When Season One of Squid Game hit the screens in September 2021, sales of Vans classic white slip-on shoes rose by 7,800 percent. Similarly sales of chess sets nearly doubled with the popularity of chess drama The Queen’s Gambit – as did renewed interest in the board game. The historical drama Bridgerton even sparked a style aesthetic: Regencycore.
Apart from being hit TV series, what else do these three shows have in common? All three were produced for Netflix. So powerful is the streaming service that a name has been coined for its influence on consumer behavior and spending: the Netflix effect.
There’s no greater example of the Netflix effect than the surge in popularity Formula One has seen since the 2019 launch of Formula One: Drive to Survive. Now in its sixth season, the Netflix original series takes armchair fans backstage in the glamorous, high-octane sport that counts the iconic street circuit in Monaco and the bright night lights of Las Vegas as two of the marquee races on the calendar. The documentary was among the opportunities owners Liberty Media had identified in the digital space when it acquired the championship in 2017 for US$4.6 billion.
Liberty’s open door policy – giving fans access and proximity to drivers in a way they never had before – has been credited with introducing the sport to a whole new fan base: women, younger generations and the North American audience.
A Nielsen Sports study released in late 2024 revealed that Formula One is the most popular annual sporting series with an audience of 750 million. The same study also found that the sport has added approximately 50 million new fans since 2021.
“Formula One was already a popular sport when Liberty Media acquired it, but Liberty has opened up the digital side with social media and the docuseries that go behind the scenes, whether it be Netflix or those that have happened subsequently,” Christian Horner says.
“That’s been a game-changer and brought in a whole new fan base, a more diverse fan base, into the sport, which is fantastic to see.”
Where racing meets tech
These new fans of the sport know Horner as the straight-talking, long-standing team chief of Oracle Red Bull Racing, the team of four-time Formula One World Drivers’ Championship winner Max Verstappen. If they watch Drive to Survive, they have also had a peek into his home life in the English countryside with wife, Geri Halliwell, and their children.
“For 24 weekends a year, I’m the team principal of a high-performing sports team,” he tells The CEO Magazine from headquarters in Milton Keynes, England. It’s a title he has held since the team’s first Formula One race in Melbourne, Australia at the start of the 2005 season.
What they – and plenty of established Formula One fans – might not know, however, is that of the many different hats Horner wears, one of them is CEO.
“From Monday to Friday, or Monday to Thursday for the weeks that I’m away racing, I’m the CEO of a high-performing technology business,” he reveals.
That business is Red Bull Technologies. Within it sits both Oracle Red Bull Racing and its sister team, Racing Bulls, as well as two subsidiary businesses: Red Bull Advanced Technologies and Red Bull Ford Powertrains.
As the high-performance engineering arm, established in 2014 by Horner to apply Formula One technology to other industries, Red Bull Advanced Technologies has partnered with Aston Martin on the design and development of the Aston Martin Valkyrie hypercar (2016), with Boom Supersonic in the design of sustainable supersonic airplane Overture (2022), and with Austrian mobility tech business AVL to develop hydrogen fuel cells for motorsport, aviation and performance cars (2024).
Thinking outside the box
When Honda withdrew from Formula One at the end of the 2021 season, rather than look toward other power unit suppliers in the sport – the likes of Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault – Red Bull Technologies made the decision to manufacture its own engines, in partnership with Ford Motor Company, founding Red Bull Ford Powertrains that same year. The engines are being manufactured on-site in Milton Keynes at the Red Bull Technology Campus.
“This team is too big to just be a customer,” Horner says. “We’ve invested heavily on site and aggressively recruited a very talented group of engineers and technicians to design and build our own engine to the new set of regulations for 2026.”
Among the new regulations set by race governing body, the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile for the start of next year’s season is the requirement to use only sustainable fuels and harness more electrical power.
The strategy also demonstrates the extent to which Oracle Red Bull Racing is demonstrating that only original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) can win in Formula One.
“[Oracle] Red Bull Racing is a subsidiary of an energy drinks company and has taken on Ferrari and Mercedes and different manufacturers and has prevailed,” Horner adds.
“Our next challenge is to do that with the engine. That’s the exciting next chapter for the team and for the business.”
Most recently, Red Bull Advanced Technologies unveiled its highly anticipated RB17 hypercar at Goodwood Festival of Speed in West Sussex in July 2024. With top speeds of more than 350 kilometers per hour and blending Formula One performance with luxury, only 50 RB17s will be made at a new hypercar manufacturing plant currently in construction at its Milton Keynes base.
Discussing his many roles, Horner says he runs the technology side of the business as a race team.
“It has to be agile, fast thinking and reactive so that it is not bogged down by process,” he explains.
Built to win
In the two decades since the Oracle Red Bull Racing name burst onto the motorsport scene, the technology side of the business has been the fastest mover, according to Horner.
“If you look at the technology used throughout the business now, particularly in the world of simulation and computational processing power, that has been the biggest change in the last 20 years,” he says.
Wind the clock back to 2005 and physical testing of innovations were the norm, whether on the race track or in a wind tunnel. Today, advanced simulation software allows the team to test – and experiment with – innovations digitally. Red Bull’s simulation tech has had such an impact on the team’s performance that it has been called its “secret weapon”.
Red Bull Advanced Technologies unveiled its highly anticipated RB17 hypercar at Goodwood Festival of Speed in West Sussex in July 2024
Horner points to the way the team uses Computational Fluid Dynamics to model and analyze airflow around the car to optimize aerodynamics as one example, along with the ‘driver-in-the-loop’ simulator.
“The technology shift has been enormous,” he says.
More recently, its partnership with Oracle has added both capability and capacity, Horner says. Signed before the start of the 2022 season, the naming rights sponsorship deal is reportedly worth US$500 million over five years.
But more than boosting the team’s balance sheet, Oracle Cloud technology drives the team’s race strategy and engine development. For instance, during the 2024 season Oracle Cloud Infrastructure powered more than 150 billion race-strategy simulations for the team.
Horner says that the partnership has also enabled it to know who its fans are and what they want through the innovation of engagement platform Oracle Red Bull Racing Paddock, known simply as ‘The Paddock’. Digital experiences such as sim racing, which lets fans compare their performance to Oracle Red Bull Racing drivers, is propelling the team to victory off the track as well.
A magnetic brand
Today, Oracle Red Bull Racing has one of the biggest fan followings in the world of sport.
“We’re bigger than the Golden State Warriors, Paris St Germain and the Dallas Cowboys” Horner says.
While all the top teams have benefited from the success and popularity that the sport is enjoying, Horner says that Oracle Red Bull Racing has been the most active in capitalizing on it.
“Our sponsorship revenues are strong and we have a bigger, broader portfolio than anyone else.”
Of course, it has been essential to combine this with a commitment to succeeding on the track.
“There’s that adage ‘win on Sunday, sell on Monday,’” he says with a smile.
What also sets it apart is the average age of its fan base: compared to the Ferrari’s average fan age of 51, Mercedes’ 49 or Aston Martin’s 48, the Oracle Red Bull Racing fan is, on average, 34. It’s a statistic that makes Oracle Red Bull Racing a brand magnet for sponsors, particularly those looking towards the future and their appeal to younger audiences.
In the last five years alone, Oracle Red Bull Racing has been the most successful team in the sport, having generated a staggering 1.5 billion dollars in sponsorship revenue from the likes of Visa, AT&T, Tag Heuer, ExxonMobil, Ford and Oracle – more than any other team in the field.
“We’re in a very fortunate position that we can choose like-minded partners,” Horner says, adding that each opportunity is also assessed by is what partners can contribute within the car – as shown by its partnership with Oracle.
Sending racing stateside
“America is hugely important for us,” Horner says. “We now have more Fortune Fortune 500 companies on the car, including Oracle, ExxonMobil, Ford Motor Company, AT&T, all huge brands within the United States.
“Up until four or five years ago, Formula One had struggled to create traction there and that’s really changed, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic when people were sitting down watching all these docuseries.
“Suddenly, the United States has opened up: now we have races in Miami, Austin, and, of course, a Blue Ribbon night race down the strip in Las Vegas. That would’ve been inconceivable five or six years ago.”
Debt-free and not having sold to investment funds the team doesn’t have to compromise on quality and is particularly proud of its low partnership churn rate, the lowest in Formula One.
“People will stay if they feel they’re getting value and they’re being looked after,” he explains. “That’s one of the things the team does very well here.
“When you sign a contract with any partner, it’s a guideline. It’s not all that you do. We always look to under promise and over deliver. That’s given us longevity with our partners because there’s obviously significant amounts of money involved and you have to provide a return for that. Oracle Red Bull Racing has done that continually over the last 20 years.”
While the biggest stream, sponsorship is only one piece of the revenue puzzle and Horner describes licensing as a “really exciting growth part of the business”, particularly to engage with its Gen Z fan base.
“We’re working across so many brands and collaborations now,” he adds.
Talent spotting
As Formula One’s longest-serving Team Principal, Horner has also overseen its significant investment in the sport. Engines may be generating the biggest headlines right now, but the long-running Red Bull Junior Team driver development program in karting and Formula Junior has nurtured talents such as Verstappen, Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo, Pierre Gasly and Carlos Sainz Junior. Liam Lawson, who will make his Formula One debut for the team this season at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, is another driver to rise through the program.
“When you wear a Red Bull Racing shirt, you wear it with pride and it really means something,” Horner says.
It’s not just about identifying future talent behind the wheel, either. Last year, Red Bull Racing partnered with Milton Keynes College Group to develop a curriculum, STEMx, to inspire young people from diverse backgrounds to pursue careers in STEM areas beyond high school. Alongside it, the company has created an education center inside the Red Bull Technology Campus in Milton Keynes.
Its 2,000-strong team, Horner says, is at the core of the company.
“Our people are our biggest asset,” he explains. “Everybody is invested in the performance of the car on a Sunday afternoon and those 24 Grand Prix, that’s what unites everybody.
“Of course, we work very hard to look after them, whether it’s a paddle court on campus, free gyms, healthcare or the little things, like a free Red Bull, that go a long way as well. We have very much a can-do culture. Nobody here will tell you that something can’t be done. There’s always a way.”
It’s part of what makes Oracle Red Bull Racing different from other Formula One teams.
“As a team, we position differently,” Horner says. “We’re not owned by an OEM, so we’re more of a maverick. We’re a lifestyle brand, a subsidiary of an energy drink, and we’re more edgy than the other teams. And we’ll push the boundaries with our work hard, play hard mentality.
“I think Red Bull has really changed the outlook of Formula One over the last 20 years of its involvement in the sport.”
