McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo is bothered by the way he uses F1 crashes. According to Honeybadger, a lot of emphasis is placed on accidents on the sport’s social media channels. Ricardo believes Formula 1 should focus on other aspects rather than getting publicity from heavy accidents.
Grogan
Daniel’s views are not new: Last year he had already complained about Roman Grosjean’s fiery crash during the Bahrain Grand Prix several times on television. Ricardo found “promoting” such a dangerous incident as abhorrent and subdued by the sport. The Australian remembered the accident well, which made him increasingly upset with Formula 1’s marketing strategy.
12 years
In an interview with British lifestyle magazine Square miles Formula 1 calls for a change of approach: “I think Formula 1 put their ’10 Best Moments of the Year’ compilation on their social media channels last year and eight of them were down. I was like, you guys are stupid. Maybe 12-year-olds want to see this kind of content. Because they don’t know. Anything is better, but we are not children. This should be the best players. Do better than that. “
Netflix culture
Ricardo says he recently witnessed a change to Formula 1. Increasingly, reality is being tampered with to make things more interesting for the media. He’s noticed this in anything more than a Netflix documentary drama series Campaign to survive: “I loved the first season of Drive To Survive. I spent all that time in the US and literally noticed it from trip to trip. The series. So it definitely benefited us, it surpassed the numbers on social media.”
However, there was a downside to this prevailing popularity: “I mean, in Season Two, there were some episodes or parts where I felt they forced it a little bit. They were trying to create a competition between me and Carlos Sainz that wasn’t really there. It’s gone.” A competitor than anyone else. There was no personal vendetta against him, but I think Netflix wanted something, so there were a lot of questions about Carlos. “
Implement improvements
According to Ricardo, the organization of sport is ready to make the necessary changes. Elle Norman said that a long conversation with the Director of Marketing and Communications after the Bahrain incident was positive: “I think she was very understanding and appreciative and also accepted my concerns. She didn’t resist. I think they were trying to listen and learn, to see how they could do things differently. Broadcast it that way.”
