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) \u00b7 Dan Istitene – Formula 1 via Getty Images <\/p>\n
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\u2019s world. Now, she sees the demographic of both the fans and those who work in motorsport changing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s getting younger. It\u2019s 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,\u201d she says. \u201cThe noses pressed up to the gate were all women.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
The Formula One Group (FWONK<\/a>) has an estimated market cap of \u00a324bn, and posted revenue of $3.41bn (\u00a32.54bn) for 2024, up 5.9% annually.<\/p>\n Frank-Meulenbelt\u2019s own entry into the F1 scene started at the age of 14, when the family business \u2013 set up by her father, uncle and mother \u2013 took over the promotion rights for the Hungarian GP in 1994. \u201cMy father\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Now splitting her time between Budapest and Vienna, Frank-Meulenbelt \u2013 officially the vice-president for international relations at the Hungaroring motorsport circuit \u2013 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.<\/p>\n However, tragedy struck in 2012 with the sudden death of her father and she unexpectedly had to step up and take his place \u2013 just weeks before that year\u2019s Hungarian GP and with her one-year-old son in tow.<\/p>\n \u201cThat 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,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n Her father, Tamas Frank, was very much an \u2018old-style\u2019 businessman \u2013 \u201che was very much relationships, two mobile phones and not much documentation\u201d \u2013 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.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember Bernie calling me and saying, \u2018If you don\u2019t want to have the grand prix, let me know and we\u2019ll find a solution.\u2019 And that hadn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019s what mattered.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/a>. \u201cHe was in the office with me and I had a lot of help,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n Read more: <\/strong>‘We were told being bald is bad \u2014 but our skincare gel hit 8,000 orders in one month’<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Indeed, Meulenbelt-Frank is the first to admit that juggling a successful career in motorsport with family life is a challenge<\/a> \u2013 particularly with travelling frequently.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve got to be honest, it\u2019s hard. I can\u2019t say that I\u2019m there for every school play or sports tournament. But I\u2019ve got a very supportive husband and if I\u2019m not there, he is.\u201d<\/p>\n 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 \u2013 just as she had started out with her father. \u201cThat was a full circle moment for me,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n 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 \u2013 first in Austria, which held two races, and then Hungary, over three consecutive weekends in July.<\/p>\n When first asked whether she could imagine holding a closed-door event in seven weeks\u2019 time, Meulenbelt-Frank thought \u201chave you lost it?\u201d. \u201cBut within about half an hour, we thought let\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Read more: <\/strong>A naval officer’s submarine saga inspired me to become a leader<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThose 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\u2019s what got F1 on the road and then other sports like football followed.\u201d<\/p>\n After over a decade managing the event herself, such achievements are very much her own. \u201cI\u2019ve never thought of myself as \u2018oh, it\u2019s weird because I\u2019m a woman\u2019. For me, it was always strange because I was a daughter. I always thought, I wonder if they\u2019re still looking at me as a 14-year-old, or whether they\u2019re taking me seriously.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s taken quite a lot of time to say, actually, I\u2019m now known for my own achievements \u2013 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\u2019s nobody else around to credit them to.\u201d<\/p>\n Times have definitely changed since Frank-Meulenbelt joined the top table in motorsport. Whereas once women in the sport tended to be hospitality and \u2018grid girls\u2019, they are now far more present at every level \u2013 from the C-suite down to the fans.<\/p>\n Read more: <\/strong>I ditched waking up before 5am every day to grow my luxury bedding brand<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Much of this reflects wider societal changes, but it is also in large part down to Liberty Media\u2019s 2017 takeover of F1, which has seen the sport modernise its business model, expand its global reach and grow its fanbase.<\/p>\n Under Liberty\u2019s 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<\/a>, part of which was filmed at the Hungaroring. \u201cWe\u2019ll see whether it\u2019s too much for the casual fan, but I think it\u2019ll give it the next big push,\u201d she observes. \u201cThe racing scenes are incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n As for the young women at the Hungaroring gates who may, one day, want to enter the F1 business\u2026 \u201cI think it\u2019s a great thing. And If they think I\u2019m paving the way for them, that\u2019s great too.\u201d<\/p>\n Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for <\/strong>Apple<\/strong><\/a> and <\/strong>Android<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ariane Frank-Meulenbelt, centre, pictured in 2023 as it was announced that the Hungaroring would host the Formula One…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[113635,4199,1076,707,4200,395,81867,113634,81868,79,16,15,68494],"class_list":{"0":"post-311093","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-ariane-frank-meulenbelt","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-f1-calendar","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-getty-images","14":"tag-hungarian-gp","15":"tag-hungarian-grand-prix","16":"tag-hungaroring","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-young-women"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114957445011455555","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} 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) \u00b7 Vladimir Rys via Getty Images <\/p>\n
Ariane Frank-Meulenbelt is the F1 race promoter of the Hungarian Grand Prix. \u00b7 Cliff Kapatais <\/p>\n
Ariane Frank\u2013Meulenbelt, right, and other dignitaries at the start of the 2024 Hungarian GP. (Formula 1 via Getty Images) \u00b7 Bryn Lennon – Formula 1 via Getty Images <\/p>\n