Become a RaceFans Supporter and go ad-free

F1 Fanatic

Posted on

| Written by

I began F1 Fanatic in 2005 as a handful of hand-written HTML files.

Today the site runs to thousands of pages of articles, thousands more forum pages and tens of thousands of images. We have live discussions during races, quizzes, videos and much more.

But hosting, developing, writing and everything else associated with running F1 Fanatic isn’t free. And doing it well – or at least trying to – doesn’t come cheaply.

Adverts are a necessary evil of running a popular website. No-one likes to see them, but on F1 Fanatic they are by far the greatest source of income. No ads means no revenue, which means no F1 Fanatic.

But now, following a request from a number of readers, I’m launching a new way for you to put something into the website and get something back in return.

Become an F1 Fanatic Supporter

By becoming an F1 Fanatic Supporter you can contribute £1 per month towards the cost of running the site, and in return your F1 Fanatic account will become ad-free.

This will allow you to browse the site with no external ads, giving you more screen space and quicker-loading pages.

If you would like to contribute towards running and improving F1 Fanatic, and get to browse ad-free in return, simply fill in your F1 Fanatic user name below and click Subscribe.

You will be taken to an external page hosted by PayPal to complete the transaction (you do not require a PayPal account).

Sign up here now

We aim to process all new subscriptions within 24 hours of payment.

If you have any problems trying to become an F1 Fanatic Supporter, please send details using the contact form.

You can find out more about becoming an F1 Fanatic Supporter here:

If you have any other questions, please ask below and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

109 comments on “Become a RaceFans Supporter and go ad-free”

  1. I’d pay to get rid of the lame “…is an original article from F1 Fanatic. If this article has been published anywhere other than F1 Fanatic it is an infringement of copyright.” notice at the top and bottom of the RSS feed messages

    1. @biggles209 Given the number of people who’ve been stealing content from the site and trying to pass it off as their own using the RSS feed, the only alternative would be to limit the length of the content in the feed. Which people have also complained about before.

    2. What’s wrong with that? People watermark photos that they have taken. It’s just laying claim to something you have taken the time to do in order to generate viewers and revenue for your site. People who benefit from it after putting no effort in to creating it are idiots.

    3. If the people who take articles like nothing and steal them for their own site or whatever without even asking start kindly paying an author for the nicked content, those messages will become obsolete.

  2. I’d gladly pay, if paypal didn’t want my credit card details. Mostly because I don’t have a credit card and even If I had one, I wouldn’t use it in the Internet for safety reasons. I wonder why Paypal doesn’t want to use the money which already is on the paypal account. Same thing happens to me on many websites using paypal payments.

    1. @cyclops_pl Not sure why that is, I’ll look into it. I have tested paying using money already on a PayPal account, which worked, but that was an account that already had a card associated with it.

      1. @keithcollantine

        Yeah, I constantly get the message asking me to associate one with the paypal account. I opted for associating an online bank account instead (mine is secured in various ways and by definition prepared for Internet transactions) and I use bank transfers for sending money to paypal. It worked for instance with Steam, didn’t with several online games and Facebook which just like here require me to provide credit card details or cancel the transaction. I really feel uncomfortable with credit cards so if you’d find a way of contributing without using one, I would be really happy.

      2. @keithcollantine, @cyclops_pl, I just signed up for the subscription as well. Paypal did ask for a card, but it does not have to be credit card (I added my debit card number, but as Cyclops writes a bank account should work as well).
        I understood, that Paypal uses the balance in one’s paypal account, but because its a repeated transaction ask for another account/card it can charge to in case you do not have enough in the Paypal account sometime in the future as a backup solution.

        1. @bascb

          I tried that too, but my Visa Electron doesn’t seem to be working with any online payments.

          1. Oh, and I also tried simple donation to F1 Fanatic via paypal. Worked perfectly fine, deducted the amount straight from my paypal balance without asking for any credit or debit card details.

          2. yeah, guess the difference is in backup solution for repeated payments @cyclops_pl, shame about the debit card, my MasterCard worked faultlessly. Maybe you blocked your card for on line payments? I had that done by my bank in the past as well (and have since learned, that this is the default for many banks now when issuing new cars)

    2. This mode of thinking really is outdated. Millions of people make transactions online with credit cards every day. The only time you hear about problems is when stupid people make stupid mistakes. The solution? Be aware of what you are doing. I’ve personally been purchasing things online for the better part of 10 years and I have never had an issue. There was one occasion where my credit card was frozen by my bank due to a strange transaction they saw; they immediately gave me a courtesy call and sent me out a new card. I lost no money and it was a minor inconvenience.

      Keith is dealing with PayPal, and while I don’t agree with some of their business practices and past cock-ups of fundraising events, having them process a $1-per-month transaction for you is surely the safest way to shop online.

      1. Lack of knowledge there Oblong_Cheese, credit card fraud isn’t solely down to “stupid mistakes”, many companies still store credit card details in excel format and quite often get exploited when their systems are hacked. Happened to me a few years ago, only used the credit card with a single company and when their system got hacked, my account was taken for thousands (returned by the bank fortunately).

        As for using Paypal, yikes, no chance, their system is one of the weakest going! Direct Debit would be a better route for Keith to take.

        1. their system is one of the weakest going

          Based on…

          If you make a claim like that, you need to back it up.

          Personally I think paypal is about as safe as you will get.

          1. The ability to recover funds from the seller by way of reversal with no waiting period. Paypal is owned by eBay and is all about protecting the buyer, never the seller; the system has many flaws.

  3. Hi Keith,
    I will definitely sign up for this and was doing just so until I thought I’d ask this first: Is there a way to pay for a whole year in one go? It would clean up my paypal transactions list which is messy enough as it is! Thanks!

    1. @meander Not at present but it’s something I’ll consider for the future.

      1. @keithcollantine Will I be able to “swap plans” if this happens?

        1. @meander If you sign up for a monthly subscription you can cancel at any time and no further payments are taken. So you would be able to do that and then set up a new one if/when an annual option is in place.

          1. Thanks a lot.

    2. Tom Haxley (@)
      22nd May 2012, 19:19

      @keithcollantine

      +1 from me on the annual fee.

      For £12 it’s hardly a bank breaker and you are done for a year then. £1 every month is just a teeny bit annoying especially as i tend to empty my personal paypal regularly so there is no money in it.

      As a shopkeeper who uses paypal i will hazard a guess that users need a card (be it credit or debit) to sign up to this system as paypal will require a backup funding source to guarantee the £1 a month is available to pay you. This is another reason a “One off” payment of £12 might be popular.

      1. Thanks @welshtom – anyone else who prefers the annual fee approach let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

        1. I am in the “One off” club as well. I live in the US and have had problems with on line payments in the past. Even had to change my bank account because of fraud. I would gladly send money by wire, Western Union, if that’s possible.

        2. Hi Keith,

          Me too, I hate paypal with passion due to various incidents in the past, the less times I have to use them the better, so one off will suit me nicely.

          Also like to add my thanks to you for running this great site, I am on here almost everyday and have even won a price in the past (a 2011 Review DVD!), so giving back to help you keep the site running is a no brainer.

        3. i would jump on the annual package without hesitation

        4. PaulyT1973 (@slimboyfatpauly)
          22nd May 2012, 22:51

          I agree with the annual fee too Keith and would also gladly pay it for your hard work (and of course, no ads!)

        5. Annual fee please!

        6. +1 to the annual fee

        7. Annual Fee – Much better, especially if it’s £10, up front to you, for the year ;=) ;-)

          The improvements over the last three years plus access to old postings is INCEDIBLE, keep up the progress…

          1. +1 for me too. I have been following since ’07. I do not comment very often, but visit everyday, and have no problem at all paying for an annual fee to help with your costs.

        8. +1
          I would not like to pay a 2$ foreign transaction fee (to the bank) for a £1 subscription each month.

    3. @meander @sinnr @xusen @f1yankee @slimboyfatpauly @dirgegirl @lemon @mad-eric @buran @dane-1

      Thanks guys. I aim to have this set up next week, will let you know when it’s set up.

  4. I’ve signed up. I hope this system works for you Keith, I’m desperate to know how this goes!

  5. One more reason to enter the credit card generation (yes, I don’t have one).
    It is very fair from your part, and as mentioned, it can not be that easy to run a free
    website like this

    1. The ads don’t bother me in the slightest but I know what it takes to run web sites with original content. I frequently click on the ads to generate some £ for Keith. He does an excellent job and I am just waiting for the setup of annual subscription to pay for a clean and original F1 content he provides from days to days.

  6. The add free image does look good… maybe it’s just because my face is in it… haha! (joking abviously lol)

  7. Any decent browser can block ads, i never see ads here ;)

    1. If you block ads then you also block the site from generating revenue. As I explained here a few weeks ago, the level of revenue being generated by the site is not high enough, and I have had to cut back in some areas.

      From comparing the number of pages generated versus the number of ads served, it is clear a significant amount of revenue is lost because of people blocking ads. If one day the site has to close because of a lack of revenue, you can rest assured that it will be partly your fault.

      1. As someone who also uses an adblocker, I also don’t see any ads. BUT, you’ve given me so much through this site over the past couple years and a little over a buck a month is really not much to ask for, so I’ve signed up anyways. (I also wasn’t aware or forgot that it was preventing you from paying for site costs. Or making a living for that matter. So this is my recompense).

      2. As I’ve noticed a number of people recently saying they’re simply unaware that blocking ads on this site (or any site) is depriving the owner of revenue, perhaps there’s a way to give these people a nudge in the right direction.

        I’ve seen a couple of sites who put a placeholder image *behind* where the adverts normally load, saying “Hey, it looks like you’ve got an ad blocker on. Please don’t / here’s a link to donate / explain why ads are important.” So if the ads load, fine. But if they don’t, the user sees the “please don’t block me” message.

        Maybe that could work here? Certainly the large advert in the header would be an eye-catching place, and would stand out more than the wee “go ad-free” link at the side.

    2. You’re denying Keith the chance to earn a living by doing that.

    3. So be a nice guy and make your add blocking software make an exception for F1 Fanatic.

      1. PaulyT1973 (@slimboyfatpauly)
        22nd May 2012, 23:04

        +1

      2. Thats what i do. It’s not as if the ads are in your face or anything, they are very neatly done and I don’t even notice them anymore.

      3. Exactly. Did that as well as soon as i installed an ad blocker.

        And with the ads policy Keith has on F1Fanatic, its not as if the ads are horribly annoying.

        But now that I can subscribe for an ad free view, thats even better IMO!

  8. I don’t really see what the bother is. The ads don’t slow down my little laptop, it’s still lightning fast at loading your site, and they certainly don’t ruin my enjoyment of it. Ads are a necessity of running a popular site as you said and anyone who makes a massive fuss about them is being a bit silly in my opinion.

    1. Its not about being slow, it’s about being ugly with ads all over the place.
      I like it when it’s clean. And that is the case without ads.

      1. That’s being a bit OCD. It really doesn’t detract from the look of the site at all. They’re tucked away to the right side and almost everything you interact with and look at on this site is on the left or centre.

        1. There’s an ad next to the logo, half the width of the header. Maybe i like it better when the logo is on the right side (Not that i moved the logo there lol )
          There’s a huge ad underneath “Search F1 Fanatic” (300x250px)
          There is a (not that large in height but a very wide ad just above the comments)
          There is an ad underneath “Championship points”
          Maybe Keith can ask around in his town/neighborhood for a company willing to pay his bills to keep the site running (a bodyshop, a local computerstore, …) They pay the bill and get “free” commercial

          BTW: why is the ad-free image not showing “New on F1 Fanatic”, its between “Search F1 Fanatic” and “Active F1 Fanatics” ?

          1. Wow, you really take this ‘clean website’ thing seriously don’t you. I could understand if you had really slow internet and the ads caused it to crash everytime you tried to access the site, but causing a fuss because it doesn’t look ‘clean’ seems extremely pathetic to me, sorry.

      2. I like it when it’s clean. And that is the case without ads.

        Well then I hope you’ll be taking out an F1 Fanatic Supporter subscription.

        1. I would pay the £12 pound a year but;
          1. The ads don’t bother me in the slightest
          2. I don’t have a Paypal account
          3. I don’t have a credid card
          However if I did have the last two, I would donate purely to keep the site going, because it’s the most mature (in terms of quality of discussion) F1 site I’ve come across, so well done!

          1. For me it worked perfectly with my debit card (as backup, as I do have Paypal)

        2. No need, i already have that ad-free look ;)

          BTW: why is the ad-free image not showing “New on F1 Fanatic”, its between “Search F1 Fanatic” and “Active F1 Fanatics” ?

  9. I was one of the people who suggested/requested this, and I’ll be taking out a subscription in the next couple of weeks. Thanks for implementing it!

  10. For the amount of content and the quality, £1 for no ads is practically nothing! Take note sky, with your crappy shows..and ads..

  11. Keith, my boy! What if we aren’t bothered enough by the ads to subscribe to anything, yet still feel like chucking a few quid at you now and again in way of thanks/payment/support. How would we go about that?

    1. @hey I think you can use the big green “donate to F1Fanatic” down the right of the page

      1. @jleigh lol. Ironicly I didn’t see that because of the ads! Well now I know.

    2. @hey As @jleigh says you can make a donation – it’s under Contact > Contribute > Donate or here:

      Donate to F1 Fanatic

  12. The adds on this site have never bothered me, I’ve hardly recognized they’re there most of the time.

  13. Will definately do this once I’m out of my student overdraft! Even without improvements £1 per month would be worth it. Keep up the great work @keithcollantine

  14. I’ll be honest, I use AdBlock, mainly because my internet is very, very poor and most of the time the page freezes trying to load the ads, but hey, £1 a month? Of course I’ll subscribe :)

    (However I still see the ads. Does it take some time for the subscripition to be validated @keithcollantine?)

    1. @guilherme To begin with I’m trying to process all subscriptions within 24 hours of payment being received.

  15. I must visit this website more than 60 times a month, Im surprised that despite all traffic cost you cant get more than one pound for user each month, the ads on this site are very good there arent no annoying pop-ups or heavy flash ads, i know that those ads could lower visiting numbers but sometimes they are worth it.

  16. I used to occasionally click on some random ads on your site but giving 1 pound a month for a site which I visit daily and would hate to see going off line is really a bargain. I would prefer to pay at once for longer period though.

  17. Signed up immediately. An absolute no-brainer.

    One note @keithcollantine – I’ve had my browser adblocker on since day one. It’s not that I’m militant about ads or trying to cheat anyone out of revenue… I just enjoy a cleaner, quieter web. When I’ve turned the plugin off from time to time, I’m amazed how awful everything looks and how much slower browsing becomes. So maybe consider going a little easier on the people blocking ads by default. There will always be a few jerks out there, but I think most of us want to do the right thing.

    In short, thank you for providing a method to pay you for your hard work and investment that doesn’t require putting up with a headache.

    1. Fair enough Dusty, point taken.

    2. Indeed, when you use it for a long time you are not even aware that there was supposed to be ads in most of the pages. Last week I had to format my computer, and when I installed Firefox and adblock again, the first thing I see is a link to install the easylist – basically a huge list of ads that will be blocked automatically (even those annoying ads on youtube that will only let you skip to the video after 5 seconds). I really doubt most people would be handpicking which ads they want blocked. Anyway, I hope I can pay back with the subscription for all the months I had your ads blocked @keithcollantine :P I’ve been wanting to contribute somehow for some time, but I could never afford a substantial donation.

      1. > I really doubt most people would be handpicking which ads they want blocked

        True but actually i dont even bother to use the global adHunter rules. I do more then just block ads (which i handpick and write every rule), i also change the look of the page if i dont like it (not the case here). U can change every element on a page if u want. Move logo to other side/place, make text bigger, change font of a specific text, etc

  18. I’m in, just signed up, the ads do occasionally bother me

  19. @keithcollantine, how long does it take before the ads go away?

    1. @zippyone Should be within 24 hours of payment. I’ve just added a line to the article saying that.

      1. ok cool thanks, this is great, I’m on here everyday almost

  20. Just done processing the first batch, thanks everyone who’s signed up so far!

    1. @keithcollantine earlier I said I would subscribe as soon as possible, but I’ve been thinking. The ads don’t really bother me, I have a quick enough internet that they don’t really slow it down. I visit the site a few times a day, so would you receive more from me personally by me not subscribing and therefore having the ads. I really have no idea how these things work in terms of how much you get from ads, but if you think you would gain more by me not subscribing then I would rather do that and make the odd one-off donation when possible.

      1. @jleigh Even if you use the site as heavily as I do, I would earn more from you subscribing than just from the ad impressions generated by you visiting the site!

        1. @keithcollantine Ok thanks, I will do that when possible then.

        2. You know @Keithcollantine, I just subscribed, as I think 1 GBP a month is a supberb bargain for all your content.

          Did you think about maybe giving people to option to tell the system how much they would like to spend on the subscribtion (i.e. leave it open for us to pay 2 GBP or 4 or whatever amount)?

          By the way, I like the monthly payment over a yearly one, as its just so little, in the way a single app/tune does not cost much and does not scare anyone away (I try and keep up a yearly donation as well though).

        3. @keithcollantine Really? You’re not getting a lot per ad served if a daily visitor doesn’t work out to £1/month. I’m not saying that’s not the case, just that it surprises me.

          Like most of the posters here at least, I visit at least once daily. That’s 30 days times let’s say 4 pages (front page, daily roundup, back to front page and one other article, which, going by my own habits is on the low side) times 3 ads per page makes 360 ads served per month. That’s .2777777pence per ad.

          Again, I’m not saying you’re getting paid more than that. Just that £1/month seems a bit on the low side, considering I didn’t count posting comments (another reload) or visiting the forums, or reviewing articles that I have commented on etc. etc.

          1. The reality is that he probably gets less than that per person per advert. Tbh I don’t know where the concept that online advertising pays big bucks comes from – the reality is pretty grim. If you look at it from the perspective of the advertiser, they would be better off putting their money into mass-media campaigns rather than bespoke websites (in terms of views per £1). Then if you factor in that there’s a middle-man coordinating all the advertising who will want a cut, then it really doesn’t add up to much…

            No idea what size Keith’s readership is, but you’d have to have a very very large group to start making money (but then it gets interesting, because the more people you have, the more you can charge!)

          2. I don’t know which model F1 Fanatic has but for some ads you get money only if the visitor actually clicks on it.

  21. I’ve signed up. Not to get rid of the ads. To be honest I don’t mind them at all. F1 Fanatic is my favourite website, so hopefully my €15 ish per year will help some.

  22. jsw11984 (@jarred-walmsley)
    22nd May 2012, 21:48

    Just subscribed as well, for NZ$2.14 per month, it’s pretty awesome value and it will help you keep the site running so more than happy to help

  23. Good stuff. Can’t say the ads bother me in particular on your site, but it’s certainly a great incentive to contribute.

    I’m not that crazy about PayPal’s functionality, but to those who have qualms about providing card information and so on: if you have a PayPal account, you can link a bank account to it, and then it basically works like a direct payment from your bank account. I haven’t run into any problems with this feature.

  24. Now that F1Fanatic has a sweet User Profile system, have you thought about maybe adding a “I’m a F1Fanatic” badge on to donators profiles, might appeal to the “epeen” nature of the visitors? @keithcollantine

    1. Now that’s thinking.

    2. I was thinking of what other small perks could be afforded to supporters as well – not that it’s in my hands or anything. I would never want to see certain articles only available to people who have paid, but perhaps they could get early access to new features while they are still in development? I know there are already beta testers here, but in case more were needed, it would be a good pool to use.

  25. I’d like an annual paypal subscription as well please Keith. I don’t want to cause you any more admin work than you already do just to satisfy a few of us but if it’s do-able then I’m in. For the moment I’ll put up with the ads and make a donation. Any chance of an iPhone app?

    1. @thecollaroyboys Will try to make an annual option available, but not until next week at the earliest.

      As for an iPhone app, that would mean incurring a development cost to create something not all users of the site would be able to use. It would have to recoup that cost and then some. It wouldn’t have any extra functionality because I wouldn’t want to exclude non-iPhone users (such as myself!). So I’m not convinced it’s a worthwhile proposition at the moment. The entire site should work on most major smartphones, and as inexpensive, fast wireless internet connectivity becomes more widespread I think the major advantage of an app will be diminished.

      1. Let us know when the annual is available – I’m in. And a twleve quid a year is really very inexpensive, quite a bargain really. Fair call on the iphone thing – keep focused on the content which is excellent as always.

  26. Sign me up! I don’t see many adverts as it is, not because I have an ad-blocker or that on, but because I primarily read articles through an RSS reader, and really only click through to the site to read comments. Maybe making an investment in the site will encourage me to be a more active member of this community. Thanks, @keithcollantine!

  27. I have signed up. F1F is the best F1 blog I’ve ever come across and AUD1.65 per month is peanuts if it helps Keith to maintain and grow the site. An annual subscription would be preferable but happy to continue on a monthly payment basis if yearly cannot be done.

  28. @keithcollantine Just signed up. Been using the site daily for a couple of years now, I think this is a great way to support F1Fanatic and allow it to continue to grow. As a few have said before though, if there was an option to pay for one year all at once I would prefer that. It’s not a huge deal, just personal preference really. If/When there’s a way to pay yearly I’ll most likely switch to that. Until then though I’ll be paying monthly. Thanks again for all the work that’s put into this site.

  29. Signed up – used to use Adblocker until Keith bought to my attention how detrimental it was to the site, happy now to have a way to remove ads and still contribute. Astonished how reasonably priced it is as well – that’s like three issues of F1 Racing Magazine, for a whole year’s worth of content.
    Another vote for annual subscription here, though.

  30. antonyob (@)
    23rd May 2012, 12:06

    tried this 3 x now and it keeps just asking for my bank details even though theyre already in…

  31. Great addition to the site. £12 a year for all this content? That is peanuts.
    Will it really cover the loss of add for a user who visits the site on average once a day for a whole year?

  32. Count me in. I’ll sign up over the weekend!

  33. I’d happily pay more! Signed up just now

  34. A great idea! I will sign up when your annual payment becomes available.
    Just a point in regards to your ad revenue situation, there are no ads on your mobile browser. I generally check F1F on my pc when I get home (I prefer to view the pics ands vids you provide on the big screen), the ads are there but they don’t bother me, but the majority of following and commenting I do is via phone/iPad which means Ad-less browsing. This is a large market I believe you are missing out on. If you can incorporate ads into your mobile site, I believe you may begin to reap some benefits of your advertising. The downfall would be a clunky mobile site, but it would encourage regular users to pay the measly fee you are asking for subscription to avoid. Keep up the good work :)

  35. I don’t see any ads at present either!

  36. Keith,
    Pay it on a monthly basis is a bit annoying, so please, tell us when will be available annual subscription fee.
    I’ll pay it without any problem, and maybe you should ask the subscriber if he wants ads-free or stay as today.
    I have no problem in having the ads you use, as they are not aggressive, and I do not want to devaluate your figures when you negotiate with advertisers.

  37. Ahhhh, no ads :)

    Best site update ever Keith!

  38. I’d also prefer an Annual fee.

  39. Good to see all those positive responses. Many of you think the same about this site as I do. The quality of this site is so good I visit it every day. I just have to read *all* the articles.

    I’m still waiting for the yearly subscription although I’m not bothered by the ads anyway.

    A question to the other visitors: Is this the first website you give your money to? (it is for me…)

Comments are closed.