Fandom Is the Fuel
How new fans are rewriting the rules of motorsport culture — one Canva, candle, and fashion drip at a time
Fan-made, fan-powered, and way ahead of the curve.The second piece in this series dives into the rise of new-school F1 fandom — and why it’s the fangirls, the fan artists, and the fashion remixers who are really driving the sport forward.
Motorsport used to be (and as far as F1 is concerned, still is) a closed paddock. Unless you can afford it. If you weren’t born into it, you probably weren’t welcome in it. But something’s changed.
A new wave of fans — mostly younger, mostly online, and yes, mostly women — are making the sport their own. And they’re not asking for permission.
They’re not just watching F1. They’re remaking it.
Turning Oscar Piastri into a candle
Designing unlicensed, fan-made merch that looks better than the official drops
Editing aesthetic TikToks that rival Netflix in emotional impact
Creating ‘starter packs’ for each driver
Remixing radio messages and fashion fits into memes, reels, and Pinterest boards
This isn’t a niche trend. It’s a cultural power shift. And it’s forcing teams, sponsors, and legacy fans to re-evaluate what fandom actually looks like — and who gets to define it.
They’re bringing fresh energy, fan-made fashion drips, and content that slaps. And they’re not waiting for a brand’s permission slip.
“Fandom has always been and will always be a fan-created and led phenomenon. Just because someone is a fan of your team, it doesn’t mean you can tell them to jump and they’ll say how high.” — Dr Georgie Carroll, in response to questions we sent her for this piece
Fan Culture Isn’t New — It’s Just Loud Now
Fan culture has always been about remixing the source material. What’s different now is scale, speed, and savviness.
Ask yourself: what other sport has fans designing better merch than the official store? Where else do you see spreadsheets circulating of unlicensed prints, Etsy drops, and Canva infographics that feel more ‘on-brand’ than the brand itself?
You’ve got:
Embroidered jackets featuring podium stats
“I brake for Zhou Guanyu” bumper stickers
Whole fan zines dedicated to driver fashion ratings
This isn’t cosplay. It’s canon. And if you’re not treating it seriously, you’ve already missed the turn-in point.
The Gender Gap: Why Newer Fans Are Mostly Female — and Why That Matters
This isn’t just a vibe shift. It’s quantifiable. Here’s what the data says:
Female fans now make up ~41% of the global F1 audience, up from around 37% in 2018 — and previously just 10% back in 2017 (Source)
Women account for 75% of all new F1 fans, with nearly half of those new fans identifying as Gen Z women (Source)
42% of female fans follow the F1 Academy, compared to just 23% across all fans — signalling strong interest in women-led talent initiatives (Source)
F1 Academy engagement is much higher among Gen Z and women, with 37% of Gen Z respondents and 36% of newer fans engaging with the series (Source)
Motorsport’s future isn’t just faster. It’s feminised — in the best possible way.
A new wave of women-led fandom is turning the grid into a runway, a meme lab, and a remix culture playground.
And brands are starting to clock it:
Iron Dames — the all-female racing team led by CEO Deborah Mayer — has been making serious noise across multiple categories including WEC (World Endurance Championship), ELMS (European Le Mans Series), and IMSA. In 2023, they made history by winning the LMGTE class at the 8 Hours of Bahrain and earning a podium at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. This isn’t tokenism — it’s high-performance proof that women-led teams can dominate on merit.
Charlotte Tilbury became the first beauty brand to sponsor an F1 Academy car, backing Lola Lovinfosse
e.l.f. Cosmetics now sponsor Katherine Legge backing both her Indy500 entry and NASCAR — making history at the Chicago Street Race by finishing 19th, becoming the first woman to crack the top 20 in a NASCAR Cup Series race in eight years
Susie Wolff is now CEO of F1 Academy — steering the next generation of female drivers
More Than Equal, co-founded by David Coulthard, is developing elite female talent through research-backed training
This isn’t a pink-washed sidebar. It’s a cultural engine.
They’re not here to be your grid girl. They’re here to grid up. Fake it and you won’t earn respect — just a well-earned side-eye.
As strategist Shelby Chargin recently pointed out, when industry teams run fan accounts pretending to be fans, it damages trust. Authentic fandom is built through transparency and collaboration — not by co-opting fan space for insider clout. It’s a call to engage honestly, not pretend to be “one of them.”
This isn’t a sideshow — it’s the core chemistry that ignites fan culture today.
Fan-Led vs. Fan-Curated — Don’t Get It Twisted
Aston Martin’s recent #FanMade campaign is a start. It looked good. It platformed fan creations. It spoke the right language. But let’s not confuse a polished toe-dip with a deep cultural shift.
The team still picked the fans. They curated the work. They framed the story. It was fan content, not fan control.
Compare that to one recent project I helped shape:
Fans were nominated by fans
No aesthetic filtering, no PR polish
As long as they followed the ground rules, they were in
That’s the real difference between fan-led and fan-leased. One builds community. The other builds a campaign.
"The winners in this space are those that welcome all fans in (and importantly, not just fans who are also content creators) and make engagement a two-way street to build relationships that turn into long-term loyalty." — Dr Georgie Carroll, from her written responses for this piece
“Fans are going to be doing this stuff whether you approve or not.” — Dr Georgie Carroll
Dear Gatekeepers: They’re In. They Changed the Locks.
There’s a reason legacy fans get twitchy when a 22-year-old posts a pastel aesthetic breakdown of tyre strategy and it gets 200k likes.
It’s not because it’s wrong. It’s because it wasn’t made for them.
Old school fans never questioned the barriers to entry. Then Drive to Survive blew the gates wide open. The new wave blew past them armed with social channels, CapCut accounts and a Canva Premium subscription with a camera roll full of race edits.
This friction is important — because it shows exactly why fan energy is disruptive. Not hostile. Not irreverent. Just different. And necessary.
And the gatekeeping isn’t just coming from legacy fans. Teams — and even the sport’s owners — are still trying to catch up. Too many organisations are either slow to acknowledge the shift, or worse, pretending it isn’t happening.
Too many teams still hire global agencies who’ve never stepped foot in the paddock. Meanwhile, the real storytellers — the ones who live and breathe this culture — are correcting their decks, teaching them how the sport works, and not getting paid for the privilege.
(As Toni Cowan-Brown rightly called out — fans and creators shouldn't be cleaning up after clueless agencies. Source.)
What Teams Can Learn From Fan Energy
Fans are:
Organising Discords and group chats to watch practice sessions
Organising live watchalongs
Crowdsourcing captions, stats, fan cams
Building visual language around drivers (not just teams)
Turning merch into micro-narratives
And they’re doing it without a budget, without permission, and without your social Admin’s team’s help.
Creator and commentator Amanda captured it perfectly in a recent TikTok:
“We enjoy the sport, we love it, and we create life long memories. I’m so sorry that we make it more fun for everyone… The fangirls are the people bringing the energy.”
This isn’t fluff. It’s fandom in its most unapologetic, culture-shaping form.
You’ll see it everywhere from TikTok to the tribunes — creators like Lastlaplucy showing up at races, collaborating with teams, and building corners of the culture teams are now racing to keep up with. These aren’t side accounts. They’re signal boosters for a new kind of motorsport storytelling.
Want to earn their trust? Don’t just build for them. Build with them.
Steve’s Notebook:
You don’t need to win over all the fans. You just need to make space for the ones already remixing the narrative.
And if you can’t do that — at least get out of their way.
Acknowledgement:
Huge thanks to Dr Georgie Carroll for her thoughtful and detailed insights shared in response to questions for this piece. Her work continues to push fandom conversations forward — and this article is better for her generous contributions.
Published as Part 2 of a series: ‘Main Character Energy’ dropped July 14.