind F1 season launch that was hosted at the O2 Arena, London, and attended by all 10 teams and 20 drivers – recently illustrated its desire to continue pushing the boundaries of what the sport can become. The show attracted some criticism among traditional fans and commentators but was widely deemed a success. The panel at the BlackBlook Motorsport Forum supported the idea of F1 75 Live and felt it should be repeated, although perhaps with a different format and in a new location. After all, F1 76 Live does not have quite the same ring to it!
There is no doubt that F1 has succeeded under Liberty Media’s control, but the panel couldn’t help but assess the future of Liberty Media’s investment – how long is it willing to hold on to F1? The ultimate goal of any business venture is to buy at a low price and sell at a higher one, but there must be room for improvement to attract a buyer. The panel questioned when Liberty Media will sell F1 and to whom the sport may be sold following rumours at the start of 2023 that Liberty Media had rejected a proposal from Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund (PIF) to buy F1 for $20 billion. However, to be clear, no-one on the panel was predicting an imminent sale.
The panel went on to discuss that, no matter whose hands F1’s long-term future lies in, it is clear that the habits of its fans have changed dramatically, and the way that it has embraced the digital age has transformed how personnel within the sport, including all of those on the panel in their current and former roles, must operate. In many ways, F1 is totally unrecognisable compared with as little as 10 years ago.
Matt, Otmar, Kate, Jennie, and Cian subsequently brought their panel, and with it this year’s BlackBook Motorsport Forum, to a close, concluding the stimulating day on a relaxed note with drinks in the hands of those in attendance.
Matt said of his time at the BlackBook Motorsport Forum: “It was a stimulating event that was all about networking and learning for everyone, whether they were speakers, delegates, or both, and it led to numerous valuable conversations for us at Diagonal Comms.
“I thoroughly enjoyed attending as a speaker and joining a panel with Cian, Otmar, Kate, and Jennie. We got stuck in to some insightful conversations about the world of Formula 1, discussing many of the sport’s major storylines from a sporting and commercial point of view, which we hope were useful to everyone in the audience.
“There was lots of great networking going on, and lots of good people present, and an enjoyable time was had by all.”