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Diagonal Diary: Colin shines, Prodrive interviews, and the billionaire boys club

Mon 13 May: It was a scorching weekend in the Kent sunshine for our client, the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) and its four-time champion, Colin Turkington, who won two of the three races during the second weekend of the season at Brands Hatch. Ronan Pearson – for the first time in his BTCC career – was the other driver to taste victory, but defending champion Ash Sutton leads the championship standings having scored podium finishes in each of the season’s six races to-date. The BTCC season continues at Snetterton, Norfolk, on 25-26 May.

That meant it was a busy weekend for the Diagonal team and there is no let-up on a mega Monday. We welcome Australian racing driver Caitlin Wood – a Barbie Sports Ambassador who will be the only woman to compete in this season’s Porsche Sprint Challenge GB – to our City of London offices today. Our schedule for Caitlin includes a photoshoot, video interviews, and a round of mainstream media interviews, which you’ll be able to see and read soon.

It’s also a busy day of media activity for our client Prodrive – the motorsport and advanced technology 

business which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Their chairman, David Richards, has interviews today with leading business and motorsport publications, and we are on-site at Prodrive’s HQ in Banbury, Oxford, to assist.

An interview published today features Andre Eriksen, Founder and CEO of our client Asetek – the world-leading sim-racing hardware business. The Dane tells Formula Nerds all about his passion for motorsport and the rise of sim-racing.

Tue 14 May: Another day, another Andre Eriksen article. In this one, published on his LinkedIn channel, the Asetek boss reveals the heart-wrenching moment which forced him to make the decision to end the promising racing career of his son, Valdemar, and the harsh realities for racing mums and dads in the often-brutal world of motorsport’s ‘billionaire boys club’. Andre explains how that moment inspired him and his son to put all their racing passion and energy into making Asetek’s sim-racing products as authentic, fun, and affordable as possible. It’s a remarkable and eye-opening read.

We have a meeting with our client EventR – the app designed by a team of software developers led by former Formula 1 team principal, Otmar Szafnauer, to simplify team travel – to reflect on their recent trip to the Event Tech Live show in Las Vegas. You’ll be able to read more about that soon in another special LinkedIn article we are working on…

This Sunday will mark 10 years since the death of one of the greatest figures in Formula 1 history, Jack Brabham. In his brand-new Motor Sport column published today, Diagonal MD Matt Bishop recalls a chat he had with him in 2013, plus memories from Ron Dennis, Carlos Reutemann, and his son, David Brabham, whom we have seen quite a lot of recently since he is mentoring one of our clients, the promising 18-year-old GB3 racer Patrick Heuzenroeder.

Wed 15 May: A busy day of internal planning meetings for the Diagonal team, plus media outreach and finalising interview briefings for some of our clients’ upcoming media activities.  

Thu 16 May: More media interviews for Prodrive chairman David Richards today, and our digital team delivers a draft of the first in a series of special videos celebrating the company’s 40th anniversary.

The latest episode of ‘And Colossally That’s History’ – the podcast co-hosted by Diagonal MD Matt Bishop – is released. Matt and Richard Williams talk about female racing drivers in the past, the present, and the future.

Fri 17 May: We enter the weekend with a spring in our steps having issued a pitch to a potential client today. As ever, Diagonal’s brilliant team has worked hard on this, we are proud of what we have produced, and excited by the prospect of working with this client. We hope to be able to share more details with you soon…

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