F1 folk: The artist with a camera whose photographs became iconic

If you're a die-hard F1 fan, you must have seen Rainer Schlegelmilch's pictures. He photographed Formula 1 races for 50 years, from 1962 to 2012, and his archive is now an indispensable part of the world championship's history. Here is his story, in his own words

I loved going to Monaco. Ever since I went there for the 1963 Grand Prix and for the next 60 years I never missed a race. Monaco is a place like no other. Nowhere else do you get so close to the cars, with their rear wings flying inches from the lens. You literally can't get any closer.

And I've always loved playing with zooms. From 1969, when I bought my first zoom lens from Japan - it was a 50-300, you could use it with a tripod - I started experimenting. First at Targa Florio, shooting at slow shutter speeds and playing with the zoom, using the crowd as a background - I made it look like an explosion. I loved the result. So I kept doing it, especially in the corners where the cars pass relatively slowly. Just like Rascasse.

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Author Oleg Karpov

After attempting to study engineering, Oleg was thrown out of his Moscow university for spending more time at the racetrack as a junior press officer for the national Lada racing series than attending lectures. His first job as a journalist was at the Soviet Sport newspaper, and in 2011 he moved to Berlin to pursue a freelance career in Formula 1. He joined Motorsport.com in 2015 and became a contributor to GP Racing magazine in 2021. When it's not race week, he plays squash every Wednesday and Sunday and likes to procrastinate by playing chess, with his Elo peaking at 2099 on one of the biggest online chess platforms.