A few months ago I had a deliriously happy moment. It was 11.30 on Sunday night. I was in a beanbag with headphones on, a glass of whisky and bar of Whittakers chocolate nearby. And on the TV in front of me the Canadian F1 Grand Prix was about to begin.
OK, it’s probably not the happy moment most 51 year old women would want. It wasn’t an “Eat, Pray, Love” type of thing. Although, over the space of the next three hours I did all three! Instead of a mid-life crisis of taking up marathon running, visiting yoga retreats, or having a wild affair with the lawn-mowing guy, I was retreating back to something that had made me happy many years before. A love of Formula One motor racing.
It began in my early teens. Possibly as a way to stave off that awful Sunday afternoon depression when you knew you had school tomorrow and it was too late in the day to hang out with friends.
OK, it’s probably not the happy moment most 51 year old women would want. It wasn’t an “Eat, Pray, Love” type of thing. Although, over the space of the next three hours I did all three! Instead of a mid-life crisis of taking up marathon running, visiting yoga retreats, or having a wild affair with the lawn-mowing guy, I was retreating back to something that had made me happy many years before. A love of Formula One motor racing.
It began in my early teens. Possibly as a way to stave off that awful Sunday afternoon depression when you knew you had school tomorrow and it was too late in the day to hang out with friends.
It was an innocent hobby. Not expensive. No special equipment was needed—apart from a TV. And some paper. I had a Croxley writing pad with separate
pages for the teams, drivers & races. I liked to keep track of the results. The
races weren’t live—they were from a week or two earlier. But in those
pre-internet days there was little chance of seeing spoilers and I didn't usually read the sports pages in the newspaper.
I
followed F1 for about two years like that. They were the hey days of drivers like
René Arnoux, Alain Prost, Aryton Senna, and my Italian hottie, Ricardo
Patrese. McLaren, Williams, Renault & Ferrari were the top teams. I liked
McLaren—still do—because of their Kiwi connection. It was during this phase
my mother told me she’d been in the maternity home with me at the same time as Kiwi driver Denny Hulme’s wife. I used to imagine a baby swap. That would explain a lot. Except their baby was a boy.
In recent years I've rediscovered my love of F1. I'd attempted a return once before but the Michael Schumacher years were too predictable. Even now, Lewis Hamilton's domination of the podium can throw an occasional pall on my enjoyment, but I've developed a far deeper interest in the sport. Just last week I found myself watching a YouTube video explaining the new nose cone features of the McLaren car. And for Mother's Day I persuaded my husband to buy me a book by a former F1 mechanic. The internet has made the sport so much more interesting for me with numerous videos to watch, articles to read, and social media accounts to follow. I even have the McLaren F1 app on my phone so I can keep track of radio conversations between Fernando Alonso and the pit wall.
And yes, I know all the terminology. And the geography: the paddock, the grid, the pit wall, the pit lane, the chicanes and even the famous corners at certain tracks. There's Parabolica at Monza, Tabac at Monte Carlo, and the quintessentially English-named corners, Maggots and Becketts, at Silverstone. I love the street-races in Monaco, Singapore and Baku and the forested European tracks at Spa in Belgium and Spielberg in Austria.
I don't just watch the race. I also watch the three practice sessions and qualifying. Including the actual race that's three days of action every fortnight—and sometimes weekly—from late March to late November. There's a four week break in August, for the northern hemisphere summer, when I go into withdrawal but YouTube videos help with that.
This dedication requires some late nights and early mornings. Not working has been a bonus! Races may not start until the wee hours. The UK's Sky Sports channel have a dedicated F1 team with several former drivers as presenters and their coverage is excellent. One of my favourite parts is Martin Brundle's 'Grid Walk' where he attempts to get brief interviews with drivers, team managers, and celebrities as the cars are being readied on the starting grid. His camera-person follows him doggedly through the crowds without getting run over by the morass of equipment and mechanics. And after the race is over, the podium ceremony completed, the anthems played and the champagne sprayed, I stick around to watch the wrap-up of the race as Ted Kravtiz wanders along the pit lane, poking into the garages and reviewing his notebook.
And on the mention of the champagne, that has its own ritual. The VIP dignitaries who present the trophies have to get out of the way quickly so they don't get soaked as the top three drivers spray each other and the assembled audience below them. In Abu Dhabi and Bahrain the champagne is replaced with sparkling rosewater due to religious restrictions. Apparently it's sickly sweet and very sticky. Probably not dissimilar to the energy drinks many of the teams have as sponsors.
While energy drink companies have become major team sponsors you'll still see alcohol sponsors alongside the watch companies, software companies, banks and airlines that have their logos plastered on every available space on a car, driver or track. But tobacco sponsorship is no more. As are the the grid girls. New ownership of F1 by the Liberty Media Group saw a number of changes and the grid girls had to go. They rightly recognised what a sexist anachronism they were. In an effort to make F1 more family-friendly, and encourage participation in all levels of motor-racing, the scantily clad girls have been replaced by 'grid-kids' of both genders.
Still, the participation of women in F1 is pretty low. The team principal of the Williams team is a woman, Claire Williams. Sky Sports has two female presenters in prominent roles. Lewis Hamilton's personal race assistant is a Kiwi woman, Angela Cullen. And you spot the occasional female among the teams' pit crews. But primarily the women you see involved are the PR people, shadowing the drivers when they're being interviewed. And then there are the WAGs—the wives and girlfriends, invariably young, beautiful and impeccably dressed, headphones marring their perfect coiffures in the back of the garages as their men risk life and limb.There's even a former Spice Girl at some races. Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice) is married to Christian Horner, the team principal at Red Bull Racing. But there are no female drivers and none appear to be in the immediate pipeline. There's one in GP3, a 'feeder' race league, but whether she makes it through further is doubtful as her performance is not race-winning.
My friends laugh and roll their eyes at me when I mention my F1 habit. But, as one more sympathetically said recently, "It's good to be passionate about something." And I'm proud to admit I'm a middle-aged F1 motor racing fan.
In recent years I've rediscovered my love of F1. I'd attempted a return once before but the Michael Schumacher years were too predictable. Even now, Lewis Hamilton's domination of the podium can throw an occasional pall on my enjoyment, but I've developed a far deeper interest in the sport. Just last week I found myself watching a YouTube video explaining the new nose cone features of the McLaren car. And for Mother's Day I persuaded my husband to buy me a book by a former F1 mechanic. The internet has made the sport so much more interesting for me with numerous videos to watch, articles to read, and social media accounts to follow. I even have the McLaren F1 app on my phone so I can keep track of radio conversations between Fernando Alonso and the pit wall.
And yes, I know all the terminology. And the geography: the paddock, the grid, the pit wall, the pit lane, the chicanes and even the famous corners at certain tracks. There's Parabolica at Monza, Tabac at Monte Carlo, and the quintessentially English-named corners, Maggots and Becketts, at Silverstone. I love the street-races in Monaco, Singapore and Baku and the forested European tracks at Spa in Belgium and Spielberg in Austria.
I don't just watch the race. I also watch the three practice sessions and qualifying. Including the actual race that's three days of action every fortnight—and sometimes weekly—from late March to late November. There's a four week break in August, for the northern hemisphere summer, when I go into withdrawal but YouTube videos help with that.
This dedication requires some late nights and early mornings. Not working has been a bonus! Races may not start until the wee hours. The UK's Sky Sports channel have a dedicated F1 team with several former drivers as presenters and their coverage is excellent. One of my favourite parts is Martin Brundle's 'Grid Walk' where he attempts to get brief interviews with drivers, team managers, and celebrities as the cars are being readied on the starting grid. His camera-person follows him doggedly through the crowds without getting run over by the morass of equipment and mechanics. And after the race is over, the podium ceremony completed, the anthems played and the champagne sprayed, I stick around to watch the wrap-up of the race as Ted Kravtiz wanders along the pit lane, poking into the garages and reviewing his notebook.
And on the mention of the champagne, that has its own ritual. The VIP dignitaries who present the trophies have to get out of the way quickly so they don't get soaked as the top three drivers spray each other and the assembled audience below them. In Abu Dhabi and Bahrain the champagne is replaced with sparkling rosewater due to religious restrictions. Apparently it's sickly sweet and very sticky. Probably not dissimilar to the energy drinks many of the teams have as sponsors.
While energy drink companies have become major team sponsors you'll still see alcohol sponsors alongside the watch companies, software companies, banks and airlines that have their logos plastered on every available space on a car, driver or track. But tobacco sponsorship is no more. As are the the grid girls. New ownership of F1 by the Liberty Media Group saw a number of changes and the grid girls had to go. They rightly recognised what a sexist anachronism they were. In an effort to make F1 more family-friendly, and encourage participation in all levels of motor-racing, the scantily clad girls have been replaced by 'grid-kids' of both genders.
Still, the participation of women in F1 is pretty low. The team principal of the Williams team is a woman, Claire Williams. Sky Sports has two female presenters in prominent roles. Lewis Hamilton's personal race assistant is a Kiwi woman, Angela Cullen. And you spot the occasional female among the teams' pit crews. But primarily the women you see involved are the PR people, shadowing the drivers when they're being interviewed. And then there are the WAGs—the wives and girlfriends, invariably young, beautiful and impeccably dressed, headphones marring their perfect coiffures in the back of the garages as their men risk life and limb.There's even a former Spice Girl at some races. Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice) is married to Christian Horner, the team principal at Red Bull Racing. But there are no female drivers and none appear to be in the immediate pipeline. There's one in GP3, a 'feeder' race league, but whether she makes it through further is doubtful as her performance is not race-winning.
My friends laugh and roll their eyes at me when I mention my F1 habit. But, as one more sympathetically said recently, "It's good to be passionate about something." And I'm proud to admit I'm a middle-aged F1 motor racing fan.
