My US GP began with a trip to Charlotte in North Carolina.
Haas F1 join the grid next year and we had an interview booked with their team principal Guenther Steiner. Their site is about 25 minutes outside of Charlotte in an area called Kannapolis and it is huge! On the left as you drive in is the NASCAR unit and on the right is the Haas F1 building. It looks impressive from the outside and inside it is as spotless and pristine as the Mclaren Technology Centre. But it's pretty empty.
I was surprised at how little there was going on there. The huge hall housing the race bays, was completely empty. It was almost eerie. One room where there was a lot of activity was the machine room. In it they were busily making the 60 per cent parts for their car currently being run in the wind tunnel at Maranello. Haas machinery has cornered around 60 per cent of the market in the United States and Gene Haas wants similar figures around the world, hence his foray into F1.
Some of the F1 teams already use his machinery to make their parts so he is more than familiar with the sport and is serious about his entry. They want a world title within five to 10 years and are targeting seventh or eighth for their debut season. I was impressed with what I was told even if there's not much to see on the F1 side, but when we went to the NASCAR part of the site their motorsport success was clear - two Sprint Cups in four years and chasing another this year in the play-offs.
There were race victory and championship-winning banners adorning the walls along with inspirational quotes like "the strength of the pack is in the wolf, the strength of the wolf is in the pack" by Rudyard Kipling. Quite apt for this week when you consider Mercedes had just won the Constructors and now one of their drivers was on the verge of his own title.
Interview done, we popped to a sandwich shop to get some lunch to eat while editing the piece. I know Americans like their food but one of the options was a 14-inch sandwich. Who can eat that for lunch?! Even our cameraman, nicknamed "the beast", was beaten by it!
We left Charlotte on Wednesday morning for our flight across to Austin in Texas. It should be a short hop but with American passport control and camera equipment to get through it is never that simple. We had just boarded our flight when the captain came on to tell us that the plane had a fault that couldn't be fixed any time soon so we had to disembark and wait for news of another plane. Luckily it wasn't too long a wait but I was just glad they found the problem on the ground and not in the air!
We made it to Austin in the early evening and, having collected our hire car, drove to our hotel in the downtown area. Most of the teams stay in a similar part of town and it makes for a great atmosphere on race week. The city embraces F1 and is buzzing as soon as you get there.
On Thursday at the track I had a few pieces to do. One was a two-part sit down interview with Sergio Perez. It is really good to see him performing so well and looking so confident but controlled on track. At Sauber he was a young driver who took people by surprise with his three podiums and seemed to have a very bright future. I remember the weekend after he was announced as a McLaren driver. I saw him walking through the paddock and he seemed to have an added swagger. There was a visible change in the way he carried himself and I remember remarking on it at the time to a colleague.
We all know how his time at McLaren worked out but now he seems to be back to the guy he was and is great company. There is a great sense of wanting him to do well in the paddock and I know his driving this year has impressed a lot of people. I talked to him about that podium in Russia and the second part of the interview will be on this weekend as it discussed Mexico, his home race and his sporting heroes.
After speaking to Sergio I headed into town to film Daniel Ricciardo serving at a food cart! He was learning how to make Kimchi fries and Tacos. Kimchi fries are chips with Korean style mince BBQ beef, mustard, shredded cheddar cheese, chilli mayonnaise, chopped fresh cilantro, Thai chilli sauce and sesame seeds. After making them he served them out of the food cart's window.
The truck was parked right in the middle of all the sorority and fraternity houses for the university so there were plenty of willing takers. Word seemed to get round and there were quite a few college girls coming along to be served by the Australian F1 driver on their corner! There were some F1 fans too. You always get told, Americans 'don't get' F1 and only like Indy and Nascar but there were genuine and knowledgeable fans who turned up to see Dan too.
On Thursday evening I arranged a girls night for some of us who work in the paddock. I chose Pete's Dueling Pianos bar, a famous and popular Austin bar which is where Mercedes held their post-race party too. It's a bar with two guys on stage who sing and play your requests as well as a bit of comedy thrown in. It's always a great night but you have to get there early or risk waiting in a queue on a "one in one out" basis. It was a really fun night. We see each other in the paddock all weekend but it's so busy you manage a hello or a smile and that could be it for the whole four days at the track. Sometimes it's just nice to get away from all the boys too!
We spent much of Friday looking at weather forecasts as the news channels were all talking about a hurricane heading our way. Each bulletin sounded more and more serious and it was already raining heavily but the threat of 20 inches potentially falling on Saturday had us all worried about the schedule. As it was, there was running in P1 but the weather worsened and it was clear P2 was in doubt.
Finally the rain stopped but it was really warm. The humidity was so high it was more like Singapore or Malaysia. We rehearsed The F1 Show and by the time we went on air my hair had already started to increase in size! In fact by the end of the programme the boys in the gallery even asked by how much I thought it had expanded. It probably wasn't far off the 20 inches they were predicting for the rainfall! We all left the track that evening knowing worse weather was still to come.
Saturday morning came and I usually present P3 on the weekends I work for Sky F1 but with the amount of rain falling it was clear we may have limited running and time to fill on air so I was switched to reporting duties for the session. We had some running in P3 and it looked exciting. Nico Hulkenberg had finished quickest and if we couldn't run qualifying he could have only the second pole of his career. Conditions worsened as the day went on and as we got to the official start time for qualifying it was obvious there would not be any running for some time. Half-hour delays were issued and suddenly, instead of waiting in the interview pen as I usually would to watch qualifying, I was walking up and down the length of the paddock looking for bored drivers to interview.
We have a number of umbrellas onsite at any race but somehow not only the first umbrella I had secured, but also the second, had been taken by two of the boys in our on-air team, so it was a very wet afternoon for me despite commandeering a baseball cap! The hospitality units at the fly away races are usually a lot smaller than in Europe so as you can imagine they get pretty busy when its raining as guests and TV crews try to shelter. I found both Force India drivers in their hospitality and luckily both agreed to an interview. Sergio was first, he was in his race suit and ready to go out.
Nico Hulkenberg, meanwhile, was still in his jeans and not forecasting any running anytime soon. He was hoping for a lot more rain so that his P3 time would result in a pole position for him. I carried on up and down the paddock and by the time qualifying was called off I had spoken to Christian Horner, Carlos Sainz, Max Verstappen, Felipe Massa, Will Stevens, Alex Rossi and tried to give Dani Kvyat a juggling lesson! The press officers come into their own on these occasions and were incredibly accommodating and bar a couple of teams no one refused an interview. I must say thank you to Fred at Manor Marussia for finding me a plastic poncho midway through the afternoon which at least kept my top half dry.
Once qualifying was called off at 4pm I went to the pen which the FIA had put indoors for us and had to interview the drivers again. Not easy when they haven't even been out in the cars. Lewis took the mickey out of my baseball cap but I couldn't persuade him to swap it for his special US edition Mercedes one. Interviews done, I made my way back to our office. I am not sure I have ever been so drenched. From the waist down I was soaked through and my socks squelched inside my sodden trainers. Saturday night in Texas is usually a good night to go out and enjoy the atmosphere but in hotel rooms all over Austin people stayed in and stuck hair dryers into their trainers!
Sunday morning was a very early start as qualifying was now being run at 9am. Conditions were still bad though and despite the forecast suggesting otherwise, it did not look like getting better anytime soon. As it was they called it off at the end of Q2 and Nico had pole. Lewis had looked good for pole in the sessions so far but Nico managed to nail a lap in the best conditions of that Q2 session when it counted. Yet again, though, speaking to him afterwards I didn't get the impression he was confident of turning it into a win. Elsewhere in the top 10 it looked interesting and with rain still falling suddenly the race had the potential to be exciting. If it started at all.
Luckily it did and what a race. I was in the media centre and stayed close to the interview pen because drivers kept going out and, while trying to follow the big screens inside the press room, I had to keep going out to the pen to do an interview. If you can imagine only being able to have one eye and one ear on that race on Sunday and still not miss anything you may be able to understand why I turned to a TV colleague and said "can we just have a few uneventful laps so I can write some notes?" - she felt the same. It was chaos. Virtual Safety Cars, full Safety Cars, to pit or not to pit, one stop, two stop or even three? Keeping track was difficult and I still had to interview every driver about their individual race.
When a driver wins the title it is actually one of the easiest interviews you will do all year. They are emotional and your job is to stand back and let them talk, which they will. Ask a couple of questions to help them along but I love these interviews. You get to share a very special moment and you can't help but smile as they tell you what it means to them.
Last year when Lewis won his title he celebrated with watermelon juice so I had to ask if he would be doing the same this year. "No, tequila" he replied. Interviewing Nico was always going to be difficult. I had heard he was not happy about Lewis' move at the start and there had been a spat about a cap in the cool-down room. I hadn't seen the shot at that point as I had been doing interviews at the time but a colleague told me what had happened.
As Nico seemed keen to talk about the start in the press conference I made that my first question, but he said no, he wanted to talk about losing the race at turn 16. He said he had no idea what had happened but that it had never happened before. He blamed wheel spin but couldn't explain why. He did eventually go on to talk about the start but was understandably gutted. I asked him if he had the stomach for the fight next year because having seen him race in race out he doesn't exude the fighting spirit we saw from him last year. Maybe he is just not showing it but his body language has been different all year. I really want him to come back and take the fight to Lewis much more next year. He has so much talent and ability but he just seems to be lacking a bit of belief right now.
In those closing laps I was convinced Sebastian Vettel was going to overtake Nico and take the championship on to Mexico but he couldn't quite get there. He was very gracious in defeat and I definitely believe he will be Lewis' biggest rival next year. How good would it be to see the two of them battling it out race after race?
After the interview I made my way to the Mercedes garage and the rest of our team. Mercedes were lining up for the team photo. A huge crowd of media and photographers had already gathered so I just stood at the back and waited for the melee to unfold. Lewis came out and a huge cheer erupted not just from the team but from all the fans on the track too who had gathered opposite the garage. I saw some comments that said Nico didn't turn up for the photo. He did. It's just a couple of pictures were taken before he got there.
Once the main photo was taken the champagne corks popped and I took the photo below.
I just got lucky with the timing but it is definitely one of my pictures of the year. It's such a privilege to be there in those moments where the team celebrate. Whether it's a world title win or, as in Russia with Sergio, a team's first podium for a while. The champagne spraying continued for a long time, and 24 hours after the first, we got a soaking of a very different kind!
To be continued...
RB