Growing up, my two favorite sports were basketball and motorsports. I had two ultimate heroes: Michael Jordan and Michael Schumacher. I wanted to be like Mike, both of them.
The only problem was that my friends back then had zero clue who Michael Schumacher was. Formula 1 in America was nowhere near as popular as it is today. At times, I literally had to tune into a Spanish satellite broadcast just to catch a race. It was a completely different world compared to now, where the sport has become a massive part of mainstream culture.
Back then, I still remember feeling like I had hit the jackpot whenever I managed to find an F1 book at the local library. It was during those library deep dives that I first started reading about Sir Jackie Stewart. Learning that this absolute legend raced during some of the most insanely dangerous eras of Formula 1 made him a larger-than-life figure to me, and that admiration always stuck with me.
I have always been deeply fascinated by the legends of the sport and the people behind the scenes, because they are the ones who built the foundation to get us to where we are today. In Sir Jackie’s case, he did more than almost anyone to make motorsports safe by relentlessly championing driver safety in Formula 1.
As F1 blew up in the States, though, the major downside was that it became harder and harder to get the same level of close access as before. That led me to start looking into unique options for the 2022 United States Grand Prix in Austin.
Winning the Mission
One day, I came across a charity auction supporting Sir Jackie’s foundation, Race Against Dementia. Having firsthand experience caring for my own grandma, finding a cure for dementia is a cause I am deeply passionate about. It is one of the primary charitable organizations I support, and I plan to continue supporting it well beyond my time on this earth.
The second I saw the auction, I knew I was going to win it no matter what it took.
I happened to be standing in a Williams F1 pop-up in downtown Austin as the final minutes of the bidding were ticking down. The staff from Dorilton Capital were standing around watching, getting just as invested in the auction as I was. When the clock hit zero and my final bid won, the whole corner of the room erupted into a mini celebration.
Within about an hour, my phone rang. It was Paul Stewart, Sir Jackie’s son. We spoke for a few minutes, but at the time, I did not fully grasp what the weekend was actually about to turn into. Honestly, just getting to meet Sir Jackie and support dementia research was already more than enough to make me happy.
The next day, I was set to meet up with Paul to pick up my credentials for the weekend. The team was attending a special screening of Sir Jackie’s documentary, STEWART, which was raising funds for the charity. I could not make the actual screening in time, but I rushed over to catch everyone at the end of the event.
I walked into the venue completely confused about where to go, and I immediately bumped right into David Coulthard. DC kindly helped guide me into the main room, and that was where I met Sir Jackie for the very first time. He was so incredibly thankful for the support and mentioned that they had a massive weekend planned. I was already over the moon, and the race weekend had not even officially started.
Paddock Royalty
Friday morning arrived, and I got to Circuit of the Americas as soon as the paddock swipe gates opened.
Paul Stewart could not have been nicer. I have been lucky enough to spend time inside an F1 paddock before, but walking through those gates as a personal guest of Sir Jackie Stewart is a completely different universe. Paul and Sir Jackie walked me around, introducing me to absolutely everyone we passed. At one point, Ross Brawn, who had personally arranged my grid passes for the weekend, walked up specifically to shake my hand. I was in absolute awe.
Normally, if you are lucky inside the paddock, you might catch a quick selfie with a driver as they sprint between engineering meetings. But Sir Jackie is essentially the undisputed King of the Paddock. The moment he walks down the lane, every single driver, team principal, and legend stops dead in their tracks to speak with him out of pure respect.
While all of this was happening, the paddock itself was buzzing with extra chaos. Brad Pitt had showed up to research his upcoming F1 movie, making the scene even wilder than usual. He was extremely nice and spent time chatting with us throughout the entire weekend. At one point, after taking a few photos earlier in the day, I mentioned to him that the lighting on the first batch was not great, and he casually said, “Let’s take some better ones then!”
We also kept bumping into actor Will Arnett all day on Friday. We ended up chatting so much that by the end of the day, it felt like running into an old friend every time we passed each other in the hospitality area.
A friend of mine, Danny, used to tell me that the F1 paddock is the ultimate equalizer. Once you are inside those gates, the usual barriers drop, and it becomes surprisingly easy to strike up genuine conversations with people you would never normally be able to just walk up to in everyday life.
Coffee at 200 MPH
By Saturday morning, I had a little bit of downtime and decided to try to cross off another long-standing bucket list item: having a cup of coffee with Valtteri Bottas.
I had wanted to make that happen for years, but F1 is an incredibly insulated, tight-knit world. If you do not have a direct connection inside a team’s inner circle, reaching a driver is almost impossible. But then I remembered his other major passion: cycling. His partner, Tiffany Cromwell, is a world-class professional cyclist, and they ride together constantly.
Knowing that connection, I reached out to Lance Armstrong and asked if he would mind passing a short video message along to Valtteri for me. Lance was kind enough to send it over.
I had not heard back yet, so when I happened to spot Valtteri walking through the paddock on Saturday morning, I walked up and asked if there was any chance we could grab a quick coffee sometime over the weekend.
He immediately looked at me and said, “Of course!” and mentioned he had seen the video.
I asked him when might work best for his schedule, and he replied, “Whenever you want.”
I was not expecting such an immediate answer, so I stumbled a bit and said I would come back later. I was trying to be respectful of his busy track schedule, but I quickly learned that Valtteri is as laid-back and direct as advertised. When he said “whenever,” he literally meant right that second.
Minutes before Free Practice 3 was set to start, I walked over to the Alfa Romeo hospitality unit just to check in. Valtteri looked at me and said, “Why don’t we do it right now?”
I looked at him, completely stunned, and said, “Uh, because you have to be strapped into a Formula 1 car in less than five minutes?”
He nonchalantly told me it was completely fine and joked that he drinks so many espresso shots a day that one more would not affect him at all. So, right before FP3, he paused everything, made us some shots, and we drank coffee and chatted for a few minutes. Then he pulled up his fire suit, walked into the garage, and jumped in the car.
A few minutes later, as I was sitting back watching FP3, I was actively feeling the buzzing caffeine effects from the coffee, while Valtteri was casually hitting 200 MPH down the back straight as if it were just another Tuesday. It was another completely surreal moment in an already insane weekend.
Around that same time, I got to meet Sir Jackie’s other son, Mark Stewart, who is an accomplished film producer and truly one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. The Stewarts are absolute F1 royalty and know everyone in the pit lane. When Mark found out I was a massive McLaren fan, he offered to take me on a personal tour of their garage.
It turned out to be far more than a standard garage tour. The humble, younger man from McLaren guiding us through the facility, who introduced himself simply as Sultan, turned out to be Sultan Ojjeh, the son of the legendary Mansour Ojjeh and a current McLaren board member. He was so quiet and down-to-earth that the only reason we even figured out his actual role was through a hilarious situation that I will have to keep in my personal memory vault. Because of his position, anytime I asked if I could look at a specific component or step into a restricted area, he instantly said, “Absolutely.”
One thing I have learned about the world of Formula 1 behind the scenes is that when people see you have a genuine, deep passion for the sport, they are incredibly eager to open up and share it with you. Deep down, almost everyone in that garage grew up as a wide-eyed fan of the sport, and they love connecting with people who share that same energy.
Hot Laps and Tim Cook
By Sunday morning, the big event had arrived. I was scheduled to go out for a hot lap around COTA before the race, driven by three-time Formula 1 World Champion Sir Jackie Stewart himself. Younger me reading F1 history books in the library would have never believed that sentence in a million years.
Sunday held even more wild surprises. Before the hot lap, I was instructed to wait in a quiet holding lounge until it was time to head to the cars. There were only a few people in the room. Suddenly, I glanced over at a man walking through the door and thought to myself, “That is weird, he looks exactly like Apple CEO Tim Cook.”
Now, I have prosopagnosia (face blindness), a topic that actually came up earlier with Brad, too. My friends constantly roast me for mistaking random strangers for celebrities, and it has backfired on me plenty of times in hilarious ways, so I hesitated. But I still couldn’t figure out why a lookalike would be sitting in this specific private holding area.
I discreetly asked another person in the room if that was actually Tim Cook. Right as I asked, I remembered reading a news report that exact morning stating Tim was in town visiting Apple’s Austin campus to inspect their next-generation silicon chips. It was definitely him.
Leaning into the “paddock equalizer” rule, I walked right up to him and asked if I could get a photo. He graciously agreed. The absolute best part of that moment, which I only realized later, was that the person taking the photo was my friend’s boss’s boss’s boss at Apple, who was in town for the F1 film deal. My friend back in Cupertino is usually the main one who roasts me for misidentifying people, so getting to send him a photo of his top boss taken by his other boss was the ultimate proof that I finally got one right.
Standing in that small room chatting with Tim Cook had an unexpected side effect. When he saw me later on the grid walk, I think it gave our group the accidental impression that I was way more important than I actually was.
720S on the Edge
Tim went out for his hot lap, and I was left wondering why mine was taking a bit longer to start.
It turned out the organizers were actually holding up the entire track schedule so that Sir Jackie and I could do our hot lap completely solo, after all the regular hot laps had finished and right before the track was scheduled to open for the official pre-race reconnaissance laps.
As we were being ushered down toward the pit lane, Will Arnett was walking out to his car as well. We looked at each other and just kept laughing about how ridiculous the entire experience was.
While waiting on the pit lane, I was handed my custom helmet for the ride. Part of the auction package included receiving a helmet for myself, along with one of Sir Jackie’s actual custom helmets. Both helmets featured his iconic Scottish tartan livery and the Race Against Dementia logo.
Sir Jackie walked out, and we posed for photos in front of the McLaren 720S we were taking out onto the track. Amidst all the noise and commotion on the pit lane, I did not realize who was actually taking our photos. It was only after the weekend that I realized the photographer was Mark Sutton (@F1Sutton on Instagram), the absolute legend behind some of the most iconic Formula 1 images in history, including the famous “Flying Finn” Mika Häkkinen shot that I would see on posters and in magazines as a kid. I am lucky enough to call Mark a friend today, and having those moments captured by him is something I cherish deeply.
Then we headed out onto the circuit.
I will never forget the ultimate “pinch-me” moment of looking over to my left and seeing Sir Jackie Stewart casually wheeling a supercar around COTA. It remains one of the absolute favorite moments of my entire life.
After we pulled back into the pit lane, I was handed both tartan helmets and guided toward the track for the pre-race grid walk. But before we even stepped back into the paddock, something even crazier happened: we were allowed to stand right in the pit lane to watch the actual F1 cars roll out of their garages for their live reconnaissance laps. At that point in the weekend, I realized that normal logic no longer applied, so I just soaked in every single second.
We also got to tour almost every single team garage on the grid. When you walk into a pit garage standing next to Sir Jackie Stewart, red tape simply disappears. Watching the Haas mechanics freeze in absolute awe when Sir Jackie walked into their bay was incredible to watch. One mechanic said “he’s Sir Jackie Stewart, he can do whatever he wants” in response to asking if we could come in.
The Grid Walk and the Martin Brundle Moment
When the main track opened for the grid walk, we made our way onto the circuit by walking directly through the Red Bull garage. (Red Bull originally evolved out of the Stewart Grand Prix team, so several crew members who worked for Sir Jackie back in the late 90s are still working there today.)
As we were walking through the now mostly empty Red Bull garage, I turned around and noticed Ed Sheeran casually strolling right behind us.
I looked at him and said, “Ed, what are you doing?”
He grinned and said, “I don’t know, walking this way too!”
We grabbed a quick photo together and walked out onto the live starting grid together, with Paul Stewart leading the way through the sea of people.
Paul navigated us toward the back of the grid to meet up with a specific group. When I looked up, I could barely process who was standing there. The group consisted of Brad Pitt, Tim Cook, Jerry Bruckheimer, director Joseph Kosinski, F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali, and Apple executive Eddy Cue.
Tim Cook saw me walking up, smiled, and said, “Hey!” Right as he said that, the rest of the group looked over and saw me walking up alongside Ed Sheeran, which gave everyone the hilarious impression that I belonged in that inner circle. I found out later that this specific group was standing together to finalize the massive deal for the upcoming F1 movie.
Everyone was remarkably warm and welcoming. I have been a massive fan of Jerry Bruckheimer’s movies since I was a kid, so I walked up and asked him the most obvious fan question possible: “What is Tom Cruise actually like?”
Jerry smiled and replied, “He’s the best.” The second he said it, I thought to myself, “Well, that was a dumb question, of course he’s the best!”
The group started strolling down the grid to check out the cars. Naturally, people started stopping for photos, and the group began to spread out. By the time I made it toward the middle of the grid, I assumed Brad Pitt was way ahead of me in the crowd.
Suddenly, I looked directly in front of me, and legendary broadcaster Martin Brundle was staring right at me, his mouth moving as he spoke into his microphone. If you have ever been on an F1 grid minutes before a race, you know it is deafeningly loud. Engine revs, crowd noise, and PA systems make it impossible to hear anything.
Seeing Martin staring directly at me and talking, I tried to be polite. I reached out my hand to give him a warm handshake.
Right as I extended my hand, Martin pointed directly over my shoulder and kept talking into his mic. I turned around and realized that Brad Pitt had been standing directly behind me the entire time, and Martin was frantically trying to land his famous live TV interview with him.
I burst out laughing right there on the track. I thought it was just a funny, chaotic moment and moved on.
Within less than sixty seconds, my phone started blowing up with text messages from friends all over the world. It turned out the entire awkward handshake attempt had been broadcast live to tens of millions of viewers worldwide on Sky Sports.
By the time I walked off the grid and sat down in the suite to watch the lights go out, a friend sent me a link to a TikTok clip of the moment that was already racking up hundreds of thousands of views, quickly followed by the same video going viral on Twitter.
I actually felt bad for Martin because internet commenters immediately started posting that he had “snubbed” a fan. In reality, grid walks are pure, unscripted chaos, and Martin had producers screaming in his earpiece to get Brad Pitt on camera. I had actually met Martin earlier in the weekend and he could not have been nicer. After years of watching awkward grid walk moments on TV, including his famous interview with fellow Austinite and AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su, it was a genuine honor to finally get my very own viral, awkward Martin Brundle grid walk moment.
The entire weekend was easily a top highlight of my life. More importantly, it meant the world to me to be able to contribute meaningfully to such an incredible charity, and it is a cause I will continue to champion for the rest of my life.
Added note a year later: I actually did end up getting that handshake! I ran into Martin a year later with a mutual friend. As soon as he saw me, I brought up the grid walk moment, and he instantly laughed, said, “Oh right!” and warmly shook my hand. It was another great reminder of why you should never take short, out-of-context video clips on the internet too seriously. Every single person I interacted with that weekend was incredibly kind, especially considering they were all working during a high-stress world championship event. And in the chaos of the event, I totally forgot to get Sir Jackie to sign the helmet. Luckily we got to meet up at the inaugural Las Vegas GP to get it signed, where I got to see Mark and Sir Jackie again. I’ve seen them a few times now and they are just the most humble and nice people.
If any of this moved you the way that weekend moved me, Race Against Dementia is always looking for support to keep funding this research. Every bit helps push toward a cure.
