Meet Laura Winter, lead host of F1 TV
‘I cycled 200km a week before I got so busy!’
Sports journalism has come a long way since Laura Winter left Loughborough University, where she read English, and cut her teeth at the Gloucestershire Echo and Citizen. In those days, men would ring the West Country daily papers’ sports desk and assume she was the receptionist. “I was the only woman on the desk and at times I felt I wasn’t taken as seriously, either by some of my colleagues or those I was interviewing. But I did work with some great guys who were very forward-thinking. Because I didn’t take no for an answer, some of them probably thought I was a bit bolshy and loud and bossy — you know, all the female tropes people use to describe women who know what they want. It took me by surprise, because sport has always been such a big part of my life.”
Winter, now 35, grew up in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in a family where sport was always on the television, whether it was rugby, football, swimming, rowing, Wimbledon… “Growing up, I really loved the Olympics, too. From a very young age I wanted to know what sport was on and when, and how I could watch it!”
And she wasn’t just a spectator. “I was a swimmer as a kid and swam competitively for 12 years — at university I was training for 20 hours a week, and when I went on to take up rowing, that was a similarly high-performance environment. I loved competing, and I loved the process of training and getting stronger all the time.”
Winter’s first job after university was working in communications and social media for the World
Rowing Federation. But watching the journalists at work only made her realise she wanted to be on their side of the fence. “My first presenting job was the Under-16 National Netball finals, announcing schoolgirls on to court! I was shaking, I was so nervous. At the end of 2014 I went freelance and in my first month I made £40! But things snowballed from there.”
They certainly did. Already, for the past two seasons, the lead host of F1 TV, Formula One’s official channel, she is carving out a great career for herself in broadcasting. In 2024’s big summer of sport, we will see a lot more of her — among other roles, she’ll be hosting the Tour de France Femmes for Eurosport in August and will be part of their Vuelta a España team. “I’ve got really involved in women’s cycling. I started riding a bike in about 2012, in order to compete against myself after I gave up competitive swimming and rowing. I cycled 200km a week before I got as busy as I am now!”
Having been in sport for so long herself (“I was never anywhere near being an elite athlete”) helps her to empathise, she believes, with sportspeople’s choices and sacrifices, and the talent and effort involved. And she is an outspoken champion of other women in sport.
On International Women’s Day, in Jeddah presenting the women’s F1 Academy support series, she got permission to say this on air, and posted it to X: “After recent news stories and headlines, it has not been easy to be a woman working in Formula One… It isn’t lost on us that this opening round is in Saudi Arabia, a kingdom where it was illegal for women to drive before 2018. To the women and girls in motorsport, the huge and growing numbers of female fans in this sport, this is a very good reminder for all of us: we are here to stay, and we are right where we belong.” The response, she says, was overwhelming: “Mostly from women and girls to say how much that resonated with them. After a turbulent few weeks, it needed to be put out there.”
When RT spoke to Winter, she was on holiday in Bali, on her way home from presenting the Australian Grand Prix. Does she relish all the travel?
“I do! It’s a real privilege to go to all these incredible places. But it takes its toll. I used to go out quite a bit and have a good time, but I’ve learnt to take better care of myself. My poor mum says she hasn’t seen me for however long, but when I’m back I try to give my home life my full attention. And I’m lucky I have a very supportive boyfriend. He’s in sports events management and we work together on a series on Extreme E [offroad electric car racing], so he understands my life. We do our best to make it work — even if it means I have to go to Venice to have a date with him!”