Formula One has made its latest move to open up the motor-racing championship to new media partners by agreeing a deal with online streaming service Netflix.
The season-long collaboration will result in an original documentary series of the 2018 world championship, to be screened in early 2019.
F1 said the Netflix original series will be the first to truly immerse the audience inside the cockpits, the paddock and the lives of the key players in the sport. The series will have unparalleled and exclusive access to drivers, team principals and owners, as well as Formula One’s own management team. Netflix has commissioned 10 episodes from the 2018 season.
Formula One’s owners, Liberty Media, have made a concerted effort to open up the sport to new audiences and the Netflix deal was announced on Saturday as the second season of the Liberty-led era commenced with the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.
Ian Holmes, Formula One’s director of media rights, said: “This collaboration represents a new way of capturing our sport in all of its exciting aspects. There is nothing like F1, its layers of engineering complexity, allied to the enormity of human endeavour required to get through a grand prix season.
“The chance to present our sport through Netflix, to their worldwide audience, in an original and unique format, is something that we are very much looking forward to. This is a tremendous opportunity to showcase F1 and attract new fans to the sport.”
The F1 tie-up represents Netflix’s latest content partnership in the sports market. Late last year, the company signed similar deals with Italian Serie A football club Juventus and Argentinian Superliga outfit Boca Juniors.