Formula 1 has boldly collaborated with its ten current teams to kick off the 2025 F1 season in London on February 18. The O2 Arena will host a public season launch event featuring all the teams and drivers signed up to compete in F1’s 75th anniversary season, in the form of a livery and driver line-up reveal.
Creative specialist Brian Burke and his team, the engineers of last year’s Las Vegas Grand Prix opening and closing ceremonies, have been tasked with producing the show.
I have to say, I was rather sceptical about this whole shared launch event idea when it was first rumoured. Perhaps I am still somewhat nervous about it.
When teams usually elect to launch their seasons via a glitzy ceremony type event, there is almost always a proportion of fans who are thoroughly unimpressed. Therefore, F1 themselves going down this type of route with its own one-for-all event is why some within the championship are not too sure about the prospect – Max Verstappen recently joked that he hopes he’s “sick” for the event.
The idea of one large show where each team’s livery and driver line-up is unveiled in one evening may make some of the teams’ partners rather uneasy over the commercial implications. Not so much surrounding the event itself, but rather the notion of each team being deprived of their own launch events.
F1’s normal ‘launch season’ in February and March usually consists of the smaller teams – the likes of Haas – going all out and unveiling their new liveries as early as possible, hence attracting as much attention as possible for respective partners ahead of the season picking up momentum.
What we do always learn from these early launches is that fans really do care about every team on the grid. Creating this drawn out excitement of ten separate launches across a couple of weeks every February is an important part of the season, therefore.
In 2025, there will be several seismic storylines under the spotlight – Lewis Hamilton joining Ferrari will draw the majority of the mainstream media’s attention.
It does seem, however, it will still be possible for teams to host their own solo launch-style events to engage directly with the media and fans, just minus new liveries – potentially opening the can of worms that is private shakedown running in camouflage liveries before F1’s event. You can never rule out the inevitable livery leak or two in addition.
Nonetheless, it will be an intriguing experiment in which Formula 1 cannot afford not to try out. If the event flops in its impact and reaction, it’s not as big of an embarrassment as you might imagine for an organisation as globally powerful and easily recognisable as F1 is.
If it succeeds in captivating the new audiences in which the championship is so eager to continue attracting, whilst also engaging the existing audience, then it is definitely money well spent.
After all, hiring out the O2 Arena – one of the world’s most famous entertainment venues – is certainly not cheap. But the location of the venue, an easily commutable distance from the centre of London and its multiple public transport termini, is a big positive for this initiative that hopes to ignite the F1 spark with a bang during the typically grey winter months.
It would certainly be a surprise if the event didn’t sell out pretty quickly!
Looking further into the future – which F1 will certainly be doing with this – it’s pretty easy to imagine countries such as Saudi Arabia bidding high for the privilege of hosting a similar event.
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