Formula 1: The GOAT - Chapter 140

Chapter 140: El Plan
With each page she finished, she grew more impressed by her son’s abilities and radical ideas. Some existed in other fields, and he planned to implement them in the motorsports scene, while others were entirely his own creations, which he wanted the company to flesh out and implement in the best way possible.

The largest part of the document was still focused on the docutainment series he had summarized for her. But as she read the detailed breakdown, she discovered that Fatih had already come up with names for the series.

The starting series was named: Grid Kids: The Road to Glory. This was the joint project that would focus on a few selected drivers, following them through all of their competitions for the year. At the end of the year, a story would be written based on everything that had happened. But that wasn’t the end of the plan for this footage; it would also be spun off into individual documentaries in the same style as Fatih’s own Road to Formula 1 docutainment, allowing viewers and motorsports fans to gain an in-depth understanding of the drivers they had come to know and admire through the season-long docuseries.

Fatih even listed a few potential drivers for the docutainment production, including Lando Norris, Enaam Ahmed, Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Nicolas Latifi, and a few more, along with the reasons he suggested them. Surprisingly, his own name wasn’t on the list, as the docuseries would focus on the KF category and above. His name was, however, included in the spinoff individual docuseries, along with an additional driver who was not in the KF category: Max Verstappen, whose name was written in large, bold letters, emphasizing that he should definitely be recruited.

When she moved to the next planned project, if this succeeded for a few years, she found the F4 docuseries details, including the name: F4: The Ascent. It was poised to be a debut docuseries for single-seaters, and with its expected launch time, it would coincide with many of the drivers they were following also entering single-seaters. If they had chosen to follow talented drivers, this would allow them to follow them into the next stage, which in turn should retain the fan base those drivers had accumulated during the karting docutainment.

The following year after the F4 series debut would be F3: Chasing the Dream, a series that would follow those who had debuted from F4 to F3, competing against those who had been in the series for more than a year. After that would be the final step, aptly named F2/GP2: The Final Step. Fatih, believing all of these would succeed, had already come up with the name for the F1 series as well: Formula 1: Drive to Survive.

Just from the names alone, it was clear that Fatih was naming them in a way that showed the drivers’ journey: starting with big dreams but small steps, Grid Kids, then for those with talent and funds, they would graduate and ascend into single-seaters, The Ascent, followed by Chasing the Dream. Then would come The Final Step, as it was just one step from the prize of their hard work and dedication, before finally, Drive to Survive, for when they arrived in Formula 1. They would realize that getting what you dreamed of and worked hard for your whole life is not the end, but just the beginning. Now, you have to fight to survive and remain in the sport for as long as possible, and that can only be done through drive.

As she moved to the last lines on the page, she was met with a bold and capitalized line in red, making sure no one missed it: [ALL OF THE ABOVE SERIES ARE NOT ONE-OFF BUT RENEWABLE FOR EVERY YEAR WITH DRIVERS WHO REMAIN IN THE SERIES OR THOSE WHO MOVE FROM THE LOWER CATEGORY TO THE NEXT ONE, ALLOWING FOR A LARGER EMOTIONAL AND PARASOCIAL CONNECTION FOR THE FANS WHO FOLLOWED THEM FROM THEIR YOUNG CAREER].

Those lines caused Rümeysa to pause for a moment as she imagined how the series would function once the whole ladder system was completed. It would be no different from a school system where graduates move to the next class while those who fail remain in the same one. She could see the potential this whole idea had. If they succeeded in creating it fully without interruption, they would reach a situation where they were not the ones struggling to recruit drivers, but the opposite. Drivers, knowing what being in this docuseries meant, would be shown to an established fanbase. With that comes recognition, which would also translate into them being seen by people that mattered: team owners and sponsors. In a sport where money is everything, being in the docuseries would be one of the easiest ways to get the funding they so desperately needed to race.

However, she couldn’t stay with her thoughts for too long, as more than half of the document still remained waiting for her to go through. Her curiosity and excitement wouldn’t allow her to remain with her thoughts any longer, and she moved to the next page.

What she was met with was not a new, radical idea like the docutainment series, but an upgrade on the current video entertainment they were producing, with the inclusion of a few new additional projects.

One of them was creating a podcast about motorsports. The detailed explanation started with the meaning of a podcast, followed by the format: two permanent hosts and a new guest from a field across motorsports every week to talk about their area of expertise. This would give viewers a basic idea of what their field brought to motorsports, or if they were a team owner, driver, or any other position, for them to talk about their area in a comfortable environment for a period of not less than an hour and no longer than two.

This, unlike the docuseries, should allow them to continue consolidating motorsports fans as a whole. The following idea was the expansion of the informative video department, with new writers experienced in motorsports joining to help Fatih write the in-depth scripts while also improving their quality. It was also expanded from just Formula 1 to other motorsports, with the starting plan being to focus on the innovations that changed each category before coming to the present.

There were a few more ideas that, although not on the level of standalone docuseries, were still ambitious, as it would take a very large team to accomplish all of them. All of these were also followed by Fatih’s suggestions of each motorsports category having its own dedicated YouTube channel. His reasoning was that should a motorsports category want to purchase the division of their related category, it would be easier to remove that part without causing much problem to the rest of their business. But it was very obvious that his main focus was the Formula 1 division, as it was the one expected to have the largest investments, ranging in the tens of millions every year.

When she moved to the next agenda, she finally realized that this document wasn’t only about expansion on the side of videos. Fatih had finally started discussing the expansion of their in-house reporters, who they would be sending to races with press passes applied for from the FIA and Formula One Management for closer reporting than their current reliance on per-article payments to affiliated reporters.

This reporter-side expansion would start with Formula 1 before moving to other motorsports divisions, which would have to remain on commission-based articles for a few more years as money was reinvested back into the company.

When she was finally done reading the report, she took a moment to recollect herself before she started looking at the financial side of things. The ideas themselves were great, groundbreaking even, but the investment needed was also massive. The moment one of the projects failed, it would only increase the losses they would be running for the next few years. But if they succeeded, their valuation would skyrocket as they would have finished their evolution from just a news website started accidentally as Fatih tried to run a gambling website, into a motorsport media powerhouse.

“At least ten million starting next year is going to be needed if all of these are to start joint development,” she said, knowing that they would be running into the hundreds of millions in investment if it were to go on for ten years of constant ten-million-per-year investments.

Thankfully, Fatih’s idea for the docuseries, the one that would be eating the largest portion of the budget, was a gradual investment. Starting with karting for a few years before moving to single-seaters would allow them to learn from their mistakes with a relatively small investment compared to the losses they would suffer if these mistakes were made in the single-seater category.

The highest expense for the docutainment series would be in the equipment, travel, insurance costs, and licensing fees for permission to record the competitions. Since they would be following the drivers for a whole year, that meant different competitions and different organizers, which required individual licensing agreements with all of them. The only saving grace was that it was karting, meaning the fees were not going to be exorbitant. By the time they moved to single-seaters, if this docutainment series idea was a hit, it would mean they would be getting sponsors, which should allow them to reduce their own individual investment, but it was still expected to increase from the initial ten million when the new series came, since when the new ones started, the old one would continue being produced.

Though it sounded like a nightmare for Rümeysa if she wanted to achieve all of the things in the document, she looked really excited. It was something novel for her, unlike just managing things as they were, and she was looking forward to seeing the results of her son’s groundbreaking ideas. The idea of the most investment-intensive part of the plan, the docutainment series, failing had not even crossed her mind. Not only because of her confidence in her son, but also because she had access to the data of Fatih’s personal YouTube account, and his videos were already showing that there was a market for it. If more than one driver was included, it would only appeal to an even larger audience.