![Lunch with Rob Smedley - Left](https://media.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/july-2019/180px/53.jpg.webp)
![Lunch with Rob Smedley - Right](https://media.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/july-2019/180px/54.jpg.webp)
Lunch with Rob Smedley
To a kid growing up in 1970s Middlesbrough, Formula 1 might as well have been a parallel universe. “I come from a working-class background and motor racing wasn’t the most…
Craig Breedlove has given us a choice. Either a smart restaurant in a vinery, or Hozy’s, a cheap and cheerful eatery. “Hozy’s,” explains Breedlove, “is where all the local racers…
Alan Gow never planned to forge a life in motor racing, it was just something that happened along the way. “I liked cars when I was younger,” he says, “but…
Belfast wasn’t an obvious hub of motor sport during the 1950s and 1960s, but you could savour your fair share if you had the right attitude. Fred Gallagher had the…
For more than three decades he has been a familiar face at UK circuits, engineer and mentor to such as Ayrton Senna, Mika Häkkinen and Rubens Barrichello and more recently…
It is remarkable to think that the man who was dealt the last, heavy blow of that terrible and tragic month of May 1994 is still racing at the top…
After the loss of Ratzenberger and Senna, the Portuguese star was lucky to escape his own terrifying F1 accident, and has since forged a successful career in sportscar racing It…
In August 1983 Freddie Spencer became the youngest 500cc world champion, inheriting that accolade from Mike Hailwood (who had succeeded John Surtees). The 22-year-old from America’s Deep South was also…
Many years have passed since he had any direct involvement with Formula 1, yet every car on the grid today bears two of his design signatures. As father of both…
Petter Solberg has been invited to take part in Norway’s Strictly Come Dancing contest 10 times and so far he’s turned down every offer. Not because the highly competitive Solberg…
Some youngsters discover motor racing through family influence, others stumble upon it by chance. Growing up in post-war Britain, Brian Henton barely knew such a thing existed – until his…
For a young boy growing up close to the Rocky Mountains, Formula 1 seemed impossibly remote. “In Salt Lake City we didn’t have a proper circuit locally,” says Steve Nichols.…
We are in the Osteria delle Vigne, a typical Italian family restaurant just a few miles outside the town of Varano de Melegari. I sense that a culinary experience of…
Its streets are notoriously congested during Grand Prix weekends, but are little different at any other time of the year. Everyone seems to own an AMG Mercedes but opportunities to…
Scotland might be one of the world’s most beautiful inventions, but you wouldn’t know it on a day like this. ‘Drookit’ and ‘dreich’ are suitable terms, Scots adjectives that translate as…
Riverside, California, 1964. A psychologist is at the Los Angeles Times Grand Prix, interviewing racing drivers as part of a research project into what makes top sports people tick. From Europe there’s…
“Life without sideways is monotonous,” shouts Ari Vatanen as he slaloms up a dirt track towards his local restaurant. “We need salt in life and, for the rally driver, gravel…