This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on April 19, 2021 - April 25, 2021

It’s not true that when Formula One was scouring the globe for somewhere to stage a Grand Prix last year, it looked at a disused Afghanistan airfield for a run-off between Soviet era tanks. But at one stage, it might have come under consideration.

The sport’s best-laid expansion plans were falling apart: tracks — old, new and resuscitated — were dropping off the calendar; of the 10 teams, the three based in northern Italy found themselves in a Covid-19 hot spot; and the circus couldn’t find anywhere to pitch its portfolio of tents.

After the whole jingbang flew out to Australia, they didn’t even get to first practice. They flew back to Europe with their tyres still in their blankets and tailgates between their rear wheels. It got to the stage where if an engine spluttered, you wondered if the car was infected.

2020 was already a critical year for the sport. With one car, Mercedes, and one driver, Lewis Hamilton, gaining permanent residency atop the podium, its popularity was in decline. Most of its fans were in the “mature market” category and agreed with former CEO Bernie Ecclestone, 90, that the switch from the deafening V10 engines in 2014 was when it lost its wow factor.

In the end, 17 races were cobbled together with the help of double-headers, but with second-quarter income of just US$24 million — down from US$620 million in 2019 — and another Mercedes procession, the sport looked in trouble. Run by rookies, Liberty Media, which paid Ecclestone US$4.6 billion in 2017 but was still feeling its way, it was losing fans, losing money and losing its competitive edge.

But a year is a long time in a pandemic and while other sports are tiptoeing back to normality, F1 has simply flown off the grid. The season opener in Bahrain produced a throwback to a bygone age with the latest technology: a genuine joust between the fastest cars and drivers. It also pulled higher viewing figures and more positive media coverage with many predicting a classic season.

Thrilled by Hamilton’s last-gasp victory over Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff summed up the turnaround, “It has switched from the gladiator sport somehow into fighter jets, with the technology that has found its way into F1.”

By losing its earth-shaking oomph and gas-guzzler reputation, F1 finds itself appealing to a younger, greener audience who are driving turbo-charged hybrid cars themselves. And it’s also able to embrace the new wave of hi-tech sponsors who are improving performances throughout the field.

According to Motorsports.com, “F1 appears to be reaping the rewards for some joined-up thinking among its bosses, as a multitude of factors have made it fashionable again. These new companies not only want to reap the publicity rewards from using F1 to boost their brand awareness, but they also bring with them valuable products that teams can use.”

There’s been Cognizant taking title sponsorship at Aston Martin, Oracle becoming a big player at Red Bull and TeamViewer becoming Mercedes’ third largest sponsor shortly after confirming its shirt sponsorship of Manchester United.”

Said Oracle CEO Oliver Steil, “I think the real attraction of F1 as a sport is across the multitude of use cases. And I think that’s what attracts technology companies, I would say, because it’s manufacturing, it’s design, it’s logistics, it’s monitoring, it’s analytics. So, the breadth of use cases, and application that’s possible in Formula 1, is very, very remarkable.”

But it still needed something else to grab the man in the street. Enter Netflix and the equally remarkable effect that the Drive to Survive series has had, especially in the US. It basically put people back into a sport that was in danger of becoming dehumanised. And nothing reflected its growing appeal to fans and Corporate America more than the deal between Red Bull and software giant Oracle.

Indeed, Oracle’s chief marketing officer Ariel Kelman sees a direct line between the impact that Netflix has made and the recent influx of big American sponsors. “I’ve personally seen a massive increase in excitement around Formula 1 in the US. So, it’s natural that US technology companies are looking to get involved in a much deeper way,” he said.

Another key factor is that Liberty never lost faith in the sport when things were at their lowest. It borrowed US$500 million late last year to tide it over 2020 season losses of US$386 million — a 44% drop on 2019 — and then banked heavily on a 23-race season this year. With Australia, Japan, and North and South America back on board, there’ll be an awful lot of travelling as it aims to get money for its miles.

It also replaced Chase Carey, a businessman, with Stefano Domenicali, a racing man, as head honcho. The former Ferrari guru has the forensic knowledge of the sport the American lacked. But it is always about what happens on the track and here, too, there has been a levelling up.

Red Bull were quicker than Mercedes in winter testing and in Belgian-Dutch flyer Verstappen, 23, they have a very real threat to the Hamilton hegemony — and his probable successor. The prospect of the two going at it like gladiators backed by their hi-tech teams is mouth-watering indeed, and just what F1 needs to regain its wow factor.

If those two are likely to go wheel-to-wheel, there could be more interest in the middle of the field where a welcome bunching up can also be traced to sophisticated support levels from sponsors. Even the fallen giant Williams team — recently sold to US private investment firm Dorilton Capital — has improved.

As Red Bull boss Christian Horner put it, “F1 is very, very much at the forefront of technology, it’s cutting-edge technology, and it’s great to see these technical partnerships coming into the sport — and one of the biggest fish to enter the pond has to be Oracle.”

With data so important in F1, tech has become an obvious battleground where the team with the best way of dealing with it can have an edge. But it is also addressing a long overdue livening up of the qualifying process with sprint races finally looking to be introduced on Saturdays.

From fastest, loudest and dirtiest to slicker, quieter and cleaner — no superlatives yet — F1 is getting there with the reinvention. And the sport as a whole is delivering a winning combination for hi-tech industries. After a few chequered years, it’s lights out and all systems go.

Bob Holmes is a long-time sports writer who specialises in football

Save by subscribing to us for your print and/or digital copy.

P/S: The Edge is also available on Apple's AppStore and Androids' Google Play.