Formula 1 Has Won a New Generation of Women. Now It Needs to Give Them a Reason to Stay.

Over the past five years, Formula 1 has achieved something many sports spend decades trying to do. It has fundamentally changed and expanded who its fans are.

The sport has become younger, more digital, and with that, women have become a large part of the base. Driver personalities are as recognisable as team principals and race weekends are now social events. This evolution has taken F1 from a championship into a lifestyle brand, fuelled by behind-the-scenes content, social media, fashion, and digital storytelling.

Digital storytelling is a world where women often dominate the narrative.

For many millennial and older Gen Z women, Formula 1 is no longer something they simply watch every other Sunday, but rather a hobby they actively invest in. They travel to races, are large contributors to teams' year-round online presence, consume podcasts, documentaries and TikToks en par with the men.

If we're talking marketing, Formula 1 has successfully acquired a new customer. Now the question is what happens next.

The Formula 1 fan experience Journey Stops at Checkout

For all the progress Formula 1 has made in attracting this new audience, many teams still offer remarkably few ways for those fans to deepen their relationship beyond what they do for everyone else, despite the evidence showing that women direct up to 80% of how a household interacts (buys, engages, supports) with digital marketing.

The commercial journey for them often looks quite short, and between a £70 team sweatshirt and a five-figure VIP package, is a surprisingly empty space that F1 is failing to capture. 

Membership programmes offer limited value. Fan clubs vary dramatically between teams. Community initiatives tend to be localised or race-weekend focused. Outside of merchandise drops and occasional meet-and-greets, there are relatively few products that recognise fans as long-term members of a brand ecosystem rather than spectators. Some teams are exceptions here (Williams, we salute you).

For teams that have invested heavily in audience growth, it feels like an opportunity waiting to be explored.

Modern Fans Spend Differently

This isn't simply about selling more merchandise.

Millennials and older Gen Z consumers have helped reshape entire industries around experiences rather than products alone. They pay for premium fitness memberships, travel communities, creator subscriptions, exclusive events and curated experiences because they value participation as much as ownership.

In some ways, Formula 1 already understands this principle with many teams successfully transformed themselves from sporting organisations into entertainment brands. Yet many of the commercial products and experiences still reflect a much older model of sports fandom.

Buy a shirt, buy a ticket, come back next season. It’s all at the team checkout and for the team checkout. For a fan base that increasingly wants year-round engagement, that feels like an outdated proposition.

The Opportunity Isn't "Women's Products"

This is where the conversation often becomes too narrow.

The answer is not simply designing another women's clothing collection or releasing merchandise in different colours. Many female fans are already buying standard teamwear if they like it or looking outside teams for the stuff they really love.

The bigger opportunity is recognising how this audience engages with brands.

Imagine official local fan communities supported by teams throughout the year, or better yet, imagine a dialogue between F1 and its teams and the communities women already know and love. 

Women's "girls who-" communities exist in every major city in the world. They host engaged groups with meaningful relationships to each other. They view themselves as a part of a collective, and being a woman in a women's group is special to them. They're a perfect opportunity for more if F1 only notices where the average fan’s purchasing power is. (Hint: not with high-end and luxury-obsessed minorities, but with professional Millennial and Gen Z women and men). 

They don't want things branded "for women", they want things that align with women's fan experience. 

From Fan Acquisition to Fan Retention

In business, acquiring a customer is only the beginning. Long-term value comes from retention and that means building a nurture journey that people actually want to be a part of.

Formula 1 teams have become exceptionally good at introducing people to the sport. They know how to build personalities, create viral moments and turn drivers into global brands. The emotional connection is there.

What feels underdeveloped is everything that follows. How do you reward loyalty outside race weekends? How do you create (or collaborate with) communities that exist independently of social media and show fans that not every interaction with them is about the sponsors on your cars?

These questions matter because today's fans are not passive audiences. They are customers looking for meaningful ways to participate. They are savvy on marketing and they will call you out on what feels off.

The Next Phase of Formula 1's Growth

Much has been written about Formula 1's success in attracting women to the sport with the conversation largely focusing on viewership and audience demographics. But that isn't new anymore. We're here, we're a fact. The more interesting question is what happens right now.

The next phase of Formula 1's commercial growth may not come from finding millions of new fans, but from better serving the millions it has already won over.

Women dominate digital fandom in almost every space they enter; we think it's time for F1 to get with that programme.