José M. Zapico

Neither my father, nor my grandfather, nor my brother, nor any of my friends. The one who made me a Formula 1 fan was a mechanic one day while walking through the pitlane of Jerez at the end of a motorcycle training session. The magazine Solo Moto had sent me to take photos of Sito Pons and Juan Garriga, but the best, and what would later change my life, came at the end of the day. I was walking calmly with my cameras hanging around my neck, and as I passed in front of the box occupied by a team that would be running the next day, they unleashed hell two meters away from me. Testing for the tests, an anonymous mechanic started an engine, and it was not the ignition of a car but like an explosion that froze my blood. A chill ran down my back, almost leaving me breathless, and I nearly lost my fillings as the ground shook as if the creator god had sent me a personalized earthquake. From the initial fear, I moved to astonishment, then to unease, and later to curiosity. A pair of eyes wide open like never before could observe how a semi-open celestial gate barely revealed a few legs, the lower part of the front wheels, and a piece of a blue and white nose where it read “Canon.” It was a Williams. The first Formula 1 car I saw in my life, just a couple of meters away, was Nigel Mansell's car. Suddenly the curtain finished opening, pushed by one of the team members, and there it was: half insect, half sardine can, half space rocket… and its three halves fascinated me. It shone, it gleamed, it was the most advanced aerospace vehicle I had ever seen in my life. That was not a car; it was the closest thing to a spaceship from Star Wars that I would probably never encounter again. That operating room atmosphere, the white lights just above, cables coming out from everywhere, and technicians working silently around it… That day I told myself: this is amazing, I want to be here. And since that day, my existence has systematically ruined family meals, weddings, communions, trips, excursions, and various nearby events with a common thread: watching F1 races.

Want an example? The guy at that roadside stand in La Mancha was quite amazed when in the early 90s I gave him five hundred pesetas to put Formula 1 on that shabby television, and as the only viewer. I smile thinking that Pay per View was not invented by Bernie Ecclestone but by me. Now, as the calendar hits half a century, I miss that first time. There have been better moments since, but none like that. That’s why every time I write a line about this sport, I travel back in time to that afternoon in Jerez. Formula 1 is the closest thing to a time machine that exists on the face of the earth. And there aren’t many more, at least for me.