Formula 1 RPF

RPF Fandom
Name(s):	Formula 1 RPF, F1 RPF
Scope/Focus:	Formula One
Date(s):	2000s to present, major growth in early 2020s
See also:	Sports RPF
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Formula 1 RPF (often shortened to F1 RPF) is a large Sports RPF fandom focusing on drivers involved in Formula One, the highest–level single–seater car racing World Championship. Formula 1 RPF is part of a larger Motorsport RPF fandom, with frequent crossover and interaction with other racing series fandoms such as Formula 2 RPF, Formula E RPF and Indycar RPF.

The fandom is heavily focused on M/M shipping.

Fandom

As with many fandoms, Formula 1 RPF first “established” an online presence on LiveJournal with communities such as f1slash and motorskink, later migrating to Archive of Our Own (AO3) as the primary archive for fanworks. The fandom has a strong presence on Tumblr ("f1blr"), Twitter ("f1twt") and more recently, TikTok.

Growth in the Early 2020s

Formula 1 received an influx of new fans as a result of the hit Netflix series Drive to Survive; the first season covering the 2018 Formula 1 World Championship season premiered in March 2019, and its four subsequent seasons have steadily increased in viewership.

Individual teams also played into the personalities and chemistry between drivers by releasing video content on social media, and over the 2020 COVID shutdown, many drivers gained further popularity through streaming games and simulator races together on Twitch. Along with the growing activity of the official Formula 1 and team accounts on social media and efforts by Formula One Management (FOM) were created to grow the sport in the USA, these factors have resulted in a massive uptick in fandom activity in the years since 2020.

Fanworks

The Formula 1 RPF fandom produces a large amount of content. Archive of Our Own hosts nearly 30,000 works in the fandom, making it the third largest Sports RPF fandom on the archive after Men’s Football RPF and Men’s Hockey RPF.

Websites like Tumblr and Wattpad are also home to Formula 1 RPF, however, these sites have a large focus on Original Female Character stories or Reader-Insert fic and imagines, with smaller numbers of M/M shipping that is wildly popular in the fandom. Reader-insert stories have become popular as a way for readers to insert themselves into the world of F1 without having to have a wider knowledge of how the sport works. It's perfect for new readers who want to experience what it's all about without feeling like they are being bombarded with information. The increase of reader-insert fics can be attributed to Lauren Asher's Dirty Air Series [1], which was released at the start of 2020 based on Netflix's Drive to Survive.

TikTok also hosts a variety of Formula 1 fan content, including video and photo edits. One popular TikTok format is POVs, a form of Reader-Insert in which the viewer watches from the point of view of a character interacting and/or being paired with Formula 1 drivers.

Fanart, photo edits, video edits, and GIFs are other common types of fanworks, often posted to Tumblr or Twitter.

Key Teams, Characters, Pairings and Tropes

Teams

As with mainstream Formula 1 fandom, team popularity correlates strongly with on-track performance; the most popular teams in Formula 1 RPF were the top four teams in the 2023 Constructors’ Championship: Red Bull, McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari.

However, as there are only 10 teams and 20 drivers competing in Formula 1 at any time, fanworks still exist for every team — for example, there are over 300 works tagged with Nico Hulkenberg/Kevin Magnussen, the drivers for HAAS F1 team, currently the last-placed team on the grid.

Characters

The majority of RPF focuses on current drivers or drivers who have recently competed in Formula 1, with a smaller number of works centred around drivers of the 2000s and earlier.

Some fanworks also include or centre other prominent figures in the world of Formula 1: team principals Christian Horner (Red Bull) and Toto Wolff (Mercedes) are both popular in mainstream fandom and media coverage, and have also each spawned over 1300 uses in fanworks on AO3. The drivers' trainers like Michael Italiano, and family members of drivers like Victoria Verstappen also regularly feature in fanworks as secondary characters.

Pairings

Many popular pairings in the fandom involve drivers who are current or former teammates, especially ones who seem to have great chemistry together or have become close friends outside of racing. Such as Daniel Ricciardo/Max Verstappen, who were teammates at Red Bull Racing from 2016 to 2018, and Lando Norris/Carlos Sainz Jr, teammates at McLaren from 2019 to 2020. Popular driver pairings will generally shift over time as drivers change teams and teammates; for example, the McLaren driver pairing of Lando Norris/Oscar Piastri has over 400 works on AO3, all of which were published after it was announced that the two would be teammates for the 2023 season. Another is when Fernando Alonso signed with Aston Martin in 2023, leading to the pairing of Fernando Alonso/Lance Stroll, they currently have almost 300 works on AO3. Other pairings similarly include drivers who raced together in junior series or are known to be friends like Pierre Gasly/Charles Leclerc and Alex Albon/George Russell.

Other common pairings include drivers in direct competition with each other for the World Drivers' Championship, like Charles Leclerc/Max Verstappen, who were rivals for the 2022 championship, and Lewis Hamilton/Sebastian Vettel, competitors for the 2017 and 2018 championships. Similarly, the pairing of James Hunt/Niki Lauda is popular on AO3 as a result of their intense rivalry from 1973 to 1979 and the film Rush (2013) which focuses on their relationship.

Most Popular Formula 1 RPF Ships on AO3

Pairing	Primary Pair Name	No. Works	Notes
Charles Leclerc/Max Verstappen	Lestappen	3,799	Pairing exploded in popularity following the 2022 Drivers’ Championship, for which Leclerc and Verstappen were close rivals; though they are also friends off-track.
Daniel Ricciardo/Max Verstappen	Maxiel	3,696	Teammates at Red Bull from 2016–2018 and closely competitive on track. Red Bull marketing leant into the drivers’ personalities and chemistry, producing lots of content of the two interacting, and their “bromance” is a common narrative in Formula 1 media, even after Ricciardo left Red Bull to join Renault in 2019.
Lando Norris/Carlos Sainz Jr	Carlando	2,202	Teammates at McLaren from 2019–2020, and similar to Red Bull, McLaren played up the friendship between the two drivers, releasing lots of video content of the two. At the time, McLaren were a midfield team and it was Norris’ first seasons in Formula 1, so there was less pressure on both drivers to compete with each other. Both drivers have spoken of their respect for each other on track, shown in events such as the 2023 Singapore Grand Prix in which Sainz intentionally gave Norris DRS — despite being on competing teams — to take them to a 1-2 finish.
Pierre Gasly/Charles Leclerc	Piarles	2,115	Childhood friends and raced in junior series together.
Kimi Räikkönen/Sebastian Vettel	Simi	1,680	Teammates at Ferrari from 2015–2018.
Lewis Hamilton/Nico Rosberg	Brocedes	1,524	Childhood friends and teammates at Mercedes from 2013–2016; their time as teammates was marked by fierce rivalry for the Driver’s Championship which greatly impacted their friendship and both drivers — particularly Rosberg — are suggested to be bitter about their time as teammates.
Lewis Hamilton/Sebastian Vettel	Sewis	1,200	Rivals for the 2017 and 2018 Drivers’ Championships, and have a long shared history. Both drivers are highly accomplished, and despite their rivalry, have nothing but praise and respect for each other in the media.
Charles Leclerc/Carlos Sainz Jr	Charlos	962	Teammates at Ferrari from 2021–present; rivals on–track and friends off it. Affectionately referred to as C2 by some.
Alexander Albon/George Russell	Galex	912	Raced in junior series together and are good friends
Charles Leclerc/Sebastian Vettel	Sebchal	885	Teammates at Ferrari for 2019–2020. Vettel had been with Ferrari since 2015 and had been a Drivers’ Championship title contender in 2017 and 2018, which contrasted with Leclerc’s promotion to Ferrari after only one year in the sport. Leclerc outperformed Vettel during their time as teammates, which ended when Vettel left the team.

Tropes

Popular tropes in the fandom include:

• Genderswap: One or both drivers on the grid have their primary gender changed in fic (with the possibility of one or both drivers not competing in Formula 1)
• Alpha/Beta/Omega: The Omegaverse within F1 is well known for fans utilizing the grid and having a built-in pack with all of the drivers, with nearly 6% of works on AO3 featuring the trope — increased from <1% in 2017. Opinions are split about which drivers are more Alpha, Beta or Omega. However, there are general characterization trends within the fandom, such as Lando Norris and Yuki Tsunoda being Omegas. Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton being Alphas. However, there is no meta content that states why some fans feel the way that they do about this.
• Soulmates:
• Jos Verstappen's A+ Parenting: Max Verstappen's father Jos, also a former F1 driver, is often characterized as a bad — if not abusive — parent, and there are over 750 works in the Jos Verstappen's A+ Parenting tag on AO3. This is not ungrounded in reality as Verstappen has admitted to Jos treating him harshly as a child (such as one notable incident in which Jos abandoned Verstappen at a gas station after a karting crash), and Jos famously has more arrests (including an attempted murder) than he does Formula 1 podiums; however, the trope features heavily in the fandom comparatively to mainstream media.

Alternate Universe Tropes:

• Non-Driver: Where either one or more of the drivers isn't in Formula 1 sometimes also tagged as Non-Famous
• Red Bull Driver Daniel Ricciardo: An AU where Daniel didn't leave Red Bull in 2018

Reader-Insert and Original Female Character imagines and POVs often position the reader/viewer as a friend or family member of a driver, or a person working in Formula 1 — either as a driver or in a team staff role such as social media manager or race engineer. The reader/OFC will likely end up doing the love interest to whichever driver is being written about.

Formula 1 RPF and the Fourth Wall

Maintaining the fourth wall (i.e. the separation of RPF fandom space from mainstream fandom and the sport itself) is a primary concern for many Formula 1 RPF fans.

Along with the fandom’s growth in the early 2020s, there have been a number of incidents in which the RPF fandom has come into close proximity with Formula 1 and its mainstream fandom, leading to growing concern by fans about further fourth wall breaches.

Fandom Attitudes to the Fourth Wall

For most Formula 1 RPF fans, preserving a boundary between RPF fandom space and the mainstream is vital, stemming from well-grounded fears that “exposing” RPF fandom to traditional sports fans will inevitably result in ridicule and vitriol towards it.

Tumblr user wettyres expressed this sentiment:

The quickest way to stifle creativity and ruin fandoms is to expose fan content to be made fun of by outsiders. It doesnt matter if youre reading out fic because you actually like it or because you hate it, the result is the same: someone not a fan and who doesnt get it will make fun of it and embarrass the fic writer or the artist or whoever

– wettyres, Tumblr 

Many fans view it as their responsibility not to engage with RPF fandom in places that might be viewed by Formula 1 drivers or teams. Another Tumblr user wrote about their reasons for doing so, in response to Formula 1 RPF drawing the attention of Richard Siken on Twitter:

BUT! We do not go shove it in their faces or make it easily accessible to them, their PR teams and youtubers and podcasters that will milk OUR works, fanfic and fanart, for easy content. We keep silent not because of eventual legal repercussions (which I may remind you is not something farfetched) but because of manners and etiquette - it's the same reason you don't go comment Leclerc's IG posts asking him to show hole. It's rude and makes everyone uncomfortable.

Talking about that on mainstream platforms, engaging with Siken about brocedes and lestappen and sebchal and martian and ferwis, means breaking the unspoken pact between the fandom and the people involved.

You cannot stop it from reaching their eyes, but you can private your accounts and lock your fics and stop engaging with PR ship-bait content.

– flopnandoalonso, Tumblr 

In order to hide RPF fandom from outsiders, fandom activity is largely limited to private or semi-private spaces such as Discord servers and on Tumblr, in contrast to Twitter and Instagram where official Formula 1 accounts are active. A large number of fanwork creators archive–lock works on AO3; although works are still relatively easily accessible with an account, this still requires a certain amount of familiarity with online fandom.

Trends in Locking and Deleting Fanworks

Like many other Sports RPF fandoms, a significant proportion of Formula 1 RPF fanworks on AO3 are archive-locked (only viewable to logged-in users). As of 19 January 2024, 38% of works are archive locked, which is significantly higher than average but lower than some comparable fandoms like Men’s Hockey RPF.

There have been several instances of fanworks being shared in more “public” spaces such as Twitter; in response, there will often be a wave of fanworks being locked or deleted. On one occasion in November 2021, a Twitter user under the name of shanetheconfessor read a number of works out loud in a Twitter Space, prompting the deletion or archive–locking of at least 900 works.

Fourth Wall Breaches

Marketing of Driver Relationships and Use of Ship–names by Official Accounts

Sports marketing has become increasingly driven by social media and narratives focusing on individual drivers and their relationships — one only has to look at the wild success of the Drive to Survive series to see this in action — and in turn, Formula 1 have embraced this in their content, which frequently focuses on “bromances” between drivers.

As part of this marketing strategy, Formula 1 has also adopted the ship–names given to RPF pairings, referencing them in articles and TikToks with captions like “water, chit chat and lestappen” and “cute lil maxiel bromance” .

Teams have taken to using ship–names too; on January 11, 2024, Red Bull Racing posted a photo of Verstappen and Sergio "Checo" Perez on their Instagram calling it National Chestappen day. Someone even left a comment on the photo that translates to, "Redbull uploads a fanfiction YAAAAA". Notably on Twitter, fans also comment on the actual Formula 1 team accounts with the use of shipnames.

One Fail-FandomAnon user expressed their unease at the trend:

But recently there's like, a bunch of tinhatters on tumblr and twitter (different groups) and apparently on tik tok too (but I do not frequent that website) which coincides with mentions of the ship (like the actual portmanteau) from official channels, mainly the Red Bull socmed. Thankfully, it seems like they mean it more in a bromance way (don't get me started on how they jumped on it last year to shade Lewis Hamilton) than a ship ship way but I fear that may have excited the shippers more and that the socmed teams might chase after the engagement, the way they did with Carlando ( or C2 until the interteam civil war). Apparently, people are already bringing it up in Max's streams which yiiiiikes.

– Anonymous, Fail-FandomAnon 

Tumblr user vro0m also shared their discomfort, comparing it to a similar fourth wall breach in mainstream hockey fandom:

Anonymous asked: Thank you for sharing that article. People not knowing how to separate reality from fantasy is very concerning but I am worried that official F1 accounts are tagging shipping names. I think we are about 2 seasons from this happening in F1 especially when we have influencers (who knew nothing about F1) coming to grand prix. I worry for the drivers who are just doing their jobs. I now understand why they did that Charles circle of people around him all arms linked together earlier.

vro0m replied: The thing is RPF is fine but it's important to remember that the people you use as characters in your stories are actual real people and the line between fiction and reality should not be crossed. When official accounts like F1 or the Kraken post ship names or essentially endorse RPF creators or faceclaiming or whatever, they cross that line and make it seem like it's okay.

Given how popular F1 has grown with DTS I'm honestly surprised we haven't had such issues yet. Hopefully it stays that way.

– vro0m, Tumblr 

Overtake My Heart Controversy

In mid-August 2023, it spread across social media that driver Daniel Ricciardo was the subject of a published erotic novel available on Amazon, called Overtake My Heart. The novel, by author Anita Driver (a penname), tells the story of a romance between Ricciardo and original character Emily, set in the world of modern F1. Unlike other professional works based on fanfiction, which often file the serial numbers off for publication (changing character names and details of the plot to disguise the work's origin), the novel uses Ricciardo's full name and an AI-generated image of Ricciardo on the cover.

News of Overtake My Heart spread further into mainstream Formula 1 fandom when Ricciardo was informed of the novel's existence on the podcast Eff Won with DRS, spawning articles on various mainstream news sites about the novel and Ricciardo’s reaction. It led to discourse on Tumblr, with people talking about the breaking of the fourth wall and that RPF should be kept on places like AO3 and Tumblr. People were saying that Shepard informing Ricciardo of this was creepy and weird. People also brought up breaches that had happened in other Sports RPF fandoms like Men's Hockey RPF. Some people in the fandom felt like their space was being intruded on by an outside content creator who ignored the rules of RPF fandom etiquette by posting it to Amazon, as well as making people pay for it. There was a question of legality with the work given that it was being sold, and using Ricciardo's name and likeness without his express consent.

Ricciardo's reaction to the cover image of the fic on the podcast was good-natured saying, "I look jacked though." He commented nothing on the actual story. Many in small groups of the fandom assumed that he was uncomfortable by this and chose to say nothing about the story contents either as he never read it or just chose not to comment.

The following week after the initial podcast episode came out, Shepard had the Author come on his podcast to talk about the "book" where it was found out that Overtake My Heart was meant for the author to just own a copy of the book that he had published without the intent of Ricciardo ever finding out about it. There was an assumption by some that it was meant to be seen as crack fic instead of being taken seriously given the nature of the work. A few months after Overtake My Heart was published, the Author came back and released another book called The Polesitter Always Rings Twice. In the long term, this author plans to publish a total of 69 works based on their characterization of Daniel Ricciardo.

Issues, Controversies, and Criticism in Formula 1 RPF

Separating the Character from the Driver

The prevailing mindset for fans that engage with Formula 1 RPF (and Sports RPF as a whole) is that representations of drivers in fanworks are separate from the real drivers themselves: while representations of drivers in fanworks are based on their public personas, they are still fictionalised “characters” of real people, and it is assumed within the fandom that fanworks do not accurately represent real life. Nevertheless, as RPF is often perceived as by those unfamiliar with it as ethically wrong (usually, as “an invasion of privacy”), many fanwork creators see it as necessary to communicate this fictionality with disclaimers in author’s notes, often reminding readers that “none of this is true, obviously” and “this should only be viewed as fiction”.

On the other hand, some fans have suggested that fandom characterisations of drivers is largely removed from their real personalities:

Anonymous asked: my F1 take - some characters, the way fandom has universally agreed to write them - have so little to do with the actual person if doesn't really warrant rpf anymore. on that topic, personally I enjoy when someone takes an established characterisation or ship dynamic and shakes it up and does it really well.

f1fanficrecs replied: Yeah! And honestly, I wish people who are vehemently anti-rpf would realize that largely the fics don’t have much to do with the drivers personally but that the drivers in rpf are mere vehicles for storytelling and that generally there is a lot of separation. [...]

f1fanficrecs, Tumblr 

Treatment of Drivers

Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen is a polarizing figure within the world of Formula 1. Some love him and some despise him. He joined the sport in 2015, at the age of 17. The youngest age of any F1 driver to make it into the sport. The media seems to paint Max as a villain to most drivers on the grid but notably Lewis Hamilton after the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, where Verstappen ended up finishing the race first with the "help" of the safety car, completely negating that if the case had unlapsed themselves there would have been a chance the race would have ended under a safety car. Verstappen was able to pit giving him fresher tires than Hamilton, overtaking him in the last lap of the race. Many Hamilton fans were upset by this after such a close fight for the championship that year, resulting in Hamilton losing his eighth World Drivers Championship to Max who won his first. In 2022 and 2023, Verstappen would go on to win two more WDCs.

Example Fanworks

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

Fanfiction

• Everything Changes by Georgia K (Sebastian Vettel/Mark Webber)
• fool's gold by Cazio (multi-pairing)
• champagne gold by lewisshamilton (Alexander Albon/George Russell)

Art

Brocedes (Lewis Hamilton & Nico Rosberg) fanart by greenygay

Tiktok

• A Lestappen edit, ^{Archived on 22 January 2024} by vettelsmax.
• An edit, ^{Archived on 22 January 2024} to the “All the Birds of a Feather” sound by lobs41. There were a number of Formula 1 edits to this sound, but this edit became very popular within the fandom and was referred to in other TikToks as “the F1 edit”.
• A Max Verstappen edit, ^{Archived on 22 January 2024} by http.cateyes.
• Formula 1 is…, ^{Archived on 22 January 2024} by formulabulls. This is a popular example of the Le Monde Colors trend, in which creators edit together clips featuring particular colours to the song Le Monde by Richard Carter.
• POV: Y/n Sainz wants to make a move on her crush, ^{Archived on 22 January 2024} by lan4char16. This is an example of a Formula 1 POV, in which the viewer is Carlos Sainz Jr’s sister.

Archives & Communities

• Formula 1 RPF tag on AO3

Tumblr

• formulaonekinkmeme
• F1 Big Bang

LiveJournal

• f1slash-kink [last updated 2 March 2010]
• motorsport kink meme also included other motorsports like Indycar [last updated 25 September 2015]
• f1flashfic [last updated 12 March 2015]
• f1slash [last updated 2 January 2017]

Further Reading

The Fangirlification of Formula 1^{Archived version} by Maria Sherman, The Cut, posted 13 November 2023.

Links & Resources

Primers

• f1-primers on Tumblr A collection of Formula 1 Primers, including the drivers
• Box Box! F1 Crash Course by go-daniel [Posted 18 November 2023]