I recently attended the leaving drinks for an emigrating friend. We met through another friend and have few others in common, so I knew I would have to deploy my best small talk. Gulp.

I was pleasantly surprised, then, when I found the main topic of conversation wasn’t a subject I knew nothing about – politics, religion, finance – but Formula 1, a sport we were soon analysing as casually and knowledgeably as the pundits on neighbouring tables were discussing football.

I think we have the Americans to thank for the sport’s significantly broadened appeal and enhanced accessibility. Later, my friend introduced me to a group of women in their twenties, and I was pleased to discover they were also huge F1 fans.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, but could you imagine reading that sentence even just a decade ago?

I couldn’t imagine writing it were it not for the Stateside influence in the sport. Our friends from across the pond have made the sport I love, frankly, more palatable for ‘normies’.

Every aspect, from the design to the engineering to the driver interviews, seems so much more visceral than it ever was; somehow much clearer and within grasp. And it all started with a fairly innocuous rule change.

In January 2017, Liberty Media bought the Formula 1 Group for close to £3.5 billion. This seemed momentous: no more Bernie. Changes were initially small – but they had a snowball effect.

The first was the most significant, in my opinion: the relaxation of social media rules.

Contractual restrictions around posting video content in and around the paddock area were lifted and F1 teams and drivers began to gain huge digital followings.

Then Netflix got involved and that snowball became absolutely enormous.

I thought the first series of Drive to Survive was pretty good, and while I also feel that it has since become slightly naff and contrived, that doesn’t matter: the effect has taken.

The F1 stars of today are just that: stars. Lewis Hamilton is one of the most recognisable faces on Earth today, everyone either loves or hates Max Verstappen and it’s pretty rare for Charles Leclerc to notch up less than a million likes on an Instagram post. 

And none of it has come at a cost to the racing quality. Last season was the most engaging I’ve ever watched: Lando Norris’s breakthrough as a title contender (and subsequently bottling it), McLaren winning the constructors’ title, Verstappen taking the driver’s title in what was definitely not the quickest or easiest car to drive, Sergio Pérez performing very poorly in that same car and Hamilton announcing that he was switching to Ferrari! Bloody hell.

I can’t attribute any of that to the Americans in any tangible, measurable way. But it’s the pop culture vibe their involvement has fostered that I love. F1 is cool again. It’s no longer reserved exclusively for beardy men drinking pints of ale.

Normal people like it too now, and that makes it much easier to find someone who will argue with you about DRS and stewards’ decisions.