It’s your average Sunday morning, 7 a.m. to be exact. The birds are chirping, the sun is shining, and the roar of 1.6 litre turbocharged V6 engines booms through the house.

While the vast majority of my friends are still fast asleep, I am wide awake and watching intently as British commentators and retired drivers talk through the starting grid of yet another Formula One Grand Prix. 

Nothing excites me more than a race weekend. I schedule my weekend plans around each session of practice and qualifying so I can watch them live from home. I set my alarm on what is usually one of only two days a week when I can sleep in. Races usually take place in Europe and Asia, which means they air early in the morning here.

There is something so serene about investing all your focus into a race: Analyzing the time interval between battling drivers, predicting a team’s tyre strategy (yes, spelled tyre), and staring wide-eyed as a driver attempts a bold overtaking maneuver. All your own worries and responsibilities seem to go away for two hours. All that matters is a swath of twenty cars driving around a track, each piloted by a driver fighting for championships, a chance to return next season, or the opportunity to douse their fellow drivers in champagne. 

My love for this sport transcends race day. After the conclusion of every race, my social media feed is flooded with opinions, reviews and hot takes. Should Albon be released from the Red Bull seat? Should the FIA install measures to hinder Mercedes’ dominance? Should the Sochi Autodrom remain on the calendar? I ponder these questions as though I am a team principal myself. The constant debate that rages on social media between passionate fans makes the politics and business of the sport unlike any other. It just so happens that I was scrolling through Instagram when I found a podcast that would change my mindset entirely. 

The podcast was an interview with prevalent motorsport journalist Jess McFadyen. She discussed her life-long love of Formula One, and how her passion gave her the opportunity to pursue it as a career. She recounted how she lacked direction in her career post-university, and began a graduate job selling ads for a publishing company. Her workspace happened to be right beside another department, Autosport, a motorsport media outlet. 

McFadyen said, “Anytime an opportunity came my way and it felt like it was the right thing, I grabbed it with both hands and I ran with it.”

She transferred to the Autosport team after two years, and used the role as a jumping off point for the rest of her career, based around advocating for the importance of social media in motorsport.

I listened to the entirety of the 90 minute long podcast in one sitting, in awe of the stories she told, such as when World Champion Jenson Button walked past her at an event and she had “nearly fainted”. 

My stomach felt as though it had been tied into a knot. I longed for what she had, an internal desire I had never once felt so intensely. 

My mindset completely changed from that day forward. I saw this sport as not just a hobby, or an escape from my daily life. I began seeing it as a possibility to become my daily life. This spectacle that I could only witness at a great distance, in most cases from across continents, felt closer to me than ever before. 

My dream of being at the races and an integral part of a team drives me. I imagine myself at the track, watching the cars buzz around at blistering speeds, and seeing passionate fans in the grandstand. I listen to the singing of V6 engines not from my living room, but from the paddock itself.