Number 28 Crossed-out: How I Became an F1 Fan

by Regin Reyno

One of my bucket list is to watch a live Formula One race. It's actually at number 28 in my 50 before 40 list.

28. watch a live Formula One race

Before 2005, I had 0 interest in Formula 1. The fact that I don't understand and know the details of the sport made it uninteresting and boring to me. For me back then, it's just racing cars (I call every Indy car a racing car when I was a child) going round and round a circuit. It's so boring to me. Rally (WRC) was more interesting back then. 

So how did it became one of my favorite sports? 

Back when I was in college, I was studying in a boarding school and I had a roommate who is so obsessed with Formula 1. His name is Alvin. His favorite driver is Michael Schumacher who was driving for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro then. He always talks about Formula 1 and has tons of magazines about the sport. That made me a little curious about the sport. Then in 2005, I went to Europe and then did I realized how big Formula is. We visited Germany and Finland and the people there are so obsessed with F1. I started watching the sport there together with my host families. Even Filipinos who are living there developed a love for the sport. 

Coming back from our European tour in 2005, I started watching races on TV at the comfort of our home. I stopped my schooling back then so I was able to watch almost all of the races of the 2nd half of the 2005 F1 season. 

From the infos of our German, Finnish, and Filipino host families in Europe, to my friend Alvin and his brother Piong (we call them Michael Schumacher and Ralf Schumacher) I was able to understand the sport and appreciated it. Since then f1 became one of my favorite sports (together with tennis and basketball).

The 2005 season, the first f1 season that I watched, saw Kimi Raikkonen in an Adrian Newey-designed car dominate. He was the fastest specially during the 2nd half of the season. He won 6 out of 19 races. But despite his superb driving skills and a fast car, he lost the title to Fernando Alonso because of reliability and mechanical issues of the car. 

A superb performance of Kimi in 2005 plus having been immersed to Finns and Filipinos in Finland during that year, made Kimi Raikkonen my favorite f1 driver.

Since then, F1 became a sport that I love. I always watch it on TV and it is always a talk among my college friends until now-having our own favorite teams and drivers.

So as an F1 fan, it is one of my dreams to watch a live race. 

That dream finally became a reality last week. I was able to watch a live F1 race including practice 1 and 2 in Sepang, Malaysia. I skipped the qualifying on Saturday because of my belief in the Bible. 

It was one of the happiest weekends of my life!

I'll write a separate blogpost about my experience there. 

28. watch a live Formula One race




What sport do you dream of watching live?