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Natalie Pinkham, a light in the paddock

Esmée Koppius

Updated: Jan 12

Written by-Esmée Koppius edited by-Tanishka Vashee 


Natalie Pinkham has definitely earned her place in the paddock and our hearts with all the memorable interviews she has had with the drivers and team principles. She’s an amazing woman, a fantastic mother, and a brilliant reporter. She’s a brilliant example to young girls who are interested in the sport and a career in it.


Natalie grew up in Northamptonshire, with her brother Sam. She went to Queenswood School first, and later went to Rugby School (reportedly as a day girl) before she went on to study Politics at the University of Nottingham. During her early school days she showed a talent in the 800 metres run, something she gave up when she started studying at university.


After graduating she got her first job at Endemol, where she became a researcher for BBC Two’s program called Ready, Steady, Cook. She later on moved to be an assistant producer for International King of Sports-which is a sports competition with rare sports. Later on, she relocated to IMG/TWI and helped produce Superstars.


From there on, she decided to step in front of the camera, the rest is history! She made her debut in front of the camera hosting the Isle of Man TT and races for Men and Motorsport. She reported various other sporting events from 2004-2010 and there are so many, If I listed them all we’d be here for days.


You might even know her from Dancing on Ice, which she competed on together with Andrei Lipanov. Sadly, she exited on week 2 after a skate off with Tim Vincent. She also regularly wrote for the Mail on Sunday in the Health, Travel and Reviews section of the paper.


She made her F1 debut in 2012, where her main role that year was reporting from the pits. That meant she covered the full weekend of free practice, qualifying, races and interviews. The next year, in 2013, she took over from her friend Georgie Thompson to host The F1 Show and from then she became a key part in the Sky Sports F1 team.

She made F1 history when she became the first woman to commentate an F1 race in 2021. She commentated the qualifying of the Bahrain Grand Prix that year, next to Karun Chandhok and Jenson Button. We hope that she will be able to do more commentating work this year.


Additionally to being an awesome TV-personality, she’s also mother to two children. She has a son and a daughter, who you might’ve seen pop up in Daniel Ricciardo’s Instagram stories, who is their godfather. (Most notably the one where Daniel Ricciardo, in true Daniel Ricciardo fashion, eats an entire bell pepper next to Natalie’s son Wilfred, or Wilfie as he’s called in the video. Wilfie’s rightfully weirded out by the behaviour of Daniel Ricciardo and looks at him funny.)

We can only dream about what the future might hold for Natalie Pinkham, but we wish her all the best. She’s truly an inspiration for many young girls and women alike and we can only admire her and support her in her next adventure.

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