Formula 1 racing turns 75 this year. The sport has been under new management for a few years and is now owned by an American entertainment company that’s interested in trying new things to grow the sport—a refreshing change from the previous regime that did little but get rich at everyone else’s expense. Among the new things it’s not afraid to try was last night’s F1 75 Live event, a star-studded extravaganza held under the dome of London’s O2 Arena.
The idea behind F1 75 was to gather all 10 teams together to reveal each one’s new look to the fans and make something of a splash about it. It’s the first time the sport has attempted such a thing. In years past, teams would simply wait until the start of preseason testing to reveal that year’s livery, although more recently, individual teams have started holding season launch events themselves.
F1 has started broadcasting some of that preseason testing on its streaming platform, but evidently, the bosses don’t want to wait that long to start recapturing the attention of the fanbase, hence F1 75 Live in mid-February.
“I can hear the purists groaning already,” said host Jack Whitehall, and he wasn’t exactly wrong. Before watching the livestream, I had plenty of preformed opinions as a longtime F1 fan, none of them particularly favorable. But this event wasn’t for an old fan like me. For one thing, we haven’t actually seen any of the real 2025 cars, just each team’s livery wrapped onto identical show cars.
