A relationship with cricket is an unavoidable result of growing up in India. This sport – which has achieved an almost religious status- has been the one that holds the most popularity, the most fans, the most enthusiasm. However, in recent times a few new sports are entering the Indian heart. Motorsports like F1, which used to be a niche are now seeing a growing fanbase.This new wave is in part being pushed by social media trends. 23-year-old Aastha Bharadwaj, a student at SIMC Pune, was drawn to F1 by a stream of reels which led her to Netflix’s Drive to Survive, the documentary series that follows each Formula 1 season, and she was hooked. Soon was watching live races, learning about the sport, and heading out to community screenings of Grands Prix with friends.This rabbit hole – Instagram reel to Drive to Survive to becoming a full blown fan – is remarkably consistent across Pune’s new F1 audience. Diva Ajmera,19, found her entry point through something even more niche: fan edits of the friendship between Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.“The Ferrari duo got me into F1,” she admits, laughing. “Once I was drawn to Ferrari, I went to their page, I watched the races, the drivers and I started falling in love with the whole idea of F1.”She was quick to address the assumption that women fans are drawn to the sport purely by the glamour of its drivers, an assumption she hears often,. “You don’t stay with a sport just because of one driver. It gets to a point where you do enjoy watching that sport itself.” Mansplaining, she says, is a real and frustrating part of the F1 fan experience, but it does not define it.The engineering side of the sport has its own converts too. Ojas Danekar, 22, has been following F1 for four years. For him, what keeps him hooked is not just the speed and grit but the technical match going on underneath them.Story continues below this ad“I am an engineer, so the engineering of it really has hooked me,” he says. “Who will develop what new loophole in the regulations -that’s what keeps me engaged.” The building of the car, the mechanics of it are just as fascinating as the sport itself.Motorsport, being highly expensive for one to actually participate in, has been deemed slightly elitist by some, with viewership and fan culture being concentrated amongst those of a certain class.“Though I have never met any snobbish fans, the accessibility to watch F1 and the culture around it has always been quite limited, so it felt exclusive in a way. Now that will perhaps change.”, says Tej SH, a 22 year old student who has been watching F1 since his childhood days.Danekar believes the sport is not elitist when it comes to who can watch the sport and finds it welcoming to all, but there does exist a correlation between existing viewership and economic background. “The people who watch F1 tend to have more resources,” he notes. “But it is a correlation, not a causation.”Story continues below this adBhardwaj, who has a marketing background, agrees that the sport’s sponsors and marketing – Louis Vuitton, Rolex, Salesforce, Ferrari -naturally pull it toward audiences already familiar with those brands. “It pulls people who are familiar with these brands,” she says. “It’s just catered to that audience.”Yet the crowd is growing. Community screenings of races are popular all around the city, with hotspots like Socials FC road and Viman Nagar. Bharat Prasad, a marketing manager at Bira Tap Rooms in Sangamvadi says that such screenings make for a genuine connection with their guests.“Guests feel loyalty with the atmosphere -, the bar, the staff, the sport, and the people around them. All of it together makes for an experience people want to keep coming back to. People want a culture around their sport, and that’s exactly what these screenings provide. Pre-COVID, people thought of bars as just a place to drink. Now it has evolved into something more. Here you get to meet new people, people you are sure to befriend.” The bar hosts screenings of F1 races quite often and has seen a full house for them at even 9 am.Pune hasn’t reached the finish line yet, It’s just found the starting grid. With growing popularity, discussion and culture surrounding it, the F1 hype seems to be here to stay.The writer in an intern with The Indian Express.