{"id":877252,"date":"2026-09-02T09:24:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T09:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/877252\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T09:24:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T09:24:17","slug":"drive-to-survive-made-f1-a-hit-sports-car-racing-is-cashing-in-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/877252\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Drive to Survive\u2019 made F1 a hit. Sports car racing is cashing in, too"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Formula 1 opened its doors to Netflix\u2019s cameras for the docuseries \u201cDrive to Survive,\u201d few could have predicted the impact it would have on the sport.<\/p>\n

The series, which debuted in 2019, was one of the most important factors in F1\u2019s subsequent boom in popularity. It took motor racing to a whole new audience on streaming services. And F1 races are now sold-out events with a much younger and more diverse fanbase than a decade ago.<\/p>\n

But the ripple effect from \u201cDrive to Survive\u201d extended elsewhere in motorsport. In the World Endurance Championship sports car series, a similar shift has occurred.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s clear. Six or seven years ago that we started to see more and more young people. At the time, I heard so many times, \u2019motorsport is for old people.\u2019 This is (now) completely the opposite,\u201d Frederic Lequien, the WEC CEO, told The Athletic in an interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to be smart and to get the right analysis: (it\u2019s) thanks to the Netflix series.\u201d<\/p>\n

The modern WEC was established in 2012, forming a full season of races around the 24 Hours of Le Mans \u2014 the world\u2019s most iconic sports car event. With a shortest race distance of six hours, three drivers sharing duties per car, and multiple classes of cars racing on track at the same time \u2014 a normal WEC race has Hypercar (for prototype models) and GT3 (for grand tourers) \u2014 the format is very different to F1.<\/p>\n

Yet there is a degree of familiarity for fans who, after having their interest piqued by \u201cDrive to Survive,\u201d look to other forms of motorsport.<\/p>\n

Many recent ex-F1 drivers, including Kevin Magnussen and Logan Sargeant, now race in WEC. Car brands active in F1, such as Ferrari and Cadillac, are also on the WEC grid. Five of the eight tracks on the current WEC calendar have also hosted F1 grands prix this year.<\/p>\n

According to data supplied to The Athletic by WEC, 28 percent of fans surveyed who attended a race in 2025 did so for the first time, and 30 percent of attendees were 35 or younger.<\/p>\n

The series still has a largely male fan demographic (86 percent of surveyed attendees were men) but the number of women fans was higher among those identified as \u2018casual\u2019 or \u2018opportunist\u2019 fans, pointing to the growth in this area.<\/p>\n

Lequien said that fans being introduced to WEC would quickly come to appreciate the close, competitive racing on display. At this year\u2019s 24 Hours of Le Mans, won by Toyota, the top four cars were separated by just 32 seconds after a full day of racing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Crowds gather under the podium after the 2026 Le Mans 25 Hours (Ivan Couturier \/ Hans Lucas \/ AFP \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The quality of the racing in the series has also proved appealing to many top racing drivers. Fernando Alonso, the two-time F1 world champion, has already hinted he would like to return to Le Mans after winning the race twice for Toyota in 2018 and 2019. Charles Leclerc has expressed an eagerness to enter the famous race for Ferrari one day.<\/p>\n

For drivers looking for next steps outside of F1, WEC has become a popular landing spot, with their fans often happy to follow.<\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s Lone Star Le Mans WEC race at the Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas, will provide Sargeant (below), who raced in F1 for Williams in 2023 and 2024, a chance to race in front of his home fans once again.<\/p>\n

He is part of the Proton Competition line-up in the GT3 class, racing a Ford Mustang, ahead of joining Ford\u2019s new Hypercar team in the top WEC category from 2027.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still have a lot of support from some of my fans in F1, and that\u2019s nice to see,\u201d Sargeant told The Athletic in an interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people are happy to see me with Ford now, and it\u2019s honestly been great. So, hopefully, I can just keep doing well for them. I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll see a bunch more at COTA, being in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

But even drivers without an F1 background have felt the impact of growing crowd numbers at WEC races in recent years. More than 350,000 fans attended Le Mans this year, marking a new event record, while the season\u2019s opening two rounds at Imola in Italy and Spa in Belgium also drew their biggest-ever crowds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe amount of manufacturers involved now and the level of competition, I think in itself, before you take any big-name start from F1, was attracting people,\u201d Phil Hanson, who won Le Mans in 2025 for AF Corse Ferrari, told The Athletic in an interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a huge fan base, and that\u2019s growing year on year on year, regardless of which F1 driver says they might want to race in WEC.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sport is in a really healthy space. Even in other categories and other areas where there\u2019s not as much F1 attention, you still see the same sort of level of attention picking up year to year, which is just positive everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Ex-Williams F1 driver Logan Sargeant at the 2026 Le Mans 24 Hours (Ker Robertson \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

For Lequien, a big selling point for WEC is its accessibility. Fans can purchase tickets that give them access to the paddock \u2014 the area behind the pits, where only those working at F1 races and VIPs are allowed \u2014 and a chance to get close to the cars and drivers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can almost touch the cars,\u201d Lequien said. \u201cIt\u2019s a good deal.\u201d He said for the Spa race in May, tickets cost an average of $64. \u201cYou can go inside the paddock, you can go in any grandstand. You have a super big fanzone with a lot of activations and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n

For this week\u2019s race in Austin, a three-day general admission ticket costs $89.50, with an equivalent ticket for the F1 weekend later this year retailing for $450.<\/p>\n

WEC has experienced significant changes over the past decade, placing a new focus on cost control in the top class to make the top tier of global sports car racing sustainable for manufacturers. The championship is also eager to be a \u201claboratory\u201d for car companies, according to Lequien, with hydrogen-powered engines remaining an area of interest for many in sports car racing.<\/p>\n

As well as balancing the technical and financial demands of the series to deliver a compelling on-track product, Lequien made it clear that WEC had to keep its fans, both old and new, top of mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe at the beginning, (the rise in popularity was) thanks to F1 and \u2018Drive to Survive,\u2019\u201d added Lequien. \u201cBut it\u2019s true sport. WEC is extreme. It\u2019s pure motorsport.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something maybe we should not forget. We must deliver something to the fans: beautiful cars, super design, pure sound. It\u2019s what they want.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Formula 1 opened its doors to Netflix\u2019s cameras for the docuseries \u201cDrive to Survive,\u201d few could have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":877253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,3152,85],"class_list":["post-877252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-motorsports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=877252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/877253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}