Celebrity F1 fan Jeremy Clarkson has criticised the lack of “mystique” among today’s Formula 1 drivers due to the sheer number of interviews they are forced to participate in.

It comes after Fernando Alonso and Max Verstappen introduced what the television presenter describes as “new thinking” at the recent Australian Grand Prix, the opening race of the F1 2025 season.

Jeremy Clarkson: In my head, all F1 drivers are James Hunt

F1 has enjoyed a surge in popularity over recent years with such innovations as Netflix’s docuseries hit Drive to Survive introducing the sport to hoards of new fans.

The seventh series of Drive to Survive, which first aired in 2019, was released earlier this month with a Formula 1-based movie starring Hollywood legend Brad Pitt set to launch this summer.

The increased attention has seen drivers subject to more media demands with today’s drivers regularly appearing on podcasts filmed away from F1 race weekends.

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Writing in his column for the Sun newspaper, Clarkson observed that F1 drivers are forced into far more media commitments than participants in other sports.

He said: “When you are a Formula 1 racing driver, you spend three hours a week driving your car and three hundred hours being interviewed by every damn herbert with an iPhone.

“You don’t get this in any other sport.

“Footballers arrive at the stadium and scuttle off a bus into a dressing room.

“After the match, maybe one player has to answer one question and then that’s that. They’re all back on the bus.

“But in Formula 1, everyone is ­interviewed all the time. On the way to the track. On the track. Before the race. After the race. It’s constant.

“And if you finish in the top three, it’s worse because then you are interviewed after the race before being put in a room with the other podium-finishers so we can hear what you are saying to one another. And then there are more ­interviews.

“If I were an F1 driver and on course for a victory, I’d cruise round the last lap and deliberately come fourth.

“And in between all of these TV interviews and press ­conferences, there’s an army of damnfool ‘influencers’ who stick a phone in your face and ask whether you prefer ­biscuits to cheese, and whether you prefer pink or brown.

“And you are forced, by the small print in your contract, and because your lawyers aren’t as good as your team’s lawyers, to face this onslaught with a smile.”

Clarkson went on to pinpoint two moments involving Alonso and Verstappen in Melbourne that suggested the drivers are becoming tired of constant media engagements.

Speaking after FP2 in Australia, Aston Martin driver and two-time World Champion Alonso remarked that he “will not answer” detailed questions about his Friday practice running for the entire season.

Asked what he had learned from his first day of official running of 2025, he said: “Nothing. And if I learn something, I will not tell you.

“We come here because it’s mandatory, but there is nothing really to talk about. We just jump out of the car and, as usual, it will be 24 Fridays like now that you can ask anything, I will not answer.

“I need to review everything now with my team and privately discuss what we did today.

“We did laps. The car goes. Engine is alive. Brakes are okay. Gearbox is changing gears up and down.”

Meanwhile, Red Bull star and reigning World Champion Verstappen quipped that “it will make the track more slippery” when quizzed on how expected rain would affect his race.

Clarkson felt the drivers’ fatigue was reflected in the most recent series of Drive to Survive, claiming those involved were more conscious of the presence of cameras.

He said: “This new thinking definitely had an effect on those most recent series of Drive To Survive.

“In the early days, we were regularly treated to hissed altercations, as people didn’t realise they were being recorded.

“Now, whenever anyone sees a Netflix microphone, they go into PR mode.”

He concluded: “A Formula 1 driver should have some mystique.

“I actually don’t want to know what they’re doing after the race or where they go on holiday or whether they prefer ­biscuits to cheese.

“I like to use my imagination because, in my head, they’re all James Hunt.

“And not some model in a toothpaste commercial.”

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