GENERAL INTERVIEW
The Race F1 Podcast live show at Pod Live Sport
Jonathan Reynolds is podcast manager for The Race Media, motorsport’s leading independent podcast publisher. The Race Media shows cover the whole range of motorsports – Formula 1, MotoGP, Indycar and Formula E – in podcasts such as WTF1 and The Race F1 Podcast.
They recently announced that The Race F1 Podcast will be playing their 1st live show at Pod Live in London, in February, with Formula One pit-lane reporter Ted Kravitz as their guest.
We caught up with Jonathan to talk about motorsports, Pod Live and facing a live audience…
Tell us about The Race F1 Podcast and how you got involved?
The Race Media launched in 2020 with the aim of creating the best motorsport content in the world – and our F1 podcast was one of the first pillars. We love podcasting as a medium because it’s such a great way to connect fans quickly and conveniently with the information that matters, with very few constraints. If important news breaks, wherever our journalists are in the world, they can grab their mics and we can have a podcast out within hours. I joined the company in early 2022, having spent 9 years working for Formula 1, where I developed the company’s audio strategy and launched and produced several long-running podcasts, including F1: Beyond The Grid and F1 Nation, as well as the documentary series F1 On The Edge. I’m incredibly proud that those podcasts are still going strong, but it’s been great fun helping to develop a different suite of content.
The Race Media shows covers a range of motorsports – Formula 1, MotoGP, Indycar and Formula E – which discipline is your current favourite to cover?
Our mission statement is to super-serve the motorsport super fan, so we take great pride in covering each of these championships. With F1 being the pinnacle of the sport, and rapidly increasing in popularity, I naturally spend a lot of my time working across our F1 content. We feel we have something for everyone, with our flagship show The Race F1 Podcast offering news and analysis from expert journalists on the ground at races, our F1 Tech Show lifting the lid on the amazing world of F1 technology, and Bring Back V10s offering fans a nostalgia trip back to an era when the sport was loud on and off track. Completing our F1 set we also have our sister show, The WTF1 Podcast, which is made for fans, by fans and gets right to the heart of F1 fan culture.
We hear Pod Live will be your first live event. What can the audience expect from the show?
We want to retain all of the elements listeners would expect from the podcast normally – informed opinion, insider knowledge, bad jokes! – but with another, extra special layer on top. Ted Kravitz, Sky Sports F1’s pit lane reporter, is joining regulars Edd Straw and Scott Mitchell-Malm for the event, so the audience can expect some rarely heard behind-the-scenes tales, as well as a few interactive elements that will remain a secret for now!
What are you looking forward to most about podcasting in front of an audience?
Listener questions often drive the direction of conversation on the podcast, but we’re really excited about the opportunity to connect more personally with our listeners, and to be able to present to them something a bit different and special. Our hosts record shows across the world as they follow the F1 circus from country to country, so it’ll be a real treat to have the chance to look an audience in the eye and answer questions face to face. At the end of the day, we’re all F1 fans, so it will be great to be in a room full of like-minded people, especially at a time of year when most people are craving the start of the season!
Which of the other podcasts appearing at Pod Live are you most excited about seeing?
As a huge cycling fan and avid listener to The Cycling Podcast, it has to be Daniel Friebe and the gang. I love the approach they’ve taken to podcasting over the years, from their day-to-day coverage of Grand Tours to the more documentary orientated episodes they put out. I’m looking forward to seeing what they do on the day!
Pod Live is a Sport Podcast Festival held at Kings Place in Kings Cross London between February 8th and 12th. Featuring Fighting Talk, Socially Distant Sports Bar, The Cycling Podcast, Morning Kombat, The Race F1 Podcast and more. To buy tickets to see The Race F1 Podcast at Pod Live, click HERE
