My conversation with the CEO of Motorsport Network, Werner Brell, left me with a question that applies well beyond racing: what if the thing you make is only part of the business you have built?

Three ideas from it for your work:

I went into the conversation thinking about competition. Formula 1 has grown, motorsport has attracted more attention, and fans have more places than ever to get their news and follow the sport. If you run one of its best-known media businesses, how do you respond?

The obvious answer is to publish faster or make more videos. Werner treats Motorsport Network’s journalism as the foundation. It reaches around 40 million monthly unique visitors across the company’s sites and almost 20 million social followers, and he sees the larger opportunity in the position that audience has earned it: between fans, racing series, teams, manufacturers, sponsors, promoters, and rights holders. He wants to create value through those relationships as much as through the content.

I think of it like a railway station. You could define the business by the building the trains pass through, but its real importance is that it connects places and people who would otherwise struggle to meet.

He described two ways Motorsport Network is acting on that: helping new fans become regular followers of racing, and building Autosport Business Exchange (ABX) into a year-round business, with the events as one part of it.

I wanted to know what he found when he joined Motorsport Network roughly two years ago: which parts of the business he wanted to preserve, and where he saw room for change.

Many people, he said, saw a publisher with major brands built on expert journalism, including Autosport and Motorsport.com. What attracted him was the company’s place at an intersection of the sport. It had an audience and relationships with nearly every kind of organisation involved in racing.

For him, the question was what role it could play beyond reporting on what those organisations do.

A newsletter may be known for its writing, but its greatest asset might be the trust of a specific group of readers. You keep the thing people came for and ask what it has helped you build along the way.

Werner’s ambition for Motorsport Network begins with the fans. If its work can help someone go from casual interest to watching a live race, and then the next one, that growth benefits others across the sport too.

He wants the company to understand those connections and help create value for everyone involved.

That sounds grand in the abstract, so I pushed on what it looks like in practice.

The audience has changed, and Werner’s view of what Motorsport Network should make next starts there, ahead of the company’s own instincts.

Motorsport has long been marketed to a relatively narrow group: older, male, affluent and interested in the technical and performance sides of racing. Today’s audience is broader.

Referring to Motorsport Network’s latest Formula 1 global fan survey, he said newer fans are younger and digital, and that women make up nearly three-quarters of people who identify as F1 fans of less than a year, a full structural shift.

For Motorsport Network, that creates two jobs at once. It has to keep serving its established audience with the coverage and analysis they value, and engage digital-native fans on the platforms they already use. A follow or a view is the start. The aim is to help a newer fan become someone who watches a race, returns the next weekend and follows the season.

Motorsport Network can reach people through social platforms, but it also needs to offer something when they decide to follow a race. The classic 95-5% rule.

He mentioned features on its sites such as live data and chat, and he put particular emphasis on the days between races, from Sunday night until the next race weekend begins, when fans still want access, honesty and interaction.

That leaves a question for anyone building an audience or customer base: what is the next step for someone who enjoys one piece of what you make or provide? The first encounter is easy to celebrate; the second takes more thought to make worthwhile.

It also makes the quiet periods matter. If your work revolves around launch events, episodes, or big announcements, what do people get from you between then? That gap might be where a casual audience becomes committed.

Motorsport Network powers Yahoo Sport’s motorsport hub, which gives its work another route to readers.

Werner said NASCAR content gets much stronger engagement through Yahoo Sports than it does on Motorsport Network’s own sites, where Formula 1 and MotoGP are more prominent. He linked the difference to Yahoo’s US sports audience and described the partnership as additive to Motorsport Network’s existing audience.

The lesson I took is to pay attention when you work behaves differently outside its usual home.

A partner platform may show you can reach an audience you weren't reaching, or an interest you underestimated. Distribution can teach you which people respond to what, while also increasing how many people see it.

The Yahoo example shows the limit of that scale on its own, because different parts of a large audience still need different things.

Autosport Business Exchange is the other half of Werner’s strategy. I have been to an ABX event in London and Miami. The thinking behind building those gatherings, and how you turn them into a business that lasts longer than an afternoon, was the part Werner filled in.

He described ABX as a strategic fit with Motorsport Network’s existing relationships. It knows fans, but it also works with racing series, rights holders, teams and sponsors.

ABX brings senior sports leaders, investors, global brands and current or prospective sponsors together around the business of racing. For Werner, the value sits in the quality of the people in the room, the conversations they have and the opportunities that might come from them.

Werner did not give a detailed account of pricing tests or market research on what businesses would pay for on the B2B side. He was clear about the direction, though: he does not want ABX viewed as only an events business.

Sponsorships can run across the wider network, and stage conversations can reach fans through its channels. He also talked about longer-term partnerships, year-round sponsor programs, and research and insight products that could help companies make decisions about motorsport.

That connects back to his main message. ABX serves a business audience in the room, and its content can travel to Motorsport Network’s wider fan audience. The value could keep going through the relationships, the distribution and whatever insight products come out of it, long after the event ends.

It was still early. At the time of our conversation, ABX was in its second year, and its last weeks' New York gathering would be its sixth event. They are still defining the series' value.

Competition had to come up, because it would be strange to talk about motorsport media without asking who else is on the track. Werne said competition keeps you creative and alert, but you cannot drive by staring into the rear-view mirror.

He is betting on position in a crowded market: the fans Motorsport Network reaches, the industry relationships it holds, and the two working for each other.

That does not mean everyone should launch an event series or try to become the centre of an industry.

The useful but is a simple exercise.

Write down what your work has given you apart from sales: