Sky Sports Formula 1 presenter Rachel Brookes joins hosts Jason Plato and Dave Vitty on the award-winning podcast Fuelling Around to discuss her career and travelling around the world covering the sport.
Brookes, who has been on television screens and on the radio for the best part of two decades, has spent the past 12 years covering F1 after rejoining Sky Sports following spells with talkSPORT and the Setanta Sports.
She talked to the boys ahead of the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix this past weekend, which was won by Max Verstappen.
Rachel Brookes on how hard the F1 schedule can be
During the episode Brookes discusses what it’s like being in the F1 circus and being away from home for so many weeks of the year.
“You do need very understanding friends and family, and I’m very lucky on that front and you do have to make more effort when you’re home as well” Brookes explained.
“I literally will get a diary out and say ‘that day I’m going to see that person, that day I will see that person’, and you do you have to put a lot more effort in, but it’s completely worth it.
“For example it’s my aunt’s birthday when I’m in Mexico and I’m trying to work out how I can FaceTime her party because it’s a big birthday and I really want to be there. I think I’m going to have to get up at six in the morning in Mexico in order to do it. It’s things like that where you have to put the effort in.
“The job is amazing and I love it, but you do have to be organised, and you do have to prioritise those things in your life to be able to do it.
“I’m doing 21 races this year and I did testing, so that’s 22 weeks out of 52 that I’m away without holidays or anything else. We’ve very very lucky in the way we do it, we don’t come into the track as early as others. It’s the mechanics and the people that work on the teams that I feel for because they work long days, they work really hard and they’re away from their families an awful lot.
“I think F1 has got to take that into account when looking at how many races they want to do. It’s all very well for those of us that can drop in and out, but for those doing all of them, that’s a massive pressure on your families and life at home.”
Plenty more episodes of Fuelling Around to enjoy
Series seven is halfway around the track, but if you haven’t listened to Fuelling Around before, you’ll be glad to know there’s a wealth of previous episodes from six series, and the current seventh, for you to listen to.
A host of celebrity guests have littered the award-winning podcast that has so far produced a string of excellent shows to listen to.
You can also tune into Fuelling Around on Spotify, Apple, YouTube or various other platforms if you want to see what all the fuss is about.