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Motorsport

Sport

Review: F1 75 hits the mark but overstays its welcome

Jack Whitehall Enzo Ferrari Christian Horner Lewis Hamilton Max Verstappen Fernando Alonso Red Bull Sauber Williams Racing Entertainment

There was a lot riding on F1's first foray into an arena concert entertainment spectacle. Before a wheel has been turned in anger, all teams temporarily buried the hatchet and agreed to launch their liveries in unison in front of a rapidly sold out 15,000 crowd. Each team was allocated seven minutes to showcase its new livery in any way it wanted, strung together by musical acts and British comedian slash MC Jack Whitehall.

Judging from the positive reactions of those who attended, ranging from casual fans to cynical journalists, the event was a resounding success. F1 said there was a peak of 1.1 million concurrent live viewers on its YouTube channel, with 7.5 million viewers in total across various platforms, officially kickstarting the 2025 campaign.

F1 ostensibly chased a rock concert vibe, although the way it started off veered more towards the Golden Globes, with MC Whitehall's opening skit delivered in front of untold VIP tables. But while some of his interventions crossed the cringe-line, Whitehall's jokes generally landed and it was good to see a sport that often takes itself too seriously poke fun at itself, even if only for one night. “Cheer up Max, we didn't sit you next to George Russell,” was a good line that set the tone for a night in which F1 merrily played into its latest rivalry rather than walk on eggshells.

What worked particularly well on the YouTube broadcast was the visual production of the event, helmed by Brian Burke and his team and armed with a huge LED panel that spanned the length of an enlarged catwalk where teams strutted their stuff one by one.

Formula 1 has never looked this good. Whether or not it ever sounded as good is open to debate, see musical acts - mgk, Take That and Kane Brown.

Things became a bit more disjointed once we got stuck into the actual main course, the 10 teams unveiling their 2025 liveries. It was good to see all squads afforded the leeway to be creative and fill their seven-minute slot any way they pleased, a nice contrast to the otherwise constricted and formulaic nature of actual F1 race weekends.

Kick Sauber C45 (Photo by: Getty Images)

That approach prevented the event from becoming very repetitive and stale after two or three outfits, but it also became quite uneven and heavily dependent on the quality of each team's act. Sauber's cyberpunkesque black and neon green aesthetics got the reveal off to a decent enough start, while Williams rightfully paid tribute to its legacy and founder Sir Frank in a pre-recorded segment before going into a slightly more awkward on-stage rollout. Team boss James "please make some noise" Vowles as MC is not what I had on my bingo card, not least flanked by an army of ominous looking Williams stormtroopers slash pit crew.

VCARB or Racing Bulls or Visa Cashapp Racing Bulls - you know, the Anglo-Italian team that is owned by Red Bull but isn't actually Red Bull - took the confusion around its name and ran with it, before showing perhaps the best livery of the lot. Alpine eschewed a pre-recorded segment for a mini-DJ set by F1 theme composer Brian Tyler and his alter ego Are We Dreaming, a mixture of dark synths and hip-hop that didn't really tell us anything about the team itself but at least seemed to mesmerise Flavio Briatore looking on through his trademark blue shades.

The most ambitious of the bunch was Aston Martin, which paid tribute to a famous scene from James Bond flick The World is Not Enough as Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll raced across the Thames on armed powerboats before being hoisted down into the O2. A well-crafted animation then flowed into the on-stage scene of singer Tem flanked by violins. There was a lot going on, but it was all classy stuff.

The energy of the crowd played a key role, but rather than a rock concert the evening became more of a pantomime, with cheers for Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris and boos and jeers heading the way of Max Verstappen, Christian Horner and the FIA. Asking foul-mouthed celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay for his opinion on the swearing ban was an easy win.

Machine Gun Kelly (Photo by: Getty Images)

Amid all of this it would have been easy to forget that this was effectively an anniversary, celebrating the history of 75 years of Formula 1 racing. By and large the event did more than pay lip service to its past. The opening pre-recorded montage hit the right tones, and after Williams and Aston, Ferrari too showcased its legacy later on with a tribute to Enzo Ferrari. But Liberty Media clearly also had its eyes on a new horizon, with a long teaser of the upcoming F1 movie featuring Brad Pitt that is intended to be the next stage of a launch vehicle sending the series into a higher orbit.

But the further down the kaleidoscope of presentations we went, the more the event began running out of steam as a TV product. "Now that we've seen the best-looking car of the night, please enjoy the rest of the evening," Alonso jested. And I felt that. It all started taking a bit long, and elements involving hosts and musical acts broke up some of the momentum. There are likely very good production reasons for this, as it is quite the logistical effort to turn around both the cars and the stage choreographies for every individual team, one after the other.

But by the time the Mercedes and Red Bulls slot came around, I started wishing I could just fast forward to the final few liveries and go do something else with my time. Looking at Verstappen's facial expressions, the champ and I seemed to be on the same page there. He and team-mate Liam Lawson didn't speak on stage, a decision by Red Bull to let Horner take the point, and with it the brunt of the booing. And while there could have been much more driver involvement in general as they are supposed to be the superstars, there wasn't a lot of time to let them say or do anything meaningful. See Esteban Ocon, who committed the cardinal sin of uttering a variation of the cliche: 'I hope the car is as fast as it looks'. Take a shot.

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari (Photo by: Getty Images)

One late highlight was Ferrari, with the sight of Lewis Hamilton in red raising the roof of a pulsating arena. McLaren also roped in its wonderful legacy with historic F1 cars on stage, but its identical livery for 2025 then further drove home the point that we had been spending two hours just to see.... not very much of substance.

This was clearly not for everyone and while lots of cynics were pleasantly surprised, including myself, I also won't blame you for finding it all a bit too much pantomime for one day.

But the bigger picture is that it was a successful milestone for F1. Would teams like Sauber and Haas have gained more mileage out of holding their own virtual launches instead of sharing the bill with their rival heavyweights in front of a million viewers? I'm not so sure that they would have.

And while the show overstayed its welcome while watching remotely, F1 set out what it achieved to do and presented itself to a new audience in a modern way. It may not have been aimed at you or me, and that's okay.