Formula 1 doesn’t need to shorten grands prix to make itself more appealing to younger viewers, Williams team principal James Vowles believes.
He said the sport can cater for demand for shorter-form content by embracing streaming platforms.
The Williams team leader was responding to comments earlier this month by Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali who believes grands prix “may be a bit too long for younger audiences.”
Vowles acknowledged the popularity of short material on modern viewing platforms. He believes F1 should adapt how it is broadcast in order to target younger audiences.
“I don’t think anyone in the world understands whether we need linear viewing or whether we need OTT [over-the-top streaming] or digital,” he told Business of Sport. “The younger generations, they don’t watch TV screens, everything’s on a portable device, but we’re not really catering for that.
“If you think about Formula 1, it’s a linear stream for two hours on a fixed platform. It works, don’t get me wrong, we have success week-on-week.
“But is that the way forward for the next five, 10 years? I’m unsure about that. And you can see more and more being digested through social media, short clips, et cetera.”
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He doesn’t believe the way to appeal to viewers who prefer shorter videos is to cut the length of races. Vowles said longer races tend to produce better action, using this year’s Dutch Grand Prix as an example.
“There was something interesting that was put out by Formula 1 the other day, which was, should we make races shorter as a result of things, or more sprint races? Now, I’m on the older side, but I would say generally no.
“I think the product is what it is. In fact, what makes the product really good? Take Zandvoort: […] Alex put it the best, he said, ‘I just watched everyone around me crash’. It was just unpredictable what happened from start to finish, but you had to watch all of an hour and 40 [minutes] of it to get the final result out of it.”
Vowles also believes attempts to artificially improve the racing in F1, such as the imposition of two mandatory pit stops in this year’s Monaco Grand Prix, failed.
“Monaco this year, you could treat it as spectacle if you want, but pretty much we finished where we qualified, except we played games on track at the same time. My opinion is [that’s] not necessarily how I want to go racing.
“The viewership is more what should dominate it. My point is, it doesn’t necessarily have to be shorter, but the consumption of it moving away from fixed TV, and therefore we have to think differently about how we broadcast.”
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He sees F1 moving away from traditional television broadcasters towards streaming platforms in the future, and using that technology to present F1 footage in the most suitable format for viewers.
“I would move more in the direction of Apple, [Amazon] Prime, et cetera,” he said. “In other words, go to a platform that is available worldwide and more in a streaming format in that way.
“And I would find a way of concatenating it to a shortened version, should you wish to, that then expands into the longer version if you need it as well.”
However he acknowledged broadcasters currently account for a significant portion of F1’s income, which then goes to the teams in the form of prize money. “We have to think very carefully about how we monetise this in the right way so that we are not getting a massive loss.”
He believes it could take up to 15 years for F1 to transition to streaming platforms. “Our broadcasters are on completely different contracts all over the world, on different timings,” he explained. “So for example, the USA’s up [for contract renewal] now, but Sky UK is not for another three years. So aligning them is actually going to be a little bit more tricky than that in terms of bringing it all together.”
Although Vowles does not want F1 to shorten its races he agrees with Domenicali’s view that it holds too many practice sessions at grands prix. He suggested cutting them as a means of adding more grand prix to the calendar – though admitted appetite may not exist for more than 24 rounds per year.
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“I don’t think we have too many races but I would not go above where we are at the moment, because we’re asking people at home to be there for half a year,” he said. “Half your weekends are watching Formula 1. I think that’s about the extreme end of where you can go to.
“I would change it – this is very much my opinion, I’ll put that out there – I would change to two-day weekends, Saturday and Sunday. And here’s the reason why: we can do more at that point in time.
“I know I just said 24 is the maximum but I actually wouldn’t be concerned about that fact [if we drop] Friday, which is one day. Do that 24 times, that’s 24 days a year. If you added another two race weekends in, you’d still [have], net, the same amount of time that you were previously.”
Shorter grand prix weekends could also produce more exciting races, says Vowles. “I think the product will be better because we do a lot of practice at the moment.
“It’s good as an engineer – at heart, I love the fact that we get to do experimentation. But now if you force us [and say] you’ve got one hour before qualifying, that’s quite a different proposition. So I think you’ll get more variability, more randomness that comes out of it.”
“I’m thinking of the sport, not us as engineers,” he added. “Our drivers want every minute in the car, our engineers want every moment in the car.
“But the is sport better if [for example] a McLaren qualifies 15th, because it got it wrong, because you will do, and you get more variability in the grid.”
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