At the turn of the F1 era in 2022, people expected a change of baton between Red Bull & Mercedes. Although many hoped that the kind of battle 2021 witnessed would carry on past that. All those hopes were dashed brutally by Red Bull as last year progressed, rising as the only dominant force on the grid. Max Verstappen has been on a rampage since last year & has taken his dominance to another level, into realms of fascination & record-breaking. Ever so, this dominance is going to worry F1’s owners Liberty Media & just keep angering the fans who want to see a fight.

Autosport & Motorsport posted an interesting graphic lately about how F1’s social media metrics have fallen off a cliff in 2023 relative to 2022. The number of mentions has dropped drastically to 1.83 million from 6.14 million last year. Even the amount of new followers has seen a 46.29% drop. Meanwhile, F1 has only been able to achieve a reach of 22.16 billion overall, which a year ago, was 3 times more at 61.73 billion. All these numbers point clearly toward how fans are turning away from F1 due to a one-sided dominance from only one team & driver.

Fewer people on social media means we could have fewer people watching & following the sport all courtesy of Verstappen & Red Bull’s dominance. Liberty Media invested $4.4 billion when they took ownership of the sport in 2017. Ever since then, they have only focused on growing F1’s reach into new audiences. So this kind of drop in numbers is not something that they would ideally want. It could see their huge investment start taking damage in terms of a loss-making trajectory. 

Many fans speculated on Twitter on the potential reasons behind these damaging numbers for F1. Certainly, the primarily targeted folks were Red Bull & Verstappen & fans went all out on them bringing all sorts of controversial comments in reaction.

Max Verstappen & Red Bull’s past mistakes slammed by fans as F1 popularity under threat

The entire narrative around Red Bull has been controversial ever since Abu Dhabi 2021 happened. With the cost cap breach, several fans started to diss the 6-time champion team in awful ways on social media & the 2023 season has done no good to this saga. With Verstappen romping the field & F1 records, fans have got all these past mistakes in context to F1’s social media losses.

It is debatable how much Red Bull gained via the 2021 cost cap breach. Still, fans would keep cooking up theories to push these “cheating” allegations. Especially after the country mile of an advantage they possess currently.

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Some fans explained the causes & a rational analysis of how this drop in numbers is a combined effect of fans’ heightened expectations after 2021 & Red Bull’s brilliance in the last 2 years.

One fan even got the post-Abu Dhabi saga back, calling out Verstappen’s maiden title win.

Another used just amplified the pain of this dominance for many others, citing what if the regulations came in 2021 as planned? Oh, the massacre for Mercedes!

“I Don’t Think About What Is Good for F1”: Max Verstappen Selfishly Boasts of Thumping Dominance Overlooking the Greater Good

Of course, there are always opposing arguments. F1 has always been experiencing dominant eras. And the last one was not too long ago. As mentioned earlier, Mercedes was the team that dropped the ball post-2021.

One fan commented on the same, defending Red Bull & alleging Mercedes did the same what RBR is doing.

Regardless, this social media banter will carry on until Red Bull’s dominance comes to a halt. While fans would love to see it happen in 2024 & have a title fight like 2 years ago, it is a big what-if.

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What do you think? Is Verstappen & Red Bull’s dominance turning away fans from F1?