F1 News
'Toxic behaviour in Formula One fans on sharp rise since 2016'
The online Formula 1 community has become much more negative compared to 2016, according to a survey by Buzz Radar. An analysis showed that while more positive posts are being made, the number of negative posts is increasing at a relentless pace. A worrying development, indeed.
There has been a lot of talk recently about the way Formula 1 is developing. The sport has gained a huge number of fans in recent years, which is obviously a good thing in the first place. The more fans a sport has, the more money it makes and the less likely it is to get into trouble.
However, growth also seems to bring a downside, especially when discussing controversial topics. Toxicity among fans seems to be increasing considerably. Several drivers, including Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz, have spoken out about so-called 'keyboard warriors' in the past. In Nicholas Latifi and Michael Masi we can find perfect examples since both received truck loads of death threats after Verstappen's championship win -and Hamilton's defeat- in Abu Dhabi.
Research firm Buzz Radar used AI to extensively analyse Formula 1's target audience. The question it wanted to answer was: has Formula 1's online community actually become more 'toxic' in recent years? For the study, the agency used 100 million posts by 247,000 fan accounts over the past decade.
Sharp increase in negativity in Formula 1
The study found that less than a quarter of the posts in 2024 were considered 'toxic', with two positive comments being posted for every negative post. It could also be concluded that positive comments grew faster than negative comments between 2016 and 2024, but that conversations with a negative tone were more frequent than before.
Whereas in 2016, only 8% of conversations had a negative undertone, by 2024, this percentage had risen to a whopping 20%. According to the AI tool, we can expect a further increase in toxicity over the next 18 months.
This is not very surprising, considering the topics that spark up the most negativity. For instance, controversial actions on the track and rivalries between teams and drivers proved to trigger a lot of heated discussions. Regulations and the FIA also appeared to detonate a lot of negativity among fans. Given the recently announced punishments for undesirable behaviour, this topic is likely to spaerk a lot of discussions in 2025 as well.
This article was written in collaboration with Ludo van Denderen.
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