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I remember people asking me about my favorite sport when I was a kid. I’d just say “car racing,” never bothering to specify it was Formula 1 because no one in the U.S. knew what the hell that was back then. Nine out of 10 times, people would say, “Oh, you like NASCAR!” That’s not the case anymore, as F1 has officially broken into American culture.
The Liberty Media-owned racing series is as recognizable across the country as the NFL, and I don’t need any silly studies or viewership statistics to prove this. All I need to validate this theory is the KFC commercial embedded below, promoting the KFC Fill Up Box Box Box. Get it? Box box box.
What’s more American than KFC? Oh, what’s that—McDonald’s, you say? Well, rumor has it the Golden Arches is also coming out with an F1-themed Happy Meal.
I know what you’re thinking: the KFC commercial is promoting the F1 movie and not exactly the F1 series. Okay, sure, but that’s pretty much the same thing, given that the film was intended to serve as a marketing tool for the series from day one.
The Joseph Kosinski-directed movie features Brad Pitt and Damson Idris as headliners, and took two years to finish, while an “11th F1 team” traveled the world for 16 months filming real on-track scenes during actual racing weekends. Some reports peg the total cost of the movie at around $300 million.
As someone who grew up with F1 since the late ’80s and has witnessed its incredible growth in the U.S. thanks to Netflix’s Drive to Survive, these advertisements are a finish line of sorts. F1 has made it into mainstream media, and now into the marketing-hungry fast food industry. It simply doesn’t get more American than that.
F1, you’ve arrived.
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As deputy editor, Jerry draws on a decade of industry experience and a lifelong passion for motorsports to guide The Drive’s short- and long-term coverage.
