Chris Holding grew up fifteen miles from Brands Hatch in the UK. On summer days when the wind blew in the right direction, he could hear the engines from his house. That is where it started.
He went on to spend three years as a full-time producer on Formula 1 with ITV, work with the BBC, Channel 4, ESPN, IMG, News Corp and Discovery, and cover the World Rally Championship, Grand Slam tennis, the English Premier League and the Olympics. His production company Palm 7 Films still produces content for brands and broadcasters across multiple codes.
The Formula 1 story is the heart of this episode. His first season full-time was 2006 with ITV, the year Fernando Alonso won his second championship. One of his responsibilities alongside the main Formula 1 coverage was producing a post-race show about GP2, the feeder series. That year’s GP2 champion was a 21-year-old Lewis Hamilton.
Chris spent a lot of time with Hamilton during that season. He describes him as quiet, a little shy, very family-oriented, steely and obviously gifted. Anthony Hamilton, Lewis’s father, was hands-on and ever-present. The standout race from that year was Turkey, where Hamilton spun to 18th place and fought back through the field to finish second — the kind of drive that tells you everything about a driver before they have won anything.
The episode covers how Formula 1 broadcast production actually works from the inside, the crossover between the World Rally Championship and Formula 1 worlds, what Red Bull changed about food in the paddock by bringing in Michelin-starred chefs each race weekend, and why the current regulation era is exactly what the sport needs.
Chris also met a young Guenther Steiner during his rally days, before either of them knew what Drive to Survive was.