Liberty to unleash new social media era

Formula 1 is already turning a sharp corner as the sport re-writes itself following the ousting of long time supremo Bernie Eccelstone. Former Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo told Italian radio Rai this week that the way the 86-year-old was ditched by Liberty Media was "not nice".

At this years pre-season testing, teams are allowed to take videos of the pit-lane and their cars to share on social media, something that Bernie Ecclestone aggressively limited during his reign. 

"They (Liberty Media) seem very keen to embrace ideas to make the sport more accessible and entertaining," said Red Bull team principal Christian Horner

Lewis Hamilton, who is always looking to give fans more of an insight, tweeted on Monday: "Through testing I'll be live on Instagram from the cockpit to give you something new." The Briton was warned many times about what he could and couldn't do while under the ruling of Ecclestone,

F1's new commercial managing director Sean Bratches says that he recently had lunch with the triple world champion to get his views on the social media situation. 

"As a world champion, as a culture carrier of the sport, I wanted his point of view on what we are doing right (and) where are the opportunities to do things better", Bratches told the Times newspaper.

"I think that there are going to be guidelines to unleash Lewis, give him the ability to use F1 iconography to drive his brand which in turn helps drive our brand," he added.

Replies (3)

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  • samtkm

    Posts: 10

    this helps f1 cause for interactivity with fans. just need to get out of that 2019 full exclusive sky deal that puts 2 fingers up at long time fans who cannot afford sky. hopefully liberty media online stream services will fix that issue of a monopoly and greed.

    • + 0
    • Feb 28 2017 - 15:03
    • Agreed that 2019 deal is one of the worst deals bernies done

      • + 0
      • Feb 28 2017 - 15:09
    • A deal like that basically already exist here in Scandinavia. F1, apart from a 1 hour summary of the race and quali, is tightly locked behind Viasat's package. You cannot even buy just the one channel required, Viasat Motor, but you need to buy an entire package for quite a hefty sum.

      • + 0
      • Feb 28 2017 - 18:27

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