FaceTime: an F1 culture publication.

A motorsport publication about access, culture, and belonging in Formula 1. Plus: race week stories, analysis, and tech explained like a one-on-one, not a lecture. Written by journo Face Lubag. To contact: @PitWallFace on Bsky, X, and Substack. Or, send a message on Tumblr.

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The Carlos Sainz effect: was it magic or maintenance in Miami?

Sainz didn't transform Williams overnight — but his performance in Miami proves why teams in transition keep needing exactly his kind of dri

Miami gave F1 plenty of obvious headlines.

Tucked behind all of that was Carlos Sainz finishing P9, Williams scoring with both cars, and a quote that felt very Carlos: 'this was a massive step forward, and still not enough.'

This edition of Race Week Cinema is about the “Carlos Sainz effect,” but not the magical fan version where he walks into a factory and the car gets faster because of vibes.

The more interesting version is quieter: Sainz as a stabilizer, translator, and standard-setter for teams trying to become more serious than their current results suggest. P9 is not a miracle. But it might be a road map.

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It's time for sports journalists to ask better questions.

In a media world full of product plugs and recycled Q&As, better questions can make sports journalism more human, more inclusive, and more u

Sports interviews have been on my mind because I think we underestimate what a good question can do.

The right one can make a driver, journalist, team principal, or young racer feel less like a quote machine and more like a person with stakes, contradictions, and a world around them. The wrong one can flatten access into content — or worse, into a billboard.

This week’s FaceTime is my argument for better questions in sports journalism, especially in Formula 1: more specificity, more follow-ups, more curiosity about who gets left out and what power is hiding.

Access is not the same as journalism. If the interview is a bridge, we should probably stop using it like ad space.

I’d genuinely love to hear from other writers/readers on this: what’s one interview question you wish people would stop asking, and what would you ask instead?

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F1 just changed the 2026 rules again. Here’s what Miami is actually going to look like.

The FIA used April to patch some of the roughest edges of the new era before Miami. Here’s what changed, why, and what to watch for next.

If you’ve looked at the new 2026 regulation changes and thought “I know these words individually but not together,” same.

I wrote a Translator Desk piece on what the FIA actually changed before Miami, why they changed it so quickly, and why the Mercedes + Red Bull “secret advantage” chatter is related but not the same story. It’s super-clipping, starts, wet tyres, and power-unit politics...all in human language.

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The religion of motion: what elite sport teaches athletes to worship

The world praises Formula 1's drivers for moving forward. It asks, far less often, what that motion is for.

The Religion of Motion

AKA: what happens when elite sport rewards motion so completely that we stop asking what that motion is for.

Formula 1 is obsessed with speed, but it also asks its drivers to be emotionally aerodynamic. To recover quickly, stay legible, and make pressure look clean.

I wanted to write about that tension, and about the cost of living in a culture where continuing forward is treated as proof of virtue. This edition of FaceTime is about ambition, composure, identity, and the strange way performance can become a very polished form of avoidance.

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Formula 1 sells proximity. Journalism pays the price.

Not everyone can get a press pass. But when F1 markets proximity as proof of worth, it cannot act innocent about the scramble to get close.

Formula 1 sells proximity. Journalism pays the price.

The paddock is supposed to be a workplace. F1 sells it like a dream.

I wrote about that — and about what happens when a sport turns access into aspiration and blurs journalism with branding.

This week’s FaceTime is a love letter to journalism and an analysis of paddock access, creator culture, and the way F1 keeps marketing closeness as proof of worth — then acting scandalized when people start chasing it.

It’s also a love letter to the press. Not everyone deserves a press pass — but everyone can work towards getting one. And influencers shouldn't be shamed for thinking they count as "media" when the F1 machine wants us to.

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Did F1 design out some of its own magic?

The drivers are frustrated, the FIA is backtracking, and the sport has a bigger question to answer than whether the cars are technically "be

I wrote about the 2026 F1 regulations, but the real subject is harder to pin down than “the cars are weird.”

This week's FaceTime is about what it means when a sport modernizes itself so aggressively that it starts sounding less convinced by its own future. I walk you through Oliver Bearman’s terrifying Suzuka crash, the FIA’s immediate reaction, and the Verstappen test — and how all of it asks a bigger question than whether the new formula is technically clever:

What does Formula 1 still want to protect when it changes?

If you’ve been watching this season and feeling like something is off, you might find what you're looking for here.

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No races, millions at stake: what F1 teams are doing in April

What teams can (and can’t) change in the five-week hiatus, and why the break could decide more than you think.

No races, millions at stake. What are the F1 teams doing right now?

No races for five weeks does not mean Formula 1 has stopped.

The latest edition of The Translator Desk is about what teams are really doing during the April break: the upgrades they can still make, the limitations they cannot escape, and why this gap matters so much in the opening phase of a brand-new regs era.

There is a very real reason Bahrain and Jeddah are not happening, and this piece acknowledges that while looking at the stories living alongside it: the work still being done in factories, simulation rooms, and engineering offices while the calendar goes dark.

To read about what teams can actually change, what they can’t, and which ones may benefit most when F1 comes back, feel free to read it now!

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Kimi Antonelli was supposed to be the future. Then, China happened.

Mercedes finally has its teenage winner — and with it, the kind of pressure that only arrives when promise starts looking like proof.

Kimi Antonelli was supposed to be the future. Then, China happened.

The latest piece in Race Week Cinema is about what changed around him the moment that win happened: not just the records, or the Mercedes one-two, but the emotional timeline.

Before China, there was still room to think about Antonelli as the future, as someone you were allowed to watch become. After China, that distance shortened, the language around him hardened, and the patience the sport had been offering him suddenly looked a lot less necessary.

I wrote about the weight of first wins, especially when you're sitting in Lewis Hamilton’s old seat — and the strange cost of arriving early in Formula 1.

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Parasocial on the paddock: can you humanize millionaire F1 drivers?

F1’s grid is full of wildly privileged workers in a brutal machine. Here’s how to care about them as humans without turning into their PR te

F1 drivers are some of the most privileged workers on the planet.

They are still workers inside a brutal, high-pressure machine.

This piece for FaceTime is about money, mental health, burnout, fandom, and what it actually means to “humanize” millionaire F1 drivers without turning into their unpaid PR team. (It's also about the other bad habit on the internet: acting like wealth erases pain, risk, or humanity altogether.)

Cheers!

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Real fan, fake test: a peek into the myth of the "pure" F1 fan

How Netflix, new fans, and an old boys’ club collided — and why your way into Formula 1, whatever it is, is valid...especially this race wee

There is something very strange about watching Formula 1 celebrate record fan growth while parts of the fandom still treat new fans like intruders.

This FaceTime piece is about the myth of the “pure” F1 fan: the idea that there is a correct way to arrive, a respectable entry point, a version of fandom that counts more than someone else’s. I wrote about gatekeeping, “DtS fan” as an insult, women and younger fans being treated like they need to prove themselves, and why I think the sport cannot keep profiting from people while making them feel like guests in it.

If you have ever felt like you needed to apologize for the way you found F1, hopefully this piece makes you feel otherwise.

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The weight of arriving: why Arvid Lindblad’s debut was about more than points

In Melbourne, Formula 1’s youngest new face didn’t just score points on debut. He carried the moment like he belonged in it.

Arvid Lindblad’s debut was never going to be just about the points.

For FaceTime, I wrote about the rookie's entrance into F1 while carrying not only the usual pressure of performance, but the emotional and symbolic weight that comes with being part of the RedBull system. That is: being watched as a prospect, a future, a promise, and a story people want something from.

This piece unpacks why Lindblad's debut felt heavier than a simple result sheet, and why sometimes the real meaning of a weekend lives in what it asks a driver to carry before anyone decides whether it was “good enough.”

If you care about the human side of driver development, this one is for you.

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On living in a city that hosts an F1 GP:

I've been thinking a lot about what it means to watch a place you know get translated into a version built for someone else’s eyes.

I grew up with the Las Vegas Strip as part of my internal map, so when Formula 1 came to the city, it became impossible not to notice how quickly a real place can be smoothed into spectacle. The skyline becomes shinier, the traffic disappears until it's aesthetic again, and the city becomes a backdrop before it can remain a city.

So I wrote about that.

💌 This new piece for the FaceTime newsletter is about F1’s broadcast, the politics it pushes out of frame, the host cities it turns into scenery, and why I think the world feed quietly shapes belonging in ways people do not talk about enough.

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When it comes to F1, you don't choose your driver. Your driver chooses you.

Picture yourself on your couch.

The race is on your TV, but you’re not that invested yet. Maybe you’re new to F1, maybe you’ve watched casually for years, drifting between teams like “whoever is least annoying this season.” The lights are about to go out, commentary is doing its thing, and you’re simply enjoying the noise.

And then something dumb and tiny happens.

A radio clip crackles through, someone swearing in three languages after a lock-up. A camera catches a driver sitting alone on the grid, helmet off, eyes somewhere very far away. Or it’s the opposite: a ridiculous send up the inside that absolutely should not have worked, or a last-lap heartbreak that leaves their engineer saying the softest “I’m so sorry” you’ve ever heard.

It hits you at 200kph, the thought: that’s my driver.

I wrote about that feeling — how a random F1 driver quietly becomes “your person” on the grid — for the first piece of my new column Race Week Cinema, which is part of FaceTime, an F1 culture newsletter.

💌 You can read the full piece here!

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🏎️F1 is back in around a week!

If you’ve heard that new rules are “anti-racing,” or “Formula E on steroids” and you’re quietly wondering what did I miss?...this one’s for you.

The latest piece from The Translator Desk is a fan-friendly guide to the 2026 season that skips the panic and actually explains:

what changed under the skin (power units, active aero, overtake modes)

why drivers are so mad about “energy management”

how these rules will actually show up on your screen in the first few races

It’s written for both new fans and people who’ve been here since V8s were screaming on Sunday mornings. No engineering degree required. just curiosity.

P.S. I’d love to know: what are you looking forward to in Australia?

💌 Read it on FaceTime: F1: What matters (and what doesn’t) when the lights go out in 2026 👉 https://itsfacetime.substack.com/p/f1-what-matters-and-what-doesnt-when

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F1 wants new fans. It can't keep old habits

I’ve been stuck on Toto Wolff’s Epstein “joke” all week — not because I think he’s secretly evil, but because of what it says about who Formula 1 is really built for.

In the F1 media pen, things happen fast.

A question lands. A team principal half-smiles. A dozen journalists make the same mental calculation at once: Is this on the record? Is this a joke? Is this going to be The Quote? And then, before you even decide how you feel, there’s the sound. That little burst of “okay, we’re moving on” laughter.

It’s not always cruel. Sometimes it’s just reflex, or a social lubricant. Most of the time, it’s a way to keep the scrum from turning into a courtroom. But sometimes, that laugh tells you exactly who the room is for.

Last week in Bahrain, Toto Wolff tried to swat away fresh Mercedes rumors and ended up making an Epstein “joke.”

On paper: bad taste, quick regret Underneath: a signal about what kind of harm this sport, and many other sports, still feel comfortable treating as background noise.

I just published a long-form piece on FaceTime about it. It starts in the Bahrain media pen, detours through my Stanford dorm and a whiteboard ranking me “ugly” and “crazy,” and ends with a simple question: what does a room’s laughter say about who gets to feel safe staying?

To read the full piece, please click here to head to FaceTime, an F1 culture publication that breaks down the sport less like an explainer and more like a one-on-one call with a friend.

💌 If you’ve ever loved F1 and still felt like you didn’t fully have a place in it, this one’s for you:

F1 wants new fans. It can’t keep old habits.

On Toto Wolff, the Epstein reference, and why the stuff we “let slide” decides who sticks around.