I’m not pretending Formula 1 commentary, presenting, broadcasting or any of the other bits of work I do can simply be blagged. There is a huge amount of preparation, practice and pressure that goes into all of it.

But I do think there is a point in almost every career where you are offered something you don’t feel completely ready for, and you have a choice. You can wait until you feel perfectly prepared, which may never happen, or you can say yes and trust yourself to figure it out along the way.

That has been the theme of most of my career so far.

My first proper job in motorsport was as a runner with Formula E. I had no idea how a pit lane worked, no idea how a live broadcast really came together, and no real understanding of where I fitted into any of it. I was just happy to be there, carrying things, finding people, doing whatever needed doing and trying to be useful enough that someone might ask me back.

At that stage, I wanted to be a presenter. I certainly didn’t have a grand plan to become a commentator. I’m not sure the thought had even properly occurred to me.

Then, during Covid, I ended up on a video call with the Director of Broadcast at Formula One Management. FOM are responsible for the international F1 output, as well as the feeder series, and I had sent him a showreel I had cobbled together in the hope of getting some advice.

On the call, he asked me what I had done up to that point. The honest answer was not much. A few bits of low-level podcasting, some presenting attempts, and a lot of watching motorsport while quietly hoping I might one day find a way in.

Then he asked me a fairly simple question.

“Can you commentate?”

And this is where the name of this Substack comes in.

I said yes.

Technically, I said something like: “Yes, but not much. A few bits here and there.”

Which was, to put it generously, a small white lie.

I had done nothing. No professional commentary. No proper race call. No evidence that I could sit in a commentary box and talk people through a live motorsport event without falling apart by lap two.

But I also knew that if I said no, the conversation probably ended there.

So I said yes, then spent the next few months trying to make it true.

I started recording myself commentating on old Porsche Supercup and Formula 2 races from my bedroom. I would put a race on, pretend it was live, and try to talk my way through it.

It was awful.

I don’t mean “not quite polished” awful. I mean I could barely make it through lap one. I had no idea how motorsport commentators spotted things so quickly, processed them, and then spoke about them in a way that made sense. I hadn’t considered breath control either, which is quite a fundamental oversight when your entire job is talking. By the end of the opening lap I was usually gasping, stumbling over names and wondering why on earth I had told one of the most senior broadcast people in Formula 1 that I could do this.

Thankfully, I didn’t send the first take.

Or the second.

Or quite a few after that.

But I kept going. I practised. I listened back. I tried to work out where I was rushing, where I was missing things, where I was talking too much and where I was leaving no room for the race to breathe.

Eventually, I got something to a level where I felt I could send it off without immediately wanting to delete my email account.

Six months later, I was offered my first professional commentary job: lead commentator for Porsche Supercup in Monaco in 2021.

Even that moment wasn’t quite as slick as it sounds.

The call came from the Executive Producer while I was in the shower. It was a FaceTime call, which immediately made the whole situation significantly more stressful. I missed it while scrambling out, threw a towel around my waist, stuck on a pyjama T-shirt which instantly became damp, and rang back trying to look like a calm, professional broadcaster rather than a man who had very clearly just abandoned a shower in a panic.

Somehow, despite that, I got the job.

Which is a fairly ridiculous sentence when I think about where it started.

That experience probably taught me more about careers than any neat bit of advice ever has. You are rarely going to feel completely ready. The opportunity will often arrive before the confidence does. Sometimes the door opens slightly before you’ve worked out how to walk through it without tripping over.

That doesn’t mean you lie your way through life or pretend to have skills you have no intention of developing. It means sometimes you need enough bravery, confidence, naivety or whatever you want to call it to say yes, then do the work required to make that yes worthwhile.

That is what this Substack is going to be about.

Formula 1, broadcasting, the strange things I’m learning along the way, and the moments where I’m still very much figuring it out.

Because most careers don’t unfold in a perfect straight line.

Mine certainly hasn’t.

And, so far, saying yes has taken me to some pretty interesting places.