How Binging F1 in Lockdown Led to Working on Williams’ Socials with Owen Maers

Owen’s Start

What was the first moment you discovered racing?

It was during lockdown, I was sitting in my uni house garden and it was the second Austrian Grand Prix, the one after Lando [Norris] podiumed, and I'd seen basically all of the content, all over my Instagram, even though I didn't follow F1. And I was like, oh okay, that's interesting, maybe I'll give that a go. I watched Drive to Survive, and I was like, yep, I'm in. So, I think it was a mix of Drive to Survive and just the right place, right time. In terms of there being a lockdown, there's not much else you could do on a Sunday at that point other than sit for two hours and watch a race. So, I think that really sparked it.

I also think that the 2020, 2021 generation of social media and F1 was really strong, because it was when they were starting to ramp up in terms of understanding the importance of it. Because what I was studying at the time was sports journalism, it linked a lot into that as well. From there I was hooked, basically, in terms of everything they were doing social media-wise. I loved the sport itself. So, yeah, it absolutely was the right place, right time.

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When did you decide the racing industry is where you wanted to build your career?

I was working for a company called 433, which is quite a big football page, and was like, right, I really need to look at what I want to do next, because I'd been working remote for about two and a half years and I wanted to travel. Naturally, I looked at F1 as like, well, brilliant, this is this sport that goes to 24, 25 different countries a year. I was like, great, let's see if we can make this work. And it just so happens this job came up at this agency called Pace Six Four, to work in motorsport. I had no previous experience, but I'd shown a lot of passion for it, I talked about it a lot, on personal social media I'd edited videos, I'd done bits like that, I'd edited graphics. 

It was clear, even in my own time, I had a passion for this, and I wanted to make a jump into motorsport social media, and just got super lucky with that, because I got the job there, and then it worked out, weirdly, where I started on Aston [Martin]. I was meant to be trained as a backup for that, but I started well enough, and people liked me, they're like, “yeah, we can just keep you on the Aston Martin account”. I felt like Kimi Antonelli, when he skipped F3. It’s like, why am I here?

I did Silverstone, which was brilliant. We had British Grand Prix, MotoGP, and events like that, so that gave me event experience. Then I worked on World Supercross as well, so I got to travel to Perth and Vancouver, some amazing locations. The key thing for me was that I knew if I worked in motorsport I could scratch a bit of a travel bug while also pursuing my career. That was the key thing, the travel, but also just the love of anything that's got four wheels, and makes a nice sound, basically. I was like, sign me up.

Logan:  What was the transition like from Pace Six Four to Williams, and becoming the Social Media Executive? 

When you are at an agency, you have an element of separation from what is actually happening, and then I went to Williams, the proximity to everything is so much closer. We had F1 75, and then the test, running for the first time, and you're standing right next to the car. I was lucky enough to do the first few races as well, with Australia and China. So, it very much was like, okay, you're going to start and you're going to go straight into this, and be super close to everything: to drivers, and to James Vowles, and the car. It’s ridiculous how close you are to it, and you get used to it, which is weird.

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Owen’s Current Role

What’s your current role and what does a standard day look like? 

I really like how almost everyone asks the question of, what does a standard day look like? I always give the response that no day looks the same. Absolutely no day is the same, and that's why I like it, and that's why I'll probably work in this industry for so long, because I like that I go in and it feels different every time I go in there.

TikTok does take up a lot of my day-to-day. Identifying trends. How can we do this? What footage do we have that already works? And then editing it, sending it, getting it approved, turned around, whatever. That's the majority of what I do, but it is also sorting out posts for our other channels, planning for future races. What content do we want to do? And then working really closely with our photographers and videographers to get it out of them. 

I think it's a lot of coordination and planning, but we've got an amazing team. I'm super grateful to work with them, and they make my life so easy. I'm able to just hone in on the stuff that I really love doing, which is TikTok and trends and making people laugh and commenting ridiculous stuff. I love bringing that humor and that entertainment to TikTok. The short form stuff is what I love the most. At the same time, I could spend another day just doing graphics or just editing content or just planning. I get equal enjoyment out of all this stuff, I think because it rotates around so frequently and I do so many different things that it never feels stale or stagnant because I'm doing so many different tasks. 

Logan:  How does the team dynamic work when you are at a track? Are you the one delegating the different tasks to everyone? How big is your social team on the ground? 

In terms of the content team, you'll have a photographer, videographer, producer, and then there will be two socials. Usually one of us will assume the creative role, and they're saying, “I'm going to be in the garage, I'm going to shoot this TikTok, I'm going to go to the driver's arrival and shoot this.” Then someone that organizes all of our photography and all our external people we work with. So, it's kind of like you have a planner and you have creative, and a lot of the time I fall into that creative category. That's what I love doing, I like being creative and making short form videos and bits like that. So, I would say, in terms of what my role looks like trackside, it is genuinely running around, chasing drivers, and filming silly TikToks, but also race coverage and being in the garage, making sure there’s updates, our Instagram stories look good etc.

What are the most rewarding and the most challenging parts of your role? 

Challenging

I think it’s a work-life balance thing for me. I'm someone that's never really been good at switching off, and this job has probably made it even more like that, because you're working weekends, or you're away at races. I really struggle to not think about work, because I also think it's hard, when you work in social media, to switch off. If I was an accountant and I wanted to switch off, I would go on social media. I'm a social media person. To switch off from social media, what do I do? Do I just go for a hike and just not look at any screens? It's a lot harder to switch off when you work in social, and I think anyone that works in social will reflect that as well.

Rewarding

The reward is, obviously, what you get to do: travel the world and just work in a sport you love and a sport you care about, and then make content that entertains people and makes people laugh. You know, it helps people. I'm really proud of the stuff we've done with Call Carbono, and the Sparkles story. I'm super proud of that. What Williams has done as a team in the last two years has been amazing, and I think we've made some really good memories for a lot of people. We've made a lot of people laugh, and I think that is something to be proud of, because it's not a given that you will always entertain, and you'll always inform, and you'll always make people happy, but I think a lot of the content we've done has hopefully given that, and a lot of escapism for people.

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What are the top 3 qualities that have helped you succeed in your role?

Flexibility

I think flexibility is the key thing. I always say this to everyone, but having the ability to edit, to make graphics, to shoot something, to come up with ideas, to look at other people's ideas, to rework it. All of that flexibility in how you work is super important. I think in social, like I said, no day is the same. You need to have that ability to do anything, and I think that's something I worked on quite early when I was at uni. I really focused on it, I want to broaden my skills, I want to learn how to edit. I was editing before college. When I was like 14 I started video editing. So, I'd really stress that to anyone that wants a job in sports media, it's to be flexible with your skills and have them as wide-ranging as possible. 

Easygoing

Outside of work, I think I'm just quite easy to get on with. I'm quite relaxed about stuff, and I hope I'm a good presence to be around. So, I think that's helped me a lot. I've loved working with each and every one of my colleagues for the last 18 months, and I hope that they have had an equally nice experience with me because I hope that I'm nice to work with and fun to be around. When you're spending all of these hours away in all these different countries, you need to be able to get on with people.

Chronically online

I'm just so chronically online at this point. No trend really gets past me. Being able to suggest all of that stuff has helped me to grow. I live and breathe this job, probably an unhealthy amount. That helps things come up, references come up, sound effects come up—that becomes second nature. I do a lot of it in my own time, but that helps then bring the ideas into work so that I don't have to spend time at work checking trends, because most of the time I already know them. I still do some research. There's some amazing accounts out there that round everything up for you and say, this is the big trend this week, and it's great. I would say for people, if they needed to get on trends more, as a basis, start with those weekly lists, and then hopefully, the more of that content you consume, the more it would get recommended to you.

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Owen’s Advice

If you could go back and give advice to your younger self, what would that be?

I always say this one and then I never learned from it, but just don't be so hard on yourself all the time. I think I've really kicked myself for a lot of stuff that I don't need to. I still do it now, but if I make a mistake now, I'll be thinking about it for at least two days, and that can just be as simple as, I put the wrong flag on a post. Something like that will just haunt me, and at the end of the day, it's a bit embarrassing, yeah, it's not good, but it doesn't really define me as a person, but I let it. I let it define me a lot. So, I would say if I was to go back, it would be to just try and be a bit nicer to yourself throughout the whole thing, and you might enjoy it a bit more.

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What advice would you give to someone looking to be in your position?

Give advice to yourself like you're a different person. Treat yourself like you're someone else entirely, and then you won't be as mean or as harsh or set yourself for these ridiculous standards.

If anyone was looking to get into it, the number one thing you need to be able to do is be a bit of a Swiss army knife and be flexible and be able to pick up anything. You need to be able to shoot as well as you can plan, and plan as well as you can shoot. You need to be able to do all of these different things, and that's what I think makes a good social manager nowadays, it’s someone that's able to do a bit of everything and do it to a high level. Having that level of 360-degree skills is something I've always been taught to be important.

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Fun Closing

What has been your most memorable moment working in motorsports?

My most memorable motorsport moment isn't even track-related. It's when we got to invite Thea to Grove [the Williams Factory]. That was amazing, because I'd been quite close with the family before that, and then she had a really tough time over her birthday, and I was able to get her to meet Carlos [Sainz] and to just have a day at the factory. To see that kind of wonder in her eyes, of walking around my place of work that I walk every day and I don't even second guess it, and then seeing a little kid's reaction to this massive factory—that would definitely be the proudest thing. Because as a team, that whole moment with Baku and Monza, with the original Call Carbono video in Monza and then the podium in Baku, just played out so perfectly, and I was super happy for them. Then to give them something back at the end of it, like they'd given to us, that was amazing.

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What’s been your favorite project you’ve worked on since being a part of the Williams team?

Maybe not a project, but one of my favorite days, I had 36 hours in Milan for a Pirelli tire test, and I got to shoot Carlos on track, and that was really cool. I was just by myself doing that. That was amazing.

I'm weirdly quite proud of that video of [Charles] Leclerc backstage. Getting that—I was very happy with it. I think it's done something like 11 million views now, putting Raye [Where is my husband?] on that, I was like, chef's kiss.

There's quite a few different TikToks I'm happy with that I think are really funny. I'd probably say a more vague thing of just making TikToks that people find funny. That's all I need. We put the Bad Bunny song on Carlos when the Calvin Klein advert was out, and people went crazy for that. That was really fun. I'm always proud when a video on there does well.

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