“What does Formula 1 mean?” Lissy McIntosh breaks down the complexity of preseason tests into 400,000 Tiktok followers in a recent roundup of Formula 1 news. It’s been four years since the 25-year-old UK content creator and presenter began sharing F1 analysis, interviews and behind the scenes style and beauty.
Submitting content was a way of bringing attention to sports on social media among Gen Z. “I became the person I wanted to see, grew up in Tiktok and talked about sports,” says McIntosh.
She likes Tiktok, where 77% of viewers are women and 70% Gen Z, with 23.1mn likes! and has accumulated over 335,000 Instagram followers, 57% of whom are between 18 and 24 years old. MacIntosh’s online presence has seen working with brands like Charlotte Tilbury and Motorsport Pornpass Purph’s Motorsport Podcast. Social reporting.
With millions of short-form videos on Tiktok and YouTube, Instagram posts and podcasts, female influencers are becoming increasingly important for Formula One teams and brands who want to increase their online presence.
Influencers are currently building a bridge between drivers and fans. According to software specialist Salesforce, the short form of visceral nature of F1 Creator content has often resulted in hype and unique access to fans.
Susie Wolff, pioneering managing director of F1 Academy, Formula 4 level motorsport series for women under 25, says social media serves as an important boost to driver visibility. In just two seasons, the Scots have seen the “Formula One Academy Effect.” This was created to explain the wide reach and impact on the increased participation of women in carts.
Wolff hopes that the academy’s television and social channels will act as a vehicle for young girls to “instantly know that our sport has a place for them and that they are welcome here.”
Additionally, Wolff adds, “It will definitely be a decisive moment” in the upcoming F1 Academy documentary with actor Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Production Company, which will be released on Netflix later this year.
Female influencers have expanded the world of Formula One beyond traditional media, appealing to drivers, presenters and brands alike. According to Sports and Entertainment Agency Octagon UK, roughly half of Formula 1’s 750 million global fans have seen lucrative opportunities to engage online at least occasionally.
Tech and F1 commentator Toni Cowan-Brown exchanged policy careers in 2021 to create F1 content. Cowan-Brown, host of cultural platform Sunday Fan Girls and two motorsports and high-tech podcasts, has built a Tiktok community of over 113,000 and has gained over 40,000 Instagram followers.
Women account for 42% of F1 fans, but Cowan-Brown claims that F1 marketing has “seldom handled that audience.”
Her background means that she attracts audiences from both ends of the Tech-F1 spectrum. “I’ll bring Gen Z to the boardroom and the boardroom to Gen Z,” explains Cowan-Brown.
Despite her career and lifelong involvement in the sport, her first time on the track was Belgian Spa Francorchamps as a child in 1991, but Cowan Brown finds herself justifying the authority to talk about it. Cowan-Brown has discovered the experience of women sharing their work online regardless of their motorsport records as “brutally – it’s not even a thick skin problem.”
The former champion driver became Sky Sports F1 presenter and analyst Naomi Schiff, who made a career shift, bringing criticism and racial abuse online. The record-breaking race driver Lewis Hamilton also revealed. “These comments can almost paralyze you,” says Schiff.
Schiff, a longtime lover of Motorsports, focuses on tackling diversity, inspiring future generations who are “clearly still lacking” in Formula 1.
For fans banned by Sky Paywall, social media offers another platform for Schiff’s storytelling, offering the opportunity for other online influencers to invite the sport’s changing fan base.
A recurring theme in motorsports, especially content creation, is that “women hate men when they make money on their own time, their dimes, and intermediaries aren’t making profits.”
Maria Kivimaa, head of planning for Octagon, points out that brands that handle F1 should actively include them in collaboration with the hope of an inclusive and “culturally relevant space” rather than simply focusing on tokenized targeting for women.
Brand collaboration is equally essential for drivers, providing decisive financial support to fund races, training and equipment. GB3 driver Bianca Bustamante, known as Racer BIA by 14 million Instagram followers, has learned to “make a living out of your own” the value of social media.
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Currently 20 years old, the young driver has reported online the highs of her career. Bustamante was currently scheduled to race in the Defunct W Series, an all-women single-seater racing series that took part in management in 2022.
“The fact that you can afford to test, train, practice is the name of the game,” says Bustamante, who was signed to the McLaren Development Program for the second F1 Academy season.
Looking at the future of Formula 1 content, Cowan-Brown emphasizes the need to “stop creating on rental land.” Influencers will expand their portfolios across events, newsletters and podcasts so that the social media platform itself is not the primary beneficiary of their work.
Wolff has the power to inspire the next generation when he sees women zipping race suits or riding cars. “This is no longer the human world, and I want the audience to know about it.”
