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Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of Business wars ad free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app. It's March 2017 in Melbourne, Australia, and the final preparations are underway for the opening race of the Formula one season. The buzz of a busy garage floats through the open windows of a sleek hospitality suite. Outside, mechanics in silver uniforms move around a Mercedes Formula one car with military precision. Inside, two men sit across from each other at a small table. The tone quieter, but just as intense. A few months ago, US entertainment giant Liberty Media bought Formula One for more than $4 billion. Now it wants to usher in a new era for the sport. Shawn Brachas is the Liberty executive charged with making it happen. But he can't do it alone. He needs the race teams to buy in as well. Today, he's here to sell his vision to one of Formula One's most powerful figures, the famously competitive Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff. Bratches leans forward. The product on track is phenomenal. But the fan experience, we think it can be bigger. Wolf's expression tightens. How? Bratches gestures towards the garage outside. Well, for starters, fans never see this. The paddock, the garages. Why not let people experience it? Absolutely not. Well, that's a clear answer. You see that car? Every millimeter of it is intellectual property. If rival engineers enter our garage, they can photograph it, copy something, steal our ideas. We cannot allow that. Okay, fair concern, but what if fans don't roam the paddock? What if they're guided through? Guided? Yeah. Maybe in golf carts. Golf carts? Yeah. Fans ride through the paddock. A quick loop. No stopping, no wandering into restricted areas. We'll keep them moving the whole time. Maybe a few carts linked together like a little train. Sean, you're describing something that belongs on a Hollywood studio lot. Come on. Is that a bad thing? Of course it is. This is the pinnacle of motorsport, the greatest competition in the world. Not entertainment. Outside mechanics step back as the Mercedes SP Bratches glances out the window, then back at Wolff. And he smiles, because the Mercedes boss is dead serious. But he's also completely wrong. Formula One has always been more than a sport. It's a high tech, high speed spectacle that oozes drama. For decades, most of that drama has stayed hidden behind closed doors. But Liberty Media is out to change that. They want to bring Formula One into the modern entertainment era. But not everyone in the sport is ready for the show. You know that moment when you order food and suddenly everyone around you gets very interested in your dinner? Yeah. That's what Grubhub does gives you deals so good you'll have to guard them. Gold Days of grubhub plus is here. Four weeks of grubhub's best offers all month long in May only for grubhub plus members. And if you're not a member, you can sign up now for 99 cents a month for six months. That's 90% off Grubhub plus membership, auto renews and terms apply. Sign up now on the app or@grubhub.com plus gold. Don't miss it. This message comes from Betterment Dan Egan, VP of Behavioral Finance and Investing, explains how Betterment's Tax Impact Preview tool can help you make smarter investment decisions.
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Tax Impact Preview is a preview of what taxes you would owe if you sold out of a position today. Often when individuals are investing, there's a
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Learn more about Tax Impact Preview and all the other helpful investment tools@betterment.com the tax impact Preview tool provides an estimate of tax implications. Betterment does not provide tax advice. Investing involves risk performance not guaranteed. From audible originals I'm david brown and this is business wars. In the last episode, NASCAR and Formula One were both facing identity crises as the 20th century gave way to the 21st. Backed by banks and private investors, Formula One supremo Bernie Eccleston transformed the sport into a global big money spectacle. He struck lucrative TV and sponsorship deals and brought races to wealthy new markets across the Middle east and Asia. But Liberty Media has since taken control. It's already forced Eccleston out. Now it's ready to launch a fresh push into the previously indifferent US Market. And NASCAR is watching all of this with growing unease. For decades, it dominated American motorsport, but its owners, the France family, are facing a twin threat Formula One's new ambitions and an aging fan base at home. For years, the two championships coexisted. NASCAR ruled the U.S. formula One, the rest of the world. But that balance is starting to shift. And now they're on a collision course. This is episode three, Land of Liberty. By the late 2000 and tens. NASCAR finds itself in increasingly uncomfortable territory. Its television ratings are sliding, track attendance is shrinking, and the sports leadership is struggling to answer a difficult question. How do you grow beyond an aging core audience without alienating the fans who have sustained NASCAR for generations? The problem isn't new. Back in 2004, NASCAR CEO Brian France tried to shake things up by introducing the Chase for the cup, a 10 race shootout to decide the championship. The change added late season drama and gave TV ratings a bump. But the boost didn't last. Ten years later, with few fresh ideas circulating, France returns to the same playbook. He relaunches the Chase with a new twist. The lowest scoring drivers are eliminated as the Chase progresses, raising the stakes in every race. The reaction is mixed. Some fans embrace the added drama. Others complained that the format cheapens the value of the full season, allowing a driver who has dominated for months to lose the championship with a single bad race. And for newcomers to the sport, the shifting rules and elimination rounds can be hard to follow. At the same time, NASCAR tries to broaden its appeal. It shines the spotlight on drivers who graduate from Drive for Diversity, a program aimed at supporting talented drivers from underrepresented backgrounds. But the initiative sparks backlash among some fans who see it as politics intruding into the sport. Drivers from the program like Daniel Suarez and Bubba Wallace find themselves having to justify their place on the grid. And there's little evidence, at least at first, that a more diverse driver pool translates into a more diverse audience. But while NASCAR tinkers with its product, Formula One is planning a complete overhaul ahead of the 2017 season. F1's new owner, Liberty Media, commissions a global brand study. The results are sobering. Formula One has millions of loyal and passionate fans, but outsiders see the sport as distant, complicated, even intimidating. It's too technical, too obsessed with engine specs, tire compounds and aerodynamic minutia. To many, F1 fandom is dominated by middle aged men debating gear ratios and fuel strategies. That image is reinforced by the company Formula One keeps. Race weekends are saturated with luxury brands promoting watches, champagne, private jets and financial services, products that most fans can only dream of affording. For Liberty Media, the brand studies message is clear. Formula One needs to open up. Under Bernie Eccleston, the sport had been tightly controlled. Access to television footage was restricted. Drivers, teams and broadcasters were warned against sharing clips online. That approach might have worked in the analog era, but. But it's a disaster in the digital age. So Formula One rips up its playbook. Instead of limiting content, it floods the Internet with it official Social media accounts offer fans a look behind the scenes. Teams and drivers are encouraged to interact directly with fans. And there are no more cease and desist letters every time Lewis Hamilton posts race footage on Instagram. The goal is simple. Make Formula One visible again. And social media is just the beginning. It's 2017 at Formula One's Broadcast center just outside London, England. Inside a dark screening room, media consultant David Hill lowers himself into a chair. Beside him, the sport's top TV producers are already in their seats, waiting for the giant flat screen to flicker into life. At the front, Formula One's lead producer stands beside a DVD player, remote in hand. Hill folds his arms. So this is your best one? Yes, it's one of our favorites. Good. Let's see what Formula One looks like on tv. Hill is a veteran of sports broadcasting with more than three decades of experience producing NFL and NASCAR coverage for Fox. He's just been hired by Liberty Media to improve Formula One's TV ratings, and today he's here to take a hard look at how the sport appears to viewers at home. The race begins. 20 cars sit on the starting grid. The lights go out, and the pack launches forward in a blur of color. Cars dive into the first corner, jostling for position. The broadcast cuts rapidly between battles across the field. An onboard camera shakes violently as a driver bounces over a curb. Hill leans forward, trying to follow the action. Wait. Wait a minute. Who's leading? That's Mercedes. Which one is Mercedes? Before the junior exec can answer, the broadcast exec cuts away to a man in a blue team shirt, headset on, staring at a wall of monitors. Almost immediately, the feed jumps back to the cars. Hill frowns. Who is that? Christian Horner. Who? He's the team principal of Red Bull. Red Bull? Yes. What is Red Bull? Isn't that an energy drink? The producer stares at him, clearly surprised. It's one of the teams. It's owned by the energy drink company. Okay, but how would anyone watching know that? On screen, the race continues, the commentators excitedly narrating the action. Hill watches for a moment longer before turning back to the producer. There's so much happening. Yeah, that's Formula One, all right. Yeah, but you never explain any of it. The audience understands. Your current audience does. But I thought you wanted new fans. Hill presses his lips together. The problem's worse than he thought. If Formula One wants to grow its audience, viewers first have to understand what they're watching. Within hours of the underwhelming screening, Hill begins sketching out a plan to revolutionize the way Formula One is broadcast in time for the 2018 season. He increases the number of cameras covering each race, but instead of leaving them fixed around the circuit, he sends many of them into the pit lane and garages, capturing the tension behind the scenes. The focus begins to shift from cars to characters. Drivers, team principals and pit crews are no longer background figures. They're part of the story. Hill also adds more on screen graphics to explain who's leading, who's chasing and what strategies the teams are using, helping new viewers follow the complex tactics unfolding at 200 miles per hour. And he turns up the in car microphones during the opening laps. So audiences get drawn in by the roar of the engines and the crackle of team radios. But before any of that can reach viewers, there's one last problem to overcome in the market that Formula One most wants to crack, no one can watch it. For the past four years, NBC has broadcast F1 in the U.S. but the network decides not to renew the deal beyond the end of 2017, and few other networks are interested. That leaves Formula One without a home in the U.S. so the new leadership approaches ESPN and proposes an unusual deal. The sports network can broadcast every Formula One Grand Prix live in the United States for free. Yep, you heard me right. The world's most prestigious motorsport is giving itself away in the world's most lucrative media market. At first glance, it looks like a terrible business decision. Broadcasters in other countries pay millions to show Formula One, but Formula One has been here before. Back in the early 80s, Bernie Eccleston sold European TV rights for a pittance because exposure mattered more than revenue. Liberty Media, they're taking the same approach in the US you might call it the Facebook play. Bill the audience first, worry about monetizing it later. The ESPN deal keeps Formula One on American screens. The revamped broadcast attracts some new viewers, but not many. Compared to the previous year on NBC, ESPN's first year of Formula One coverage goes up by just 3%, far short of what Liberty Media had hoped for. Still, there's no sense of panic, because one major piece of Liberty's media strategy hasn't launched yet. It's about to open the hood on Formula One and give fans something they've never had before. Unprecedented backstage access.
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It's April 29, 2018, the day of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Two blue and red Formula one cars rocket down the long main straight in the city of Baku. One is driven by Red Bull veteran Daniel Ricardo, the other by his young teammate Max Verstappen. Ricardo tucks into Verstappen's slipstream, the turbulent air pulling him Forward at nearly 200 miles per hour. Ricardo darts for right, searching for a gap. Verstappen blocks. Ricardo faints left. Verstappen moves again, but at this speed, even the smallest miscalculation has enormous consequences. Ricardo slams into the back of Verstappen's car. Carbon fiber explodes across the track. The two Red Bull cars spin helplessly down the runoff area, their race over in a cloud of smoke and shredded bodywork. For Red Bull, it's a catastrop catastrophe. Two teammates have taken each other out, but for a small TV crew stationed nearby, it's the kind of moment they've been waiting for. Within seconds, a camera operator, sound technician and producer are sprinting toward the Red Bull garage. They want to capture the team's reaction. The Raw, unfiltered aftermath. Inside the garage, engineers stare at their monitors in disbelief. Team principal Christian Horner curses as he re watches one of the most embarrassing moments in the team's history. And the cameras keep rolling. You know there's a quiet shift happening here, one that many businesses miss. Control is being traded for connection. Back in the Bernie Eccleston days, Formula one treated access as something to guard against, restrict, monetize. But Liberty Media sees that scarcity isn't always an asset. Attention is a real currency. By letting the cameras come in, they're not weakening the brand, they're deepening it. When customers feel like insiders, their investment is emotional, and that's far more valuable. Even as they film, the crew know they've captured something special. Because this footage isn't for the live broadcast. It's for a completely new kind of F1 show. Almost a year later, just days before the start of the 2019 Formula One season, that series drops on Netflix. It's called Drive to Survive. And it promises to pull back the curtain on the most exclusive sport in the world. The concept isn't groundbreaking. Sports documentaries have been around for years. But Drive to Survive offers something unique. Unlike most sports, a Grand Prix weekend brings every competitor together. All 10 teams, all 20 drivers, every strategist and decision maker. And that gives the film crew access to the entire F1 ecosystem. Not everyone is thrilled about the idea. The top two teams, Mercedes and Ferrari, refuse to participate, worried that allowing cameras in their garages could be a distraction. But their absence actually helps the show. With Mercedes and Ferrari missing, the spotlight falls on smaller teams with bigger personalities. Australian driver Daniel Ricardo quickly becomes a fan favorite. His laid back humor and megawatt smile light up the screen as he wrestles with a career changing decision, whether to stay at Red Bull or leave for a rival team. Meanwhile, Guenther Steiner, the boss of American owned team Haas, emerges as an unlikely star, thanks to his brutally honest and frequently profanity laced assessments of his struggling team. The combination of high speed racing and behind the scenes human drama proves irresistible. Drive to Survive becomes a surprise hit. And then, in February 2020, just as the COVID pandemic begins to spread, the second season arrives. And with people stuck at home, more people discover the show. Both men and women are drawn in by the mix of high wire action and juicy interpersonal drama. As Drive to Survive catches fire, Formula one suddenly faces an unexpected problem. Millions of new fans are discovering the sport just as its races are being shut down. Few sports are less suited to a global pandemic than Formula One. In a normal year, teams circle the globe multiple times. Thousands of mechanics, engineers and support staff travel with them. Tons of specialized equipment is shipped around the world in a carefully choreographed logistical ballet. But if Formula One stops racing, it risks losing the momentum created by drive to survive. So Liberty Media makes a bold decision. After delaying the start of the season for four months, F1 returns to action as soon as circumstances allow. Working with governments and health officials, Formula One creates a strict sporting bubble. Teams follow rigorous COVID testing regimes. Personnel are divided into isolated groups, and the calendar is rebuilt almost from scratch. Instead of a globe spanning tour, races are clustered together to minimize travel. Several countries host two races on back to back weekends. It's an enormous gamble, but it works. The 2020 season ultimately delivers 17 races. That's five fewer than originally planned, but enough to keep the championship alive. And with millions of people stuck at home looking for something new, Formula One's audience begins to surge. And it finally makes a breakthrough in the United States. Viewership there Almost doubles between 2018 and 2021. Live attendance at the United States Grand Prix climbs at a similar rate. And with interest rising, Formula One announces its return to Las Vegas. The larger audience soon translates into revenue. In 2022, Formula One renews its TV deal with ESPN. Just a few years earlier, ESPN got the rights for free. This time, it pays an estimated $90 million per year for them. Now, sure, this is a big leap forward for Formula 1, but NASCAR's television rights are worth around 10 times that. And a typical NASCAR race still attracts about three times the viewers of a Formula One Grand Prix in the U.S. but it's the trend that matters. Formula One is accelerating. NASCAR, well, it's coasting. And its executives are starting to glance in the rearview mirror a little more often. With Formula One coming up fast, NASCAR's bosses don't think they can wait years for a full reinvention. They want faster results. So they borrow from Formula One's playbook. First, they change where NASCAR races. For decades, the organization has invested heavily in building or buying racetracks. It now controls dozens of Speedways across the U.S. many located in rural areas that once formed the heartland of stock car racing. But maintaining those facilities is expensive, and many are located far from the cities and younger audiences that NASCAR hopes to attract. So NASCAR looks to reduce its reliance on far flung tracks and experiment more. The boldest example arrives in 2023, when NASCAR stages a street race through downtown Chicago's Grant park, where its stock cars thunder past skyscrapers and along the edge of Lake Michigan. For a sport traditionally associated with oval tracks carved into farmland, this is a dramatic shift. At the same time, NASCAR deploys camera crews to capture behind the scenes footage of the championship chase, now rebranded as the playoffs, for its own documentary series, Full Speed, which premieres on Netflix in January 2024. Like Drive to Survive, NASCAR, Full Speed leans into personalities as much as racing. NASCAR champion Ryan Blaney allows cameras into his personal life. Away from the track, Denny Hamlin embraces his reputation as NASCAR's villain, happily playing the role of the driver fans love to hate. Bubba Wallace speaks candidly about the pressures of competing at the highest level. The stories are there, but the impact isn't. The first season of Full Speed draws about 3.4 million viewers, roughly a third of the Drive to Survive. Here's the thing. Execution matters, but timing often matters more. NASCAR didn't get the strategy wrong, it just got there late. This is the risk of reacting instead of leading. You end up solving yesterday's problem. Following a competitor can feel safe, even smart, but it usually means you'll finish in second place. The real advantage comes from moving early before a trend hardens into expectations. Right now, what NASCAR really needs is a path of its own, but Formula One is setting the pace.
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It's May 4, 2025, at the Miami International Autodrome. The Florida sun hangs high above the circuit. Palm trees sway behind the grandstand. More than 100,000 Formula One fans fill the temporary circuit built around the hard rock Stadium, the home of the Miami Dolphins. In a few hours, the Miami Grand Prix will begin. But first, it's time for an F1 tradition. The driver's parade. Usually, the drivers climb into the back of an open top truck and wave to the crowd while taking a lap of the circuit. But today, they're doing things a little differently. Parked on the grid are ten Formula one cars, one for each team. Except these aren't high tech racing machines. They're made entirely of Lego. Each car is a two seater. One driver sits up front, the other driver in the back. The teammates have been told to take a slow lap, but wave to the fans and let people take photos, giving Lego a spectacular marketing opportunity. One by one, the F1 drivers climb into cars made of toy bricks. The electric engines hum to life. The first car sets off. The others follow, nose to tail, rolling slowly down the straight. 10 ultra competitive drivers in novelty race cars. Each one egged on by a teammate in the back. You know what's coming next, right? First, the Mercedes car edges closer to the red. Rick Ferrari at the front. Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc drifts across the track, closing the door and forcing Mercedes to back off. The crowd roars. Then the Williams car tries to take advantage of the duel at the front. It dives forward and bumps into the back of the Mercedes. The front wing of the Williams car explodes, scattering hundreds of tiny bricks across the asphalt. Behind them, The Alpine and McLaren cars collide as they swerve to avoid the debris. In the chaos, the Williams car darts toward the inside. But Mercedes driver George Russell reacts instantly. He swerves to shut the gap. The two vehicles lock wheels sliding together across the track and crash straight into the wall. By the time the lap ends, the drivers are doubled over with laughter. The parade has turned into a farce, but no one is complaining, especially not Lego or Formula one social media team, because this moment's already going viral. The Miami Grand Prix may be new, but it's already challenging Monaco as the spring sport's most glamorous showcase. It's not just drawing corporate sponsors like Lego. It's also attracting a listers like Serena Williams, Elon Musk, David Beckham, even President Donald Trump. That same energy was felt at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, which debuted in 2023 with all the spectacle you'd expect from the Strip. In one headline grabbing moment, Beyonce was given a high speed taste of the action, riding shotgun in a Ferrari road car driven by seven time world champion Lewis Hamilton. Even the more established Grand Prix in Austin, Texas also combines Racing with concerts, celebrity appearances, and festival like energy. I've been there to the Grand Prix in Austin, and what struck me is what Formula one is selling. It's not just a race, it's a destination. There's serious FOMO around this thing. By layering music, celebrities, and spectacle around the core event, they've turned a niche sport into something that really competes with festivals, not just other races. That reframes the whole game. You don't have to be a F1 super fan to want to be there. But they haven't changed the core of what's on offer either. It's still an F1 race, and it's a reminder that growth often comes from rethinking the container, not reinventing what's Inside. By summer 2025, Formula One is even breaking through in Hollywood. Brad Pitt stars in F1, a blockbuster movie filmed with the full cooperation of the sport. It becomes a box office hit and earns a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars. Formula One is on a high. Every viral clip, every PR spectacle, every celebrity endorsement amplifies its reach. And as its audience grows, so does the pressure on NASCAR to reverse its decline. Because while Formula One thrives, NASCAR is headed in the opposite direction. In 2025, its ratings are down 14% from the previous year. It still leads Formula One in US viewership, but that margin is shrinking fast. It's February 2025, and thousands of race fans have gathered for the Daytona 500, one of the biggest events in the calendar. But inside NASCAR headquarters in Daytona Beach, a committee is meeting to consider what they can do to improve next year's schedule. At the head of the table, Steve Phelps taps a pen against his laptop, the screen casting a pale glow across his face. He's just been appointed the sport's first ever commissioner, and his mandate is simple. Stop the rot around him. A handful of executives shift in their chairs, waiting for him to speak. The screen flickers on as a video call connects. Phelps leans in. Okay, Mark, you with us? The image sharpens to reveal former NASCAR driver Mark Martin sitting at his kitchen table in Arkansas. Yeah, I'm here. Been waiting for this conversation for a little while. Phelps gives a tight nod. Yeah, that's why we brought you in. We're reviewing the point system again. We. We want some honest feedback here. Yeah, you're gonna get it, too. A few of the execs around the table exchanged glances. Well, you know, we've tried a lot, and none of it stuck either. You know it, I know it. Fans definitely know it. Okay. Well, then tell us what you're hearing. I've been at tracks all summer. Illinois, Missouri, Indiana. Sitting in the stands, talking to folks who followed this sport longer than some of us have worked in it. And they feel left behind. The room goes quiet. They don't understand the championship anymore. And worse, they don't trust it. You got a system where a guy can dominate a whole season and still lose the title? Hell, that ain't racing. That's a game show. Well, the idea is to create drama. All it does is create confusion. So what do you propose? These fans I've been talking to, they're the backbone, Always have been. They go to the local tracks every Saturday night. You know how those track champions get crowned? Yeah. Whoever gets the most points. Exactly. Most points over 30, 40 races. No resets, no eliminations. You earn it over time. That's what people understand. That's what they believe in. You built the Chase for the cup to make things exciting, right? But then you kept tweaking it. Every change pulled you further away from what the fans want. All right, so what are you saying? We scrap it? No, I'm saying you go back to basics. Make every race and every lap matter. No more gimmicks. Let the best driver over the whole year win the championship. Simple. Well, that's a big step, Mike. Yeah, it is. But you're at a point where small steps ain't fixing it. In the final race of the 2025 season, Kyle Larson edges out Denny Hamlin to win his second NASCAR Cup. But even as the celebrations unfold, the conversation is already moving on to next season. In the garages, on talk shows, and across fan forums, word is that Larson is going to be the last champion under the current system. NASCAR is preparing for a major change in January 2026. The announcement finally comes after months of speculation. NASCAR confirms the playoffs are gone. It's returning to the original Chase for the cup format. A 10 race shootout to decide the champion. No eliminations, no gimmicks, just a straight fight to the finish. This isn't just a tweak. It's an attempt to reconnect with a fan base that's drifting away. Mark Martin is among those announcing this change at a press conference in North Carolina. And I just appeal to the race fans, all the race fans, but especially the classic fans who say to me, I don't watch anymore. I say, we need you. Come on back. It's both an invitation and an acknowledgement. NASCAR knows it has work to do to win back trust for the first time in years. It's returning to its roots and asking fans to come along too. NASCAR isn't the only series heading into a reset in 2026. At Formula One, a new era is about to begin. For the first time in a generation, the sport is overhauling its technical regulations. At the center is a deeper reliance on hybrid power. F1's new engines draw more heavily on electric Vehic electrical energy, using expanded battery deployment and complex energy recovery systems. It's a change that forces a new style of racing. For decades, Formula One has been defined by a simple, flat out speed drivers pushing their cars to the absolute limit lap after lap. The new regulations change that. With greater reliance on hybrid systems, drivers may now be forced to manage energy more carefully, lifting off the throttle at certain points to harvest power, then redeploying it strategically later in the lab. For some fans, this creates a new tactical dimension. But not everyone welcomes the change. To some, it dilutes the very thing that made the sport great. Even four time world champion Max Verstappen complains that the changes make the sport feel more like Mario Kart. As Formula one accelerates toward a more sustainable future, it faces a dilemma, one that NASCAR's leadership already understands all too well. How do you evolve without losing the very essence that made you special in the first place? You know, Formula One has come a long way since Liberty Media took control back in 2017. Back then, it generated around $1.8 billion in revenue. Today, that figure has climbed to almost $4 billion, comfortably ahead of NASCAR's $1.7 billion. Much of Formula One's success is global, but increasingly, it's American too. Once a niche presence in the United States, Formula One is now a major player in the nation's sporting landscape, driven by new races, celebrity appeal and a growing cultural footprint. The challenge now is to sustain that momentum. Growth has been the story of the past decade. Maintaining it will define the next. Can F1 keep attracting new fans without alienating the ones who have been there from the very beginning? For nascar, the challenge is different and more urgent. It isn't about managing growth. It's about halting decline. Falling ratings and shifting fan loyalties have forced a period of reflection. The return to the Chase for the cup is a clear attempt to reconnect with traditional fans, but it's only a first step. If NASCAR wants to remain the number one motorsport in America, it will need more than nostalgia. It must rebuild trust, modernize its appeal and find new ways to bring fans back. Because in this business, standing still is not an option. Follow Business wars on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of Business wars ad free by joining Audible from Audible Originals. This is episode three of F1 versus NASCAR for business Wars. A quick note about the recreations you've been hearing. In most cases, we can't know exactly what was said. Those scenes are dramatizations, but they're based on research and if you'd like to check out more, we recommend the Formula by Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg, the Dao of a TV Lifer by Joseph Ben Kahn of Esses and Formula One's Pivotal Year by Samuel Aguini and Josh Noble of the Financial Times. If you'd like to hear more about the high stakes drama of F1, you can listen to the audiobook version of the Formula right now on Audible. I'm your host David Brown. Scott Reeves wrote this story. Our senior producers are Ginny Blume and Emily Frost. Our producer is Tristan Donovan of Yellow Ann. Karen Lowe is our producer emeritus. Our managing producer is Desi Blalott. Research by Marina Watson Fact checking by Gabrielle Drollet Sound design by Kyle Randall Executive producer for Audible Jenny Lauer Beckman, Head of Creative Development at Audible Kate Maven, head of Audible Originals North America Marshall Louie, Chief Content Officer Rachel Giazza Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals, LLC Sound Recording Copyright 2026 by Audible Original.