If you asked a motorsport fan, particularly F1 fans in the era of Mercedes dominance, most would describe the era as \u201cboring and predictable.\u201d Sepang even had to stop hosting the race, as the revenue just did not cover the cost for hosting the race itself, because let\u2019s face it, would you attend an (almost) 2-hour show of cars driving in circles to know that the winner would always be any of the two Mercedes drivers at that time? However, with the controversial ending to the 2021 season, in which people still debate if Max Verstappen is the rightful winner or Lewis Hamilton even after four years, it seemed as if the Mercedes dominance ended but was reincarnated in the form of Dutch driver Max Verstappen, and a new powerhouse was born.<\/p>\n
In the 2022 season, there were still five different race winners: Red Bull\u2019s Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, Ferrari\u2019s Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc, and Mercedes\u2019 George Russell. Though just a year later, in 2023, the whole season was fully dominated by Red Bull, with the one sneak in Singapore where Carlos Sainz Jr. won. The \u201cboring\u201d era of F1 was on track to repeat itself, but the sport only gained in popularity. One could pay homage to Netflix\u2019s \u2018Drive to Survive.\u2019 Drive to Survive is Netflix\u2019s show that follows the F1 drivers throughout the whole season. Its accuracy in terms of portrayal is debatable due to the \u2018high dramatization\u2019; there\u2019s no denying that the show itself is entertaining. So much so that 53% of U.S. F1 fans credited the show as a reason they became viewers of F1 in 2022. But this popularization of F1 wasn\u2019t necessarily met with positive reaction. For the longest time, F1 was regarded as a coveted sport for the rich, by the rich, which could only mainly be accessible if you either attended the races themselves or tuned in on the television, so you could imagine how \u201creal\u201d fans felt about their beloved sport being dramatized and accessible to a larger audience.<\/p>\n
This outrage was exacerbated further when women began taking interest in the sport. In fact, in a report made by F1 themselves in 2025, female fans could account for 3 out of every 4 new fans of F1. Being a fan of a sport that is quite literally for men, the main assumption would be that women are interested because of the drivers themselves. Let\u2019s not lie, Charles Leclerc is a beautiful man, but why exactly would I sit in a hot circuit just to get a glimpse of his helmet for one second every two minutes? As a female fan that has recently expressed interest in F1, misogynistic comments aren\u2019t hard to come by. Say we\u2019re talking about the race; there will always be a man that questions me about the littlest things: \u201cWhat does DRS mean?\u201d \u201cWhat\u2019s the front wing for?\u201d \u201cWhy are there different types of tires?\u201d \u201cWho\u2019s Michael Schumacher?\u201d Dare I say that Michael Schumacher himself wouldn\u2019t even mind that I watch F1 for the drivers and not to know the mechanical side of it, as I am quite literally not a mechanic, nor are thousands of men that watch the sport too. So I\u2019d find myself questioning, why are women more subjected to this questioning than men? There is no answer that doesn\u2019t include a certain degree of misogyny. It\u2019s as if I have to take a course on cars I will never drive to enjoy watching them go in circles.<\/p>\n
The irony of this whole thing is that some female F1 fans are also fans of other motorsports or have been exposed to the concept of motorsports itself long before watching F1. Growing up, my dad was an avid fan of Valentino Rossi, seven-time MotoGP Championship winner, but he was not a fan of F1. Though if I asked him every small question regarding Rossi\u2019s motorcycle as most women are subjected to, I\u2019m sure he would not be able to answer either, so should I assume he\u2019s physically attracted to Valentino Rossi? Sure, there are some female fans that watch F1 because they are initially attracted to a certain driver\u2014I know I sure was enthralled by Carlos Sainz\u2014but that does not excuse the unnecessary questioning women get for simply watching a sport, not just F1, but any sport in general.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you asked a motorsport fan, particularly F1 fans in the era of Mercedes dominance, most would describe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,35583,927,7460,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-348474","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-gender-equality","14":"tag-opinion","15":"tag-society","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}