Hey friends!

While I’m writing this introduction before the race, by the time you read this, I’ll be suffering from post-F1 depression* as the best week of the year in Melbourne has just wrapped up.

For the fourth year in a row, I was lucky enough to head down to Melbourne to attend the Australian Grand Prix, and as I did last year, I took some time off from my day job to undertake some on-the-ground fan-engagement research. I’ve decided to split this newsletter into two editions: one covering the fan engagement that took place away from the track, and one covering what went on once you were through the gates. This is part one, so stay tuned for part two in a couple of days.

As a reminder, my primary focus is on the ways teams and drivers are directly attempting to connect with their fans rather than sponsor activations and VIP parties. Why? Because anyone can throw a cool party for VIPs and influencers, but it takes a lot more thought and buy-in to successfully engage with your broader fanbase, and that’s what I find the most interesting (and ultimately, important!).

While the racing in F1 is obviously exciting and what draws us all in, fans also want to see the drivers outside of the cars and out from under their helmets and to build real relationships with their favourite teams. So let’s see how the grid used the lead-up to the first race of the season to kick-start that process in 2025.

Jump to:

• Atlassian Williams Racing Fan Zone

  • The Fan Zone

  • The Interactivity

  • The Q&A

• Melbourne Fan Festival

• Red Bull Fan Zone

• Enchante pop-up store

• Mercedes x Adidas

• Miscellaneous

• Final thoughts

Formula 1 Fan Engagement, away from Albert Park

Atlassian Williams Racing Fan Zone

My favourite example of authentic fan engagement from a team was back in Melbourne for 202! The Atlassian Williams Racing Fan Zone in Fed Square from the Monday of race week, until Sunday after the race. I popped in three times - once on opening day for a quick peek during my lunch break, once on Thursday to see the Q&A with Carlos and James Vowles, and once on Saturday on my way home from the track to see what the race weekend vibes were. Three very different visit timings, but it was absolutely pumping with fans of all ages each time.

The Fan Zone

The Fan Zone was held in the Atrium at Fed Square, and there was a large range of signage directing fans from all parts of the wider precinct. You had to have signed up to the Williams App to gain entry (I would love to see the data on just how many new registrations they got across the week!), and a lot of the signs included QR codes for fans to register before they got to the main entrance point.

The branding throughout the event was excellent, with giant signs and banners really making the space feel as though you had stepped into the world of Williams.

A highlight for all of the visitors was obviously the show car on display. I had to very strategically try and get a snap in between all of the mini-photoshoots that were taking place in front (and to the side!) of it!

The fan zone had lots of merch on sale (including ranges you weren’t able to buy at the actual Grand Prix), and I’m glad I grabbed some on the Monday as by the time I returned on the Thursday, a lot of it had sold out. One of the things I love most about the Williams Fan Zone is that they offer a discount on merchandise to registered fans, which makes a noticeable difference to decision making when you’re in the middle of an expensive week.

The Interactivity

The Williams Fan Zone was extremely interactive. There were racing sims, multiple games to test your reflexes, photo spots, historic memorabilia, and sponsor activations.

The primary activity, however, was the “fan scan”, where each area had a sign with NFC scanning enabled to unlock a badge within the Williams app.

The aim was to collect all six badges for your collection which was fun for fans and encouraged them to explore every area. It was also an excellent way to collect data for the sponsors who had activations within the zone, as collecting the badge meant agreeing to their marketing terms and conditions.

I want to give a big shoutout to Komatsu for the way that they engage at the fan zone. Komatsu are not a D2C brand, and a company that makes heavy machinery is not the kind of company you would usually think about when considering fan engagement activations. However, they have very cleverly narrowed their focus to employment growth, and as you can see in the badge above, their primary activity is encourage fans to check out their careers page. They are such a good example of thinking outside of the square when it comes to leveraging their sponsorship and activating an engagement with fans in a non-traditional way. (They also had a very cool digger simulator, however, it had a line so long each time I was there I wasn’t able to actually give it a go!)

Once you had scanned all six signs around the fan zone, you were able to collect the Aus Fan Zone badge for your app, completing the “challenge”.

Additionally, following collection of the Aus Fan Zone badge, you could also connect your account to your Kraken Wallet and collect a physical Grid Pass (which they ran out of while I was there on the Saturday evening - luckily I had picked mine up on an earlier visit).

The Grid Pass gave you an extra 5% off merch (15%, up from the 10% the app itself gives you) and also allowed you to play additional games with the chance for more prizes.

One of the prizes on offer was “signed” driver cards (the signature is built into the image design rather than being signed on the card itself), which is a very clever way to get high-demand products into the hands of fans. This is even more true in Australia where most fans are unable to access driver cards, as teams require you to send a pre-paid envelope to their UK or European HQ to potentially, maybe, get something back.

My prize was a James Vowles card, and while I already have one from when I met him in 2024, I guess this is a sign that it’s now going to be an annual collectible, ha!

The Q&A

This year, Williams held Q&As across the Wednesday and Thursday evenings of race week. I was unfortunately unable to attend the Q&A with Luke Browning on Wednesday as it clashed with the Oscar Piastri Fan Festival Q&A (more on that below), but joined what felt like every F1 fan in Melbourne at the Carlos Sainz and James Vowles Q&A on Thursday night.

I rocked up to the venue two hours early, figuring that was pretty eager of me, only to discover some fans had already been there for seven hours! This is proof that 1) Carlos is absolutely beloved, and 2) fans will do anything to get close to their favourite celebrities (as I keep saying!).

Even though Carlos was running late, the event was extremely well-managed, and fan spirits remained high. Carlos and James were meant to do separate Q&As, but due to timing issues they came on together, which ultimately worked really well.

While Williams has gotten rid of the in-person meet and greets they offered following the Q&As in 2024 (a disappointing but ultimately sensible move considering the lengths fans were going to just to be up the front at the Q&A!), fans seemed thrilled to just be in the same room as a driver and Team Principal they love. As I explored in my PhD research, fans crave attention and proximity. Being able to see their favourite celebrity in the flesh - and have the potential ability to ask them questions! - is a huge driver of fandom participation and is also linked to the likelihood of continued engagement, connection and spending.

A side note: The highlight of my evening was that there was some kind of important cocktail party happening at the Ian Potter Center just through the glass doors at the venue, and there were so many well-dressed art aficionados trying to figure out why a giant crowd kept singing along to Smooth Operator and screaming at random intervals. We love a culture clash.

Melbourne Fan Festival

For the first time, an official, free, public F1 Fan Festival was held at Melbourne Park Oval. I was only briefly able to go to the Fan Festival on the Wednesday night to check out the Oscar Piastri Q&A, but I was impressed with what was on offer.

I am not great at geography (if the moving blue dot on Google Maps didn’t exist, I would never find my way anywhere!), so I loved how well-directed the entire path from the city to the fan zone was. Signs like the one in the image below were placed every hundred metres or so to make sure you didn’t accidentally stray off track.

The festival featured driver appearances, DJs, food trucks, various activations and activities, and a big screen to watch the on-track action across the weekend.

As previously mentioned, my visit to the festival was to catch Oscar Piastri’s appearance. Pierre Gasly and Jack Doohan had visited earlier in the day (I was at work and couldn’t make it), and a range of reserve drivers (and Team Principals), as well as drivers from F2, F3 and Supercars appeared across the five days it was open. This, to me, is the most valuable part of the Fan Festival, as it brings Albert Park to the fans who couldn’t get tickets.

Oscar was running late, which usually I wouldn’t mind, except Melbourne was being Melbourne that evening and we all got stuck in a thunderstorm for a solid half an hour. Some people were smart enough to have packed umbrellas, but the naive Sydney-sider in me trusted the blue skies that were out when I left my hotel. But eventually the rain stopped, Oscar appeared, and it was a great chance to see him speak before the craziness of the race weekend. It was a huge crowd that did not thin at all when it started to pour, which is further proof of how keen fans are for any chance to see their favourite celebrities.

I do feel for the organisers because the weather was horrendous in two different ways over the weekend and I’m sure it would have negatively impacted attendance for their watch parties. But I hope it returns in 2026, and that they get some breezy, sunny days to pack out the area!

Cost is a huge barrier to fandom discovery and participation, so to give people who might be curious about the sport a chance to check out what it’s all about without the barriers of needing to invest in a ticket (or going through the battle that is trying to get one!) is a great move.

Red Bull Fan Zone

I was excited to see a second team-adjacent fan zone being advertised in the lead-up to the Grand Prix. However, the reality of the Red Bull Fan Zone left a lot to be desired (at least ahead of the weekend). That being said, I think that is less of a comment on this particular fan zone and more of a comment on just how high the Williams Fan Zone has set the bar.

The Red Bull Fan Zone included a large screen with bean bags and seating, a bar selling nine dollar cans of red bull (!!!!), a driving simulator, a photo booth, and some sponsor stalls.

The biggest offering of the fan zone (other than the watch parties) was that they held Q&As with all four of the RBR and VCARB drivers. I wasn’t able to attend either of the Q&As they held (the RBR session was during my work hours, and the VCARB session clashed with the Carlos Q&A at Williams), so I can’t comment on how they were organised or went, but anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge fan of giving fans access to celebrity talent. Free Q&As - especially with the current World Drivers Champion - are a huge opportunity for fans, especially those who were unable to get tickets for the actual race weekend.

However, the biggest missing piece to me at this fan zone is that there was no invitation for fans to sign up to either The Paddock (RBR’s fan platform) or VCARB’s newsletter. You have the full attention of fans, and you don’t give them a chance to learn more about you or stay connected? Even if it was an activation from the energy drink side of the brand, the teams were clearly involved enough for the drivers to attend, so it makes no sense to me that there was no way for fans to sign up and stay involved.

Enchante pop-up store

Calling the Daniel Ricciardo Enchanté pop-up store on Chapel Street fan engagement is perhaps stretching the definition, however, I queued for an hour to check it out so it’s going on the list, ha!

Look. It was a store that popped up for five days to sell his merch. His very, very expensive merch.

It did have one of Daniel’s helmets on display, which was pretty cool, and he visited for ten minutes on the first day it was open, but otherwise, wider fan engagement was non-existent.

I know it was not trying to be anything more than a shop, but it just felt like something was missing. They completely sold out by the end of the day on Saturday so it was clearly a success, but it felt…lifeless, and disconnected from Daniel’s previous public persona. I don’t know, maybe it was just a me issue (and I’ve always had questions about the approach taken for the wider Enchanté brand), but I left feeling underwhelmed (albeit with a new t-shirt and tote bag). I will say that on the sponsor side of things, it did finally convince me to sign up to Afterpay so that I could skip part of the queue and get a free tote bag. I doubt I’ll ever use it again (I have a lot of issues with the buy-now, pay-later sector and how it markets itself), but I guess they successfully added me to their campaign KPI win list.

Mercedes x Adidas

I stumbled upon the activation Mercedes and Adidas held at the Emporium shopping centre by chance while shopping early in the week. It featured a show car, team wear, and a pit wall simulator on one floor, and a racing simulator, some helmets, and additional merch and team wear in the actual shop.

Then, on Wednesday afternoon, Valtteri Bottas put a countdown timer to an appearance at the Adidas store on his Instagram stories, which I just happened to see. It was set to start at six, so I went as soon as I finished work and….the organisation wasn’t great. A lot of people in the crowd weren’t even sure who was turning up, or when they would be turning up (they had stumbled upon the area rather than following the social media invite), and there was a lot of pushing, shoving, poor queueing, and annoying shopkeepers telling off fans for being outside of the roped off area (which also wasn’t very well established).

The actual Q&A was fine, and it was great to be able to see Valtteri up close (especially after seeing him drive at Race of Champions the previous weekend), but as someone who has previously worked with high-profile talent making public appearances, there was a lot of room for improvement as to how the whole thing was run.

There was an opportunity for fifteen fans to meet Valtteri following the Q&A, but it’s unclear how they were selected. I think it was some kind of lucky prize after they had purchased something at the Adidas store, but again, communication around the whole thing was very unclear at all stages. Like, had I known there was an opportunity to win a meet and greet I would have been tempted to purchase something that I would otherwise not have been interested in…but I guess that wasn’t something that they cared about.

Out of all of the activations, this was the one most tailored to the random person coming across it rather than actively seeking it out. I’m not sure that’s a strategy I’d encourage others to follow as it lacked a sense of cohesion and connection…but again, I guess if it worked in their eyes…

Miscellaneous

The Crown Riverwalk area (where the Red Bull Fan Zone was held) was home to a range of other merch stores and motorsport-adjacent stalls for fans spending time in the area.

A standout was the Before You Speak Coffee stall, and I’m not just saying that because I’m already a BYS fan (they sponsor the monthly marathon running club I go to, and the thought of their iced coffee is the only thing that gets me through to the end of the runs!).

They sponsor both Jack Doohan and Alpine, and their stall offered special edition merch, free coffee, giveaways, and a driving simulator for fans. I also stocked up on cans of their iced latte to take to the Grand Prix - no queuing in super long event lines for me!

Crown are major sponsors of the Grand Prix, so it made sense to try and make their area a bit more of a pre-event “hub”. If you started at the Crown, it was also nice to be able to walk down along the river, past the Williams Fan Zone, and then continue along to the Fan Festival. A very scenic, central motorsports zone for fans to check out, and all for free!

Away from the River Walk, McLaren very briefly had a show car on display at Culture Kings early in the week. A lot of fans were keen to check it out, but only having it around on the Monday and Tuesday when a lot of people don’t get into town until the Thursday or Friday was an interesting choice.

Final thoughts

• There was a huge increase in the number of driver appearances from 2024, which we love to see.
  Only two teams had a public driver appearance in 2024, so to have four teams (or 40% of the grid) offering them away from the track in 2025 was a big improvement. It was also great to see the Fan Festival giving fans without Grand Prix tickets more of a chance to see the drivers, too (if we include the fan festival, we have 50% of teams with public driver Q&As!). Here’s to more of this in 2026!

• Please, everyone, let’s get more creative than driving simulators.
  Or at least do driving simulators AND something else. Every single activation had a driving simulator and by the end of the week, I was so bored of seeing them. They’re obviously popular, but the lack of creativity is glaring, especially when there is no larger strategy behind them (Williams at least connected their sim section to their gaming club and had a week-long tournament for fans to compete in). Fan engagement needs to be more than a box-ticking exercise!

• Don’t forget to actually engage!
  Williams were the only organisation off-track who were actively inviting fans to engage with them by registering for their membership program. As I flagged above, the Red Bull Fan Zone had no way for fans to sign up for team communications, and while F1 Unlocked was very briefly advertised at the Fan Festival, there was no permanent signage inviting fans to register for the fan club. You have your fans right in front of you! Don’t forget to actually connect with them and start to build a relationship!

Okay, that’s 3,500 words on what I saw before I got to the Albert Park gates…but stay tuned for another post in a few days that dives into what I saw at the actual Grand Prix.

‘Til next time!

ps. I currently have two surveys live that I’d love you to take five mins to complete:

• If you attended the Melbourne Grand Prix and have thoughts on Melbourne Walk, I’d love to hear them

• My survey on fan engagement with team social media accounts is still open

*Post-event depression is a legitimate phenomenon!