T
Mike Simpson
he Formula One season will come to an aweinspiring conclusion this month with a mesmeric display of glitz and glamour at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. A twilight race that has over the last seven years established itself as the Middle East’s single biggest international sporting event. The race attracts over 60,000 fans every year, with nearly half of them coming from outside the UAE. This final fixture on the F1 calendar has become one of the most anticipated sporting events on the planet, often playing host to revered megastars such as Jay Z and Paul McCartney. It is an apt reaffirmation of the growing superpower status that Formula One holds both socially and economically around the globe. The sport is now visible to over 500 million television viewers worldwide and claimed to be worth a staggering $1.6 billion a year in commercial revenue. It sounds from the outside like a wildly successful business model and yet few realise the costs associated with hosting and racing in F1. Take for example Abu Dhabi, just to host the Grand Prix at the Yas Marina circuit costs around $75m. Then there is the cost of racing, the top manufacturers are investing upwards of $400m per season in order to put two competitive cars on the racetrack. Even with the influx of increasingly lucrative sponsorship deals, which include $5m for an advert on the wing mirror, many manufacturers are still haemorrhaging huge losses year after year. Even Mercedes Benz, who in 2014 clinched the constructors championship with Lewis Hamilton taking the drivers crown, posted losses of $77m despite being the number one team on the grid. Formula One has clearly become a playground for billionaires, megastars, royalty and in some cases even countries, with drivers now turning up on the grid backed by government funding. Some say all you really need to get into F1 nowadays is the same sort of war chest required to run for the US presidency, along with the ability to hold a steering wheel. It is a commercial juggernaut at the absolute precipice of innovation and entertainment but don’t be fooled into thinking that this is a fair representation of Motorsport as a whole. The truth is the industry is hugely polarized, with millionaire thrill seekers at one end and part time club racers at the other. Autosport magazine confirmed this in a recent edition where they claimed that there are little over 70 drivers in the UK actually making a living from racing and only two earning over seven figures. In order to get a truer perspective of both the sport and the wider automotive industry we speak exclusively to Hessle born racing driver Mike Simpson about his own personal experience in the world of Motorsport. From lining up against Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button in junior Karting, right through to competing in this year’s European Le Mans Series for Leeds based car manufacturer Ginetta. Pulling up to the Ginetta Factory in Leeds I immediately got a sense of the somewhat concealed nature of Motorsport in the North. A huge hangar bears the letters ‘LNT’ standing for Lawrence Neil Tomlinson, one of the wealthiest men in the country and the founding chairman of LNT Group, owner of Ginetta. Stepping inside the main building the first sign of racing pedigree is revealed. A vintage racing car parked beneath the chrome stairwell, alongside a more modern day road-ready variant. Yet beyond these two icons of engineering excellence the whole place seemingly screams more corporate than car lot. It was, however, with the opening of one dividing door that
I suddenly realised the symbolic nature of this foyer, a place that gives a nod to the company’s racing heritage alongside the its other commercial ventures. Stepping through the doorway my senses were immediately overcome by a strong odour of petrol, the harsh sound of electric saws and the glowing bright orange paint of a full scale Le Mans racing car. Following the marked route through the factory I was getting further and further away from the end product with each and every step. What I quickly realised is that everything in this place is planned with razor sharp precision, even the factory tour. Walking through each unit allowed me to truly appreciate the minute detail and exactness of every element that goes into creating the final product I had seen just moments ago. Approaching the end of the line I overlooked the entire hangar from the office balcony and felt somewhat awestruck by what lay before me. Row upon row of road and track models, lined up like an army regiment awaiting their instructions, whilst men and women buzzed in and out of sight, tweaking and developing their creations. Attempting to switch my focus away from these awe inspiring machines I sat down in front of Mike Simpson, official racing driver of Ginetta, as we set out on our own journey into the heart of motorsport. Mike Simpson was born into a family with no motor racing background, in fact as he says nobody from his family even had a sporting mind. “My dad is a wonderful engineer having worked for much of his life at British Aerospace, so as you can imagine as a kid I grew up with spanners in my hands. I remember when I was three he built me an electric go-kart and by four he had built me a mini motorbike, from then on anything mechanical he made he gave to me”. It was at the age of seven that Mike took his first seat in a race car, “I remember seeing on the front cover of a magazine a go-kart and it looked great fun so I showed it to my dad and said I really want to do this. My mum and dad saved up as much money as possible and got me my first kart. We actually started at Sainsbury’s car park in Hessle, racing around when it was closed on a Sunday”. The spark had been ignited and Mike was already looking for opportunities to improve and compete. He informs me how his appetite grew further after watching the Hull Street Race in 1991. “People don’t realise that Hull has big racing heritage. In the early 90s the council obtained an Act of Parliament to close the streets in the city centre. Queen’s Gardens was actually the pit lane, whilst drivers like Jenson Button raced around the track with thousands cheering him on”. Mike’s dad continued to do more overtime at British Aerospace to fund the club racing that his son was now competing in. Mike recalls how they bought an old caravan from their neighbours and his mum converted it into a home for race weekends. “I would finish school on a Friday and whilst everyone would be off to play football or rugby, I would jump straight in the car with my mum, dad and sister to go racing for the weekend”. As the years went by Mike progressed rapidly through the ranks, gaining sponsorship and support from a variety of businesses on his way to winning four full British Karting Championships, beating the likes of Button and Hamilton along the way. “I had a really successful karting career. I won eight Kartmasters, then finished 3rd in the European version and won my class at the World Championships later that year”
“People don’t realise that Hull has big racing heritage. In the early 90’s the council got an Act of Parliament to close the streets in the city centre”
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