Formula One racing is, for me, the most exciting sport in the world. For years I've been glued to the television every fortnight from March to October watching my heroes battle it out for supremacy on the track. This love for the sport quadrupled in 1997 when my father was assigned the job of BBC Radio Five Live's pit-lane reporter, travelling to all the Grands Prix. Being involved so closely in F1 for six years now my Dad has obviously come to know quite a few people in this game, and being the kind soul he is (?), he has often helped me out with access at races. I have been to every British Grand Prix since 1997, the Monaco Grand Prix in 1998 and the Belgian Grand Prix in 2002, which was pretty sensational.

Along with my passion for F1, I have always had an interest in film making and television, especially film making and television in F1, and in April 2003 while at the Brazilian Grand Prix, words were whispered into the ear of Gerard Lane who is the editor of ITV's Formula One programme. The words were "Would you take on a work experience placement during a race weekend?", the answer "Yes!" At age 16, I was about to become a member of one of Britain's top sporting production teams. The chosen race was the French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours, which would be easy to travel to and from, plus it is usually a relatively quiet race. So on Wednesday July 2nd we made the twelve hour journey, via the channel tunnel, to the circuit. At about 10.00pm Dad and I pulled into the small town of Villeneuve sur Allier, about twenty minutes drive from the Magny-Cours circuit. We would be staying in a French Chateau with several other top F1 journalists, and Kevin Garside from 'The Mirror'. (Kevin ­ Dad said to put that!)

The place is generally rented out to French families for weekend holidays but for this weekend it's besieged by a bunch of petrol heads. The chateau has no restaurant, so every night we took the five minute walk down the road to La Chaumiere, a top French restaurant that serves unbelievably nice steak and chips. La Chaumiere has long been the Grand Prix refuge for the Williams F1 team, including Patrick Head (one of Williams' two main shareholders, and the technical director). So back to Wednesday night, and after a meal at La Chaumiere it wasn't long before we were back at the chateau, and asleep. Thursday morning is usually fairly relaxed at Grands Prix, and we were in no hurry as we sped up the highway towards the circuit. After stopping at accreditation where I collected my pass, on which were the words: "Stephen Slater, ITV, TV Compound".

Left: Welcome to France: le Chateau through the trees. Right: With their head in the clouds - ITV's studio towering above the paddock.

For those of you who don't know what the TV Compound is, at every Grand Prix there is a designated area where the TV stations have all their studios and editing suites set out. Of all the TV stations, ITV's studio is by far the most impressive; the whole operation is transported to every European race and then assembled. The studio towers above everything else in the TV compound, the top half, nicknamed the 'wendyhouse', is where Jim Rosenthal, along with studio analyst Tony Jardine, presents the programme. Underneath the studio is the scanner, and VT suite, where the programme is edited and controlled. In another building nearby is the office area, where Gerard Lane plans the programme, and Sally Blower, whom I must thank for making my work experience possible, deals with all the paperwork. There is also a small kitchen area, and some sofas to chill on (I used these a lot!).

In a tent around the back of the studio there is all the luxuries of the ITV catering facilities, basically DIY sandwiches and a coffee machine. However, only people with the right passes can get in here ­ I had the right pass, but for some bizarre reason the electronic gates wouldn't let me through, there was simply a loud 'BEEP!' The security guard let me in round the side while Dad went off to the to try and fix the problem. Thursday is mostly a day of setting up for the teams, drivers and media and after saying hello to the ITV team, I went on my first errand of the weekend, to help rig the commentary boxes. These overlook the start finish straight, and are where commentators Martin Brundle and James Allen watch the race, transmitting their thoughts to millions worldwide. It was my thankless task to plug in these microphones! One labelled 'James' the other 'Martin'.

I kept thinking to myself "What if I make a mistake, and put the plug in the wrong socket etc" To my knowledge though during the weekend all commentary was perfect (well, not quite all perfect as you'll discover later). After rigging the boxes it was time to help rig the studio. This involved hauling monitors and wires up the stairs into the wendyhouse, and setting them out neatly and tidily, and most important of all making sure they all work! With that out of the way it was time for lunch. One of the weekend's features on ITV was to be about photographers in Formula One, and for this a very special gadget was needed: a mini TV camera needed securing onto a stills camera, to provide an 'onboard' view of a photographers snapping. For this we needed much gaffer tape and a peculiar rod for securing the camera onto. Anyway, we managed it somehow, and took the camera over to the paddock, where awaiting our arrival was cameraman Andy Parr and reporter Beverly Turner.

Leaving them to get on with shooting, I decided to take a stroll down the paddock, on the way running into a few old friends including the affable Olaf Mohl from Dutch TV, who talks about as much sense as, well ... a Dutchman! I then took a walk down the pitlane and start-finish straight, partly to examine the new changes made to the end of the lap, which I felt added little to an already frightfully dull circuit. Back in 'VT' I joined ITV reporter Ted Kravitz as he was assembling, with the aid of VT editor Dave Boyd Moss (DBM for short), a news feature, containing some clips from the last Grand Prix at the Nurburgring. This is all done on a machine called AVID, which I have to say I never got entirely to grips with! Basically there are a number of monitors with dials underneath, and slots for tapes of all shapes and sizes to go in.

Then DBM twiddles the knobs under the guidance of Ted, different clips are inserted (eg shots of a crash between Schumacher and Montoya from the Nurburgring), plus interviews with the drivers involved (i.e. Schumacher, Montoya). The voiceover is recorded to a script, which then has to be synchronised with the picture, and voila! The speed at which these guys can do it is phenomenal. It would take me several hours to get done on my personal computer what they can do in three minutes. At one point during the making of this feature, a segment of a press conference with Michael Schumacher was used. In the left of the shot, clearly visible was a Five Live microphone waving around. This prompted Ted to turn and give me a, well, finger salute! Thursday night is usually at Grands Prix, a chance to get away early and relax. In our case it was the plan to go to the drivers and media annual football tournament, in particular the England vs Germany match.

My Dad had been on the England team in previous years. But after his disastrous showing as goalkeeper, where they lost 6-1, he had been relegated to the sidelines, so the plan was to watch those journalists from our chateau who had been chosen, pit themselves against a German squad which included Michael Schumacher himself. However, just as we were leaving, the unthinkable happened. A story broke! A creditor of the BAR team had filed a court order, and gendarmes had turned up at the circuit and impounded the cars. So nothing much, then? Several hours later a statement from BAR boss Dave Richards said that they hoped everything would be sorted by the next day, and the cars would be able to run in qualifying. Well, wow, what a surprise!! I was mildly annoyed at having missed the football, and so we headed back for another quiet evening at La Chaumiere.

Left: Manual labour: it's crap work, but someone's gotta do it. Right: DBM struts his stuff, and confuses the hell out of Stephen.

Friday morning was an early start. In previous years the action hasn't got under way until 9.45, but this year in the event of sweeping rule changes, there is now (was) a test session from 8.00-10.00 on Friday mornings, for all teams that decide to restrict their testing to less than 30 car days a year. These teams in 2003 were Minardi, Renault, Jordan and Jaguar. After consuming breakfast at Jordan I wandered back over towards the wendyhouse. Upon my arrival at the studio, Malcom (a VT editor) said "Stephen we've got a job for you, Jim's been taken ill, will you present the show today?" This is the point in the film where Stephen realises he's been daydreaming, and Malcom is standing there saying, "Stephen, Stephen ...!" Then Stephen sees the notepad in his hands. "... we'd like you to log the test session."

Logging is where you watch the session and log the time of any shots at all that look interesting. And I don't mean spectacular crashes only. Every 10 seconds it seemed I was told, "Gosh, that's interesting, note that down" for what was to me a very ordinary shot of a car going round, and round! Anyway it wasn't a totally useless task ­ during second free practise, this time involving all the teams, Michael Schumacher came out of his pit box and crashed straight into Mark Webber. At the end of the session I was asked to find the moment in the log, so the VT editors could use it in the programme. "It's at 1.06", I said. They rewound the tape to 1.06, nothing but Trulli circulating. I then realised my mistake, "Oh, sorry, my zero looks like a six!"

Following free practise, it was time to prepare for our first broadcast of the weekend, Friday qualifying. The introduction of this new session for 2003 gave ITV viewers an extra show. It is recorded live on Friday, and later in the afternoon is played out to London after any mistakes had been rectified (there were a few as you'll discover!!) Perched in the VT suite I had the role of reserve logger (yeah, like they'd trust me with logging an important session on my own!) So It was roll cameras, roll VT, title sequence courtesy of The Bachman Turner Overdrive, then into the France 'scenic', which is various shots of vineyards, scarecrows and all the other exciting scenery from the Magny-Cours area, all to the background of a song called 'Boy Girl Thing' by a band I'd never heard of called 'The Intended'. When I got home I looked up the band on the internet, and found their official site, with a massive headline 'Wow, ITV Used Our Song In The Intro'.

Cue Jim. "Hello and welcome to Magny-Cours". Then followed Ted's news feature, a preview of our 'Renault Meet the Teams' weekend, and then Friday qualifying. This session turned out to be the strangest one all year, the weather had been wet all morning and the rain had only just stopped. This meant that for the early runners, the track conditions would be very slow, the early runners being the big guns, Schumacher, Montoya and Raikkonen, but as the track dried, the times would get quicker, leaving the smaller teams with a chance of glory. So a topsy turvy order was in prospect, and that's exactly how it turned out, with the last two runners, the Minardis of Verstappen and Wilson coming first and second, when they're normally the crappest team by miles.

Now to the mistakes! Commentator James Allen seemed to be on stupid pills for this session. Firstly, on screen came a shot of a Sauber going down the pit straight. To the rest of the world, aided by the caption HEIDFELD, it was plain that this was Nick Heidfeld, but to James Allen "And here comes Heinz Harald Frentzen" Oops! The funniest mistake came when James threw down to the pits for an interview "And Ted is with Rubens Barrichello," the reply was a very feminine sounding voice, James having forgotten Louise Goodman was the reporter who did the interviews. Later Ted claimed it had been him, but the cameraman had been grabbing his balls. Anyway, luckily for us the session wasn't live and these mistakes were corrected during editing. As Ted said, it's all cheating and lies. I was hoping James would get an early night, and be on the ball tomorrow when there would be no second chances.

This was highly unlikely however, as that evening McLaren were having a special dinner (with lots of wine!!) for the British media, I had a glance at the guest list. James Allen was there, our companions from the chateau were there, ahhh 'Peter Slater, BBC Five Live' was there, and underneath him 'Son Of Peter Slater' ­ gosh, looks like I was invited as well! For those of you unfamiliar with the F1 paddock, all the teams have motorhomes, some grander than others. McLarens is at least a thousand times more elaborate, to the point where it isn't even called a motorhome but a 'communication centre'. It is by all accounts a miniature house, with restaurant, meeting rooms, kitchen and communications room. After drinks on the balcony, we were all seated in the restaurant.

Left: DC drops in for a quick chat to schmooze the journos (and Kevin Garside). Right: James Allen and Ray Matts hit the guitars, as everyone else hits the booze.

The journalists were divided into two sections, one side making small talk with McLaren boss Ron Dennis (yawn!) and our group, there to have a good time, with Norbert Haug, boss of Mercedes Benz ­ and totally mad as well!! I was seated next to Joe Saward, editor of GrandPrix.com. He started by giving me some tips on good websites to visit. He recommended a couple that sounded legit (with grandprix and Jarno Trulli in the URL) but they ain't about F1 I can tell you ;) Then the conversation moved into Joe's specialty, conspiracy theories. According to Joe, everything that ever happened in F1 was a conspiracy: Michael Schumacher was responsible for Ayrton Senna's death, Damon Hill only lead in the Arrows at Hungary 97 because he was allowed by the FIA to be several kilos underweight to boost TV ratings, Renault were secretly refuelling their cars between qualifying and the race while locked away in parc ferme, and these were only the most plausible ones.

Before long the wine took its toll and after a flying visit from David Coulthard out came the guitars. Lead by Ray Matts, the legendary Daily Mail motorsport correspondent, and accompanied by James Allen, the sound of Don McLean's 'American Pie' rang out through the Magny-Cours paddock. Why is it that French radio stations all play the same music? Grappling with our car stereo on the way into the circuit the next day, all I could seem to get was this year's Euro smash, 'Chihuahua' by DJ Bobo... At the entrance to the circuit there were a number of protestors holding placards, my first thought was that these were Ferrari fans who can't take losing.

Alas, apparently they were all artists angry that the government put all that money into the Grand Prix, and not a penny into hanging up paintings (or something). It seems likely the government will have plenty of spare cash for the artists in 2004, as the Grand Prix isn't scheduled. All that lay in the future though, and in the present, July 5th, 2003, I was breakfasting at the McLaren 'Communication Centre'. Not for long though, soon it was back to my backbreaking work at the TV compound. "Stephen, could you make us a cuppa please, I'd like lots of milk, this flavour tea, all stirred up, left for five minutes" said Gerard Lane the editor. "My god," I thought, "I'd better get this right!"

On the agenda today was our first live broadcast of the weekend, but before then it was the usual Saturday free practise, so temporarily relieved from my duties, I snuck into the grandstand at the new last corner to watch, for the first time that weekend, an F1 car moving before my eyes. The qualifying show went smoothly, with James Allen getting everything right this time, though I was surprised to learn that for the intro of the programme, in the look back at Friday Qualifying they redo the commentary so it fits better. The session was far more traditional, and was dominated by the Williams drivers with Ralf Schumacher taking the pole. Minardi were put firmly in their place: quickest on Friday they were slowest on Saturday.

My role during the session was trying to stay out of everyone's way! After qualifying, I wandered back up to the grandstand to watch the F3000 race. This is exciting as all the cars are equal, and so the racing is much closer, and there are plenty of incidents! Most of the afternoon was spent lounging on the ITV sofas chatting with presenter Beverly Turner who was very tired ­ partly because she was heavily pregnant, and partly probably because it was incredibly hot! This heat the reason also for Williams' dominance, the Michelin tyres having worked brilliantly in high temperatures. After a quick shifty round the paddock, including a beer at the Honda motorhome, we headed back for another glorious meal at La Chaumiere with the F1 journos. I brought up the conspiracy theories suggested by Joe Saward, interestingly many agreed that the 'Senna killed by Schumacher' theory has some substance.

Allegedly, the German was in an illegal car (it had traction and launch control which were banned in 1994) and this allowed him to push Senna over the edge. A source close to Schumacher, if you believe such people, had supposedly reported that when Michael returned to the pits he was in tears saying 'I've killed him'. But, alarmingly, it was unanimously agreed that Damon Hill was underweight in the Arrows which allowed him to lead the 1997 Hungarian Grand Prix, but the deal Tom Walkinshaw (Arrows boss) had agreed with the FIA meant he couldn't win. Spooky!! On the table adjacent to ours smugly sat Patrick Head and some of the Williams F1 team, I wished them good luck for the race and it obviously rubbed off...

Left: Stephen manages to snap Schumi sprinting through the paddock. Right: Finally, some on track action at the most boring circuit in the world.

Since the abolition of warm up, Sunday has become a chance for a lie in for the F1 fraternity, and after breakfasting at the chateau I sauntered into the TV compound at 10.00-ish, Malcom had finished editing the Silverstone promo piece which would be broadcast during the show, and my claim to fame is I helped select one of the shots used, so there! Before lunch, I was asked by John Tidy, graphics man, if I wanted to enter the sweepstake, this is where everyone in the team gives 5 Euros into the kitty and selects their top three for the race, and, for the tie breaker, where Justin Wilson will finish, or what lap he'll retire on. I didn't have 5 euros but they entered me anyway, my Dad would owe them the money (hehe). I predicted a fairly boring race with little change so I went for the top 3 in the race, the same as the top 3 on the grid, which no-one else did!

We went on air at 1.05pm, but amazingly just 10 minutes beforehand the ITV team were having lunch and a laugh together ­ how could they be that calm just before broadcasting to millions? And so here it was, the climax of the weekend, the main show. After looking back on qualifying it was back to the 'Weekend with Renault' piece, including a shot logged by me! Jarno Trulli went wine tasting with Louise, Fernando Alonso amazed us with his card tricks, and Jim Rosenthal caught up with Flavio Briatore, the colourful boss of Renault. Beverly Turner's feature on photographers went down well, especially when I saw how our handywork with the on-board camera paid off. And so to the race, which was as I predicted uneventful, for me perched on my chair in VT it was also uneventful until one of the producers said "Stephen, can you grab us some food we're starving". As well as emptying the fridge of all consumables, I also had to supply everyone with tea and coffee, it was a nightmare remembering who had three sugars, who had two sugars, and who had lots of milk, this flavour, left for 5 minutes ... see, forgotten already!

My hard work was about to be rewarded however, when Ralf Schumacher won the race, Juan Pablo Montoya was second, and Michael Schumacher was third. This meant that I had won the grand total of 110 Euros! The rule is that the winner of the sweepstake has to buy all the other crew members a drink at the next race, but for me the next race was Silverstone, and I would no longer be working for ITV, so the money was mine. Gerard Lane was furious when he heard the news! After saying my farewells and thankyous to the team it was time to head home. I spent most of my winnings on Kronenbourg in Calais, only for it to be all consumed by my friends at Silverstone. No such thing as justice... Of course I'd love to go back, but Bernie Ecclestone looks set to stop me in my tracks, at least in 2004. What an experience though, one I'll never forget.