F1 folk: The PR legend who lived through Williams' triumph and tragedy

A pioneer in Formula 1 press work when she joined Williams in 1985, Ann Bradshaw worked with Frank Williams' team for more than a decade, witnessing the championships won by the team's greatest drivers. She worked with the likes of Keke Rosberg, Nigel Mansell, Nelson Piquet, Alain Prost, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve, and crossed paths with Ayrton Senna twice: first at Lotus at the start of his career, and again in 1994 at the tragic end of it. Here's her story, in her own words

Frank loved running. When we'd finished a day's work, he'd come out of the motorhome - shorts, T-shirt - and he'd be off. There was a guy, who worked for our title sponsor Canon, called David Warren. He used to be an athlete. He represented the UK at the Moscow Olympics in 1980, which all the good guys boycotted. But he went and made it to the final. So he wasn't a bad runner! And I remember we were testing at Imola and we agreed with David to have dinner together, but he said he'd go for a run with Frank first. I said, "OK, I'll come and pick you up".

So I was driving my hire car and I saw these two people running along the side of the road ahead of me. One in front, shoulders square, head up, setting the pace. And the second, red-faced, slightly bent over, trying not to fall behind. The one in front was Frank.

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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.