The context
The 22 participants (including Amixem, 7.8 million subscribers, his sidekick Etienne Moustache and Sofyan, 1.9 million subscribers), divided into eleven teams, had six months to prepare before the big day. Between reflex tests, cognitive tests and practical exercises, they learned almost everything during the five weekends of training supervised by professionals from the FFSA Academy who train mechanics and drivers. Several of them have documented these months of preparation on their YouTube channels.
Some of the participants have a passion for karting, but most are amateurs, and several even admitted that they didn’t have a B licence during the first few weeks of training. That’s why the organisers have chosen the F4 single-seater category of motor racing for young aspiring professional drivers.
The event
In front of 40,000 spectators, 22 content creators competed on Saturday 8 October 2022. Sylvain Vilebrequin, Depielo and Etienne Moustache took the top three places on the podium after five laps.
The day included concerts by French artists Bigflo & Oli, Myd and Bianca Costa. The event was also broadcast live on Twitch between 8am and 7pm. During the race, the symbolic milestone of one million spectators was passed, a first in France. Streamer ZeratoR even went so far as to call it “a historic day for Twitch”.
Dusting off a mythical but much-criticised discipline
With its high carbon footprint, ageing image and events, motor sport is regularly criticised and sometimes struggles to attract a younger audience. The 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, co-organisers of the GP Explorer, were also hoping to attract new future drivers.
In March 2019, the documentary series “Formula 1: Pilots of their Destiny”, co-produced by Netflix and Formula One Management (responsible for broadcasting and promoting F1), was also a huge hit, raising questions about the future of motor sports, which are often promised a certain and imminent end.
A significant cost
According to Squeezie, the GP Explorer costs between 3 and 5 million euros. 1.8 million goes to the participants. The rest of the costs are split between the teams that organise and cover the event, with a large proportion also going to AMP Visual TV, the company responsible for broadcasting the event online. Other costs include cars, mechanics, circuit hire, insurance and logistics.
Of course, this money didn’t just come from Squeezie. The sponsors (Alpine, Displate, Osacaro, PUBG Mobile, NordVPN, Rhinoshield, iGraal, Call of Duty, Fruitz, TCL) made a major contribution to the funding of this large-scale project. Ticket sales to attend the event also contributed to the funding.
Analysis
The event is now the 5thmost-watched event on Twitch worldwide. It’s an incredible feat, given that Amazon’s platform usually focuses on the world of gaming. The day after the race, the replay of the race even reached the 12.4 million views mark.
In fact, the most-watched events in the world are mainly e-sport tournaments featuring the best teams in the world. The CS:GO game is very well represented. With this number five ranking, Squeezie has achieved a real performance.
The GP Explorer shows us, if proof were needed, the strong bond that exists between the influencer and his or her community. Many of the spectators interviewed on site said that they were there above all to see their favourite content creators.
A new lease of life for motor sport?
It’s already impressive that an influencer agency new to the world of motor sport has managed to convince the FFSA and the ACO to put their trust in them for an event of this scale.
All in all, the GP Explorer is not only a success from an organisational point of view, it’s also a fantastic communications vehicle for motor sport, which reaches a completely different audience from its usual hard core.
With tickets not very expensive for this kind of show (42 euros at the most expensive, i.e. the average price of a concert ticket in a Zénith), a truly complete experience for spectators and a race that is taken seriously from start to finish, the GP Explorer is enough to give advertisers ideas.
And while there were only two car manufacturers present this year, we can bet that more will want to jump at the chance for future editions.
This competition, which is first and foremost about entertainment, is no longer just a sporting challenge followed at a given moment by spectators and audiences. It is now a genuine programme of content offered before and during the event. This is being done by setting up a live commentary by Kammeto and CODJordan, and then on various social media platforms. The content has also been produced by the various guest personalities, giving access to personal anecdotes and Behind the Scene reports…
Are gamers the racers of the future?
This weekend’s Explorer Grand Prix proves it: simulations have reached such a level of realism that the next F1 drivers will probably be gamers… So much so that these gamers are already organising dedicated events. In the words of Squeezie himself, who hopes that in the long term this will become “an incubator for real drivers who would actually go and do a season in F4”.
The end of TV?
Some have already announced that this event heralds the end of TV as a news medium, and it’s true that this event highlights the importance of webcasts today, particularly on the Twitch platform.
However, this does not signal the end of television. By way of comparison, the launch of the second season of the prime-time series HPI on TF1 peaked at 9.76 million viewers. On 2 September, France 2’s 8pm with Laurent Delahousse had 4.76 million viewers, TF1’s 8pm with Anne-Claire Coudray, 4.44 million, and M6’s 19.45 with Nathalie Renoux, 2.34 million.
However, this TV audience is primarily for the older generations, whereas Twitch and its sister channels are particularly popular with the younger generations.
So it’s not clear that we’re witnessing the cannibalisation of one medium by another. Rather, different media complement each other, even if it is clear that we are seeing a clearer segmentation of uses according to generation.
Two drawbacks:
At the moment, we don’t really have any data measuring the environmental impact of the GP Explorer, but it’s clear that the event will not be without consequences, especially if we take into account the pollution generated by the race itself, the livestream (over 10 hours of live broadcasting), the preparations and the arrival of spectators. For a generation that claims to be fighting global warming, it’s always hard to move from words to deeds!
This event, innovative though it is in form, is still rather masculine, even tinged with a certain machismo. Why did you choose this sport, whose aficionados are still largely male? Among the 22 participants, there were very few women (3 compared to 19 men). We would have liked the choice to have been made for a sport where the gender mix is more prevalent, or where women are increasingly successful (like football or rugby, for example).