This weekend’s Formula One Grand Prix in the Royal Park of Monza will no doubt be an interesting one for followers of the sport.
With Mercedes racer Lewis Hamilton chasing down Sebastian Vettel and his Ferrari, this is the race upon which the 2017 world championship may well spin.
There will be much talk about Mercedes’ decision to introduce their final engine specification of the year, just as the FIA tighten the rules regarding oil burning in the combustion chamber, but that is a discussion for a different time. All that can be said is that the silver-and-turquoise team have played a canny hand, which may deliver the crown.
This Grand Prix will also mark the first time since the 2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that I have covered Formula One on site. There was no intention for this gap to go for such a long time – indeed, I fully expected to be in Sepang in 2015, but for various reasons, that fell through. It has taken thirty-three months, and I am looking forward to seeing what has changed.
When last in F1, Bernie Ecclestone was still running the show and while materially, very little has changed under the stewardship of Liberty Media – they are very limited in what can be done until various contracts come up for renegotiation – I will be keen to find out if the atmosphere has changed.
Following a rather trying situation with a publisher of very questionable repute come the end of 2014, if it had not been for the help of the wonderful Sam Collins and Andrew Cotton at Racecar Engineering Magazine, it is quite likely that I may have had no choice, but to throw in the towel two years ago.
In the meantime, there has been support from and work with the likes of Kate Walker, Kevin Turner at Autosport and a later foray into televised motorsport commentary with Dave Richardson and Chris Hartley on ITR’s DTM and Formula 3 package. In another turn, I will be making my Super GT commentary debut in October for the series’ penultimate round – alas not from Thailand; that would be too much to ask.
For this, I can only thank all of the above.
Paid work in motorsport can be pretty hard to find and it has pleased me no end that those that have worked with me in the past two-and-a-half years have been fair and I hope that the work supplied has been well received by readers.
This weekend, I will be working with Crash.net to bring coverage of the Italian Grand Prix; hopefully it will an interesting and exciting event – although not too exciting, as a plane home needs to be caught on Sunday night.
These events allow me to earn a reasonable extra amount of extra income – just enough to put money aside for a house deposit in London (!) and make reporting my tax return irritating, but very necessary. Still work needs to be done and I will be back in the office for the daily job at 8am Monday morning.
