Chris's Interests - Formula One

Formula One, or F1, or Grand Prix, has long been my favourite sport. I have watched it ever since I can remember, although to my shame, I have still never made it to an actual race! I would also be lying if I said I could remember much about Grand Prix races I saw as a kid, but I do remember watching the races as often as I could, and keeping track of the World Championship by writing the results in my notebook or even saving them onto tape on my Commodore 64!. Still, that hasn't stopped me from loving the sport since a very early age, and F1 has always had some sort of influence on my life, from getting me into driving games as a kid, to hogging my Sunday afternoons as an adult! But as a child of the 1970's, one of my most enduring memories of Formula One is not the races the drivers, the cars,  the teams or even the circuits - but the voice behind it all, Murray Walker!

Gilles Villeneuve, 1981

As a kid, I had a small (1/43) model of Gilles Villeneuve's Ferrari, and  1/18 scale models of Ayrton Senna's 'Camel' sponsored Lotus and Michele Alboreto's Ferrari, as well as a Tyrrell of some description as well. In later years, I bought a few model F1 cars, including Schumacher's Ferrari and Hakkinen's McLaren. Some of my most enduring memories are not of individual races, but of drivers and their various cars... the Prost/Senna partnership at McLaren, Hakkinen and Coulthard's partnership, also at McLaren, and more recently, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso's partnership (if you can call it that!) at McLaren and now also Hamilton and Button at, erm, McLaren. Come to think of it, I reckon that probably makes me a McLaren fan!

Ayrton Senna, 1985

Of course, it is difficult to say that any particular driver is or was my favourite. Unlike football or some other sports, F1 allows you to support many different people to some extent or other at the same time, and for a variety of reasons... drivers shift teams, teams come and go out of form etc., and there are always the legends of the past who's legacy will never be forgotten. Indeed, the sport itself has changed, not to mention the technological advances that make the cars so very different to those of the past, even if they do still bear an external resemblance... but with that in mind, it is hard to think of a driver who had more of an impact on the sport than Ayrton Senna, who is regularly cited as the greatest driver of all time - even by Michael Schumacher. Of all the races that live long in the memory, Imola 1994 is undoubtedly the most infamous, claiming the lives of both Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna. Senna carried an Austrian flag on board his car as a mark of respect for Ratzenberger, only to be killed himself during the race. Senna was the last F1 driver to be killed, however, showing how much safer the sport has become, no doubt partly as a result of this tragic weekend in 1994.

Lewis Hamilton, World Champion of 2008

Of recent times, there is one stand-out moment for me, which was Lewis Hamilton's title win in 2008. The last race of the season was held in Brazil, and Hamilton, who has missed out the world title by a single point in 2007, needed to finish atleast 5th if Felipe Massa won the race. Massa did indeed win, and Hamilton had fallen behind to 6th with just a couple of laps left. Amazingly, it started to rain and the driver infront of Hamilton, Timo Glock, was slowing down dramatically as he didn't have the right tyres on. Hamilton stayed calm and passed Glock on the final turn of the final lap to move up into the 5th position he needed to deny Massa the title, and become World Champion for the first time. I felt very sorry for Massa, as he could have (and possibly should have) claimed the title for himself, and infront of his home fans too, which would have been an amazing spectacle. Indeed, Massa's family thought he had won the title, and celebrated wildly before a sombre looking Ferrari mechanic told them that infact Hamilton would be champion, by virtue of the last second pass on the final turn. Still, Hamilton deserved it too - not least because he came so close in 2007, but also because he had come back stronger in 2008 and had performed well all year.

Nowadays, I enjoy watching the races as often as I can, and hope sometime in the near future to make it to a race or two, either Silverstone here in the UK, Spa in Belgium, Suzuka in Japan, or perhaps even Melbourne, Australia... I'm delighted to say that Sam enjoys watching F1 already, too!