Mention motorsport and the average reader immediately thinks Formula 1, the World Endurance Championship, World Rally Championship or touring cars. This mindset is completely understandable, for these categories hog the limelight week in, week out - so much so that they are seen to be the only games in town.
However, for every Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel there are 10,000 kids dreaming of reaching such elevated heights, and 10 times as many who have likely never even seen a race car - whether live or on TV – and cannot even begin to dream.
This is the conundrum facing the FIA, the governing body of motorsport: of its 140 member states worldwide, just 21 get to host grands prix, 14 of them stage rallies and nine get to experience WEC racing. That's 44 events across the FIA's top three world championship categories, but the number of events does not equal the number of host countries given that Germany and China, to give just two examples, host all three series.
Just 27 countries will have hosted FIA championship rounds this year – less than 20%. Now consider that the United Nations lists 193 member states (and two observers), and the global percentage of FIA championship hosts quickly gets whittled down to less than 15%. That means 160 potential venues for F1 tsar Bernie Ecclestone.
The reality is that despite the octogenarian's considerable efforts at spreading F1 messages far and wide (for a fee, of course), it's doubtful whether countries such as Myanmar or Papua New Guinea will get to host grands prix during his lifetime.
In fact, unless concerted efforts are made to educate the citizens of these countries (and those in similar circumstances) in matters motorsport, they are unlikely to ever catch F1 on TV, or experience local karting events.
The very real challenge facing global motorsport is not growing F1's calendar by a race per year – although, with next year's preliminary calendar believed to be on Friday's World Motor Sport Council agenda, off-record talk at this week's FIA Sport Conference in Italy was of a reduction, possibly by three rounds to 18 for 2017 – but of bringing motorsport, any motorsport, to the masses. That, not F1, is the FIA's overriding priority.
The untapped market is virtually impossible to quantify, but an estimate of a billion people who are not currently exposed to some form of four-wheeled sporting activity in any way would probably be pessimistic. The question is: how to reach out to those people and spread the message?
In the final year of his first four-year term as FIA president, Jean Todt – former world-class rally co-driver and boss of teams across several major disciplines, who won in countries as disparate as Monte Carlo and Morocco – hit on the concept of annual global motorsport conferences targeted at FIA member clubs across the world.
The idea was to equip them with the vision and tools required to grow motorsport in their own countries or, as the case may be in some territories, encourage them to establish some form of competition within their territories, be it by building a rudimentary circuit for cars or karts, or institute safe and sustainable championships.
The thrust of the conferences is best summarised by an excerpt from Todt's opening speech of the fourth edition, titled 'Passion and innovation: the past, present and future of motorsport', in Italy earlier this week:
"We designed this conference as a platform for exchanges, to enable people to meet and set up innovative projects as a result of these discussions. For the FIA, it is important to ensure that motorsport is accessible to everyone, in all parts of the world."
The first conference was held at Goodwood in June 2013, with the objective being the development and promotion of motorsport, and the associated challenges.
The second, which took place in Munich, introduced networking, development, and educational and business exchange opportunities for the FIA sporting community. It also included the FIA Sport MotorEx forum, enabling commercial entities to reach new audiences.
Last year's edition in Mexico was held under the banner 'Make it fast, make it safe, make it for fans' by building on the content of past conferences, with a particular focus on the benefits of structured programmes for ASNs (national sporting authorities, as member organising clubs are referred to).
So to the latest edition, held at the Centro Congressi in the former Fiat factory in Lingotto, Turin. The building, made famous by the car-chase scene in The Italian Job, during which the trio of Minis is pursued on Lingotto's rooftop test track by the carabinieri, now houses a commercial centre and various hotels in addition to the 1900-seat auditorium and nine meeting rooms.
Such close links to Fiat made the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles alliance a shoo-in as overall conference sponsor, with Italy's automotive sector – companies such as Magneti Marelli, Pirelli and Brembo – also contributing in one way or other. Indeed, during the conference Pirelli announced a four-year road safety partnership with the FIA, while Todt, of course, spent 16 years at Ferrari, both as sporting director and CEO.
In his keynote address FCA CEO and Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne referred to the group's rich motorsport heritage, be it in F1, WRC, endurance racing and touring cars, plus, of course, the NASCAR and other North American successes of its US brands.
The Italo-Canadian was not the only motorsport luminary to address the 500-odd delegates representing almost 150 countries. On the first day alone four-time F1 champion Sebastian Vettel, commercial guru Zak Brown, former McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh and new McLaren recruit Jost Capito, Toro Rosso boss Franz Tost, and Le Mans stars Jacky Ickx, Alan McNish and Emanuele Pirro graced the stage as they spoke of their 'Passion for speed'.
Vettel was adamant that there were certain pillars of the sport that should be retained, including "speed, and to some extent the danger as well, because that is also what makes it exciting".
In his presentation six-time Le Mans winner Ickx placed fans first: "In the end, the judge of the successful event is the spectator. The reason events like Le Mans are successful is because they thought about the human aspect first."
McNish pointed to this year's 24 Hour classic as "an amazing example of how the heritage of motorsport affects and remains in the present, as Ford and Ferrari did battle again [for GTE Pro honours] 50 years after their first fight".
Pirro echoed that: "I look at the future and see so many new and exciting things, but I hope we do not forget the past. You can buy many things, but never history. Passion is what has driven motorsport in the past, it is what drives it now and it's what will drive it in the future."
WRC and World Rallycross champion Petter Solberg was particularly animated as he told of his start in motorsport as the kid of a transport haulier, while Vettel spoke passionately of the need for commercial entities to support emerging talent, stressing that without such help he would never have made it. Tost told of the five qualities he seeks in rookie F1 drivers, the main one being "to breathe and eat motorsport 24 hours a day".
That evening delegates and stakeholders were treated to a private tour of Turin's Museo Nazionale dell'Automobile, which showcases over 200 cars representing almost 80 past and present motor manufacturers, and includes a number of iconic race and rally cars.
Day two was no less impressive, with the 'Passion for excellence' session featuring Ferrari technical director James Allison, race car constructor Giampaolo Dallara, legendary designers Giorgetto Giugiaro and Paolo Pininfarina, plus McLaren Advanced Technologies director Caroline Hargrove (who spoke on innovation) and former Fiat CEO and current president of the FIA's Historic Commission Paolo Cantarella.
Cantarella was particularly interesting as he rattled off statistics in support of the growing interest in historic motorsport, with major events attracting eye-watering (particularly for F1) crowd numbers: 150,000 at both of Goodwood's annual festivals, and well over 100,000 at events such as the Silverstone and Nurburgring classic weekends.
He also made the point that historic racing provides relatively accessible motorsport in that certain cars can be bought and prepared more cheaply than cutting-edge models, and, crucially, owners do not need to constantly upgrade them at enormous cost to remain competitive. The fun factor may even be higher.
He did, though, issue a warning: "Historic racing can play a huge role in attracting people to the sport, but we are also facing a risk.
"In some ways we can become victims of our own success. At the top end, the value of the cars has increased dramatically, so many of the collectors are not racing the cars, but giving them to professionals who tend to win.
"The other issue is the idea of 'developing' historic cars, making them faster than they should be."
Following workshops on new entry-level motorsport parks in Australia and Barbados and identifying potential new venues, the afternoon session – 'Breaking down barriers: accessibility and the social responsibility challenge' – was hosted by FIA deputy president for sport Graham Stoker, and featured quadruple F1 champion Alain Prost, who spoke eloquently on making motorsport more accessible to fans.
Audi Sport race engineer Leena Gade, FIA head of safety Laurent Mekies, and World RX commercial boss Rob Armstrong completed the list of session speakers, with Armstrong echoing Solberg's comments about RX appealing to youthful audiences, saying: "As a promoter for World Rallycross, it's all about accessibility. That's for fans of all descriptions.
"We look for opportunities that are relevant to our fans. In Norway for instance we have schemes that give young people the opportunity to actually work for rallycross teams."
The final plenary session, held on Thursday after a morning dedicated to the latest edition of MotorEx, examined the future of motorsport, with branding, new media and gaming experts joining James Barclay (Jaguar Formula E) and Kees van der Grint, vice-president of the FIA karting commission, and Jim Liaw rounding off the conference.
Liaw is a member of the FIA's Drifting Working Group and, much as it may be anathema to mainstream fans, there is little doubt it's one of the most accessible forms of motorsport – just the ticket for prospective (youthful) competitors in emerging countries.
The final speaker, before Todt's closing address, was the eloquent and lucid WEC and Formula E winner Lucas di Grassi, who, as part of the 'future' debate, pleaded for the sport's regulator to retain the sporting challenge in all forms of motorsport despite the increasing proliferation of driver aids and autonomous systems in road cars.
Over to Stoker, on whose shoulders the overall responsibility for motorsport's global growth rests, for the final word after three extremely informative days:
"The positive after-effect of the conference is in helping to build strong clubs. We have to have a sport where anyone who has talent can have the chance to get into this sport; where it's not about family history or connections, a sport where it's all about talent. We have that [now], but we can do more."
The FIA Sport Conference 2017, likely to be held in Geneva, is sure to continue that trajectory.
Mention motorsport and the average reader immediately thinks Formula 1, the World Endurance Championship, World Rally Championship or touring cars. This mindset is completely understandable, for these categories hog the limelight week in, week out - so much so that they are seen to be the only games in town.
However, for every Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel there are 10,000 kids dreaming of reaching such elevated heights, and 10 times as many who have likely never even seen a race car - whether live or on TV – and cannot even begin to dream.
This is the conundrum facing the FIA, the governing body of motorsport: of its 140 member states worldwide, just 21 get to host grands prix, 14 of them stage rallies and nine get to experience WEC racing. That's 44 events across the FIA's top three world championship categories, but the number of events does not equal the number of host countries given that Germany and China, to give just two examples, host all three series.
Just 27 countries will have hosted FIA championship rounds this year – less than 20%. Now consider that the United Nations lists 193 member states (and two observers), and the global percentage of FIA championship hosts quickly gets whittled down to less than 15%. That means 160 potential venues for F1 tsar Bernie Ecclestone.
The reality is that despite the octogenarian's considerable efforts at spreading F1 messages far and wide (for a fee, of course), it's doubtful whether countries such as Myanmar or Papua New Guinea will get to host grands prix during his lifetime.
In fact, unless concerted efforts are made to educate the citizens of these countries (and those in similar circumstances) in matters motorsport, they are unlikely to ever catch F1 on TV, or experience local karting events.
The very real challenge facing global motorsport is not growing F1's calendar by a race per year – although, with next year's preliminary calendar believed to be on Friday's World Motor Sport Council agenda, off-record talk at this week's FIA Sport Conference in Italy was of a reduction, possibly by three rounds to 18 for 2017 – but of bringing motorsport, any motorsport, to the masses. That, not F1, is the FIA's overriding priority.
The untapped market is virtually impossible to quantify, but an estimate of a billion people who are not currently exposed to some form of four-wheeled sporting activity in any way would probably be pessimistic. The question is: how to reach out to those people and spread the message?
In the final year of his first four-year term as FIA president, Jean Todt – former world-class rally co-driver and boss of teams across several major disciplines, who won in countries as disparate as Monte Carlo and Morocco – hit on the concept of annual global motorsport conferences targeted at FIA member clubs across the world.
The idea was to equip them with the vision and tools required to grow motorsport in their own countries or, as the case may be in some territories, encourage them to establish some form of competition within their territories, be it by building a rudimentary circuit for cars or karts, or institute safe and sustainable championships.
The thrust of the conferences is best summarised by an excerpt from Todt's opening speech of the fourth edition, titled 'Passion and innovation: the past, present and future of motorsport', in Italy earlier this week:
"We designed this conference as a platform for exchanges, to enable people to meet and set up innovative projects as a result of these discussions. For the FIA, it is important to ensure that motorsport is accessible to everyone, in all parts of the world."
The first conference was held at Goodwood in June 2013, with the objective being the development and promotion of motorsport, and the associated challenges.
The second, which took place in Munich, introduced networking, development, and educational and business exchange opportunities for the FIA sporting community. It also included the FIA Sport MotorEx forum, enabling commercial entities to reach new audiences.
Last year's edition in Mexico was held under the banner 'Make it fast, make it safe, make it for fans' by building on the content of past conferences, with a particular focus on the benefits of structured programmes for ASNs (national sporting authorities, as member organising clubs are referred to).
So to the latest edition, held at the Centro Congressi in the former Fiat factory in Lingotto, Turin. The building, made famous by the car-chase scene in The Italian Job, during which the trio of Minis is pursued on Lingotto's rooftop test track by the carabinieri, now houses a commercial centre and various hotels in addition to the 1900-seat auditorium and nine meeting rooms.
Such close links to Fiat made the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles alliance a shoo-in as overall conference sponsor, with Italy's automotive sector – companies such as Magneti Marelli, Pirelli and Brembo – also contributing in one way or other. Indeed, during the conference Pirelli announced a four-year road safety partnership with the FIA, while Todt, of course, spent 16 years at Ferrari, both as sporting director and CEO.
In his keynote address FCA CEO and Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne referred to the group's rich motorsport heritage, be it in F1, WRC, endurance racing and touring cars, plus, of course, the NASCAR and other North American successes of its US brands.
The Italo-Canadian was not the only motorsport luminary to address the 500-odd delegates representing almost 150 countries. On the first day alone four-time F1 champion Sebastian Vettel, commercial guru Zak Brown, former McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh and new McLaren recruit Jost Capito, Toro Rosso boss Franz Tost, and Le Mans stars Jacky Ickx, Alan McNish and Emanuele Pirro graced the stage as they spoke of their 'Passion for speed'.
Vettel was adamant that there were certain pillars of the sport that should be retained, including "speed, and to some extent the danger as well, because that is also what makes it exciting".
In his presentation six-time Le Mans winner Ickx placed fans first: "In the end, the judge of the successful event is the spectator. The reason events like Le Mans are successful is because they thought about the human aspect first."
McNish pointed to this year's 24 Hour classic as "an amazing example of how the heritage of motorsport affects and remains in the present, as Ford and Ferrari did battle again [for GTE Pro honours] 50 years after their first fight".
Pirro echoed that: "I look at the future and see so many new and exciting things, but I hope we do not forget the past. You can buy many things, but never history. Passion is what has driven motorsport in the past, it is what drives it now and it's what will drive it in the future."
WRC and World Rallycross champion Petter Solberg was particularly animated as he told of his start in motorsport as the kid of a transport haulier, while Vettel spoke passionately of the need for commercial entities to support emerging talent, stressing that without such help he would never have made it. Tost told of the five qualities he seeks in rookie F1 drivers, the main one being "to breathe and eat motorsport 24 hours a day".
That evening delegates and stakeholders were treated to a private tour of Turin's Museo Nazionale dell'Automobile, which showcases over 200 cars representing almost 80 past and present motor manufacturers, and includes a number of iconic race and rally cars.
Day two was no less impressive, with the 'Passion for excellence' session featuring Ferrari technical director James Allison, race car constructor Giampaolo Dallara, legendary designers Giorgetto Giugiaro and Paolo Pininfarina, plus McLaren Advanced Technologies director Caroline Hargrove (who spoke on innovation) and former Fiat CEO and current president of the FIA's Historic Commission Paolo Cantarella.
Cantarella was particularly interesting as he rattled off statistics in support of the growing interest in historic motorsport, with major events attracting eye-watering (particularly for F1) crowd numbers: 150,000 at both of Goodwood's annual festivals, and well over 100,000 at events such as the Silverstone and Nurburgring classic weekends.
He also made the point that historic racing provides relatively accessible motorsport in that certain cars can be bought and prepared more cheaply than cutting-edge models, and, crucially, owners do not need to constantly upgrade them at enormous cost to remain competitive. The fun factor may even be higher.
He did, though, issue a warning: "Historic racing can play a huge role in attracting people to the sport, but we are also facing a risk.
"In some ways we can become victims of our own success. At the top end, the value of the cars has increased dramatically, so many of the collectors are not racing the cars, but giving them to professionals who tend to win.
"The other issue is the idea of 'developing' historic cars, making them faster than they should be."
Following workshops on new entry-level motorsport parks in Australia and Barbados and identifying potential new venues, the afternoon session – 'Breaking down barriers: accessibility and the social responsibility challenge' – was hosted by FIA deputy president for sport Graham Stoker, and featured quadruple F1 champion Alain Prost, who spoke eloquently on making motorsport more accessible to fans.
Audi Sport race engineer Leena Gade, FIA head of safety Laurent Mekies, and World RX commercial boss Rob Armstrong completed the list of session speakers, with Armstrong echoing Solberg's comments about RX appealing to youthful audiences, saying: "As a promoter for World Rallycross, it's all about accessibility. That's for fans of all descriptions.
"We look for opportunities that are relevant to our fans. In Norway for instance we have schemes that give young people the opportunity to actually work for rallycross teams."
The final plenary session, held on Thursday after a morning dedicated to the latest edition of MotorEx, examined the future of motorsport, with branding, new media and gaming experts joining James Barclay (Jaguar Formula E) and Kees van der Grint, vice-president of the FIA karting commission, and Jim Liaw rounding off the conference.
Liaw is a member of the FIA's Drifting Working Group and, much as it may be anathema to mainstream fans, there is little doubt it's one of the most accessible forms of motorsport – just the ticket for prospective (youthful) competitors in emerging countries.
The final speaker, before Todt's closing address, was the eloquent and lucid WEC and Formula E winner Lucas di Grassi, who, as part of the 'future' debate, pleaded for the sport's regulator to retain the sporting challenge in all forms of motorsport despite the increasing proliferation of driver aids and autonomous systems in road cars.
Over to Stoker, on whose shoulders the overall responsibility for motorsport's global growth rests, for the final word after three extremely informative days:
"The positive after-effect of the conference is in helping to build strong clubs. We have to have a sport where anyone who has talent can have the chance to get into this sport; where it's not about family history or connections, a sport where it's all about talent. We have that [now], but we can do more."
The FIA Sport Conference 2017, likely to be held in Geneva, is sure to continue that trajectory.
