The Washington Post: Formula 1 is booming after Drive to Survive. So are romance novels about the sport.

In 2019, Lauren Asher began watching the first season of the Netflix docuseries Drive to Survive.

The show — which chronicles the globe-trotting, glamorous world of Formula 1 racing, filled with luxury-brand sponsors, teammate drama and European car manufacturers — captivated her in a way she was not expecting.

By the time she reached the final episode, she jotted down a late-night note on her iPhone with a quick idea for a novel: “A romance between a driver’s sister and his rival teammate would be fun,” she wrote.

“I could see it so clearly,” Asher said. “That idea was what really sparked my interest in writing about F1.”

About a year later, Asher self-published her first novel, Throttled. “I just wanted to try and have fun with it, a passion project,” Asher said. “And if people didn’t like it, I wouldn’t do it again.”

As it turned out, people did, especially on TikTok, where praise can turn little-known books into bestsellers. This year, with Formula 1 booming in popularity in the United States, a traditional publisher picked up the paperback rights to widen its distribution.

Sports romance novels have gained considerable traction in recent years. But few sports, in general, are rising as rapidly as Formula 1, which just wrapped up an exciting 2024 season that featured three races in the United States, in Austin, Miami and Las Vegas.

The sport’s ascent is partly thanks to a huge influx of female fans. According to a study conducted by Formula 1 in 2022, approximately 40 percent of its fans are now women, up from 8 percent in 2017.

This is probably due, in part, to the sport’s recent mainstream crossover: Big-time actors and musicians are flocking to races, and drivers such as Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc have become fashion and cultural icons in their own right. They also just so happen to be strapping, wealthy young men.

“Good-looking guys, that sure doesn’t hurt,” laughed Amanda Weaver, the author of Fast & Reckless, another recent Formula 1 romance novel. Weaver has been a casual fan of F1 for more than a decade (in fact, her husband co-hosts a podcast about it) and has noticed a seismic shift in female interest in the sport in recent years.

A number of dedicated Formula 1 websites, podcasts and communities have popped up and on social media catering specifically to women. There are insider podcasts and popular Instagram accounts, some celebrating Formula 1 fashion and others dedicated entirely to the WAGs of the drivers.

“As the sport gets this explosion, there can be a lot of gatekeeping,” Weaver said. “But it’s important to remember that you can love Formula 1 in lots of ways. Some people are into the tech, into the drivers, into the strategy.”

Romance novels, she added, are a logical extension of this. Weaver’s book - which she describes as an “ill-advised romance between a driver and a team principal’s daughter” - had been in the works for some time, “bouncing around my hard drive for a while,” she said, but it took the sport’s ascent to finally help it see the light of day.

F1 certainly provides plenty of fodder for romance novelists, with the sport dripping in wealth and danger, behind-the-scenes politicking, and exotic race locations such as Monaco and Abu Dhabi.

“Sexy global destinations week to week make it such a perfect setting,” said Simone Soltani, the author of Cross the Line, a Formula 1 romance novel that published in the summer. “You can have your characters go on dates in Singapore, then the next time they’re in Japan. It’s nice to be able to have that diversity.”

Soltani, a longtime fan of the sport, planned to independently publish her novel last year, but a traditional publisher approached her and picked up the rights to distribute the book.

“More women are into it now - these are fans who love the sport for the sport itself, too, but also have other interests, which might be reading and romance,” she said. “Knowing there was a new audience there was really encouraging for me as I wrote it.”

In fact, according to K-lytics, an intelligence service that provides analytics on the publishing industry, F1 has emerged this year as the sixth-most-written-about subgenre in sports romance literature.

“It had not yet appeared on this list,” said Jane Friedman, a publishing industry analyst. “So Formula 1 went from not-on-the-radar to sixth - it certainly appears to be a new, trending trope.”

Self-published novels and fan fiction about Formula 1 are also on the rise. The website Wattpad, which allows users to upload their fan fiction stories and books, now has more than 10,000 search results for “Formula 1 Romance” and could further hint at the subgenre’s room for growth.

“In my opinion, the traditional market tends to follow self-published when it comes to romance,” Friedman said, adding that all signs indicate that sports romance, in general, shows no signs of slowing down.

“That latest K-lytics report says that right now, supply is not outpacing demand,” she continued. “There’s a lot of hunger in the market for this.”

That’s music to the ears of authors like Weaver, who is hopeful that the Formula 1 romance boom is just getting started.

“I feel like we’re on the very front edge of this,” she said. “A lot of authors watched Formula 1 during the pandemic, and their books are just now coming to market. We’re just beginning to see a big flood.”