Formula 1's new golden age of celebrity may have just begun

"The paddock has now turned into a catwalk," says Susie Wolff of the exclusive area at Formula 1 races where teams, the media and guests gather.

"That's where everyone makes their entrance, from the celebrities, the girlfriends and wives of the drivers."

She's more familiar with the world of F1 than most, as a former professional racing driver, the managing director of female racing series F1 Academy and wife of Toto Wolff, the Mercedes F1 team CEO and principal.

She feels it's "one of the few sports that's truly global and there's a glamour to it - it's part of the show and part of the appeal".

That glamour has been a staple part of F1 throughout its 76 year history, with precisely engineered cars and luxury brands converging in desirable cities across the world.

But the sport now seems to be entering a new era of celebrity, fuelled by - and appealing to - a younger crowd; the stars favoured by Gen Z are joining the party.

One of the major influencers of this apparent changing face of F1 is Drive to Survive, the hugely popular Netflix show which returns for its eighth season this weekend.

F1's new chapter can be traced back to 2017, when US company Liberty Media bought the racing business for $4.4bn (£3.3bn). Taking over the reins from British businessman Bernie Ecclestone after his nearly 40 years in charge, the company set its sights on modernising the sport, with more digital rights, social media promotion and new marketing deals.

A year later, F1 stopped using female promotional models, or grid girls, and commissioned Netflix to make Drive to Survive, a fly-on-the-wall documentary series designed to give unfiltered access to drivers, their teams and the people who run them.

There was a clear mission to bring in new fans. In a sign of the impact, F1's own statistics show 43% of its overall fanbase is now aged under 35, up by 30% since 2018. YouGov research in 2023 said the latest Drive to Survive series had been watched by seven million people, with 18-29-year-olds making up 31% of the audience.

With the sport steering in a more candid direction, Wolff says "the teams have realised it's more than just about the racing, it's the drama off track, the personalities off track".

And with plenty of marketing and PR opportunities from being seen at these events, an all-access pass to an F1 race weekend has quickly become the hottest ticket in town for any big-name celebrity.

Open the history annuls and you'll find celebrities and WAGs - the wives and girlfriends of drivers - visible in the paddock for decades. Think Nicole Schwerzinger in the late 2000s and early 2010s when she was associated with Lewis Hamilton. And more recently, ex-Spice Girl Geri Horner, the wife of the former F1 Red Bull team principal Christian Horner. Even back in the 1970s, the lives of drivers away from the sport were of widespread intrigue in the media, notably James Hunt.

But the 2025 season attracted some of F1's biggest names to races to date - with an arguably younger and more global appeal. Beyoncé and Jay-Z, Jennifer Lopez, Timothée Chalamet and Rosé and Lisa from BLACKPINK, to name a few.

In the new series of Drive to Survive, there are frequent shots of drivers' partners, such as Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc's fiancée Alexandra Saint Mleux, or Williams driver Carlos Sainz's model girlfriend Rebecca Donaldson in high fashion outfits.

Matt Elisofon, co-host of the F1-focused Red Flags Podcast, tells the BBC "there were more British celebrities in the Ecclestone era". He references a famously chaotic interaction between late British rocker Ozzy Osbourne and F1 reporter Martin Brundle on a live TV grid walk at a race in 2003. Nowadays, you're more likely to see the likes of American actor "Will Smith in Abu Dhabi", Elisofon says.

"It's just taking on a whole new dimension that's a lot more global, a lot more Hollywood, Travis Kelce, Taylor Swift's fiancé is investing, Patrick Mahomes is investing [in the Alpine F1 team] which is relatively new," he adds.

As a new season rolls around, some fans have been speculating about whether Kim Kardashian will attend any races, after she was spotted at the Super Bowl earlier this month sitting alongside Ferrari driver Hamilton - himself long a trailblazer in F1 for unorthodox fashion looks and celebrity.

"I'm all about her being in the paddock," says Brian Muller, the other half of The Red Flags Podcast.

"So if Kim Kardashian brings her audience's attention to it - if 2% of her 400m followers say 'Oh, this is cool', that's how you continue to grow this thing and make it as global and powerful as possible."

Muller, who is based in the US - where there are now said to be 52 million F1 fans - adds that "F1 is still trying to find its footing" there.

"A lot of my friends don't necessarily know what's going on, but when Beyoncé was in the paddock, I had friends who know that I do the podcast sending me that."

Meanwhile, "the WAG culture is only getting more powerful, it's only just started in terms of the agency that they have in making their own brand and finding a new way in," he says.

The pair refer to the increased celebrity presence at events as a "gateway" to entice casual viewers to commit fully to the sport. The YouGov survey from 2023 said 26% of Drive to Survive fans had no interest in Formula 1 itself.

For Wolff, celebrities attending races is "brilliant for the sport" - but there must be a serious side too.

Wolff's view is "it doesn't matter which celebrity is in your garage" during the race, when "performance" comes first.

"It's about balancing the two, having that sporting integrity."

What many didn't predict was how popular the sport would become with women.

Bella James, an F1 content creator on Instagram and TikTok, feels the Netflix show has connected fans to drivers, making people care more about race results - but has also "allowed women the same access men had".

"It opened up the sport, there's car on track stuff but also personalities, fashions and brands," she says.

Wolff says she feels "lucky" to be involved in the sport at a time when, according to F1, 42% of fans are women, with the fastest growing demographic being in the 18-24-year-old age bracket.

In the past she says the sport was seen as "very macho and very male dominated with big egos", but, as she sees in the female-only F1 Academy series, "society's changed... You can be feminine, you can be beautiful, and you can put your helmet on and be a fierce-faced driver".

There's no doubt last year's F1 Movie, which became actor Brad Pitt's highest grossing film of all time, has also helped motorsport grow in popularity.

Fans are now looking ahead to the 2026 F1 race calendar which kicks off in Melbourne, Australia on 6 March - and many will be hoping for a repeat of drama like in 2021.

"The huge rivalry of Max [Verstappen] and Lewis [Hamilton] going for the title," as Wolff puts it.

Millions watched that year as the title decider controversially went down to the final lap of the last race of the season in Abu Dhabi.

"What happened in Abu Dhabi, everyone in the world knew something had happened there - whether they were into F1 or not," says Wolff. "Those were events that really helped open the sport up to a new audience."

In common with other moments in the Netflix hit before and since, when the showdown was dramatically retold three months later in the fourth season of Drive to Survive, yet another new generation of motorsport fans was born.