SEE ME BE ME | Calum Nicholas Guest Blog: black representation in F1!
Calum is a Senior PU Assembly Technician at Red Bull Racing, responsible for the build and service of all the race and test installations – ancillary systems, cooling systems, pipe work, exhaust systems, as well as some service scheduling, build day scheduling, and spec checking.
See Me Be Me is a podcast that spotlights diverse talent across any and every career path.
I always liked cars, bikes, anything with an engine, anything that went fast. That was me as a teenager, but I never really considered engineering to be a career. I did A Levels in English and theatre studies – but when I left school, I got an apprenticeship working in a local garage and I really just fell in love with cars, and I decided that that was what I was going to do for a career.
When I told my white friends, they were like, oh, cool, that’s going to be great. When I told my black friends, they were like, are you joking? They knew nothing about the sport, nothing about the industry, and I was in the same position. Engineering wasn’t a career that black people tended to pursue, but I’d never looked at it like that – it wasn’t till way later in my career that I thought, yeah, you know what, there was no one doing this job who looked like me…
Now, it’s an honour – I try and do what I can. I’m just out here doing my job and chasing my own dreams, but if I can inspire one person to think oh, you know what, I might want to do that for a living, and they wouldn’t have thought it before… That’s humbling. It’s a great honour.