F1: Ricciardo producing F1 TV show with Hulu (Update)

At Silverstone on Friday Daniel Ricciardo compared his F1-based television series to high-profile HBO shows Ballers (based around American football and starring wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne Johnson) and Entourage (a glamorous show loosely based on actor Mark Wahlberg’s rise as a young film star).

“It’s a fictional F1 TV series,” Ricciardo said. “So, I would say, think Ballers or Entourage in the world of F1.

“I teamed up with Temple Hill, they know what they’re doing in that field. I’ve got my full trust in them.

“But I’m basically going to act as its executive producer, try to – where I can – steer the ship a little.”

“It is fiction, but I’ll try to give as much input that it stays on course and doesn’t go too far away with people like ‘OK this would never happen like that’,” Ricciardo continued of the new series.

“I’m going to try and give the best advice I can when I can.

“We’re at the point of now just finding a writer and I don’t want to put pressure on the time thing but hopefully by the end of the summer that’s established and then it should be casting.”

Ricciardo says his project is not designed to compete with Hamilton’s and is just another example of F1’s increasing mainstream popularity, widely attributed to the Netflix docuseries Drive to Survive.

“I will say, and I appreciate you didn’t ask me this and it’s cool because I think you see it for what it is, but if anyone’s like thinking of it as like competition or something, it’s not at all,” said Ricciardo.

“Obviously with what he’s doing, now my thing with Hulu and Netflix and all that and where the sport’s going, it’s actually cool that we’re using the growth or the pace of growth of Formula 1 to get into projects like this.

“I see it as like we’re all supporting each other to support the sport.”

Since Liberty Media bought F1 instead of IndyCar, it seems everyone wants to be involved with F1 these days.

Hulu is jumping into the booming F1 series, and Daniel Ricciardo is going Hollywood.

The Disney-backed streamer is teaming with driver Daniel Ricciardo to develop a half-hour scripted series that is set in the world of Formula 1 racing.

Details about the project are being kept under wraps. A search for a writer is under way.

The series, which is currently in the early development stages, hails from ABC Signature, Lionsgate Television and Temple Hill’s Marty Bowen, Wyck Godfrey, Phoebe Zimmer and Sydney Title.

Not to be outdone by Lewis Hamilton who is the executive producer for the Brad Pitt F1 movie, Ricciardo, who currently drives for McLaren, will be the Executive Producer for the streaming TV show.

It’s too bad the Hulman George did not sell IndyCar to Liberty Media.  Liberty Media did try, and if they had won the deal, would have made IndyCar skyrocket like it’s doing with F1.

Liberty ‘Media’ certainly knows ‘media’ and how to use it to attract the masses to a sport.