Lewis Hamilton often received ‘cease and desist’ letters from Bernie Ecclestone over his use of Formula 1 footage on social media, it has been revealed.
Under the long-time CEO, very strict limits were placed on what media could be published on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter channels etc. even if teams and drivers had filmed the footage themselves.
That all changed when Liberty Media took over in 2017 and since then, F1 has been the fastest growing sport in terms of social media reach.
But F1’s head of digital Frank Arthofer told the story of how even the sport’s biggest star wasn’t immune to Bernie wrath.
“A great story that Sean Branches, who’s my boss and runs the business at F1, tells is when Liberty bought the business [and] one of his first meetings was a lunch with Lewis Hamilton,” he was quoted by RaceFans.
“Lewis brought with him to that lunch a stack of ‘cease and desist’ letters from Bernie Ecclestone because Lewis was taking clips of his onboards and posting them on his Instagram channel.
“And Lewis Hamilton, as I’m sure most of the audience knows, is arguably the biggest star in the history of the sport and has a huge crossover potential across urban culture, music, lifestyle.
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“Working with the drivers and the teams in a more collaborative way to build the sport we think benefits, not just Formula 1 but our partners, be that sponsors, broadcast partners and promoters,” Arthofer added.
“[It] is a really, really important component of the strategy and probably something we’re still in the early stages of doing well.”
Arthofer did praise the 88-year-old for building F1 into a “terrific brand” but does feel his reluctance to adapt means it is nowhere near its full potential.
“I think he did a terrific job monetising the businesses – it’s a $2 billion dollar revenue business – but equally, didn’t invest for the future,” he explained.
“He probably didn’t invest in areas like digital, which aren’t necessarily as creative from a pure profit potential in the near-term but have long-term potential.
“There’s an old joke that Bernie signs the back of cheques, not the front. The business was quite lean when we took over and we’ve invested in it in order to build long-term asset value.”