Lewis won the British GP, but if you’ve watched the Netflix F1 series and loved it, this is what it looks like when they are filming. They were concentrating on Lando Norris on Sunday while he lunched with his sister, brother, manager and trainer in the McLaren motorhome. I can’t wait to see how much of that 20-minute shoot makes it to air.
On the grid yesterday, Daniel Craig was looking every bit like a casually dressed James Bond as he chatted with Christian Horner. There were other celebs at the track like Mumford and Sons.And the day prior, will.i.am and the other 2/3rds of the Black Eyed Peas wearing some “out there” gear and rapping as they walked.Back to the raceday grid and Charles Leclerc sat by his car waiting to head up to the front of the grid for the national anthem. One of the funniest things I’ve seen from drivers waiting for the national anthem was the Hulk’s “sack tap” on Carlos Sainz. He got Carlos completely unaware and gave him a good tap a couple of minutes prior to all of the drivers being in position. I wished I’d had a wider lens but it was un-announced. It certainly made Lando Norris laugh. There is a video on social media of Daniel Ricciardo doing it to the Spaniard while he was being interviewed on TV. That’s gold too!
I shot the race start from turn one but it was an uneventful start.I then hot footed it over to Luffield where I spent the entire race. There was plenty of close racing and it was good to see the cars challenging each other. With 10 laps to go I packed up my stuff to head back to the paddock but quickly realised there were no photo shuttle buses running. Faced with the prospect of missing out on parc ferme and the podium, I flagged down a hospitality shuttle and convinced the driver to race me back which he did just in time for me to catch the non-podium drivers exiting the FIA garage.
The happiest was Daniil Kvyat who scored a big hug from his Aussie physio Stuart Smith for finishing 9th.
Kimi looked like he’d spent the best part of the day fighting a fire,while I noted that George Russell has very defined facial features.Seb was disappointed after his shunt with Max. Pierre looked great in his 007 race suit.And he gave me a great thumbs up after his equal best performance; a 4th. I actually missed it when he did it the first time, but he was more than happy to go again for me as I was the only shooter there.I waited for ages for Lewis Hamilton to celebrate with his fans on track after his win. 15,000+ waited more than 90 minutes for the 5-time world champ to join them and I was right in the thick of the scrum when he did emerge.On the Friday avid F1 fan Danka made a cake in the shape of Seb’s helmet and waited the best part of the entire day to get to present it to him. It was a mighty impressive feat of baking.On Saturday after qualy I was thrilled to be in the right spot to get a shot of Charles laughing after his boss Mattia Binotto tickled him. Charles is always reserved, serious even when he’s in the paddock, and then I stumbled upon Lewis Hamilton’s dad having a chat with Sebastian.When McLaren rising star Lando Norris entered the track on Sunday he was beset upon by many fans wanting a selfie or autograph. I mentioned to the McLaren hospitality suite host Aloussen Zoellner that he was going nowhere out there and a few seconds later, he had rescued the young driver and escorted him to the motor home. Several of the drivers had their partners with them this race. Here’s Egle Ruskyte (Nico’s girlfriend) giving me a wink. Valtteri’s wife Emilia had time for a smile for me. This is the closest I found Charles to his girlfriend Giada the whole weekend.And Pierre Gasly’s girlfriend Cate, and Max Verstappen’s girlfriend Dilara posed for this fine portrait on race day.Nearly finished. Stay with me and let me tell you that this pic is not what it might first appear. Egle (aka Sunny) was wearing some colourful sneakers so I asked her to pose and walk for me, but the best looking shot involved me laying on the ground. Thankfully Mark Sutton was around to capture the moment as it shows the lengths we often go to to get a better shot. And finally, a pic I liked a lot, of a Mercedes mechanic in the garage getting ready to go out into pit lane. Germany next, in 10 days time.
In the meantime, if you’re in Perth or Monza come along to one of these shows. You’ll love it.