F1 Academy managing director Susie Wolff has shed light on how she managed to get all 10 Formula 1 teams to support the all-female racing series in 2024.
After the first season of F1 Academy made it clear that work needed to be done to get more eyes on the series, Wolff set out to gain the support of every F1 team.
"I remember when I took on the role, I drove to the first race we raced, not with Formula 1 at the time, and it was at Circuit Paul Ricard, not far from where I live in Monaco, and I remember getting near the track thinking, it's strange, there's no cars around," Wolff explained during an interview with Talks At Google.
"It's so quiet. And I drove in, and I thought, 'Have I got mixed up with the dates or something?' Because I've never been to such an empty racetrack. And I drove in and it was literally just the F1 Academy trucks and nobody there. I'd never been at such a deserted racetrack before.
"I got out of my car and I immediately got met by two of the team bosses who said, 'Listen, this is not working. We're not finding any sponsorship. So we're out at the end of the year.' It's like, 'OK, great to see you.' And then some of the drivers came to see me and said, 'Well, listen, we're supposed to pay for one third of our budget, but we also can't find the money. So I'm just telling you now that I can't pay what I owe you.'
"It's like, 'OK, guys, let's take a step back here.' And I spent the day and the next day there, and I called Stefano [Domenicali], the CEO of Formula 1, and said, 'This is not going to work because nobody's finding sponsorship money.' It was set up that Liberty would pay one third of the budget, the driver one third and the team one third.
"So we had a flooded market of everyone searching for sponsorship, some asking for €5000, some asking for €500,000, and it was just so disjointed. And obviously no sponsor is going to pay to be in a race car that's racing in front of an empty audience, literally nobody in the grandstand."
After speaking with various people within the industry, Wolff floated the idea of getting the 10 F1 teams on board and bringing all commercial assets in-house.
"I got the green light," she added, "and I said to Stefano, 'So shall we approach the F1 teams together?' He said, 'No, no, no, you can do that.' So obviously, I had one at home. But the one at home is my biggest supporter, but also my biggest critic. And he said, 'Well, I can't be the first, so get six on board. You'll have the majority, then I'll have to do it.' Great, great. Thank you for that.
"But I have to say, when I went to see Fred Vasseur, who I'd known for a long time at Ferrari, it was also a little bit his idea because I said, 'Would you consider coming into F1 Academy?' And he said, 'Yeah, and we can paint the car red.' I said, 'OK, paint the car red. What about a Ferrari sticker?'
"But I had Ferrari, and then Zak Brown at McLaren was hugely supportive. And then at the time, Christian Horner ran Red Bull, which had the potential to be tricky given his lack of relationship with my husband.
"But he was actually very supportive. I had friends who worked very closely commercially with Red Bull, who had explained why this was such an important project for F1.
"So suddenly I had four teams. I had got two more on board, and suddenly I had that magic six that meant I could count Toto in. That was seven. The last three, and I don't mention their names in the book because I feel it's not fair on them, were very dubious."
While the final three teams were more difficult to get on board, Wolff went ahead with the legal documentation with the confirmed seven. By the time it came to signing, she had convinced the final three teams to agree.
"It was also a pinch-me moment for me, because I wasn't ever hugely confident that we could get it done, but we did. And I think that was definitely down to a lot of tenacity, of refusing to take no for an answer."
