👋 Hi, I’m Laura

I see life through the lens of F1 and I write about it

I’ve been watching this sport long enough to remember life BFA (before Fernando Alonso), Rosberg had a baby face and refuelling was part of the drama.

Over the years, I’ve celebrated wins like they were mine, sulked over strategy calls and made deeply questionable sweepstake picks that somehow still paid off (yep, I’ve won them all!).

I’ve followed drivers more than teams (yes, there’s still a Kimi Lotus top in my wardrobe), switched allegiances and switched them back again… but these days, though, my heart is painted papaya.

I watched Miami ’24. I was at Silverstone sitting in Landostand ’25. I was in Abu Dhabi and watched McLaren lift the Constructors’ trophy for the first time in 26 years. And a year after that, I watched Lando’s first World Championship season. It’s been a ride.

🏎 The other side of the pit wall

My professional world has always been leadership, strategy and operations where budgets are tight, stakes are high and diplomacy is a full-contact sport.

I’ve spent two decades in senior education leadership roles leading and supporting teams running on fumes, steering through change nobody asked for and still expected to deliver every single time.

It’s not that different from a race weekend: the politics, the pace, the high-speed problem-solving when you’ve got one shot and it has to count.

And the moments where you just have to keep going, even if you feel like Lewis dragging the car over the line on three tyres at Silverstone.

📋 Why I Started ‘In The Pit Lane’

F1 has been the backdrop to my whole working life, through promotions, burnouts, bold leaps and the quiet, messy rebuilds in between. And I realised the off-track stuff was where the real gold was.

I couldn’t find the kind of content I wanted to read, so I started writing it; story-first, emotionally intelligent and still a bit scrappy round the edges because that’s how it generally goes down.

It turns out those moments in the paddock, the boardroom and the back office have the same DNA. It doesn’t change whether you’re running a race team, a school or a start-up. It’s all human performance under pressure.

🚦 Where It’s Going

I use F1 as a way of poking at the stuff under the surface; things like leadership, character, the calls you make when there’s no time to check the instruction book. Not because it sounds clever but because that’s where the good stuff lives.

Long-term, this is about building a body of work that makes leadership in high-pressure environments feel more human and more possible.

If you’re already into the sport, think of it as getting closer than the cameras (or Drive to Survive even!) can take you.

If you’re not, it’s a way in that doesn’t require you to know who won Monaco in ‘98. Either way, I want you to walk away with something that sticks… the kind of story that makes you spot your own ‘lights out’ moments and the times you’ve had to hold your line, with thirty-lap-old tyres and a flat spot on your front left.

And here is where I bring all of that together: leadership, mindset, strategy and storytelling, fuelled by years of motorsport obsession, executive experience and dial-up-era pop culture.

😉 What Else Is There To Know?

I’m a registered motorsport marshal (I’ve also been published in The Outpost), which means I’ve spent weekends in high-vis, smelling of petrol and loving every minute.

Abu Dhabi 2021 fell on my wedding anniversary and no, I will never get over it.

Off track, I’m a full-blown leadership geek. I’ve held a mix of leadership and C-suite roles, steered teams through storms no one saw coming and spent years in the world of accountability, compliance and governance.

I’ve got the HR and finance quals to back it up but I also have a creative degree in media and the arts, host two podcasts and even did a stint as a magazine editor, so I know how to make it make sense, not just make it compliant.

For the past nine years I’ve run my own business as a coach, consultant, writer, speaker and podcaster.

Being an F1 fangirl is stitched right into my brand, so it’s not unusual for client calls to start with a race recap or a driver market debate but as much as I love swooning over Lando’s purple sectors, I can just as easily switch to: “Right, what just happened at Red Bull… and what does that mean for the team moving forward?”

And because no About Me is complete without the random bits: I once lost a Friends quiz by a single point (49/50) and yes, I’m still bitter. New York at Christmas is my happy place. And I will cross the room to avoid a banana. Ew.

🏎️ “Sometimes you’ve just got to lick the stamp and send it.” – Daniel Ricciardo

You can subscribe right here and get me in your inbox once a week: stories, strategy and the occasional snark, straight from the pit box.

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PPS: If you’re here as a brand, collaborator or comms team thinking “she gets it”, don’t lurk. Hannah Schmitz, Bono and Leo Leclerc are my spirit animals.