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Monday 3 October 2016 09:05, UK
Motorsport marketing guru Zak Brown has revealed his vision for the future of Formula 1 on this week's F1 Report, amid suggestions that he could play a key part in the sport's new management.
Brown has brought brands including Johnnie Walker, Martini and UBS into Formula 1 by brokering multi-million dollar sponsorship deals but announced on Monday he will be leaving his role as chief executive of CSM Sport & Entertainment at the end of the year.
As a friend of F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone as well as Chase Carey, chairman of the sport's new parent company Liberty Media, the timing of his departure fuelled speculation that he could form part of a commercial team in the near future.
And while Brown, a former racing driver who has drawn comparisons with Ecclestone, could shed little light on potentially running the sport, he wants to continue working in F1.
"I want to be in motorsport the rest of my life," Brown said on the F1 Report, which airs on Sky Sports F1 on Wednesday at 8:30pm. "I love Formula 1. I think I've contributed to the sport and I want to continue to be involved in the sport.
"I don't think there's ever going to be another Bernie, but I'd like to be involved."
US businessman Brown joined Sky F1's Natalie Pinkham and F1 writer and Peter Windsor in the studio and stated North America would be one of the many "geographical opportunities" available to F1, while he claimed Ecclestone needs "more people to help him" after overseeing the sport's growth.
The 44-year-old also laid out his main points for a successful future in F1.
"I think we need to focus on the fan," he added. "Everything starts with the fan. If you can get more fans, younger fans, more diverse fans, then you'll have bigger television contracts, you'll have more sponsors, the teams will be healthier, you'll sell more tickets.
"You just need to focus on the fans - get that right, get them enthusiastic, and everything else will start to take care of itself."
Windsor, meanwhile, agreed that Liberty Media needed to bring a younger audience into F1 and cited teenager Max Verstappen as a possible role model, but believes the sport needs to focus on a global reach.
"We don't have a global infrastructure for promoting the Formula 1 brand in all the countries in which we race, specifically the countries in which we don't have massive support, with China being a great example," he said. "We probably need an F1 brand marketing division on the ground there 24/7, 365 days a year.
"Lewis Hamilton uniquely goes to America quite a lot and along the way does quite a lot of chat shows, quite a lot for F1, but he's the only driver. Nobody else is doing that, no team is really doing that on a long-term basis. Lewis doesn't get much support in that, and in fact gets quite a lot of criticism and flak from a lot of the F1 traditionalists.
"To me, if we're going to race in America, if we're going to race in China, if we're going to race in Malaysia - we should be promoting F1 and the infrastructure that surrounds it."
