While Netflix has not released viewership figures for the Canadian Grand Prix, president of advertising Amy Reinhard told Axios that she anticipates more opportunities to broadcast F1 content.

Why it matters: Netflix's simulcast partnership with Apple for the May race served as an important proof point that sublicensing streaming rights for select races could be a win-win as both companies look to expand their audiences.

State of play: Apple and F1 struck a lucrative five-year media rights deal last year to bring all races exclusively to Apple TV in the U.S., beginning this year.

• Apple later announced Netflix would simulcast the Canadian Grand Prix weekend, May 22–24, in the U.S. as part of a broader partnership under which Apple TV carries season eight of Netflix's "Formula 1: Drive to Survive."

🇨🇦 Driving the news: When asked whether Netflix has talked to Apple about doing more races, Reinhard called the Canada GP a "great success" and said, "I would imagine there's going to be more possibility there."

• Netflix's content teams "are always mining for those opportunities," she said when asked if the company is also exploring more on-demand F1 content.

Zoom out: The F1 deal is one of several forays into live sports that Netflix has made in the past few years, after initially saying in 2022 it didn't see a profit path to investing in live sports. (See above.)

• Reinhard said the success of "Drive to Survive" fundamentally changed how the company thought about live sports by proving sports could drive cultural conversation and ignite fandom, just like hit franchises like "Stranger Things" and "Bridgerton."
• "It really gave us insight into not only how popular that sport could be, but how popular sports could be for Netflix as well when things are eventized," she said.

The bottom line: Netflix's sports strategy is less about rights and more about relevance.

• "It's really about building those must see, can't miss, going to be talked about moments and driving that event and driving viewership on the platform," Reinhard said.

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F1 executives see Apple's exclusive five-year U.S. streaming deal as another step forward for the sport, despite the potential risk of a more limited audience on streaming than cable in the short term.

Why it matters: Apple has yet to release viewership data for any of the nine race weekends it's aired this year, so there's no way to independently verify how the distribution deal is going.

• Apple's Eddie Cue said in May that viewership for the first three races was "way up" versus last year's figures on ESPN. In June, it made the Austrian Grand Prix free for all U.S. viewers.

⚽️ Zoom in: The closest proxy to Apple's F1 deal is its 10-year, $2.5 billion agreement to exclusively stream Major League Soccer matches globally.

• While MLS commissioner Don Garber has touted the partnership as a success, he has conceded that a lack of transparency around viewership metrics and data makes it hard to independently assess.

Zoom out: F1 executives have conviction that the Apple deal is good for the sport, despite having fewer data points to prove it right now.

• "I think what Apple will bring to the broader fandom is the fact that they've got all their platforms — all the opportunities showing up in a fan's world, across their music, across news — in a way that's never been done before, and we know that fandom doesn't live in a silo," McLaren Racing chief marketing officer Louise McEwen said at an Axios House event during Cannes Lions.
• Former Manchester United and Chelsea football clubs CEO Peter Kenyon, now board advisor to the Atlassian Williams F1 team, said he's excited about the Apple deal because of its potential to reach more women fans.

🇺🇸 By the numbers: For F1, which briefly let ESPN distribute its races for free to build its U.S. audience, a bigger audience means it can command higher fees.

• Apple TV's F1 deal is worth about $140 million–$160 million per year, notably higher than the roughly $90 million per year ESPN paid under its last F1 contract that concluded in 2025.

Between the lines: Like Netflix, Apple TV has focused its live sports ambitions on airing select premium events it hopes will expand its audiences.

• It struck its first major live sports deal in 2022 with Major League Baseball to air the league's Friday Night Baseball doubleheader. Soon after, it signed the MLS deal.

The big picture: Apple's deal would not have been possible if it weren't for several key players that laid the groundwork for the league's popularity.

• Liberty Media acquired F1 in 2017 and helped drive its commercial transformation through a series of strategic deals, including the U.S. distribution deal with ESPN from 2018 to 2025.
• It was Liberty that pitched "Drive to Survive" to Netflix and relaxed social media rules that previously banned filming by anyone inside the paddock beyond broadcasters with TV deals or F1 management.

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Drivers credit Netflix's global hit "Formula 1: Drive to Survive" not just for boosting F1's global popularity, but also for helping to humanize what is otherwise a very inaccessible sport.

🎥 Why it matters: The docuseries showed the world for the first time how high the emotional stakes are for drivers whose faces are hardly visible from the track.

• "The thing you don't necessarily see on TV, but it's something that Netflix has done very well, is obviously showcase what goes into a season," F1 2025 world champion Lando Norris told me on stage at the Axios House in Cannes Lions in late June.
• "To prepare for these kinds of things is something you don't see very often," he said, referring to the physical demands of racing in extreme temperatures.

Between the lines: For drivers, letting Netflix into their lives meant sharing some of their most vulnerable moments, but the payoff has been worth it, argued Atlassian Williams F1 driver Carlos Sainz.

• Sainz said he recognized the Netflix series could be a major opportunity in 2018, despite his aversion to having cameras documenting his private life or contract negotiations.
• The first season of the show included a full episode featuring Sainz and his career. He gained 500,000 followers in two weeks after it was released, which made him feel like "it's paying off and it's worth it."

📈 By the numbers: There's no question the docuseries helped propel F1 to new heights around the globe, but especially in the U.S.

• ESPN's average F1 race audience jumped from roughly 550,000 viewers in 2018 before the show was released to around 950,000 in 2021, per Sports Business Journal. Subsequent seasons saw individual races exceed 1.1 million to 1.3 million viewers.
• Formula One says its global fanbase has surged 63% since 2018.

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While many new fans discovering F1 through Netflix are women, they currently don't see themselves reflected on the grid, which means media coverage of women drivers has also fallen behind.

🙋‍♀️ Why it matters: In order for the sport to grow, women need to be a bigger part of the cultural conversation around F1.

• "I think all the indications are that [women are] our next generation of F1 fans, and I think it's not a five-year play," Peter Kenyon, board advisor to the Atlassian Williams F1 team, told me and The Race Media's founder and editor-in-chief Darren Cox in an interview during Cannes Lions.
• "If we look after them right now, I think the sport's in a really good shape," said Kenyon, who was previously CEO for both the Manchester United and Chelsea football clubs.

State of play: Some women have participated in F1 as testing or development drivers, including Jessica Hawkins, head of F1 Academy and driver ambassador for Aston Martin Aramco, but none have driven even a practice session since Susie Wolff in 2015.

• Wolff is now managing director of F1 Academy, a racing championship launched by F1 to develop young female drivers.
• Netflix has a separate documentary show about the series.

The bottom line: "It would be great to see a woman in 'Drive to Survive,'" Hawkins told me at an Axios event at the Monaco Grand Prix last month.

• "Hopefully, we'll start seeing more women on 'Drive to Survive' when we start to see more women in the sport."

This past weekend's British Grand Prix smashed the attendance record with well over half a million fans in attendance over the weekend, according to the event, The Race Media's Cox reports.

Why it matters: Bigger crowds underscore the commercial opportunity for F1 beyond media rights across ticket sales, hospitality packages, merchandise and on-site sponsorship activations.

🧮 By the numbers: The Silverstone race weekend saw attendance climb by about 64,000 from last year, with 175,000 tickets sold for the main race Sunday.

• Cox noted the previous record was the 1995 Australian Grand Prix, with about 520,000 attendees.

Zoom in: This year's grid was packed with homegrown stars such as Lewis Hamilton, Norris, George Russell, Ollie Bearman and Arvid Lindblad, plus Thai British driver Alexander Albon who races under the Thai flag.

🎸 Zoom out: Silverstone has attracted a wider crowd by offering additional entertainment, like concerts, better hospitality and dedicated fanzines. Some have dubbed it, the "Glastonbury of motorsport."

• This year's schedule included a sprint race in addition to Sunday's Grand Prix, giving fans two competitive F1 races over the weekend.

🏁 The final score: Ferrari's Charles Leclerc won Sunday's Grand Prix race ahead of Mercedes' Russell and Ferrari's Hamilton.

• The race finished behind the safety car after Max Verstappen crashed late, denying a final-lap showdown.
• In the Saturday sprint, Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli overtook Hamilton midway through to earn victory. Hamilton and Norris, finished second and third, respectively.

The "Landostand," a dedicated section for Norris fans, got a £9 million, or $12 million, facelift this year, Silverstone CEO Stuart Pringle told The Race Media's Cox ahead of the British Grand Prix last week.

Why it matters: The grandstand reflects Norris' growing popularity as a cultural figure in the U.K. and Formula 1's broader push to turn races into immersive fan events.

🏟️ Stunning stat: The Landostand has grown so big, that it holds more fans than some major arenas, Pringle noted, adding that it was the largest grandstand that manufacturer has ever erected.

• "We had about 11,500 [seats last year], I can't remember the exact number. We put a new one in this year, which is 16,600 seats in the current configuration, with the ability to increase to 20,000," he said.
• By comparison, London's famous O2 arena in various configurations holds 18,000 to 21,000, he noted.

Zoom out: The Landostand has become a critical attraction for younger audiences and women, Pringle said.

• "So we know from the Landostand that last year 70% of the buyers were female, under 30, and 70% were new to our database."

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Formula 1 was seemingly the only sport anyone wanted to talk about commercially at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, The Race Media's Cox wrote following his festival debut.

Why it matters: "For years, Formula 1 looked enviously at football commercially." Now, that dynamic is being flipped on its head, he writes.

• While there were several well-attended watch parties for World Cup games, "the only real game in town was Formula 1," he writes.

🛥️ By the numbers: Cox noted, "At least six teams were in attendance with Mercedes even bringing a Monaco Grand Prix spec yacht to entertain and woo."

• Norris, Sainz, Russell and Liam Lawson were accompanied by senior commercial, communications and marketing personnel at events across the Croisette, Cox said.
• F1 itself took over the most prominent bar opposite the main events hub, he added.

📣 The bottom line: F1 executives recognize that in order to grow the sport, the league needs to message beyond the paddock.

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Luxury brands are investing more in F1, moving beyond traditional sponsorships to owning major pieces of the experience.

Why it matters: Luxury companies tend to invest heavily in hospitality and VIP experiences, turning race weekends into lifestyle events that go viral online.

Zoom in: While Swiss watchmakers, automotive companies and beverage companies have been investing in F1 for decades, fashion houses are relatively new to the paddock.

• 🍾 LVMH most notably signed a 10-year global partnership with F1 beginning in 2025 that is reportedly worth about $1 billion.
• Subsidiary TAG Heuer became the first-ever title partner of the Monaco Grand Prix in 2025, followed by Louis Vuitton in 2026.
• 👜 Gucci, ahead of Monaco this year, announced a multiyear title sponsorship of the Alpine Formula 1 team beginning in 2027.

Between the lines: Luxury marketers are looking beyond the track to make big marketing splashes. This trend was on full display at Monaco this year.

• 🧘‍♀️ Alo Yoga charted a branded superyacht called the "Alo Voyage: Wellness Club at Sea" and docked it in Monaco during the race weekend. It invited mega-influencers such as Alix Earle and Jake Shane to document their stays for millions of followers around the globe.
• ⏱️ TAG Heuer, which returned as F1's official timekeeper when its parent company LVMH signed its new deal, made its Monaco GP yacht one of the biggest celebrity draws this year.

What to watch: As drivers develop bigger followings online, luxury companies are investing more in outfitting the drivers themselves.

• Case in point: Hamilton, a brand ambassador for Dior, Tommy Hilfiger and others, co-chaired the Met Gala alongside Anna Wintour last year.

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