As a kid growing up in the 1970s, I hated Sundays. We weren’t allowed to play outside in the street (back garden only), there was nothing worth watching on TV (a nothing that culminated in “Songs of Praise” right before bedtime), the weekend was coming to an end, and tomorrow was a school day. And so I hated F1 as well, as it was an integral part of this, my worst day of the week.
I moved to Portugal in the mid-1980s and eventually ended up living in Cascais, a town just a couple of miles from the Estoril circuit. In September 1993, I was invited to lunch at a friend’s house there. At one point, he turned the television down and told me to listen. A moment later there was a sudden mighty roar as 26 F1 cars roared into action. It was hard to believe the sound of the engines could carry that far (unless you’ve actually heard a V12, that is).
That kick-started my interest in the sport. By 1995, I was driving to the Estoril circuit to watch winter testing (frozen to death most of the time) and posting reports (which weren’t that accurate as it’s hard to operate a stopwatch with numb hands) on the rec.autos.sport.f1 USENET group. By 1998, I was recording and then rewatching Sunday morning warm-ups before race start (with Ben Edwards and John Watson for company). F1 had become “my thing”. In all these years, I’ve only missed one race: Brazil 2004 — the day we moved house. Heaven knows why we chose a Sunday, my favourite day of the week.
Despite all its shortcomings, I love F1, and I hope this blog, its own shortcomings notwithstanding, reflects that.