The girls aren’t spending their summer relaxing by the pool or vacationing to exotic locales. They’re sweating it out in the F1 stands, watching the races on television, and perfecting their perfect “paddock princess” attire.
Once the purview of a mostly European and mostly male fan base, Formula 1 racing, or F1, has become one of the chicest sports for women to follow, with a growing impact on fashion and culture. Top influencers are posting photos and videos of themselves at races, the WAGs of top drivers are becoming famous, and everyone’s tuning in.
Pop culture is also taking note. F1 the Movie, which comes out Friday, stars Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, and actual racer Lewis Hamilton and is already getting buzz for its stars’ fashion and aesthetic more than its plot. And the sport is also creeping into other parts of culture; in May, Simon & Schuster published Slipstream by Madge Maril, an enemies-to-lovers romance novel centering on the world of F1. As the publisher says, the novel follows “documentarian Lilah as she teams up with racing driver Arthur Bianco for a whirlwind of revenge—and perhaps something more.”
This rise in online and cultural popularity among women is having real world results for the sport. A spokesperson for F1 tells Glamour they’ve seen a striking demographic shift in its fanbase in the last five years, with both the under-35 and women audiences growing by over 50%, especially in the US and China. Since 2018, the percentage of women fans has jumped from 37% to 41%, and the fastest-growing audience is women aged 16 to 24.
“A lot of women’s interest in F1 seems to be driven by a combination of media, cultural shifts, and the sport’s own evolution,” the spokesperson says, citing a huge interest in the fashion surrounding the events as well as influencer and celebrity attendance at the races as driving the trend.
Even the influencers themselves have noticed how much the fandom has grown among their women followers. Morgan Riddle first made a name for herself on TikTok and Instagram when she began posting about her life on the professional tennis circuit with her boyfriend, player Taylor Fritz, and began to attend F1 races soon after. She’s since hosted live coverage of events like “Glamour on the Grid” from last year’s Australian Grand Prix.
When she first began posting content from F1, most of the coverage she tells Glamour she found was “incredibly male-centric,” mostly stats and highlights. She decided to approach her coverage of the events from her own perspective as a 20-something woman, focusing more on the culture surrounding the races and of course, the outfits.
“That storytelling via fashion and ‘fun content’ ended up opening the door into the sport for a lot of women who felt like these spaces weren’t for them,” she says. “It made it comfortable to be curious and have fun at the events without the pressure of knowing every player’s standing, pole position, or engine specs. It also has paved a path for these events to not just be sporting events but massive cultural moments, opening the door to an entirely new fandom that is definitely for the girls.”
