Racing Dominates the Super Bowl
Plus: Netflix media rights, influencers invade Formula E and reserve drivers return home
Welcome to The Undercut, a weekly newsletter round-up of the top storylines in racing brought to you by your favorite motorsport and enviro journo, Olivia Hicks. If you’re wondering “What the f*** is Formula 1?” Ask away! Leave a comment or send me a message with your burning questions.
The Real Winner of the Super Bowl: Motor Racing
The Philadelphia Eagles may have won on Sunday, but racing was front and center throughout the three-and-a-half hours of game time. IndyCar’s Pato O’Ward, the “popstar” of the American racing series, appeared in a commercial promoting the upcoming 2025 season on Fox Sports. His fellow drivers Josef Newgarden and Alex Palou had their own ad slots. NASCAR took out a handful of ads to plug the Daytona 500, airing on Sunday, Feb. 16. And Newgarden and NASCAR’s Joey Logano hyped up crowds on Bourbon Street ahead of kickoff.
Formula 1 — ESPN holding its media rights — was absent save for Brad Pitt’s highly anticipated “F1” film teased in a new clip just before the game.
Despite Formula 1 racing in the same city as last year’s Super Bowl, there were few marketing dollars thrown at the event which amassed a record 123 million viewers in 2024. The whole affair seemed like a missed opportunity for a sport desperate to gain ground in the U.S. by attempting to take a page from the NFL’s playbook. IndyCar, in its recently reformed marketing ways, has seemed to fill the gap — largely thanks to sharing the same media rights holder as the Super Bowl. With 30-second ads costing $8 million, IndyCar will likely have to wait until March 2 at St. Pete to feel the true payoff from capitalizing on a captive audience. But social media is already talking: “I don’t know who Pato O’Ward is or really anything about IndyCar but this commercial I keep seeing has me obsessed,” an X (formerly Twitter) user said.
Netflix Joins F1 Media Rights Battle
This week, several motorsport publications announced Netflix’s plans to join the bid for U.S. Formula 1 live streaming rights. ESPN has held Formula 1 broadcasting rights in the states since 2015. At the end of 2025, its media rights deal — worth a reported $90 million per year — is up and Netflix is slipping into the negotiating room. Netflix has live-streamed WWE, signing a 10-year deal in 2024, and one-off NFL and golf events previously.
The news comes a month before Netflix releases the seventh season of “Drive to Survive,” a dramatized peek behind Formula 1’s curtain. When the first season came out in 2019, the impact was so swift that terms like “the Netflix effect” and “Drive to Survive fan” are common soundbites in the sport — separating newer fans from traditional viewers. A 2022 poll found that 28 percent of American adults consider themselves fans of the sport and more than half of those surveyed credited the Netflix series.
The move to Netflix could mean reaching more people: the very viewers tuning into “Drive to Survive” will watch races on the same platform instead of paying for a second subscription or cable service. It also could cut through antitrust claims that have plagued the sport since 1998, when the European Union competition commissioner said he had never seen “a case with so many infringements” as Formula 1 and its tendency to act like a monopoly. In August, I wrote about Venu Sports, a sports streaming merger between Fox Sports, ESPN’s Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, and a federal judge blocking the sports media mammoth for potential antitrust violations. Other streaming services bundle while Netflix remains solo, but the streaming service still has faced its own anti-competition claims with the Writers Guild of America arguing that services like Disney, Amazon and Netflix are the “new gatekeepers” of entertainment. Motorsport.com’s Ben Hunt also wrote this week that Netflix’s rights grab could have consequences for UK audiences.
Returning to Their Roots: Zhou Guanyu + Valtteri Bottas as Reserves
Ferrari announced Zhou Guanyu as the Formula 1 team’s reserve driver on Wednesday. Zhou, the first Chinese driver in Formula 1, didn’t have a seat for 2025 when Kick Sauber F1 Team axed the 25-year-old towards the end of the 2024 season. Zhou got his start in the Formula 1 feeder series in 2014 as a Ferrari Driver Academy member before switching to the Alpine Academy. His three years in Formula 1, sticking with the same team through several name variations, have been rocky: His highest scoring position is eighth with 16 career points to his name. However, he has brought significant Chinese investment and interest to the sport.
Valtteri Bottas, Zhou’s fellow former Kick Sauber F1 Team driver, will act as a reserve for Mercedes in 2025. Bottas served as Lewis Hamilton’s No. 2 from 2017 to 2021 and has accumulated 67 podiums, 10 wins and 1,797 career points in his 12 years in the sport. But newer fans of Formula 1 see more of a comical sidekick in Bottas than a driver with 20 pole positions. For the last three years, the Finnish driver has dragged a sub-par car to the checkered flag. In the absence of podiums, he has found appeal as a laid-back character who doesn’t take himself too seriously: known for appearing nude on both Netflix’s “Drive to Survive” and charity calendars, sporting an Aussie-style mullet-mustache combo and venturing off-track to run everything from triathlons to a gin distillery, a coffee shop, a gluten-free pizzeria on wheels and a winery. However, not everyone is convinced his image sells. “We are Mercedes, so maybe the nude calendar is not on anymore,” Mercedes F1 team principal Toto Wolff said. “So we’ve said that, but we need to keep him authentic, and if he wants to keep the ugly mullet, then he should.”
Does Celebrity Status Equal Speed? Formula E Recruits Influencers
Despite Formula E hitting record viewership, the all-electric cousin of Formula 1 faces a challenge: How to stay cool when sustainability is no longer an “It” factor. When the series started in 2014, Formula 1 didn’t have a sustainability director and most motorsport series were years from introducing hybrid technology. Now, Formula 1 will introduce increased electric power in 2026 and 100 percent sustainable fuels. IndyCar is growing ever-more tolerant of hybrid tech and sports car racing is exploring hydrogen. Extreme E is turning into Extreme H and pushing the boundaries of sustainability across the most extreme terrain.
In an effort to exude cool, Formula E is putting celebrities and influencers behind the wheel. On the first weekend in March, a gaggle of social media-famous faces will converge in the most appropriate place possible: Miami. Each celebrity will be paired with a Formula E driver and race against each other. Brooklyn Beckham, actor Tom Felton, soccer player Sergio Agüero, actress Emelia Hartford, actor Lucien Laviscount and content creators Vinnie Hacker and Cleo Abram will join a group of automotive influencers. More marketing strategy than sporting event, Evo Sessions — the six-week training program which ends in a two-day race in Miami — may be the push of relevancy the series needs to sell tickets.
A Match Made in Germany: Merc + Adidas
Mercedes unveiled its new team uniform, complete with Adidas’ signature three stripes running down the sides, last week. The driver coverall design fits the Brackley-based team and resembles a UK tracksuit more than anything.
Style aside, the partnership comes after two fashion giants, Puma and Tommy Hilfiger, left the team following Hamilton’s departure. The sponsorship opening is good news for Adidas, which will lose its 77-year ad space in German soccer starting in 2027 to Nike. Before the news broke in 2024, the German-based brand’s revenue was already slumping. But entering Formula 1 for the first time — along with recently snatching Nike’s U.S. market share with sneaker sales increasing by 10 percent — Adidas could be vying for more billboard space on the grid and could become Puma’s cooler cousin. Puma, Formula 1’s official sportswear partner, has successfully edged its way into Nike and Adidas’ feud in other sports. Now, Adidas is bringing the fight to its competitors.
Haas F1 Team Partners With UChicago
Haas F1 Team signed an unlikely partner as it expands into the states: University of Chicago Medicine. The university claims it is the ”first known” healthcare provider to enter Formula 1 and will act as a team sponsor starting in 2025 and an official team healthcare provider through 2027. The collaboration news broke in late 2024 but received little coverage.
brought it to my attention.The partnership is odd, considering Haas’ U.S. headquarters are nearly 800 miles away from the windy city. However, Haas Automation has factories in the Chicago area. Formula 1 has toyed with the idea of a Midwest race in the city, even hosting an F1 Festival in 2019. Despite whispers of a Chicago street track in 2027, nothing has been confirmed.
What I’ve been writing, reading and obsessed with this week
Organic Growth: For the first time in a long time, Irish football is cool - Kevin Coleman, Game Over, Ball Burst
WAGs are the tradwives of men’s sports; This week it feels like I’ve failed at my job - Frankie de la Cretaz, Out of Your League
A new outlet covers climate policy in the language Brazil knows best: Soccer - Hanaa’ Tameez, Nieman Journalism Lab
The GAA Catfish - The Two Johnnies Podcast
The World’s Biggest Bitcoin Mine is Rattling This Texas Oil Town - Joel Khalili, WIRED
Question Box
New to Formula 1? Drop your burning questions in the comment section below or shoot me a message and I’ll unpack them in the next newsletter edition.
The adverts and their current YouTube view count still suggest a LOT of work needs to be done still.
This is Pato O'Ward 12K
This is Alex Palou 16K
This is Josef Newgarden 40K
It's not the be all and end all, but interesting nonetheless.
I think IndyCar's fundamental problem is a lack of jeopardy. Same car wins every race after all. Good luck to them though, will be interesting to see if there's a measurable benefit.