the madszine

My surname is Ford which is hilarious because, for the first 19 years of my life, I could not have given the smallest fuck about cars. However, Ford Motorcars have somehow always been an integral part of my identity. When I was in Primary School I used to get asked if I was related to Henry Ford – I would say no, because ‘if I was I wouldn’t be here I’d be on a yacht.’ I was a precocious child. Every car my parents ever owned during my lifetime has been a Ford – specifically two Ford Focus’ – the £3 meal deal of Ford cars. My current car is a Kia Rio – and I don’t even want to talk about it – I feel like I’m letting a part of myself down as silly as that sounds. I have an embroidered Ford Performance Racing Team patch on my favourite jacket, Ford Prefect was my diehard favourite character in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and my friend even got me the Ford logo plate off his old car when he scrapped it. It was sort of a joke, I was a huge Ford fan because I was Ford. 

My love for the Ford, however, did not extend to motorsport. This was mostly due to my father, who has very strong opinions on sports that he does and does not play. Football, Cricket, and Golf are a yes – F1, basketball and, for the most time, Rugby is a no. Luckily for my father (and myself) basketball and rugby do – in my esteemed opinion – suck. So why should I assume from my father’s impeccable sporting judgment that F1 would be any different? This all changed in my 20th circuit of the sun in February when I was at the end of my tether with my dissertation. There was no new season of The Boys for several months and I was rotting (as I am oft to do in the winter) with nothing to watch so I clicked on the first thing that popped up – an infamous little show called Drive to Survive. 

I am a stickler for doing things in order, so naturally, I watched all 6 seasons from start to finish. Sue me, I was, and I am, a Drive to Survive girl. See, going to university for English has given me a critical life skill that so many people seem to lack in the modern day: media literacy. I have seen thousands of Twitter posts arguing whether DTS is dramatised and how it’s not an accurate representation of F1, and my response is, OF COURSE, it’s dramatised, it’s a TV show. There is no problem with dramatisation as long as people watching it don’t take them out of context audio and visual clips as gospel. From DTS I went down the F1 content rabbit hole, I watched some old races, hundreds of YouTube videos, and read articles. I felt I was fully prepped to understand the upcoming 2024 season.

I was blessed. I did watch large chunks of the 2023 season and the whole thing can be summed up so easily: cars go fast, Redbulls go MUCH MUCH FASTER. The 2023 season did not inspire me to watch more F1 but I did and it was amazing. So far, the competition has been huge, Redbull, McLaren, Ferrari, and Mercedes have all got a foot in the door, and the races have been spectacular. Predominantly rooting for the McLaren drivers, for Leclerc and Ferrari, but also for Russell in Merc and Albon in Williams has made every race a rollercoaster of emotions. I love an underdog comeback so as impressive as Verstappen and Redbull are, I could never be a Redbull supporter. I’ve been so lucky to witness so much current history being made and it’s safe to say I’ve been hooked on the adrenaline that F1 brings every time a Grand Prix rolls around.

The best part about enjoying F1 on my own is I don’t have to justify the way I enjoy it to anyone. I can support Charles Leclerc without being belittled by a man assuming it’s for his looks, I can google terms during the race I don’t understand (and yes, I know what DRS means), and I can get joy out of as many different drivers doing well as I like – rather than being accused disloyalty for not picking one team. It is the blissful freedom of unperformative enjoyment.

It was almost 6 months later whilst watching Ford vs Ferrari for the 2nd time just before Le Mans ’24 when I realised that with my newfound love of racing, I could finally support Ford. There were Ford cars in LMGT3 for Le Mans who made the podium and I knew many F1 teams changed their names over the years. Sure I could cheer for Ferrari and McLaren but surely my main team should be Ford, after all, I am one. So I did a quick Google about what team the Ford Motor Company were currently affiliated with in F1, and I sighed.

Redbull.

(apparently, however, Ford are meant to return under their own name in 2026 so, maybe a new favourite team is on the horizon.)