More than 130 TV cameras, 150 microphones, more than a hundred kilometers of fiber optic cables and a fully equipped mobile control center. Formula 1 drags it all around the world, so that fans can watch cars racing around on their television for an hour and a half on Sunday afternoon.
In addition to that logistical job, an even more difficult task awaits. Namely: making a good live broadcast from the approximately 500 terabytes of material that each race weekend produces – enough to fill a thousand new iPhones. One that appeals to loyal enthusiasts and fans who have only come to Formula 1 in recent years.
These are groups that differ enormously from each other. Every TV broadcast is therefore a balancing act, a matter of finding the right balance between the action on the track and the atmosphere off it – between sport and entertainment. Something in which Formula 1 plays a pioneering role, but according to critics does not always succeed.
According to Wendy Hendrickx, one concept is paramount when portraying the races: ‘storytelling’. As Head of Live Production, Hendrickx is responsible for everything related to TV broadcasts. The Flemish man manages almost a hundred people during the Grand Prix weekend, some of whom work on location and some at the F1 media headquarters in Biggin Hill, near London. Her team produces the live images that are broadcast by all TV channels with the F1 rights, such as Viaplay in the Netherlands.
The point is to distill a compelling story from all the shots of cars driving around corners and overtaking each other. “With all our data, screens and timekeeping we can see very quickly where potential fights are coming,” Hendrickx told NRC. “We have a live storyline, and there is always a second and third one that we can put into the broadcast.”
Wendy Hendrickx
Photo Formula One
Opaque
It’s not all that simple. Formula 1 is an opaque sport. For example, the riders are hidden under a helmet and behind headrests and cockpit protection. “Sport is emotion,” says Hendrickx. “But you don’t see the drivers.” That is why the – sometimes heated – on-board radio traffic between the drivers and their teams has been given a prominent role on TV.
In addition, as a viewer you need a lot of information to follow a race. During a football match there is one ball, one score and one field; in a grand prix a lot happens at the same time in all kinds of places. Battles for different positions, different tire strategies, crashes, safety cars and yellow flags. If these things are not properly filtered and presented clearly, the broadcast would quickly degenerate into an inscrutable montage of racing images.
Until well into the 1990s, that was more or less what an F1 race looked like on TV. Every now and then the score appeared on the screen, otherwise it was up to the commentator to keep an overview. Nowadays it is very different. From predictions about how quickly one driver will close the gap with the other, to graphics showing how much electrical energy cars have left in their batteries – viewers are continuously fed chunks of story information.
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Technical gadgets are indispensable. Drone cameras, racing lines projected live in a shot from above. Or tiny, feather-light cameras in the drivers’ helmets. Almost everything is a technical challenge. For example, a rider once turned his head a little too far, causing the cable of his helmet camera to come loose and the worldwide TV audience to be presented with a test image. The cameras were then immediately adjusted so that if something like this happens again, they no longer display a color bar but the last video frame that passed through.
The trick is not to make the information presented too complex, but also not too simple. Hendrickx: “We no longer have to explain anything about tire strategies to a fan who has been around for a long time. But younger viewers wonder how that works and want to see it explained in an understandable way.”
There are a lot more of those young F1 fans than there were a few years ago. The sport has seen strong growth and is finally finding success in the United States after decades of failed attempts. Last year the broadcasts of the 24 races in total were broadcast Viewed 1.6 billion times.
New fans are quite different from people who have been watching for a while, it turned out a survey that Formula 1 had carried out this year. They are mainly women and Gen-Z’ers, and are not only attracted to the sport, but also to all the glamour, luxury and stars along the track. They have often come into contact with Formula 1 through the Netflix docuseries Drive to Survivewho was revolutionary in the sporting world and made every F1 driver a brand in his own right. “Nowadays it is about more than racing itself, including the stories that surround it,” says Hendrickx. “The lifestyle aspect.”
Formula 1’s control room in Biggin Hill, UK, near London.
Photo Formula One
TV broadcasts are only part of the experience for this new target group: Formula 1 is an additional element in the digital world of influencers, Instagram reels and Twitch streamers in which they constantly immerse themselves. They are less similar to traditional fans, who are predominantly male and older than 35.
The fact that this target group shift influences how Formula 1 presents itself can also be seen in other areas. The F1 management is constantly looking for ways to increase the spectacle, for example by introducing additional sprint races. Nowadays, every grand prix has a fan zone with a colossal stage, where the drivers appear in front of the fans and major artists perform.
There is also such a desire for entertainment in other sports. For example, the US Open reformed the mixed doubles tournament to include more top singles tennis players. And following on from Drive to Survive Similar series about tennis, golf and cycling appeared – which, by the way, did not become nearly as popular.
Partners in the pit box
More often than before, F1 broadcasts include shots of celebrities who are guests in the paddock, spectators in the stands or partners of the drivers watching the race in a pit box. Some fans, who are clearly vocal on platforms such as Reddit, are not happy with this and believe that the direction sometimes misses important moments on the track due to the emphasis on peripheral issues. Williams driver Carlos Sainz joined this in October: he complained about it that during the Singapore Grand Prix a series of overtaking actions by himself and an exciting chase by Fernando Alonso on Lewis Hamilton had been left out of the picture, and spoke of an “exaggerated” number of shots of people next to the circuit.
That criticism is not entirely justified. The broadcast did indeed contain no footage of the fights Sainz was talking about, but that wasn’t because there was instead celebs were captured; the number of such shots during the race could be counted on one hand. Rather, it shows how difficult the task of Hendrickx and her team is. They spend more than an hour and a half deciding what F1 fans will see of the race – and what they will not. A perfect selection is almost impossible.
Hendrickx himself also knows that making a TV broadcast of a sport like Formula 1 is a tightrope act. “You can never do it right for everyone,” she says NRC speaks to her, a few weeks before Sainz makes his statements. She doesn’t have social media, so she doesn’t read the criticism there. But every race weekend that she is at the track, she consults with people from the TV channels. “Then I also get feedback, from a professional point of view. Sometimes we agree, sometimes we don’t. We steer our own ship.”
Every race is basically one big improvisational song. Only the five minutes before the start are fixed in a script. “The rest develops live.” And portraying celebrities? Henrickx says he has “no specific assignment” for this. But as far as she is concerned, a good audience shot is an enrichment. “When a nice overtaking action happens on the track, it is so cool to see and hear the fans. I sometimes shout through the intercom that the volume of the microphones in the stands should be higher.”
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