Ever since Formula 1 started focusing on its digital broadcast and content in 2018-19, figures like Will Buxton, Lawrence Barretto, and Laura Winter have become popular personalities in the paddock. While Buxton and Winter often get the spotlight as F1TV’s lead presenters, Barretto, being a writer primarily, is happy with being the supporting act.
However, with Buxton moving away to IndyCar in 2025, Barretto could have a more prominent role to play in F1TV’s broadcast from this season onwards. The former Autosport and BBC correspondent has developed his array of skillsets across writing, reporting, and broadcasting, but the stimulus of all this effort has always been his passion for F1.
Having started working in the sport as a freelance journalist back in 2007, post his graduation in journalism, Barretto has primarily seen champions like Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel stamp their authority on the sport. In fact, his second year of working in F1 was when Hamilton clinched his maiden world championship.
Barretto has made no secret of the fact that he is an avid supporter of the British driver several times on the F1TV broadcast. However, it was the other seven-time F1 world champion, Michael Schumacher, who first got the F1 journalist’s attention and pushed him to pursue a career in motorsport coverage.
“I remember watching the ’94 Australian GP. [Michael] Schumacher and [Damon] Hill collided and I was just fascinated by the politics of it all, the racing elements. I loved it and I kind of got hooked on the sport from there on,” he revealed on the DrivenByUs podcast.
Barretto was always fascinated to work in the sporting industry, and he credits that to his family’s inclination towards sports. That said, the 1994 Australian GP was the moment he knew that the sport he would like to join someday was F1.
The 1994 season will be remembered in the annals of F1 history for many years, mainly due to the tragic deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger at the San Marino GP. But later on, Schumacher and Hill’s championship battle added a sporting zest to that season to uplift people’s passion for the sport.
Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill collide in Adelaide. Separated by a point, Schumacher wins his first world championship
Australia – 1994#F1 pic.twitter.com/SBvwfioUwv
— F1 History (@TodayF1History) March 20, 2024
And the title decider in Adelaide was a race that went down as one of the most controversial endings to an F1 season. So, it was understandable why Barretto got fascinated by the sport via that race and ended up taking a career path that has made him a popular reporter and broadcaster in F1 today.
How did the 1994 Australian GP unfold?
The Australian GP was the season-finale held at the Adelaide Street Circuit. Schumacher was leading the championship by a slim margin of one point. Hill, who was driving for Williams at that time, needed to finish ahead of the German driver to bag his maiden title.
That opportunity seemingly presented itself when Schumacher made a mistake and went off track. Hill smelled blood and went to make a move on the inside of the recovering Benetton of the German. But Schumacher sharply cut the British driver off, sending himself catapulting into the barriers and leaving Hill with a broken suspension arm on his car.
This meant that neither of the drivers finished the race and Schumacher won his maiden championship by a single point. But the collision created a furor in the paddock with many alleging that Schumacher crashed into Hill on purpose.
The German racing driver would attempt a similar move — this time with a Ferrari — at the 1997 title decider in Jerez. This time around, it would be Jacques Villeneuve’s Williams that he would drive into at Jerez.
But the racing gods weren’t having any of it as it was the German who retired from the race. Villeneuve took the chequered flag and won his one and only F1 world title, becoming the last Williams driver to date to win the ultimate prize.
