Author: Pat W

Races Watched 2025

At the beginning of 2024 I started to log all the races I watched. Now with two years of data I wanted to see what the numbers look like. Spotify Wrapped has a lot to answer for.

I wish I’d started doing this years ago. I’d love to know how the numbers compare to 2008 through to the early 2010s. I started this blog in ’08 and I watched a heck of a lot of races in those years. I used to post weekly reviews of what I was watching at the time, but never collated it.

There are people I follow online who watch more than me, and who should take the title of ‘I Watch Too Much Racing’. Shout out to Matt White, who inspired me to start tracking, as he posts all his races to socials – and got over 750 in ’25!

Races

In 2024 (blue) I had a big push in the spring but then felt burned out. It almost felt a chore to keep up and I kept things to a bare minimum, just F1 and IndyCar, with a couple of IMSA races to round out December.

2025 (orange) was the opposite. I never got started until February, then in the spring we had bad news in the family, obviously I placed my attention there rather than watch anything. When I decided to start up again I caught up all the F1 and IndyCar and also picked up my project to watch the 2024 BTCC.

That meant I caught up fast, so by August it became the game to try to beat 2024’s total by December. I made it by just two: 134 to 132

I actually felt better about it as well, not so burned out. I was still sick of F1 by the end of November, even with a brilliant title fight to enjoy.

Continue reading “Races Watched 2025”

Celebrating Respect In Racing

As 2025 draws to a close, something which has struck me this year is the way competitors appear to respect each other more these days.

This is typified by the F1 title battle this year between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. It all seems very gentlemanly, may the best man win, but still intense. I don’t know that you can say they are the best of mates, but they seem to get on. Clearly they are both competitive and are driven to beat the other one and anyone else.

Large chunks of the F1 press have been very confused by this. They almost have an expectation that being team-mates it would automatically have the hostility of the Ayrton Senna versus Alain Prost days. Or the knife-edge intensity of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg in 2016. Or in MotoGP a decade ago when Yamaha had to build a wall in the garage to prevent Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo from even seeing each other. It’s as if they are disappointed this hasn’t manifested in the Norris/Piastri fight. At least, not yet.

And let’s be clear, I love those battles too. Because I think that’s how *I* would be in that situation – angry and petulant. Wouldn’t you be? And for the media it’s obvious isn’t it? Needle sells copy, generates clicks, gets more views. But should we be disappointed?

Continue reading “Celebrating Respect In Racing”

I Drove An Aston Martin

My sister gave me a voucher for Christmas to drive a classic car. A choice between two. But I kept forgetting about it because, well it’s been quite the difficult time since. But I remembered and finally got around to booking it, at what turned out to be the last opportunity this year at my closest venue. So I dutifully turned up to Upottery Airfield, adjacent to Smeatharpe Stadium short oval, to drive a Cobra. I’ve always wanted to drive Cobra.

Continue reading “I Drove An Aston Martin”

A Resumption

This blog started in August 2008. I haven’t posted here regularly since 2019 when life got in the way, and shortly after that Covid got in the way for all of us. Like so many bloggers before me, a lack of time and energy to upkeep a blog got the better of me. No shame in that. We are all busy. I have lost count of the motorsport blogs that have gone away – it’s almost all of them from the community we enjoyed back in the day.

Add to that, the simplicity of dumping your thoughts in 280 characters on social media and that addictive dopamine hit of likes and comments that you found yourself chasing, meant all my output was directed to Twitter.

Twitter became X and X became a racist right wing cesspit, so I’m not there any more.

Bluesky is doing a decent job of replacing it. Even if it is a lot quieter, there are really good discussions and interactions there, that remind me of the old days of Twitter some 10-15 years ago. You just have to work hard to find the right people, the right community, it takes an effort. And quite honestly a lot of the right people who used to be on Twitter are there now.

And yes, I am disappointed that what I thought were the right people, have stayed in the swamp rather than move over.

Anyway we were talking on Bluesky and it came up that having your own space away from the socials is kind of handy. If we all have to move again you need somewhere that grounds you. And I miss writing here. Something of a longer format in which to ponder. So it seems a good time to have a bash at this again.

I often have the old imposter syndrome. The thought that, since I’ve no connections, I’m in no paddock, I only watch things on TV therefore I’m no different to any other pleb like me. Why should people read me? I have nothing useful to say or add to the discourse. But that’s probably not quite true.

Certainly if you listen to broadcasters and insiders, a lot of them have no clue what fans think. So I do think it is important for fans to have a voice. And I have been watching for a long time now and that has to count for something, even if I am shouting at cloud, even though my memory is Swiss cheese and I can’t remember races I’ve watched last month never mind years ago. In modern parlance I’m very much going by vibes.

The thing I’ve been pondering is what to put here. Nobody reads race reviews, they never have, but I do enjoy journaling what I’ve been watching. I used to do that here and inspired by Matt White’s race count I brought back a series of mini reviews on socials last year and this.

I also had the idea many, many years ago, to have a weekly or monthly column. Pick a day and make sure to write something for it even if it is short.

So my goal is to do those things. It’ll be a bit shaky as I get into the swing of things. And no promises. It might flake out. Real life has been throwing a lot of things at our family. But it also reminds us to do things we enjoy. And I enjoy this.

Let’s see what happens.