One post at a moment, the social media teams for the sport are rising to fame, from Gen Z-isms to TikTok challenges.
Jimmy Horne found himself in a party store at 9 a.m. on a Monday, 3,406 miles away from the Aston Martin F1 Team's headquarters in Silverstone. The group's TikTok fan base petered out after 999,999. The persona concealed within the profile flicked between various party horns.
Horne started recording when the countdown reached one.
He smiles as he recalls the TikTok and says, "I still love the video." It was incredibly ordinary, really. then everybody exclaimed, "Oh my God, that's who it is."
The 12-second clip saw Horne blowing a party horn to celebrate achieving one million followers while completely clothed in his emerald green outfit in a dark New York apartment. A viewership of half a million people witnessed the senior content creator of the team remove his symbolic mask.
A True First-look Behind The Scenes Of F1
A new era for the elite of motorsport began in 2019 with the Netflix original film "Drive to Survive," which gave viewers a front-row seat to witness their favorite competitors compete. Cameras invaded childhood beds, driver rooms, and everyday commutes to team industries. The surge in social media activity that followed made it possible for onlookers to do what they do best: observe. But more access than the sport had previously been permitted at the circuit this time.
Horne was first confronted with a dearth of content, but he quickly realized that involvement was in high demand. He became Aston Martin's first-ever full-time social media administrator in 2020. After four years, his solo exhibition evolved into a team project that he is currently in charge of as the art director. The number of the sport's consistently online employees increased along with the popularity of its social media stars.
However, Horne had no idea that the information that people were clamoring for was getting to know the middleman—the person whose voice was behind the camera and social media handle. Breaking the fourth wall soon proved beneficial for both the content producing industry and for fostering a sense of intimacy among fans.
Within the F1 community, Horne—who fans lovingly refer to as simply "Jimmy"—is a well-known figure. His likeness appears on fans' "For You" pages, and he has 40,000 followers on his own Instagram account, many of whom are curious to see behind the scenes of a successful career.
Aston Martin was the first squad to capitalize on fan curiosity about what goes on behind the scenes, with movies like "Admin Tries Paddock Tacos" at the Mexican Grand Prix and a detailed tutorial on how Horne shoots, edits, and uploads footage. Currently, Formula E, IndyCar, and other Formula 1 teams are using the content approach, which is swiftly gaining popularity as race enthusiasts want admin revelations in the comments.
However, Red Bull adopts a different strategy. Red Bull Racing's senior social manager Lucy Gray may be heard asking a question from behind a screen, out of sight, but her face won't be visible on the team's social media pages.
The motivation is to avoid ever seeming like they are imitating another squad by maintaining authenticity and originality. Fans' curiosity isn't diminished by that, though.
Supporters commend Red Bull's Threads account manager, Instagram's take on Twitter, for embracing Gen Z vernacular to interact with the sport's ever-increasing younger audience and for lightheartedly taunting other teams. Red Bull's Threads account manager said, "The Exes?" in response to a fan who asked followers to identify the group of former Alpine drivers in a June post featuring Esteban Ocon, Oscar Piastri, and Fernando Alonso. Fans quickly hailed the administrator as their favorite after the reply gained popularity, even urging corporate to give the individual behind the screen a raise.
Breaking Into F1’s Social Society
It should come as no surprise that the majority of the sport's social media managers are in their 20s and are skilled at engaging with the growing number of youthful, online fans.
Both male and female spectators are younger than in the past. In 2022, the proportion of female spectators rose by more than 8%, accounting for 40% of the audience. That figure has only increased within the past two years. The Herald Sun reported that 48% of the female spectators at the 2024 Australian Grand Prix were in the 16–34 age range. According to a 2021 study conducted on behalf of Formula 1, Nielsen Sports, and Motorsport Network, the average age of the sport's supporters was 32, down from 36 just five years prior. There are older audiences for Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, the National Basketball Association, and the National Football League. The majority of MotoGP and IndyCar viewers are older than 45. Additionally, those enthusiasts are interested in learning more about Formula 1. Complete social media pages, such as Formula Careers' 55,000-follower LinkedIn account, are devoted to advertising motorsport career opportunities and offering the key to joining the traveling circus. Owner of A/Agency and producer of motorsport marketing content, Jordan Agajanian, gained 157,000 Instagram followers by posting "tips for getting your dream job in racing." But a career in social media is mostly dependent on who you know, just like most careers in the field.
"As a hobby, I was taking pictures and went to a car event," recalls Horne. "After that, someone said, 'Hey, these are some really nice photos.'" Please take more pictures for us. It was basically like this snowball effect of meeting people and networking after that.
In Horne's native Australia, during a photo session for Mercedes and Lamborghini, the Australian met a Formula 1 agency owner who was searching for Paddock Club content for the 2019 season. "Can you move to the other side of the world?" they asked. And I thought, 'I guess,'" Horne remembers.
"The following day, I quit my job," Horne claims. "I spent three weeks traveling, living out of a suitcase, between Montreal and France before arriving in the UK."
Horne joined Racing Point shortly before the team rebranded to Aston Martin ahead of the 2021 season, having spent a year living in the UK. Horne states, "I've been with them since the beginning of the journey." Being a part of that journey was very unique because it started from nothing and ended up where we are now. You may also read this: Who is new Alpine boss Oliver Oakes?
Expectations vs. Reality
Although it may appear glamorous, hanging out with the racing industry's "rock stars" sometimes involves late nights and, for some teams, stringent supervision.
"I believe that people tend to underestimate the amount of planning and coordination that goes into it," says Lizzy Brown, @pitlanelizzy, a content developer for motorsport. "Although sometimes it happens on its own, I believe even I underestimated the amount of work and back-and-forth communication that goes into getting a single post up."
Brown formerly worked on Alfa Romeo's social media accounts and George Russell's GR63 brand as a social media specialist at Pace Six Four, a motorsport marketing firm. There, multiple clearance rounds for a hashtag are required; hence, the social media-required spontaneity and response time are frequently lost.
F1 tech and politics pundit Toni Cowan-Brown recently posted on TikTok, saying, "Every time I'm in the paddock, I'll get a glimpse of social content being created and I'm not talking about interviews here." It somewhat ruins the magic for me. I understand how artificial and non-organic a lot of it is. Although it's not anyone's fault, it serves as a reminder of the sheer volume of content that must be produced over the course of an F1 race weekend in order to satisfy sponsors, partners, and fans. Since there aren't many genuine or organic moments, the most of it is made up entertainment.
Because of this, genuine content is even more valuable – posts that, according to Gray, outperform well crafted, dramatic photos. Red Bull asserts that it opposes rigid, business-oriented content. Red Bull's head of communications, Paul Smith, adds that Gray is "empowered to act on our behalf." "Lucy can just go out and do it if she has a good idea."
Red Bull's social media team believes that "if you can think it, we can make it happen," as evidenced by their actions, which range from parachutes being ready in Abu Dhabi to fighter jets flying over Formula One cars. However, a typical race week looks less like "Top Gun" and more like scrolling for inspiration, content meetings, and quick turnarounds. To generate the massive volume of social media content required, all are required.
When race day finally arrives, "it's basically just executing: shoot, edit, post." Simply said, bang, bang, bang," Horne said.
The sticker battle between teams last season—which began with Red Bull and Ferrari—came about organically and provided a brief glimpse into the relationships between drivers off the track. On TikTok, the video series finale received 8.1 million views.
Fans want to experience what it's like to be a part of a team and feel as though they are getting an inner look into our drivers, according to Gray. Joining the team entails getting to know the creative minds behind the public's favorite 15-second videos—people who are aware that a Taylor Swift allusion almost always attracts viewers. And realizing that, despite their sudden rise to fame, Formula 1 social media administrators are still just regular people who grew up in the internet era.
