The Formula One Exhibition landed in Melbourne and we were there on opening night, microphone in hand. Episode 58 is a series of conversations from the floor — with the people who were there and those who built it.
We sat down with Jonathan Linden, producer of the F1 Exhibition and co-CEO of Round Room Live, who told us how the idea was born from a search for truly global content, and why Melbourne felt like the right fit right now. He also revealed the hardest item to secure for the collection, Lewis Hamilton’s 2019 championship car, which was in London and, at the time of recording, still being chased down.
From there we spoke with two F1 Academy drivers. Aiva Anagnostiadis was navigating opening night on a recently injured ankle fixed with screws, and talking through what silly season uncertainty looks like from the inside. Joanne Cicconte, at 16 the youngest driver in the F1 Academy that year, described the moment she found out she’d made the grid as one of total disbelief.
Kim Keedle, former high performance coach to both Romain Grosjean and a young Oscar Piastri during his Formula 2 years, broke down what it actually takes physically to drive an F1 car including the neck strength, the cardiovascular demands, the warm water in the camelback that nobody warns you about. He has since left the paddock and is building an AI-powered mentorship app called Pocket Mentor.
And we finished with Nicole Piastri talking about Oscar the way mothers do — less about lap times, more about who he is as a person. Fish oil, she reckons, is one of the reasons why Oscar is so smart.
The exhibition spans seven purpose-built rooms, each designed in partnership with award-winning artists, filmmakers and craftspeople, tracing the full story of Formula 1 from its origins through to the present day. It draws on contributions from F1’s greatest teams and drivers, combining historic and modern race cars, previously unseen film and interviews, artefacts, and interactive elements including racing simulators.
The F1 Exhibition is worth your time, visit https://f1exhibition.com/melbourne for more