F1's Grid Gigs at Monza: Fans Divided Over Live Concert
At Monza, the engines hadn’t even fired and Formula 1 had already split the fanbase.
As tifosi packed the grandstands and cameras hunted for last-minute grid drama, Sky Sports F1’s pre-race coverage suddenly cut away. Out went tyre talk, strategy hints and nervous body language on the pit wall. In came a full concert-style performance from Grammy Award winner Laura Pausini.
Two songs. Live band. Big stage. And, crucially, broadcast in full.
Music on the grid, but at what cost?
F1’s Grid Gigs concept returned at the Italian Grand Prix with its most ambitious staging yet. Pausini, the only Italian artist ever to win a Grammy, delivered a two-song set in Italian and Spanish, beamed not just to the fans in the grandstands but to every Sky Sports F1 viewer at home.
Sky’s coverage paused completely for the show. No split-screen. No cutaways to the garages. No paddock whispers. When the final note faded, the cameras switched back to the usual build-up and the pundits picked up where they had left off.
By then, social media was already on fire.
Some viewers embraced the spectacle. One fan demanded F1 “make grid gigs a permanent fixture”, calling Pausini’s turn “absolutely brilliant” and “thoroughly enjoyable”. Another, previously unconvinced by the format, admitted this performance “can persuade me”.
The idea is clear: F1 wants its pre-race show to feel like an event, not just a countdown clock. At Monza, it certainly achieved that.
Backlash from the purists
The price, though, was cutting straight through the traditional build-up, and that’s where the patience of many fans snapped.
“If ‘Grid Gigs’ are going to be a thing in the future, I might have to rethink when I start watching this coverage,” one viewer wrote, echoing a growing sentiment that the music belonged before or after the core pre-race window, not inside it.
Another wondered bluntly: “Was Sky F1 forced to show this?”
They weren’t alone. “Have FOM forced Sky F1 to show this Grid Gigs thing, I wonder? I’m pretty sure they’ve never bothered with it in the past,” another fan posted, questioning whether the broadcaster had any real choice.
The performance itself also divided opinion. Some labelled it “embarrassing” and “drivel”. Others called it “amazing” and “emotional”. The split wasn’t about Pausini’s pedigree – few dispute that – but about timing. On race day, every minute of build-up feels precious to hardcore viewers, and many felt those minutes had been traded for a show they didn’t ask for.
F1’s growing showbiz experiment
This wasn’t Pausini’s first brush with a global sporting stage this year. She had already sung at the World Cup final in New Jersey, sharing the spotlight with Robbie Williams and Nicole Scherzinger as they performed their ‘FIFA Anthem’, Desire, in front of a worldwide audience.
F1, meanwhile, has been steadily expanding its own entertainment footprint.
Grid Gigs debuted in Austin last year, with country singer Drake Milligan performing before the United States Grand Prix. The series rolled on to Las Vegas, where former One Direction star Louis Tomlinson took the mic. In May, Colombian singer-songwriter Manuel Turizo fronted the Miami edition.
Monza was billed by F1 as its “biggest ever” Grid Gigs show, with Pausini as the headline act and the home-nation hook. The official announcement promised the performance would be live-streamed across F1’s social media channels. It did not mention TV rights holders, or that broadcasters like Sky would carry every second of it inside their race-day coverage.
That omission now sits at the heart of the debate. F1 clearly wants to package the grid as a full entertainment platform. Many broadcasters are under pressure to reflect that vision. Yet a significant slice of the audience still tunes in for the tension of last-minute strategy tweaks, not a concert.
Monza showed how far the sport is willing to push its showbiz experiment. The next question is whether fans will keep following the music, or start turning the sound down just when F1 wants the volume at its loudest.
