Pump up the volume: why music and motor racing go hand in hand

Las Vegas welcomed Formula 1 for a fifth time in November, promising a weekend of speed and entertainment befitting the spectacle of Sin City. The vast Sphere arena illuminated sector two during the race, having previously been awash with fans enjoying star-studded concerts included in the cost of admission – a perk for those not fully satisfied by the 220mph cars on the Strip.

Popular music artists have long been a staple of Formula 1, including at heritage circuits such as Silverstone, Spa and Monaco, where prestige alone has not always guaranteed sold-out grandstands. Despite contributing significantly to the race-day atmosphere, the crossroads of music and motor sport remain a largely uncharted area of study.

My work as a composer for television (while moonlighting as a doctoral researcher in musicology) provides the perfect opportunity to map the history of this under-reported subject. Exploring over a century’s worth of press clippings, race reports and archival materials has illuminated a vibrant history, at the same time satisfying my own fascination with motor racing past and present. While Las Vegas’s trackside extravagance may irk purists, motor sport’s earliest races were far closer to today’s entertainment-laden experiences than to unadulterated competitive events.

“National anthems were a tradition swiftly adopted by motor sport”

The first motor races of the mid-1890s, though hugely popular with French spectators, were chaotic affairs. Unlike modern circuit racing, events ran from one destination to another, covering hundreds, if not thousands, of miles. As early as the inaugural Paris-Rouen race of 1894, contemporary newspapers reported that the route came to life with village fêtes as spectators occupied themselves with food, drink and music during the long waits for drivers to pass by. Given that villagers would not know when the cars would arrive, there was significantly more time spent on merriment than race-watching.

Motor racing expanded rapidly in the following years and the party atmosphere remained irrepressible. At the 1899 Paris-Boulogne race, an enthusiastic crowd erroneously celebrated a spectating motorcyclist as the leader at a mid-race checkpoint. The rider had to wait until the end of a rendition of La Marseillaise (the French national anthem) to return the celebratory flowers and explain the misunderstanding. As was tradition in those days, the drivers were treated to a grand post-race banquet, while their cars were displayed for the public to see.

Throughout the 1890s and following decades, musical instruments doubled as race management tools. Cars carried trumpets to warn of their approach, whistles signalled race starts and buglers were stationed ahead of villages to announce the arrival of competitors – mainly to remove any wayward stragglers from the road, but also to alert stewards who assisted with navigation through settlements. In 1891, three years before the first large-scale motor race, a single steam-powered Peugeot Type 3 Quadricycle entered the Paris–Brest–Paris bicycle race; caught off guard by the bugler, a villager emerged into the street without trousers or underpants, to the amusement of the locals.

Beyond the roadside, music had a social and hierarchical function within the motor sport community. The 1896 International Exhibition of Motors, hosted in London, saw the first performance of the Monte Carlo Orchestra in Britain, lending ceremony and distinction to this newly emerging industry.

When the British government removed early restrictions on motor cars in November of that year (while upholding a blanket ban on road-racing), the London–Brighton Emancipation Run concluded with a celebratory banquet featuring music. Two years later, the Automobile Club of America proudly assured its members that the winter of 1898 would not pass without sufficient orchestral performances for its upper-class patrons. Motor sport was, from the outset, a mixture of sporting and social occasions.

By the early 1900s, racing was an international pastime steeped in patriotism and prestige. National anthems were already appearing at sporting events such as cycling races – a tradition swiftly adopted by motor sport. The 1901 Paris-Berlin race saw anthems played at checkpoints across the breadth of the continent, culminating in Germany’s capital where La Marseillaise announced Henri Fournier (a Frenchman), as the winner. At a checkpoint in Hanover, a German band provided a less than stellar performance of their neighbour’s anthem, but the delighted French spectators were too elated to take offence. By the time competitors reached Berlin, excellent renditions of the French national anthem, La Brabançonne and Heil dir im Siegerkranz (anthems for Belgium and Germany respectively), as well as Strauss’s The Blue Danube waltz soon remedied any earlier wrong notes. Races across Europe (including Vienna, Amsterdam, Madrid and Ireland) mirrored France and Germany’s pageantry, with military bands becoming a fixture of such occasions.

On the other side of the Atlantic, musical entertainment was an equally important part of motor racing events. The 1901 Detroit Races featured a parade including police vehicles and a steam-coach filled with musicians playing the popular tunes of the day, while the 1901 Eagle Rock Hill Climb awards ceremony enlisted a string ensemble. This use of music to create a festive occasion marks a stark contrast from the Chicago Times-Herald race of 1895, in which the cars performed so poorly that the judges refused to attend the finish, leaving only two reporters to greet the winner of the first United States motoring competition.

“Band leader Billy Cotton balanced careers in music and racing”

By 1906, the convenience of circuit racing had become apparent, and the 1906 French Grand Prix was staged on a 64-mile route around Le Mans which was traversed 12 times. The Automobile Club de France put great emphasis on the spectacle of the occasion, arranging for bands, performances, parades, flowers and food to keep audiences entertained during the hour-long wait for cars to loop back around. Another significant development was afoot in 1906; Hugh F Locke King was sketching plans for the Brooklands circuit in Surrey – a cornerstone of British racing, a social hub, and a magnet for noise complaints.

While motor racing in the UK was finding its feet, across the pond the first jewel of motor sport’s triple crown emerged in 1911, with the inaugural running of the Indianapolis 500. Eighty thousand spectators were treated to bands performing in the stands ahead of the race start – by 1919, the Purdue ‘All-American’ Marching Band had established itself as a core part of the race day traditions. The festival feel extended well beyond oval-racing; the 1914 Los Angeles-to-Phoenix Cactus Derby race featured music and a fairground to entertain patrons at the finish line, with the winner,      Barney Oldfield, being awarded a medal proclaiming him Master Driver of the World. In Europe, the continental atmosphere was becoming increasingly unsettled as the inevitability of large-scale conflict emerged. World War I would begin just 24 days after the 1914 French Grand Prix, an event at which the French band refused to play the German national anthem for the victorious Christian Lautenschlager of Mercedes.

After hostilities ceased in 1918, post-war nationalism fuelled pride in sporting success and technological advancements. By the 1920s, cars were faster, circuits had public-address systems (Brooklands installed its first by 1922) and gramophone records joined live bands as race-day entertainment. Nineteen twenty-three saw the first running of the Le Mans 24 Hours. The Automobile Club de France remained keenly aware of the need to keep spectators engaged over the full race and listed a jazz band prominently on the event poster. A scene of unparalleled spectacle, there were bright lights, a myriad of shows, booths, a firework display, an American cocktail bar, food, the aforementioned musical entertainment and classical concerts broadcast via radio for those not yet accustomed to jazz. Beyond official entertainment, accordion music rang out through the night as visitors amused themselves before sleep (or more likely, while inebriated). Brooklands’ offering of a 24-hour race, held as the Brooklands Double Twelve in 1929, was split into two 12-hour sessions held on sequential days to satisfy noise regulations. The continental flare for drama had evidently been imported: an RAF band performed, alongside the construction of a temporary amusement park with dodgems – a scene which would not be out of place at today’s motor racing events.

As motor sport boomed in the late 1920s and early 1930s, so did its social scene, with another racing jewel emerging in 1929 – the glamorous and star-studded Monaco Grand Prix. Monte Carlo’s casino attracted both drivers and performers, occasionally embodied in a single figure, as with bandleader Billy Cotton, who successfully balanced careers in both music and racing.

It was a golden period in the expansion of motor sport, offering a variety of challenges for drivers and teams. Recognising the propaganda value of motor racing, fascist regimes of the 1930s were quick to embrace racing’s grandeur. Mercedes was state-sponsored by the Nazi party, while Alfa Romeo was backed by Mussolini’s Italy. Such was Germany’s motor sport dominance in the 1930s that when the Italian driver Tazio Nuvolari took victory at the 1935 German Grand Prix, it was a moment of national shame for Germany. Unprepared for a foreign victory, the race organisers had no way of playing the Italian national anthem. With great foresight, Nuvolari had wisely packed a gramophone record in his suitcase, which was broadcast over the public-address system to a dissatisfied German audience.

A more serious incident occurred two years later at Donington Park in 1937. With increasing European tension following Hitler’s persecution of Germany’s Jewish and minority populations, the Mercedes victory was poorly received in England. In a highly unusual and disrespectful departure from the established post-race decorum, Deutschland über Alles, the German national anthem, was not played for the victorious driver. Given that the Nazi Party directly sponsored Germany’s motor racing efforts, this was close to causing a diplomatic incident, and tensions were only calmed when the anthem was played at the celebration dinner later that evening. While the following year’s race ran smoothly (despite being rescheduled on account of the Munich Crisis), the events of 1937 foreshadowed racing’s second interruption at the outbreak of World War II in 1939.

“The Chain has undoubtedly secured its place as a defining tune”

Although 1945 brought peace, it took a few more years for motor sport to regain its previous momentum; grand prix racing returned to the UK by 1948, and the Le Mans 24 Hours to France by 1949. Opera singer James Melton, joined by the Purdue ‘All American’ Marching Band, made (Back Home Again in) Indiana a part of the Indy 500 pre-race ritual as early as 1946 – a tradition which endures today. The Formula 1 World Championship commenced at Silverstone in 1950, an event attended by royalty and the Band of the Grenadier Guards, supported by 125 loudspeakers which had been installed across the circuit. Musical expectations for race weekends were solidified, with anthems and entertainment firmly embedded in the F1 experience.

The increasing popularity of film and television broadcasting heralded the next major development in music’s relationship with racing. Maurice Jarre’s 1966 score for Grand Prix and Michel Legrand’s 1971 music for Le Mans introduced orchestral-jazz stylings to motor sport cinema.

However, it was in 1978 that the BBC’s title music for Grand Prix (its first broadcast solely devoted to F1) created one of the most memorable musical associations with motor racing. The iconic bass riff from Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain cemented rock music as synonymous with F1 broadcasting in the UK. The song became the flagship theme, ending only when ITV secured the 1997 television rights, before returning in 2009 when the BBC reclaimed the broadcasting licence until 2015. Individual musical associations often develop from a viewer’s first exposure to F1 coverage; ITV used Moby’s Lift Me Up (among a variety of tracks), Sky Sports F1 ran Alistair Griffin’s Just Drive before switching to Daft Punk’s Outlands (an orchestral-hybrid cue from Tron Legacy), while Channel 4 features Justice’s Genesis. Musical tastes may change, but The Chain has undoubtedly secured its place as a defining tune in motor sport’s soundtrack.

The union of rock music and racing was cross-continental, where the genre remains an intrinsic part of NASCAR and IndyCar’s identities. In the 1970s, rock music was heard in the infield at Watkins Glen, and in the mid-1990s, Silverstone spectators received their own rock concert from Eddie Jordan on drums and Damon Hill on guitar. This was a stark contrast to Elio De Angelis’s piano playing during the 1982 South African Grand Prix drivers’ strike, where the Lotus man serenaded his racing compatriots with pieces by Mozart during the protest.

Many drivers are talented musicians, including current F1 competitors Lewis Hamilton (rapping under the artist name XNDA) and Charles Leclerc. In turn, pop stars have often been found socialising in motor sport paddocks. George Harrison spent a year travelling with the F1 circus, an experience which inspired the track Faster on his eponymous 1979 album. It was later revealed (by David Coulthard and Mika Häkkinen) that Harrison had also penned a song named Bernie Says, reflecting on the unquestionable power of F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone. Unsurprisingly, the composition was only ever shared privately and the track was left unrecorded and unreleased.

By the mid-1990s, Bizet’s Les Toréadors (from his opera Carmen) had become the podium music for F1 celebrations, bringing with it a grandeur befitting the drama of a grand prix. And Bernie Ecclestone had also commissioned sonic idents (mainly distorted guitar) for F1 branding.

To launch the McLaren MP4/12 in 1997, Ron Dennis hosted an extravagant affair at Alexandra Palace with the Spice Girls for maximum sponsor attention. Other teams followed suit, and the branding used by F1 continued to evolve across the early 2000s.

By 2010, the World Endurance Championship was synchronising the start of the Le Mans 24 Hours with Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra (popularised by Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey) to lend prestige and excitement to the first lap of the race – an approach ultimately extended to the rest of the calendar.

In 2008, F1’s Singapore Grand Prix took the entertainment a step further with a vast post-race music performance featuring world-renowned artists such as Bob Marley’s Wailers. Race organisers across the globe subsequently adopted the idea to help boost spectator numbers, with standout events at Silverstone, Austin and Las Vegas. While a festival feel at circuits had been noted over 100 years earlier at the 1906 French Grand Prix, reactions to the concerts were not wholly positive and it remains a contentious part of race weekends for some fans who believe it trivialises the sport. Controversy aside, the extra entertainment is no doubt a draw to patrons who want some additional excitement on race day.

The World Rally Championship was an early adopter of bespoke music for their brand, an approach which has spread across motor sport to grand prix, endurance and motorbike racing. In 2014, Formula E premiered its title music, which has since been updated on multiple occasions. F1’s orchestral theme was composed by Brian Tyler for the 2018 season and, after initially dividing fans, has become firmly engrained as the contemporary sound of the sport.

The music of racing also crosses media platforms, appearing in video games, docu-series (such as Netflix’s Formula 1: Drive to Survive) and making another jump to the big screen with Hans Zimmer’s score for the 2025 blockbuster film F1. Branding crossovers, such as F1’s mariachi rendition of Tyler’s theme for the Mexican Grand Prix, and the switch to Hans Zimmer’s score for the 2025 Belgian Grand Prix, sparked significant online discussion, which demonstrates that music remains as important to viewers at home as it does for those at the trackside.

And there’s more. From K-pop crossovers, to Brazilian victory anthems and even multiple Europop hits celebrating Max Verstappen. In fact this year’s music infused Vegas GP was just the next chapter in a tradition as old as the sport itself.

Will Farmer is a TV composer and editor and is currently researching a PhD on music and motor sport