After spending a decade in the Red Bull garage, Calum Nicholas had decided that it was time for a change. He aimed for bigger things, something that didn’t involve running around the paddock with tools or coming up with ideas to improve a car’s setup, and that’s what Red Bull helped him achieve.
The Milton Keynes-based outfit offered him the role of being an ambassador of the team, which, although an unusual role for a lead mechanic, wasn’t a surprising call.
That’s because Nicholas is a hugely popular figure, who has written books and appeared in numerous interviews and podcasts talking about life inside F1 and Red Bull in particular. It makes him one of the most suited people to carry the Red Bull flag around the world, promoting the team.
Just weeks after announcing that he wouldn’t be a part of the traveling circus, Nicholas’ job as ambassador has already started. His first task? Promote a $230 merchandise product.
Nicholas shared a video on his Instagram account, which has over 300k followers, that showed him unwrapping a Red Bull Lego set. Taking a rather creative route at promoting the product, Nicholas casually reminded fans that he had built every single Red Bull car that had featured on the grid since 2015.
“As a Red Bull Racing ambassador, you’d expect me to find this @lego Technic RB20 a breeze, right?” he wrote. “Well, it’s harder than you think, but just as much fun!!”
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Nicholas also revealed in the video that the set was ‘massive’, and extremely detailed, which would make it a fun item for F1 enthusiasts. The Briton set a timer on his phone, and recorded — on time lapse — how long it took for him to assemble the RB20 Lego car.
He also took the opportunity to teach his six-year-old daughter Isabella how the F1 cars work. It was an 18-plus set, but she helped him immensely with putting the stickers.
Ultimately, he finished it in seven hours and forty-five minutes.
Nicholas wanted to spend more time with his daughter
The time he took out to work on the Lego RB20 with his daughter, would have been impossible to find at this stage of the year had Nicholas still been a part of the Red Bull crew. He would have been away from home, working on preparations for the 2025 season with his other family in Milton Keynes.
And that is a major reason why he left his job in F1.
“I don’t wanna do it anymore,” Nicholas had said in an interview in January, foreshadowing his retirement.
In 2024, he missed Isabella’s birthday because he was in Brazil for the Sao Paulo GP, which was likely a breaking point for him. No one wants to miss their child’s (or any loved one’s) birthday, no matter how fond they are of their job.
Plus, the physical toll of flying to 24 different locations across four continents was immense. “In particular, when I fly east — so when I come home from America or wherever — that’s every time. It puts me down for a day,” he added.
Now, he can spend most of his time at home in the UK and be close to the loved ones he had to be away from for so much of the last ten years.
