Diagonal Diary: Pat’s push, live streaming, and Otmar’s party
Monday 2nd September: Whilst the 2024 season is approaching its climax for our client, the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC), where six drivers are currently in reach of championship glory, this week also marks the run-up to the final leg of the season for Patrick Heuzenroeder, the 18-year-old Australian driver currently competing in the GB3 Championship.
To mark the beginning of ‘race week’ at the Donington Park Grand Prix Circuit, our team populates his social media channels with a weekend timetable graphic, ensuring his followers know when to keep up with all of the action from Round 7, and a thematic warm-up video as he prepares to take to the track once more.
Meanwhile, we begin drafting our bid to win a prestigious motorsport media award. We are hopeful that you will hear more about this later in the year…
Tuesday 3rd September: Tuesday is dominated by exciting meetings. David Brabham, the mentor of our client Pat Heuzenroeder and an ex-Formula 1 driver and Le Mans winner in his own right comes to our City of London office for an interesting and productive meeting with our MD, Matt Bishop.
In the afternoon, we welcome the inventor of a brilliant new live-streaming platform, that has maximising fan engagement at its core, through our doors. We may be able to integrate the service into our offering in the future, enhancing the comprehensive PR/comms services we provide to current and prospective clients. Exciting times ahead!
September 3rd also marks 12 years to the day since Jenson Button claimed an emphatic pole position at the 2012 Belgian Grand Prix, out-qualifying his younger teammate, Lewis Hamilton, by 0.8 seconds. Unfortunately for Matt, then the head of communications at McLaren, Hamilton, who is now known for his maturity and resilience in the face of adversity, posted an emotionally charged tweet that featured a screenshot of confidential team data in response to the defeat. Matt revisits the events of that weekend in his latest column for Motor Sport Magazine with a surprising twist.
Wednesday 4th September: As we look to expand our client roster further, we pitch our comms/PR, digital and social media services to a talented young British racing driver who is embarking on the road to Le Mans.
For two of our existing clients, Asetek SimSports, the Danish sim-racing hardware manufacturer, and Pat Heuzenroeder, we work on preparing for some important upcoming events in their media calendars. We finish Wednesday gathering press contacts, engaging with journalists, and brainstorming ideas for Pat’s upcoming media day, which will take place in our City of London offices next Tuesday (10 September).
Thursday 5th September: We start the day by making some finishing touches to a press release for Pat Heuzenroeder, which previews the penultimate round of the GB3 season this weekend (September 7-8) at the Donington Park Grand Prix Circuit.
The rest of the day carries a distinct BTCC theme in our City of London office. The morning is topped off by a meeting with our BTCC media team, where we pin down some more details about an exciting upcoming project, whilst the
production of more written content for the UK’s premier motorsport series takes over the afternoon.
Friday 6th September: The first week of September at Diagonal Comms ends with our team situated across the United Kingdom.
Our newest recruit, George Brabner, travels to Derby armed with a rucksack of camera equipment and his suitcase, ready to produce a variety of content with Pat Heuzenroeder over the weekend at
Donington Park. It’s the penultimate round of the season for Pat in what is his maiden campaign in GB3, and after an encouraging recent test day at Donington Park where he finished the day in an encouraging seventh place, he enters the final leg of the year with high hopes for more strong results. Donington Park.
Meanwhile, Matt travels to Cornwall with his husband, Angel Bautista, for Otmar Szafnauer’s 60th birthday party, the former Formula One team principal and founder of EventR, the app designed to simplify motorsport team travel. The Diagonal Comms team wishes you a wonderful day, Otmar!
