Massive F1 fan survey is here: Ladies love Lando!

Formula 1 announced the results of its fan survey to the world on Thursday, with everything from favorite driver Max Verstappen to favorite McLaren team.

The F1 Motorsport Network Nielsen Sports survey gathered responses from 167,302 fans in 187 countries around the world over 35 days in and around September. So it’s a serious, scientific look at what fans think of the sport.

The results were loaded with interesting statistics. The most interesting? McLaren F1 driver Lando Norris was the most popular among female fans and all fans under the age of 25.

“Lando has built up a broad appeal across all regions and age groups,” the survey said. “While not an outstanding leader in many markets, it is number two in the UK, Germany, Australia, the Netherlands and Canada. Its appeal to female fans and the younger F1 crowd (16-24) is second to none – over a quarter of all female F1 fans rate Lando as their favorite and he enjoys # 1 status with more than one in five of all fans under the age of 25. “

Max is number one in the hearts of fans.

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The most popular driver overall was Red Bulls Max Verstappen, currently neck and neck with seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton for the 2021 drivers’ title.

“In 2017 we noticed the increasing popularity of the Dutch driver Max Verstappen,” says the survey. “In 2021 he is now the favorite driver in F1. A third of F1 fans place Max in their top 3 drivers and 14.4% consider him their favorite. While his orange army of fans can be seen during races, this result is not driven by local partisan forces; Max sees strong support in all age groups and in all regions. It is particularly popular in the USA and Japan, as well as in the Netherlands. Its popularity isn’t just reserved for the younger crowd; it also scores points in the 35-54 age group. “

Hamilton fell to number 3 of the most popular that year.

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Reigning champion Lewis Hamilton is only the third most popular driver.

“Although this year he has dropped from 1st place in 2017 to 3rd place overall, Lewis Hamilton continues to enjoy great support around the world and is ranked 1st among fans aged 45 and over. His attraction – and that of the multiple world champion Fernando Alonso – seems to be more polar than most of the others. “

Fourth was the always smiling Daniel Ricciardo and fifth was the four-time champion, the sympathetic Sebastian Vettel, who enjoy continued popularity with fans with strong support on the home market in Australia and Germany.

“The appeal of the exciting young stars under 25 offers plenty of optimism for the future of F1: Charles Leclerc, Pierre Gasly and George Russell join Lando on the list of the top 10 most popular drivers in F1,” poll said.

The survey was the largest of all time for Formula 1 and also recorded the youngest average age of all time, with 34% of respondents under 24 years of age and 63% under 34 years of age. The average age of the respondents was 32 years.

The number of female fans increased in the 2021 survey.

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It was also the highest percentage of women at 18.3% compared to 10% four years ago when the last survey was conducted. How much of that did Lando owe? Who knows, but the potential future champion (he hasn’t won a race yet) has been humiliated by his placement on the charts.

“Formula 1 is not only good on the track. There are many other things, and one of them is entertaining the fans and making them see the other side of us, not just as racers but as the person who you are. It’s nice to get this feedback that we’re doing a good job with it too, ”he said during the media conference before the race on Sunday at COTA.

“It’s actually cool,” said Norris on Thursday at COTA of his statistically proven popularity. “It’s not that I go out every weekend to try that. A win for me is obviously a win on the track, but these little things for the team, for myself, are nice. I do these other things at home like streaming on Twitch – which I haven’t been doing that much lately – it’s something I did to get a little more interaction with the fans. And that’s cool, even though I know that I can have a small impact on the younger generation of kids growing up in that age group and even with some of the others. It’s nice to know that they support me and that’s very cool to hear. “

F1 fans, the Ferrari variant shown here.

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The 187 countries covered by the survey were not far from all countries in the world, as the UN officially recognizes 203. As in previous surveys, Europe was a bit overrepresented, perhaps because there are more races there than elsewhere.

“While the 2021 study, like all previous ones, showed a response bias towards European fans, this fell to the lowest level ever,” says the management report of the survey. “The responses from European fans made up 57% of the total sample; compared to over 63% in 2017 and + 70% in all previous studies. In parallel, we saw responses from Asia Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East, which accounted for 21% of the total response, doubled down from 10% in 2017. The responses from America remained constant at 36,000, which was 21%. corresponds to% of the increased sample. “

This was also the first time that the age group of 16 to 24 year olds was the dominant group with 34 percent, the 25-34 year olds made up the second largest with less than 30 percent and 35-44 and 45+ made up the rest. That means a lot of new fans.

“Earlier studies since 2005 always had a high proportion of long-term fans. Typically, over 85% of the sample was made up of fans who had followed Formula 1 for at least six years, and this led directly to Formula 1’s corresponding drive to attract a new audience. A very welcome result of the 2021 study is a sharp increase in the percentage of participants who have followed Formula 1 for five years or less: this has tripled from 11.7% in 2017 to 34% in 2021. “

According to the survey, the WEC was second only to F1.

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Since this was a poll of F1 fans, it is not surprising that 95 percent of those polled consider F1 to be “the pinnacle of motorsport”. The second favorite was the WEC (World Endurance Championship), followed by MotoGP, IndyCar, FormulaE, WRC (World Rally Championship), BTCC / WTCC (British Touring Car / World Touring Car Championships), the W Series, DTM (German Touring Cars). ), NASCAR and WRX (World Rally Cross).

The brand attributes that F1 fans liked the most were: exciting, technological, expensive, competitive and fun. About eight percent found it “boring” (who are these people?). Fans say the main characteristics of F1 are: groundbreaking technology, fastest cars, best drivers and exciting races. Those who complained said it needed “more overtaking maneuvers”.

The most popular GPs remain Monza, Spa, Silverstone and Monaco. Fans are also willing to pay more for tickets, with an average three-day ticket costing $ 195.

The survey had a lot more to offer. Check it out here. And with two upcoming U.S. races, there’s no excuse not to be there next year. In the meantime, check out this weekend’s promotion at COTA.

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