It has always been part of my life as far as I can remember. I don't remember a time when it wasn't the staple Sunday afternoon TV watching in our house and I used to love watching it as a kid. I was lucky as, due to his work, my dad used to get "invited" to atend GPs by sponsors and teams from time to time. The atmosphere and the noise at the track was something I loved and still do to this day.
There are so many memories of F1 as a kid, watching Mansells tyre explode, the Senna/Prost battles, and just the cars seemed to fly rather than drive round the track. My one lasting memory was being awaywith my Dad in Italy and going to Imola for the GP, the silence that settled round the track after Senna crashed is something that will always live with me, the shock in the crowd. I didn't really see the crash, or know the full extent at the time, but the way, what felt like the whole world, reacted at the time was frightening as someone who hadn't really been exposed to the potential horrors of the world at that time, but also the solidarity felt throughout the crowd and teams was inspiring at the same time.
I lost interest a little in the Ferrari domminent seasons. After a few years it seemed hardly worth watching as we all knew the outcome before it happened. I wasn't so far too involved as a fan, just loved the cars and watching them, but to me it seemed pointless as we knew where the winner was coming from before the start of the race. Having had a few years of not watching I was (un)fortunate enough to be involved in a minor way with a team in 05/06 through where I worked at the time. This ignited my passion again, not just for the sport, but knowing how things worked, how the regs affected the cars and how teams fought the laws of physics on a daily basis for that few hundredths of a second on the track. Having got into that side of the sport I started watching again, but I have to admit the adverts on ITV really did put me off so I was more of a read about it fan than a watcher after a few races.
It wasn't until 2007 when I woke up one Sunday morning at a rediculous time and didn't know what to do with myself for a few hours till the rest of the house was up, so I sat in bed flicking through the TV and saw the Australian GP about to start so I gave it a shot. All of a sudden watching the GPs was magical again, there was no real dominant team that stood out on its own, you had a rookie driver going up against a double world champion at McLaren, Ferrari were in the chase and the whole season was wide open even from the best experts guesses. The only GP I have missed since then was Europe last year as I was in the USA and wasn't really that bothered about watching a traditional borefest to seek out somewhere showing it, and besides, I was too busy that weekend playing around with things at NASA and being the biggest kid I could be