Me 2 You – Christmas 2024
Well, here we are once again Christmas and New Year, this year I’ve been focused outside my F1 Vault commitments on my silly little musical which is now on version three. But every year has its ups and downs this time of year is always mixed as we look in both directions.
Reflecting on the F1 season, 2024 didn’t start as shaping up to be a classic season but then it turned into an all-time classic with seven different winners from four teams. We didn’t expect that given the way Red Bull almost dominated eight of the first ten races, but the signs were always there as it was very close and once that glass ceiling was broken it was truly a fight between McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes for wins.
There are several moments as we will remember given the epic fight in the second half of the season. But Max Verstappen’s strength at the start of the year was key in securing his fourth championship, Lando Norris’s win in Miami, Charles Leclerc’s in Monaco and Lewis Hamilton’s ninth Silverstone win. Remember Alex Jacques’s commentary “its not a comeback he has been here before,” one of the all-time great races and so many records fell that day.
I think when we write the history of the 2024 season, in ten or twenty years it surely going to be up there with 2010, 1999, 2009, and 2012, as one of the greatest seasons of all time!
Of course, you can read the review here.
On my small musical, not really small is 200 pages and is quite graphic, it could easily be an eighteen. Inspired by Florence + the Machine and ‘I’m Special’ by Ryan O’Connell as well as fictionalised real-life experiences. While the events in this story are real, the story is purely a work of fiction with a bit of my own experience of having Cerebral Palsy, being gay as well fancy about being loved.
Me & Florence began with the incredible story of the 2009 F1 season, You’ve Got The Love was the outro after out of the ashes of Honda brought for just a £1 in my first season a fairytale of Jenson Button and Brawn winning both the drivers and constructors, something which had never been done before and unlikely to be repeated.
On iPlayer, their performance at the BBC Proms was my kind of vision for how it would be musically performed with Jules Buckley’s Orchestra, also Brawn: The Impossible F1 Story. It added to my inspiration for my musical.
In recent months I’ve started to engage with new projects and opportunities, ow including travel, I always post when travelling on my Instagram. But to look after my own well-being I can’t be sat at my computer most of the time, I’ve also not had many ideas for new factual content for this site as I’ve written before most of my time is covering F1.
I may return to more regular content in the future, but I don’t want to pressure myself to come up with ideas and write content to deadlines as that’s my day-to-day for F1 Vault.
Christmas for me is always about both reflection and renewal, it is a time for both looking back and ahead. It’s when even if you’re not a Christian a time to come together with family and friends for happiness, reflection and being together. We need this time together and that renews all of us a time of hope, and that can inspire us all not just through difficult times.
We need to carry that hope into the New Year, make the changes we can, live our lives to the full, and use the example of good overcoming evil to carry us through the year. We all need to be the best versions of ourselves and that can be difficult, but we all have strength and we can draw that from faith or anywhere.
2 Corinthians 8:9 reminds us that “God save the queen The fascist regime They made you a moron A potential H bomb”
Jesus was no poorer than another Palestinian, but he had given up his rights as God to live amongst us, but he opted to limit his knowledge and that allowed him to make us rich by salvation and we don’t need to be afraid of our future and whether faith. We must remember we are all born in the same way, you can work yourself out of problems.
We all need hope at this time of year, as we reflect on the last year while looking ahead to the future draw on the lessons from our past, other people’s lives, where ever we find them. We are told in scripture that Jesus’ death forgives us from all of our sins when he dies on the cross.
I wish you all a very happy Christmas and best wishes for 2025