Chase Carey: “If you do not allow change, you cannot grow”
Criticized by some stakeholders and fans for its recent decisions and vision for the future of Formula 1, Liberty Media, the new owners of the sport, are trying to reassure their audience.
A new wind is blowing through Formula 1 since the discipline was acquired by the Liberty Media group. After a few months of observation, the Americans have taken the offensive, shaking things up sometimes in radical ways, but always facing criticism and sometimes misunderstanding, as recently with their decisions on Grand Prix schedules or the removal of “Grid Girls.”
However, Liberty Media fully embraces its approach and attempts, through the voice of its main representative Chase Carey, to reassure the stakeholders and fans of the discipline in the columns of Sport Bild: « The fans are incredibly important to us, just like Europe, including Germany, which is our base. So our motto is: same game, different approach. We want to create a product that includes everything fans grew up with, but is not stuck in time. Because if you don’t allow change, you can’t grow. »
Carey also doesn’t forget to tackle Bernie Ecclestone, the former F1 boss who has been very critical of Liberty Media lately: « Bernie Ecclestone admitted in 2016 that he wouldn’t buy a ticket for a race himself. There was a negative spiral, and we had to break it. »
From a purely sporting perspective, Chase Carey would like to see something other than just a two-way battle between the favorites, as was the case in 2017 with Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel: “Last year, it was too much of a duel between Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton. I wish sometimes an outsider would win rather than only the favorites. Can Fernando Alonso still win? Can McLaren be competitive with Renault? Will Verstappen have more luck than in the first half of the 2017 season? All of this would be exciting scenarios for the future,” concluded Carey.
