Today’s speaker was Graham Reed, a Formula 1 correspondent, currently with yorkshiretimes.co.uk., who gave us a presentation entitled “Formula 1 10 British World Champions”.
He prefaced his talk with comments made some time ago by Aayrton Senna, a very well-known and successful Brazilian Formula 1 racing driver and world champion, who said that, although being very religious and well informed politically and culturally, he was well aware that his choice of occupation was almost certainly sure to lead to an early demise. How accurate he was!
Graham had previously given this presentation on several cruise lines, and commented on how pleasant it was to stand on a floor that was actually standing still!
After deciding at an early age that a life as a photographer or cameraman following F1 was far too dangerous, he became a sportswriter, and has visited all of the F1 sites over many years, reporting on championship races.
He told us stories of all the British World Champions, from Mike Hawthorn, who had a significant kidney disease which he kept from the authorities for fear of being banned from the racing that he loved, all the way up to Lewis Hamilton, who, despite earlier being a great friend of Nico Rosberg, found that working in the same team with him, and the competition that this brought within the team, brought out a great deal of enmity between them, to the extent that they could now almost be described as enemies!
Jenson Button tells the story, true or not, that whilst on safari with Lewis, he woke to discover Lewis being chased, and slowly being caught by a maurauding lion. To Jenson’s warning, Lewis replied, “Don’t worry, he’s 3 laps behind me!”
One especially disturbing story centred around Graham Hill, who, in bad weather, crashed his light aircraft at Elstree, in the process killing himself and 5 passengers, whose families then sued his estate for negligence. Unfortunately, it was then discovered that he was uninsured, so the eventual personal impact on his family’s finances were so great that they severely affected the fortunes of his son, Damon, during his time seeking success in the same occupation as his father!
To save him from severe burns following a serious crash, Jackie Stewart was stripped of his burning overalls, and left naked on the roadside, only to be espied by a group of nuns coming over the hill! They were not amused!!! This led to Jackie taking a long and hard look at safety precaution within the sport.
James Hunt was something of a heartthrob within the profession; he boasted a logo on his overalls which said “Sex, breakfast of champions”.
Our speaker, Graham counselled us all to watch out for George Russell, a young and up-coming British driver, who he predicts will soon become a world champion of the future.