For 22-year-old Jordan Liverant, Formula 1 fandom came during a lonely summer in 2022, when she picked up the popular F1-themed romance novel, Throttled. The book is one in a collection of four set in the world of F1 racing; in Throttled, the legacy son of a historic F1 driver falls in love with the sister of his teammate and rival — who is simultaneously vlogging her experience behind the scenes and building a platform as an F1 influencer.
“I ended up kind of just going head-first into F1 from there. It was love at first sight,” says Liverant, who is now better known on TikTok and Instagram as @motorsportsdiaries, where she documents her fandom and gets up close with the drivers and machinations of F1 racing. On her TikTok, you can watch Liverant drive a hot lap — a timed practice lap with speed as the sole goal — with Finnish driver Valtteri Bottas, or film an interview with British driver George Russell.
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During this year’s Miami Grand Prix weekend, she and I attended the race with Marriott Bonvoy, which has partnered with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team. Marriott Bonvoy Moments has various F1-related offerings for members to purchase with their points, including special access to the Miami race. (Liverant, who has traveled with Marriott as a content creator in the past, calls these “little fan loopholes.”)
I, a complete novice in the land of F1, peppered the people on the trip with questions: What is a hot lap? How does qualifying work? How long is the race? How often do they crash? Is F1 like the Disney Channel Original Movie Right on Track? (Short answer: not really, but they are both motorsports.) And as I learned the basics, I asked the questions fans are more concerned with: Why did Lewis Hamilton leave Mercedes and was it a good decision? How does the teammate-rival relationship work when both members want to win? What will it take for women to succeed as F1 drivers?
That last question, it turns out, is key to where F1 is now. A couple women-focused F1 leagues have been created over the years, but the newest is F1 Academy, a female-only league of drivers between 16 and 25 who compete in their own championship. F1 Academy will soon get its own documentary series á la Netflix’s Drive to Survive, created by Reese Witherspoon’s production company Hello Sunshine. F1: The Academy premieres on Netflix on May 28, 2025.
The media — and celebrity fans like Timothée Chalamet and Hailey Bieber — created around Formula One feels crucial to its growth in the U.S. over the past few years, whether it’s romance novels or fan fiction or TikTok explainers or the upcoming F1 movie starring Brad PItt and Damson Idris (with a soundtrack of original songs featuring Rosé, among others). It’s a sport, with a passionate fandom, and the key to growing that fandom is telling a really good story.
I was glued to season 7 of Drive to Survive, sitting in my hotel room at the RItz-Carlton on South Beach, the Marriott property that hosted the “Moments” winners for the Formula 1 Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix 2025. The drama between friends and rivals Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, the underdog victories and overcoming of fear, the rise of 18-year-old Kimi Antonelli coming up to fill the empty spot left by Hamilton on the Mercedes team. The show is adept at pulling out narrative threads and turning fast cars into something you can root for.
“I'm very jealous that you haven't seen all of it yet, because watching it for the first time, I was just in awe,” Kelly Blackburn, a technical host at Mercedes who has been an F1 fan for a few years, tells me under the awning at the Miami Club, a sort of clubhouse for Mercedes fans with live commentary and free food that bordered turns five and six of the racetrack.
“I found Yuki Tsunoda a really interesting character, a talented driver, a little bit rough around the edges,” she adds. “I had this interest when I was watching, not just about who's first, who's second, all of a sudden I was watching the midfield … it gives such a great in to a sport which has not always been accessible. Drive to Survive has really given a platform for women and young people that maybe felt a little bit isolated from the sport.”
I’m late to the craze — F1 blew up in big way in the U.S. in the early 2020s, and the 2024 Miami Grand Prix event became the most-watched U.S. race ever on ESPN, according to F1. Women and Gen Z are fueling that rise; 42% of the Formula 1 fanbase is under 35, according to a 2024 Formula 1 study, and girls and young women between 16 and 24 are the fastest-growing demographic.
But even though I’m late, watching the F1 Academy and F1 drivers race in Miami and witnessing the excitement from fans, I could feel the fandom coming on. That first spark of getting into a new interest, realizing how much there is to unpack, the players and their relationships, the behind the scenes drama, the layers of the ecosystem. It is, as Liverant says, like falling in love. The rush of it overtaking you completely, like the wind off the track when the F1 cars speed by at 200 miles an hour.
