#Creep

It was while we were having our regular daily coffee at Pirelli that the idea came to us: “We should do another photo blog: they’re always popular.”

“True, but we should do something a little different, just to keep it interesting.”

“Definitely. I know, why don’t we do a photobombing blog? We’ve never done that.”

“Good idea. But will it work?”

“Let’s have a practice now, and see.”

“Excellent! We can do some over at the fanzone when the guys are doing the competition: it’s time to go anyway.” After herding cats we got the drivers together and into the minibuses, and they were soon standing in front of the fans, being interviewed before getting embarrassed by the teenage kid whose job it is to regularly beat racing drivers on the racing sims.

On the way back it occurred to me that the guys might be wondering what we’re doing: “Just in case you see Alexa and I taking some weird photos, you should know that we’re doing a series of fake accidental photobombs for the blog today, so don’t worry.”

“Fake accidental photobombs?” Johnny Cecotto asked quizzically. “Well, that’s certainly different…”

“When are you going to start?” Jolyon queried.

“We already have: look at this.” I pulled out my camera to show off our handiwork so far.

 “Heh, I didn’t even notice her!” he laughed.

“Well, it’s that incredible focus you guys put into driving, at least until you and Lello crashed and the game kicked you out with terminal damage, anyway…”

Having seen the raw material, the guys agreed that we were onto a winner, at least until we got back to the paddock and Alexa was lying in wait at the gates.

 “Whoa!” gasped Mitch in surprise as she emerged. “Hashtag creep!” he exclaimed as he slunk off to his truck as she giggled in his wake. And it was now time for lunch, a perfect opportunity for more ‘bombs.

The tricky ‘bombs were always going to be on the grid, especially since we actually have to do some work there. But given that they are fake accidental photobombs, it turned out to be easier than we thought to work and take shots at the same time. Because to do this job, you’ve got to be able to multitask, as a minimum requirement.

But back on the pitwall with 30 seconds to spare, we suddenly wondered: what happens if it doesn’t work? We might actually have to write a real blog!

We needn’t have worried: it turns out that photobombs are just another form of communication, and we have a track record of being the best communications team in motorsport: if you have any doubts, we’d be happy to run up a press release to that effect, complete with quotes from ourselves.

It left us with the blog largely done, but we still needed the cherry on the top, the final shot to round it all out. But what would it be? In retrospect, there was only ever going to be one option:

Nailed it.