After the carnival, Zhou Guanyu's future business prospects are still unclear
The picture is from the network screenshot
Text | Yin Lu
"F1 is a commercial event dressed up in the guise of sports competition."
—Bernie Eccleston, father of F1 commercialization and founder of F1 Management Company (FOM).
As a media person who has been engaged in F1 reporting for more than ten years, the author's circle of friends on November 16 was brushed by a name without suspense - Zhou Guanyu. As the hottest and most competitive Chinese driver in recent years, Zhou Guanyu signed with Alfa Romeo Racing F1 Team to participate in the 2022 F1 season as an official driver.
Zhou Guanyu kept repeating a sentence in multiple interviews, and his dream came true. Indeed, for all the Chinese who love racing, the appearance of a Chinese regular driver in Formula 1 is everyone's dream. After the 2004 F1 Chinese Grand Prix settled in Shanghai, this expectation has become even stronger.
Since then, Cheng Congfu, Dong Hebin, and Ma Qinghua have all been incomparably close to this goal, but in the end they all ended in failure. Before Zhou Guanyu achieved this breakthrough, the closest to F1 was Ma Qinghua. He represented HRT and Carterham in Friday's free practice session several times from 2011 to 2012, but that was a decade ago.
For Zhou Guanyu to become an official F1 driver, the author, like many former colleagues and peers, is ecstatic. But because he has been out of the front line of F1 coverage for more than three years, when the author observes the social repercussions of Zhou Guanyu's signing from the perspective of a bystander, he finds that this matter is like the news that Ma Qinghua became an F1 reserve driver before, and he won the World Touring Car Championship for the first time in Moscow and raised the Chinese flag on the podium of the top international car race, and after an expected carnival in the circle, there were no surprises.
Returning to the essence of motor sport, as stated in the first sentence of this article, motor sport seems to be a sports competition, but the essence is a commercial activity. How much value Zhou Guanyu will have as an official F1 driver ultimately depends on how much commercial value he can cash in.
The circle-breaking spell of car sports
At 20:30 on the night of the announcement of the news on November 16, Sina Racing invited Zhou Guanyu and a number of well-known figures in the domestic racing industry, including WAN Heping, vice chairman of the FIA, to hold an online interview on Weibo. The total number of viewers of the online live broadcast for more than one hour was 240,000, which did not meet the previous expectations.
This is the biggest obstacle to cashing in on the commercial value of racing in China: even if it is a sensation in the racing circle, it is difficult to break the circle. To this day, the only Chinese professional driver who can have a huge social popularity is Han Han, and the social popularity of this lone case has almost nothing to do with his racing experience.
The difficulty of breaking the circle of automobile sports is determined by its own characteristics. Racing is a sport without national confrontation, in racing, there is no concept of national team, the team, the club is the most important unit. The car manufacturers and sponsors behind the team are the main beneficiaries of the honor of the race.
This directly led to the loss of the emotional boost that sports competition is most likely to break the circle - national honor. It is not that there is no national honor in the racing car, the award ceremony raises the national flag, and there are many national anthems, but unlike other projects, the racing award ceremony not only plays the national anthem of the winning driver's country, but also plays the national anthem of the country where the winning driver belongs.
In the marking system within the racing track, the team name, the logo is extremely prominent, and the driver's country will only appear on the right side of the driver's name, in the form of a national flag or a country abbreviation. The world's first reaction when thinking of Schumacher, if not ferrari drivers before German drivers, will at least be Ferrari and Germany in no particular order.
These examples illustrate one thing, and trying to rely on the glory of the country, which has been tried and tested in other sports competitions, to enhance the communication effect is a dead end in motorsport.
In addition, athletes have to break the circle, and the performance is a rigid requirement. Athletes without excellent results, even if they can break the circle by chance, are not sustainable. However, it is very difficult for Chinese drivers to perform in F1, after all, the team joined by Zhou Guanyu is currently the second-to-last team in the number of points this season. Fans have reasonable expectations for the F1 performance of Chinese drivers, but outside the audience will not have the same expectations. If the rider's ranking hovers in the bottom position for a long time, the difficulty of breaking the circle can be imagined.
What can Zhou Guanyu rely on to break the circle
It is difficult to break the circle in motor sports, but this time Zhou Guanyu became an official driver of F1 and is considered by many industry insiders to be an excellent opportunity to break the circle. As a senior manager of domestic auto sports, Wang Xiao, CEO of the NIO 333 FE team, said: "Chinese racing needs the leverage of historical events. "And Zhou Guanyu's becoming an official F1 driver is undoubtedly one of the most important historical events in Chinese racing.
After the announcement of Zhou Guanyu's news, the influx of media reports also showed that the matter was indeed more out of the loop than many of the previous racing news. In addition, Zhou Guanyu does have elements that are easier to break the circle than many Chinese drivers before: the identity of the rich second generation, the high participation sponsorship fee, the outstanding performance in the F2 race, the appearance value and so on.
According to the inquiries received by several friends outside the circle in the past two days, the author found that the focus of the audience outside the circle was as expected, focusing on the high sponsorship fee. A number of foreign media reports have revealed that Zhou Guanyu was able to win the last place in the 2022 season, and the sponsorship of 25 million to 30 million euros brought by him is an important reason. According to my experience in reporting F1 for many years, this figure is about equal to the amount of title sponsorship for a small and medium-sized team like Alfa Romeo for the whole season.
As for the authenticity of this amount, like many paid drivers in F1 in the past, it is impossible to verify. But the identity of the "paid driver" and the amount of about 200 million yuan have become the labels that Zhou Guanyu was first remembered by the audience outside the circle, which is in line with the general public's general perception of racing super money. However, it is precisely on this issue that there is a huge information gap between inside and outside the circle.
In F1 races, it is very normal for paid drivers and drivers to enter the group, and many legendary drivers in history have started their careers in this way, such as Nikki Lauda and Schumacher. There are many paid drivers who are more "trenchless" than Zhou Guanyu among active F1 drivers, such as Stroor of the former race point team (now Aston Martin Team), whose father directly spent 100 million pounds to buy the Force India team in 2018 in order to ensure his son's participation, so many fans called this team "Daddy Force" after the acquisition of the press official.
There is also the main sponsor of the current Haas team, which is also from the company of the father of its Russian driver Ma Zeping. A fleet of convoys based in the United States, the body paint is the color of the Russian flag. Money is indeed the most powerful pioneer in the F1 movement.
Of course, these famous paid drivers are also widely questioned in F1, such as Ma Zeping because he often makes mistakes on the track, so fans have changed his name, Mazepin (Mazepin) was changed to Mazespin (Mazespin), Spin is the meaning of slipping. Strohr is slightly better, and in the past two years, with the improvement of his results, he has reversed his early negative evaluation.
Rich second generation, paid drivers, high sponsorship, these factors are sensitive factors that can arouse the attention of the public, but if the performance is not good, these factors will also induce a strong reaction, whether you can make good use of the short-term attention brought by these factors will become the key to whether Zhou Guanyu can break the circle.
For Zhou Guanyu's future performance in F1, the current industry expectations are cautiously optimistic. Zhou Guanyu grew up completely according to the trajectory of an F1 driver, and his achievements, performances and growth are in line with the normal expectations of the racing circle for F1 drivers.
Zhou Guanyu dominated the domestic karting field before the age of 10, went to Sheffield, England at the age of 11, studied, trained and passed three levels of language, and became a youth driver of the Ferrari Driver Academy at the age of 15, and began to be known by the racing circle. Aged 16-18, he achieved excellent results in Formula 4 and F3. In 2019, 20-year-old Zhou Guanyu switched to the Renault youth training driver program and began to compete in F2, winning the best newcomer that year. In 2020, under the huge impact of the epidemic, Zhou Guanyu won the first F2 championship and ranked sixth in the standings.
When Zhou Guanyu was 5 years old, he walked into the F1 arena with a small flag. According to the @F1 World Championships
In 2021, Zhou Guanyu's performance in F2 is even better, and he is currently ranked second in the overall standings, and there are still two races to go, and there is still a chance to impact the annual championship.
Excellent performance in formula competitions at all levels, fluent English with a pronounced British accent, and familiarity brought by long-term training competitions in Europe will reduce the difficulty of Zhou Guanyu's integration into F1. The more comfortable you are in F1, the more you can make the racing circle and the public put aside the negative evaluation of paid drivers, and turn the focus on money into attention to the driver himself and the performance of the race as soon as possible.
In addition, it must be emphasized that Zhou Guanyu's sunny and handsome appearance plays a very important role in enhancing his personal commercial value. In October 2017, when Zhou Guanyu was still participating in the low-level formula and had almost no social visibility, his fan homepage had been established on Weibo, and as of November 16, the number of fans was 16,000. His own Weibo followers are 924,000, the interaction of a single Weibo is more than hundreds, and the Weibo of the official F1 official driver has received nearly 10,000 comments and nearly 20,000 retweets.
The identity of the paid driver has brought widespread attention in the short term, excellent results and high-quality attention brought by personal charm, and many Chinese drivers have up to two in terms of money, achievements and personal charm, and Zhou Guanyu can be said to be the first driver to hold the three magic weapons at the same time.
If you can successfully break the circle and greatly enhance social visibility, Zhou Guanyu has a good foundation for cashing in commercial value, and the next step to think about is who can pay for Zhou Guanyu's commercial value?
Where does Zhou Guanyu's commercial value come from
The commercial landscape of racing is generally divided into three circles, the core circle is the car manufacturer and related industries closely related to the car, such as tires and petrochemicals. The second circle mainly includes watches, finance, insurance, and communications. These industries are mostly related to speed, safety, time, and have a high degree of relevance to motorsport. The third lap mainly includes luxury goods, fashion brands and consumer durables, and the high-end positioning of motorsport is the most important point in these categories.
In Zhou Guanyu, the commercial value of the core circle is relatively easy to develop, but the overall value is limited. Alfa Romeo is a relatively niche brand both globally and in China, and its sales and revenue cannot support huge marketing investments, so in terms of automakers, Zhou Guanyu has little potential to tap. In terms of tires, as the exclusive tire supplier of F1, Pirelli should be the brand that values the commercial value of Zhou Guanyu the most in the core circle. However, due to the epidemic, the 2022 season of F1 does not have a Chinese station, as a sponsor of the core circle, it is difficult to carry out marketing operations in the first season of Zhou Guanyu's joining, which is also the most valuable season.
The second circle will be the focus of Zhou Guanyu's commercial value development, and there are not many sponsors in this circle who are deeply bound to Zhou Guanyu. In addition to the team he used to play for and the main sponsor of the team, Zhou Guanyu usually participates in very limited business activities. In one to two years, the addition effect of the first F1 Chinese driver to Zhou Guanyu will significantly increase its commercial value.
The watch is undoubtedly the most important direction of Zhou Guanyu's power. At present, Zhou Guanyu's only officially announced personal sponsor is Hublot Watch, and among the hublot spokespersons, there is only one driver, Zhou Guanyu. After becoming an official F1 driver, Hublot has no reason to abandon the rising commercial value of Zhou Guanyu. For a new F1 driver, having a stable watch sponsor is also a strong reflection of his commercial value.
In the fields of finance, insurance, and communications, because these industries are mainly state-owned enterprises in China, it is very difficult for Zhou Guanyu, who still lacks national popularity, to open up. However, mobile phones and consumer electronics related to communications may become a breakthrough, such as ACER Acer, the sponsor of the Alfa Romeo team, which has the advantage of being close to the water.
In the outermost field of luxury goods and consumer durables, Zhou Guanyu's sunny and handsome image will become a major advantage. High-end menswear brands are also the categories that are most willing to pay for athletes in high-end sports. As for the sports equipment, beverages, beer and other brands among the relevant sponsors of the team, since most of them have not yet carried out business in the Chinese mainland, it is difficult to realize the commercial value of Zhou Guanyu in the short term.
Zhou Guanyu, as China's most successful Formula driver in recent years, has been regarded as the number one seed player of F1 Chinese drivers since entering F2 in 2019, and his commercial value has increased significantly with the official acquisition of the F1 driver's seat. However, since there is no China race in the 2022 season, the important value of being the first F1 Chinese driver cannot be cashed in at home, which is a huge loss for Zhou Guanyu.
In addition, under the details, most of the sponsors related to Zhou Guanyu and Alfa Romeo Team have a small business footprint in China, which is difficult to support a relatively large marketing investment and an obstacle to enhancing Zhou Guanyu's commercial value.
All in all, Zhou Guanyu became the first F1 Chinese driver to be congratulated, but whether it is for the results or its commercial value, do not be too optimistic, the first step is very important, but for Chinese racing, only the first step is not enough.
(The author is a reporter of "Caijing", who was the responsible editor of "Racing Times" and "Wonderful F1" of CCTV Sports Channel, and a guest commentator of F1 events; editor: Yu Le)