Diagonal Diary: On the ground at F1 75 Live
Earlier this week, over 15,000 Formula 1 fans travelled to The O2 Arena in London for a first-of-its-kind F1 season launch event. Dubbed F1 75 Live in celebration of F1’s 75th anniversary, the two-hour show saw all 20 drivers and 10 team principals come together to simultaneously unveil their 2025 liveries. Diagonal Comms was on the ground to experience it first-hand.
No event of F1 75 Live’s magnitude away from the race track has ever been held before. No matter the occasion, bringing every current driver and team principal – as well as a host of past World Champions and 2025 Formula 2 and F1 Academy competitors – together for a media activation felt out of the realms of realistic possibility before F1 confirmed their plans for F1 75 Live in November last year. The event also makes a groundbreaking change to the usual rhythm of the informal F1 launch season that typically sees teams independently unveil their 2025 challengers in the weeks leading up to winter testing – and on an impressive scale.
Since Liberty Media’s acquisition of F1 in 2017, the pinnacle of single-seater motorsport has not been afraid to venture outside of its comfort zone to attract new viewers and its strategies have typically paid off. The sport is unrecognisable compared to what it was 10 years ago: F1 didn’t even have an Instagram account until March 2015 and the idea of live-streaming a livery launch event designed for the masses would have been utterly inconceivable. Despite the success of F1’s rapid PR, comms, and digital marketing transformation, which has made the championship one of the fastest-growing sports leagues in the world, change always attracts cynicism and the prospect of F1 75 Live was not exempt.
While reigning world champion Max Verstappen repeatedly joked about how he would fake an illness to avoid having to attend the show, mainstream F1 commentators were not shy of sharing their concerns. How would it appeal to the purists? Would it produce more cringe-worthy clips than value? Would it feel like a tacky over-dramatisation of F1? But sitting in the O2 surrounded by thousands of motor racing fans, you couldn’t help but appreciate how F1 has changed for the better; a star-studded lineup of its major players from across its history have congregated, during the off-season, no less, to simultaneously reveal all 10 new liveries with the everyday fan’s experience in sharp focus.
Throughout F1 75 Live, F1 successfully walked a fine line: it respected its history without taking itself too seriously. A large part of that tone was set by the event’s host, comedian Jack Whitehall, who, despite some pre-show scepticism, effectively provided the light-hearted energy that often clashes with F1’s old-school style but is supremely entertaining nonetheless. He poked fun at F1 fans’ strange obsession with near-identical paint jobs, continuously pined for Charles Leclerc, and enjoyed toying with Verstappen and George Russell regarding their public disagreement at the end of the 2024 season, providing F1 fans with the valuable human content they so often latch on to.
That casual, dynamic, and unpredictable engagement with the drivers ultimately set F1 75 Live apart from anything F1 has done before – in many instances, the hyper-media-trained answers that the team’s communications directors surely spent hours meticulously crafting were pushed to the side, which led to a more engaging viewing experience in-person and on the broadcast. In review, these candid conversations and the funny moments they led to were arguably the most successful part of the show among fans both new and old. Having also racked up tens of millions of views in mere days when published online, F1 should look to learn from this success as they decide the future of the F1 75 Live blueprint.
Interviews and host segments aside, the thousands of fans in attendance at the O2 and the millions who tuned in via their televisions and F1’s social media channels were ultimately most interested in the 10 teams’ livery unveilings. There was a significant risk that 10 consecutive launches would quickly have fans switching off but the natural level of showbiz-style drama that sharing the experience with thousands of people in person created meant that wasn’t a problem. The event did not feel drawn out, although some launches were certainly more successful – and tasteful – than others.
Every launch used its allotted seven-minute time slot very differently, owing to F1’s carefully considered decision not to communicate to teams what their competitors had planned. The differences were outlined well by the top three constructors: Red Bull leaned heavily into pre-recorded content and was the only team not to conduct a live interview with their drivers, Ferrari stylishly celebrated their motorsport prestige and, opportunistically, the birthday of their founder, Enzo Ferrari, while McLaren leant heavily into their history of success by bringing four championship-winning chassis on stage alongside the MCL39. However, the most popular launch according to the crowd at the O2 was certainly that of the Scuderia – although the mere sight of Leclerc and Hamilton side-by-side in red seemed enough to surpass the efforts of the other teams no matter how impressive.
Importantly for the commercial success of F1 75 Live, the spotlight was distributed equally between teams and they all used the event to build and communicate their unique brands, thus building a deeper connection with fans. In any other F1 off-season, the last-place constructor would not have received anything close to the same attention as the reigning champions, but due to F1 75 Live, they did; Sauber was given the same opportunity to speak to fans and put their sponsors on the world stage as McLaren. That brought F1’s class of 2025 to life in a brand new manner and formed the backbone of its success. Variety is the spice of life and F1 75 Live saw every team develop truly different personalities.
Overall, F1 75 Live was not every fan’s cup of tea and it clearly wasn’t every team principal’s or driver’s. However, it was surprisingly enjoyable from a fan’s perspective. There was room for improvement in regard to how the show could have used its time to suit an in-person and broadcast audience simultaneously, and perhaps we could have seen more of its headline performers Take That, Kane Brown, mgk, and Bryan Tyler’s Are We Dreaming. But the F1 community should be proud of the successful steps its sport is taking to speak to fans more effectively than ever before.