And how or what was it that peaked your interest in finding out more about F1?
I became interested in F1 after I started seriously looking for a Ferrari. Call it 1999 or so. When I was growing up Monaco was on Wide World of Sports (I think), but it was just interesting for where the race was held.
Very early i got hooked on Monaco and others "There is nothing wrong with the car except that it is on fire." MW
I started selling cars at a BMW dealership in 1983. BMW won the world championship that year with their 1.5 liter, 4cylinder, +/- 1400 hp machine. I had been exposed to the races on Wide World of Sports prior to that but really got hooked about 20 years ago. Steve
I was about 12 years old. I used to buy Road & Track and read Rob Walker's reports. I think Honda actually won a race that year- in Holland or somewhere I think. The car was plain white without any logos as I recall.
I became intrested in Formula One in 1992 at the age of 15, when Jean Alesi and Ivan Capelli drove for the Scuderia... Very difficult period for Ferrari, they didn't finish that often but I always stayed a fan of the red cars only... Most of my friends supported Williams and McLaren back then... (Senna) My favourite F1 circuits always were and still are Spa-Francorchamps (of course! ), Monza and Monte-Carlo... I was already a fan of the Ferrari sportscars a long time before I liked F1. My passion for the production cars made me like F1 after a while... I know, it should have been the other way around; first racing, then production cars... That's the history... Greets, Alexander
I'm not sure but it must be around 1987, when i was about 10 years old. I remember well when Thierry Boutsen signed for Benneton and a few years later for Williams. And offcourse Francorchamps was (is) my favourite race
1981, aged 13, a schoolfriend that was a year older but same class. getting very interested, and lost my favourit driver a year later : Gilles........ (my god, already 23 years looking at those cars)
Started watching F1 spring of 2000. Friends got me hooked on it, plus I was a Ferrari enthusiast from a young age so naturally enjoyed watching the Ferrari F1 cars in action.
I've been interested in F1 since the age of 7 (1979), my dad used to take me to Brands Hatch a couple of times a year. In the last 8 years though I've become a serious fan and attend at least one Grand Prix a Year. Last year I did Monaco which is so far my best, I also proposed to my girlfriend there, and because of our wedding I can't afford to attend a G.P. this year. I would like to attend the Goodwood festival of speed though, that is a fraction of the cost and you get to see some awsome cars up close. Scotty
I wish I had got into Formula One earlier but I didn't really watch until the 02 season when Ferrari swept the field. I was 23 at the time. None of my friends or anyone I know follow it so I have had to learn all about the past through the internet and reruns on Speedvision. These days it has become my favorite sport and I have not missed a race. If possible I might make it up to the USGP if I can get there.
It started in 1992 when I was 13 or 14. It was just coincidence I looked at it the first time, because my dad used to watch GP´s from time to time. I was hooked immediatly on the stunning looks and sound of the Ferrari F92A driven by Alesi and Capelli. Too bad those years were so bad for our beloved Scuderia...
It was around '86. I was a big Prost fan, that is until Senna joined him at McLaren, then I was converted. If it was '86, then I was 19 years old. I was fascinated with the Senna-Prost inner team rivalry, as well as Piquet and Mansell. I got hooked, and haven't missed a race since....
Mid to late '70s generally as I was buying Road & Track at that time in high school. Kind of knew who was who but didn't really get to see it on telly much. Plus living in BF, Oregon (Monroe) it wasn't like there was a race close to us. Got serious about it - following drivers/teams/tracks etc - when I moved to Australia in '94. We get the European races live or nearly so late nights on Sunday so would stay up to watch pretty religiously during the season. Cheers Kevin
I was always kind of interested, but the limit of my involvement was chancing upon the occasional race on TV once in a while or video games. Then came 2002. I saw that there was a race on Speedvision at 8 in the evening. Decided to watch. Ferrari won. Watched two weeks later. Ferrari won. Discovered that it was a relaxing way to spend the last little bit of time before the weekend ended. Got hooked watching the Scuderia do their thing(I have always liked Ferrari). Now, of course I am completely hooked, which means I get up early on Sundays to watch the races, and am at least a little bit nervous pulling for Ferrari. So, the initial benifit of the relaxation is out the window. Oh-well.
Well, I guess it's time to make all you newbies really feel young and spry. I first began to seriously follow Formula One and Ferrari in 1961 when Phil Hill and Wolfgang Berghe von Trips were fighting for the world championship. I usually had to wait several days for race results to finally filter down to Alabama. It took the mail delivery of the New York Times that long to arrive at the university library where at the time I was a student. I had been a casual observer of Formula One since 1958. But the seriousness of my interest can be judged by the fact that until 1961 I was willing to wait a month or more for race results . . . until the latest issue of Road & Track showed up in my mailbox.
Same as Mitch, back when the only F1 we could get on TV was the Monaco GP on ABC's Wide World of Sports. Watched the '67 race on TV and still vividly remember Bandini's crash. Bob
In the spring of 1967, I was living in Puerto Rico, where movies always showed up much later than stateside. I already knew about "Grand Prix" from a Popular Mechanics article on the camera tricks used, so by the time I saw it in San Juan's Cinerama theater, I was pretty psyched. I was 14 at the time. That turned me on to F1 for good (though I liked it better up until the early '90s). Then just a few weeks later, I saw Bandini crash and burn at Monaco. Between Sarti's death in the movie and Bandini's in real life, I sensed the special passion about Ferrari that seemed to make their drivers try extra hard to win, often with disastrous results. I've been a fan of the marque ever since. I started buying "Auto Racing" magazine shortly afterward, which had pretty good GP race reports, though several months after the event. While "AR" eventually folded, I added "Road & Track" in August 1968, and I have every issue published since then! Ironically, their F1 coverage has suffered, simply because with the Internet and Speedchannel, their old standard of coverage simply isn't needed anymore.
I didn't even think about F1 until a friend invited me to join him at the first Indy race in 2000. Now I try to follow each race and am like a vacuum cleaner, sucking in all the tidbits on the web.
Hmmm not sure when I eventually started taking full interest, but my father was North Island Hill climb champion for many years in New Zealand and raced against the like of Steve Millen (US guys should know him) and others. As a very young kid I took far more interest in his trophies than he ever did ... infact I can remember cleaning them. He is also a life member of the car club he used to race under. I went to a meeting with him a couple of years ago and I found it embarrassing. The rest of the club treated my father like some sort of God, and people were lending him their car for him to have a go in in this grass gymcarna (sp?) that they were having a play with. A real eye opener for me. Anyway NZ did not get much live coverage of F1 for many, many years but I do remember my father making up charts for the whole season so he could record the points and track the WC ... and I was probably less than 10. We also with out fail went to EVERY NZ GP, and my father was involved with running the show for many years and many other events. This was a great bonus because we got to watch the races from a flag point ... far better. If you have not experienced that I strongly recommend it ... sitting in the stand will feel completely isolated after that. I also learnt how to flag from a very young age too. Now that I have stopped racing I really should get back into the flagging. Later on Dad and I used to get up in the middle of the night and watch the F1 together ... for some reason I became a Ferrari fan and Dad will always be a McLaren fan as he was racing, etc. at the same time as Bruce McLaren, Chris Amon and Denny Hulme ... In fact I remember my younger sisters birth year as the same year Bruce died ... Pete
1962-63 Tasman series, I was 3 1/2 years old at the time when my father took me to the Levin circuit and I've been hooked ever since, can't remember much about the races apart from the smell of burning castor oil. Back then you were able to go down to the garage in town where all the cars were being worked on after practice and marvel at all the wonderful machinery that was on display only a few feet away. With all the secrecy now in F1 sadly those days are long gone.
Early seventies for me. I was in high school. I didn't really start getting consumed by F-1 until Andretti was driving for Lotus. I still have a JPL hat signed by Mario.