I never liked F1. As for me it was just (very cool looking) fast cars doing laps.
Untill I got to enjoy it with a real enthousiast. During races he explains stuff like drs, strategies on tire changes and a lot of other intricacies that determine the outcome of the races. In the end it is a competition between constructors that culminates on the track. It really changed my perspective on the sport. I now regularly join my buddy in watching qualifications and races. I had no idea.
I think Nando is primarily talking about the crowd that drive to survive pulled in over the past few years. Most of them don't seem to dig as deep into what makes F1 tik as the older fans. I think a lot of them don't really try to understand the technical side of F1, and that's ok, but there is definitely a shift in how drivers and their accomplishments are perceived.
Yeah you can't really follow and understand F1 properly if you just do it in a vaccuum, there's on-track strats, off-track politics, factory personnel changes, learning the history, F1 feeder ladder, even how a team's F1 program fits into a company's strategy, etc etc.