The 68th Formula One season begins this Sunday with the Melbourne Grand Prix.

Reigning champion and UK driver Lewis Hamilton will begin the campaign defending what was his fourth title after the 2017 season. On the track, there isn’t much that has changed since Hamilton celebrated his title in November of 2017. However, after the change in F1 ownership last year, the organisation has had a major rebrand on its social media platforms.

Prior to the change, F1 was considered one of the more conservative professional sporting organisations. Overall, the company’s social accounts – and those of their teams – were severely restricted in the interactive and exciting content they could post on social media platforms. Of course, in today’s sporting world, this needed an overhaul. The voice that leagues across the world use on social media influence what their fans think of them. That’s important because it can push fans to buy tickets, watch on television or indeed stay away from the league entirely.

However, it appears that the F1 has finally ditched the traditional style for a more fun and exciting account leading up to the 2018 season. The league has posted content ranging from a 15-second video of Fernando Alonso doing some donuts to a hype video for the first Grand Prix of the season.

"I did some donuts practice… for next year" ????@alo_oficial is planning on doing a few more in 2018! ????#F1 #Unleash2018 pic.twitter.com/Fy7LuOCjIK

— Formula 1 (@F1) March 19, 2018

Live from next weekend…#EngineeredInsanity #F1isBack pic.twitter.com/wu4M5T9fz8

— Formula 1 (@F1) March 16, 2018

These tweets are the kind of content that expect to see from a massive Twitter account today. A strong amount of content created by professional sport leagues is centred around the athletes in they have at their disposal. We see this idea very well represented by the PGA Tour, whose main hashtag is #TheseGuysAreGood. This should make complete sense to any fan of sport.

The account was quite reserved in showing any kind of footage of its drivers due to the fact that it did not want its followers to see the world’s best racers unless they were watching on the television or at the event. This ideology is quite similar to the Twitter accounts of the Premier League. If you have no desire to pay for the networks that broadcast the Premier League / F1, you will not be able to view stunning goals or see Lewis Hamilton at the Monaco Grand Prix.

F1’s rebrand on social media has certainly be one of the more intriguing storylines over the past few months. Starting from a low base, the account has seen a large amount of growth prior the season beginning, so with more content on its way, we can expect a very strong campaign for the F1 account throughout this year.

F1 has put itself in a prime position to increase its overall popularity with an ever-growing amount of total followers. You can credit this growth in the recent surge of exciting and fresh content created by the F1 social team.