Ariane Frank-Meulenbelt, centre, pictured in 2023 as it was announced that the Hungaroring would host the Formula One Grand Prix until 2032. (Formula 1 via Getty Images) · Dan Istitene – Formula 1 via Getty Images
When race promoter Ariane Frank-Meulenbelt took over the running of the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2012, Formula One was very much still a man’s world. Now, she sees the demographic of both the fans and those who work in motorsport changing.
“It’s getting younger. It’s getting way more female. I watch the opening of the gates at every grand prix and the thing that really struck me last year was that the first people at the gate were young women,” she says. “The noses pressed up to the gate were all women.”
Having held its inaugural race in 1986, the Hungarian GP was the first and only grand prix to ever be held behind the Iron Curtain. Celebrating its 40th year in 2025, it remains one of the longest running and most popular on the F1 calendar
The Formula One Group (FWONK) has an estimated market cap of £24bn, and posted revenue of $3.41bn (£2.54bn) for 2024, up 5.9% annually.
Frank-Meulenbelt’s own entry into the F1 scene started at the age of 14, when the family business – set up by her father, uncle and mother – took over the promotion rights for the Hungarian GP in 1994. “My father’s English was notoriously bad, so he started dragging me with him around the world to help him translate in meetings and in contracts. So I started very young in this business.”
Now splitting her time between Budapest and Vienna, Frank-Meulenbelt – officially the vice-president for international relations at the Hungaroring motorsport circuit – spent a stint working for Red Bull in London before returning home to the Austrian capital in 2007 knowing that at some point she was likely to take over the family firm.
However, tragedy struck in 2012 with the sudden death of her father and she unexpectedly had to step up and take his place – just weeks before that year’s Hungarian GP and with her one-year-old son in tow.
“That was a shock to the system. We all heavily relied on him as a family and also as a business. I mean, he was very much the heart and soul of the F1 business, especially. It was seven weeks before the grand prix and there was no handover,” she recalls.
Ariane Frank-Meulenbelt, her uncle Peter Gerstl and mother Marianne Frank listen as former F1 champion Niki Lauda pays tribute to Tamas Frank at the 2012 Budapest GP. (Getty Images) · Vladimir Rys via Getty Images
Her father, Tamas Frank, was very much an ‘old-style’ businessman – “he was very much relationships, two mobile phones and not much documentation” – so there was very little to work with. But cancelling the event was never in question and she had strong support from then F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone.
“I remember Bernie calling me and saying, ‘If you don’t want to have the grand prix, let me know and we’ll find a solution.’ And that hadn’t crossed my mind. It was clear we were going to carry on. And, you know, luckily it was a big team and a lot of them have been involved for many, many years, and we made it work.”
Despite the tragic circumstances and ensuing challenges, the 2012 Hungarian GP did go ahead and was won by Lewis Hamilton. Not that she really remembers much; it was all an emotional blur. But the race went ahead and that’s what mattered.
Fast forward to 2025, and Frank-Meulenbelt has established herself as a race promoter in her own right. Last year alone, a record 300,000 spectators flocked to Budapest for the Hungarian Grand Prix, long deemed a classic on the F1 calendar. She also works closely with the Austrian GP, for which her company sells tickets.
Meanwhile, at home, the toddler of 2012 is now a strapping teenager with a younger brother also in double digits. But while she at least had a year at home with her oldest child, the second time round was very different as she had little, if any maternity leave. “He was in the office with me and I had a lot of help,” she explains.
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Indeed, Meulenbelt-Frank is the first to admit that juggling a successful career in motorsport with family life is a challenge – particularly with travelling frequently.
“I’ve got to be honest, it’s hard. I can’t say that I’m there for every school play or sports tournament. But I’ve got a very supportive husband and if I’m not there, he is.”
They do carve out time as a family wherever possible, though, and the Hungarian GP still sees all family hands on deck. Her older son even had a small role at the 2024 event – just as she had started out with her father. “That was a full circle moment for me,” she says.
Ariane Frank-Meulenbelt is the F1 race promoter of the Hungarian Grand Prix. · Cliff Kapatais
Her proudest professional moment, undoubtedly, is helping get Formula One back on the road through COVID, when many teams looked set to fail without sponsorship money. After the start of the 2020 season was cancelled, it came back to life behind closed doors – first in Austria, which held two races, and then Hungary, over three consecutive weekends in July.
When first asked whether she could imagine holding a closed-door event in seven weeks’ time, Meulenbelt-Frank thought “have you lost it?”. “But within about half an hour, we thought let’s try and get together with our friends in Austria. We knew that we were going to find a way to get the sport back on the road.”
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“Those seven weeks were like reinventing the wheel. Nobody knew how you put on an event with so few people, borders shut and at the height of COVID and testing. But we managed to pull off three successful events between us and that’s what got F1 on the road and then other sports like football followed.”
After over a decade managing the event herself, such achievements are very much her own. “I’ve never thought of myself as ‘oh, it’s weird because I’m a woman’. For me, it was always strange because I was a daughter. I always thought, I wonder if they’re still looking at me as a 14-year-old, or whether they’re taking me seriously.
Ariane Frank–Meulenbelt, right, and other dignitaries at the start of the 2024 Hungarian GP. (Formula 1 via Getty Images) · Bryn Lennon – Formula 1 via Getty Images
“And that’s taken quite a lot of time to say, actually, I’m now known for my own achievements – you know, keeping the business going in COVID and growing the business, making new contracts and seeing the ticket sales for the Hungarian Grand Prix skyrocket. These are achievements I have to credit to myself; there’s nobody else around to credit them to.”
Times have definitely changed since Frank-Meulenbelt joined the top table in motorsport. Whereas once women in the sport tended to be hospitality and ‘grid girls’, they are now far more present at every level – from the C-suite down to the fans.
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Much of this reflects wider societal changes, but it is also in large part down to Liberty Media’s 2017 takeover of F1, which has seen the sport modernise its business model, expand its global reach and grow its fanbase.
Under Liberty’s leadership, F1 has also zoomed onto the screens of millions thanks to Netflix series Drive To Survive and thanks to the recently-released F1: The Movie, part of which was filmed at the Hungaroring. “We’ll see whether it’s too much for the casual fan, but I think it’ll give it the next big push,” she observes. “The racing scenes are incredible.”
As for the young women at the Hungaroring gates who may, one day, want to enter the F1 business… “I think it’s a great thing. And If they think I’m paving the way for them, that’s great too.”
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