Formula 1 was quite rightly patting itself on the back after this week’s F1 75 launch event at the O2 proved the sceptics wrong.
After weeks when some within F1 expressed concerns about Liberty Media having potentially bitten off more than it could chew by holding such a live event in front of a packed audience, there were few in the 15,000 crowd on Tuesday night who did not view it as a triumph.
Sure, it may not have been an evening for the purists, and it was certainly not perfect, but it ultimately worked.
While a world away from the seriousness of long runs and GPS analysis when we get down to official testing next week, for delivering what it was supposed to be - a launch event spectacular that brought eyeballs and got people talking about F1 - it ticked all the boxes.
But off the back of the success of the night comes an interesting challenge, because there will now be momentum to do it again.
And that brings with it some headaches for F1 in ensuring that a repeat does not lose the key elements that made the first event work so well.
Judging the triumph
We all know that one swallow does not make a summer.
So just because F1 75 thrilled the 15,000 fans in the O2 for one night, and grabbed an audience of 1.1million concurrent viewers on F1’s YouTube channel (the biggest following for something it has hosted live), it does not automatically make it a triumph.
Any future season launch event will need to be commercially successful: and that means not just the money made on the night, but in getting the F1 brand out there to an audience that is much wider than it would typically enjoy.
What will be important is for F1 to get a gauge of the wider impact from a one-night event compared to the overall awareness of the series across a more traditional wider launch season window.
One of the downsides of teams revealing all their liveries (and some new car renders) at the same time, is that there was such a flood of new stuff that a lot of things got lost and some teams found themselves totally drowned out.
Previously, when teams have done their own launches, events are spread out so each outfit normally gets a whole day of attention to themselves. This fills the F1 news agenda for nigh on a fortnight.
So the metric that F1 needs to understand is whether the uptick of one spectacular night of fireworks is of greater value to all stakeholders than two weeks of a slower-burning fire.
The matter of timing
The celebration of F1’s 75th anniversary proved the perfect justification of such a launch spectacular as it elevated itself above being just a regular pre-season event.
But one aspect that F1 will need to work out is that, if it does this again, what is the event's identity?
When F1 75 tickets were first sold – and at that time F1 probably did not know what fan interest would be like – it was billed as a chance to see all the new cars.
But as teams got their timetables together for the completion of their 2025 car builds, it quickly became apparent that the timing would not work for any of the actual new cars to be present.
There was the issue of freight going off to pre-season testing in Bahrain, some teams wanting to get shakedowns done before, and others waiting until even later to get out on track.
The F1 75 event then morphed into a night for the new liveries – and this opened up a can of worms for F1 in making sure teams did not reveal their colours beforehand.
Pitching the event as a place for new cars or new liveries makes it logistically much more of a challenge – and this will be especially true for the new rule set in 2026 when there is more testing and teams will be getting their cars finished much earlier.
The first running of 2026 cars could take place as early as January 5 next year (there is a window between that date and January 31 for a preliminary five-day test), which is going to make things incredibly difficult to find a suitable group launch date if it sticks to a 'new' car element.
What F1 will need to understand is whether the attraction of seeing drivers and team bosses would provide enough of a draw to hold something like this even after cars have run for the first time?
Based on the fan reception to drivers at the O2 – as the crowd’s support for many stars showed and F1 played up brilliantly to everyone’s personality – the answer is probably yes.
That would then also mean potentially cutting back on the theatrics around the car reveals, and put a focus on the stars to hear more from them. But would that be such a bad thing?
Would anyone in attendance not have wanted to hear more from Lewis Hamilton on his first appearance as a Ferrari driver beyond one short sentence?
Finding the right venue
The O2 venue proved the perfect fit for the launch event. It was big enough to be busy, without being so big – like a football stadium – that it lost a certain intimacy to it.
The crowd buying into it – laughing at Jack Whitehall’s jokes and showing their support (or not) for various drivers and F1 personalities – helped make it all work.
Everyone there could get a good look at the cars – and things were helped by some ambitious theatrics which included bringing in the largest LED screen the O2 has ever had in place.
Choosing what to do next will be a fascinating decision – because when events get sold out the temptation is to seek bigger venues – as more ticket sales will mean greater revenue.
But F1 will have to weigh up if the impact of the event would be lessened if it became too big.
Another issue that could come up is that, based on the global impact of F1 75, countries may fall over themselves to ensure that they become the host of such a launch event.
F1 could find itself at the centre of a bidding war from different nations to host it. But if one of the Middle East giants like Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia or Bahrain get out their chequebook and offer tens of millions of dollars for the right to host it, that would be good for the bottom line but would an event there have the same vibe as it did in London?
F1 75 thrived on a clearly well-engaged and hardcore audience being present. Lose that crowd element, and take away the atmosphere, and the whole dynamic is changed.
Taming the lion's den
While it was a great night for F1 as a whole, and some drivers like Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris revelled in the attention of being in front of their home crowd, it was not so pleasant for everyone.
Max Verstappen’s face appearing on screen early on and triggering some boos offered the first hint that he was not going to be the most popular driver out there.
But, as the man most likely to usurp all British hopes for this year – for Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren – being the pantomime villain was not much of a surprise.
What was more of an eye-opener was how hostile the crowd was when the FIA logos flashed up on the screen.
But perhaps the biggest shock was how Red Bull team boss Christian Horner found himself in the middle of a barrage of jeers and heckles from the crowd when he took to the stage.
Horner did try to bat it away ("It’s fantastic to be here in the O2 anyway, so I hope you are all having a good evening…") but it was clearly an uncomfortable moment on a night that should have been a celebration of his team and Verstappen's latest title success.
After Red Bull's livery reveal, it was noted that Verstappen and team-mate Liam Lawson were the only two drivers who did not speak to the crowd – but this was planned from the off so not a response to any of the earlier negative response from the crowd.
From Red Bull’s perspective, having invested in the night and delivered a show car and drivers only to become the butt of hostility, it would be right to question if it wants to get involved in a repeat event in the future – especially in front of an audience seemingly weighted towards hardcore British racing fans.
Holding a season launch event in a place like Amsterdam would of course be a different matter – but then would the British drivers and teams find themselves on the wrong end of the crowd, so find themselves put in an uncomfortable spot as well?
This is the fine line that F1 will have to tread in ensuring that the night is not unnecessarily painful for some teams, or that they even risk pulling out.
Events like F1 75 will start falling apart if not all teams are present and engaged.
Overcoming the novelty effect
Another key thing F1 needs to understand properly is how much the novelty effect has heightened the positive vibe of Tuesday night and given a potentially false impression of the success.
As F1 well knows from when grand prix take place at new venues for the first time, selling tickets for something brand new is not so difficult. Things get more challenging the second time around.
The scepticism many had about what to expect on Tuesday night, may well have heightened the positive impact of it all as those sceptics got a surprise.
Experiencing something new and fun for the first time – like a great dinner out with friends at a new restaurant or a new theme park ride – always far exceeds any attempt to repeat that feeling again.
So the fact that F1 has set the bar so high after Tuesday night means that trying to hit the heightened expectations next time around may be quite difficult – as it will no longer be new.
F1 will have to find ways to evolve it, even add new aspects, if it is going to keep things fresh and exciting.
And that perhaps applies to more than just a launch event – because F1 75 may well have opened the door to other elements of the year becoming more fan-friendly events.
As McLaren CEO Zak Brown suggested, maybe even testing should be next to get a Liberty Media spice up.
"It’s not just pre-season testing. We do tyre testing and things like that during the course of the year," he suggested.
"I’d like it to just be open to fans. Maybe autograph sessions with drivers. Opportunities for fans to see the cars close up. There are so many things you can do when you aren’t running a race. You can just open up the environment.
"It’s no different to what you see in other sports where there’s spring training, there’s all-star games, there’s year-end banquets. Things of that nature I think we can do a little bit more of."
