Just a little over 10 years ago, I setup a blog called “F1 Badger”, for a bit of fun. A year or so later the site was gathering quite a following and gained some additional writing talent. To keep Bernie happy, the site was renamed Badger Grand Prix, or rather, Badger GP.
Now, a decade later, the time has come to call it a day for BadgerGP.com and after the 2018 season, we’ll be closing down.
It may sound like a shame, but instead I like to think that it’s a celebration. For just over a decade Badger has published over 5,000 articles, had several million reads and been enjoyed by fans of Formula 1 across the planet. We’ve given away tens of thousands of pounds worth of prizes, sent fans to races and created opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t have happened.
Badger has always been the “Jordan GP” of F1 fan sites – running on a budget, punching above its weight and helping many people onto great and glorious careers. Some of Badger’s alumni now work professionally in motorsport and sports journalism, PR, C4F1, F1 teams and also working for F1 itself. Not bad at all.
Why are we closing? It’s been going 10yrs and it is still going well, but times have changed greatly since 2008. Back then there was only a handful of F1 fan sites and many weren’t great or were just a bit traditional. Badger’s aim was to be fun, entertaining and informative and it worked a treat. Now there are approximately 17 gazillion sites out there, some with huge budgets and some are genuinely brilliant. And F1 themselves have finally woken up to the digital age and are even publishing their own content, much of which is fun, engaging and entertaining. Well done.
We could carry on, but there’s no real need for BadgerGP.com any more, it has run it’s course and rather than fade away, we’re doing a Rosberg and saying an early goodbye. We’re proud of what our little corner of the web has achieved for our readers, writers and friends and with that, as founder of the idea I can hold my head up high and say we did good.
On another note, the Badger GP project spawned the very popular Fantasy GP game which will continue into 2019 and Badger also created the much loved GP Bash events, now known as Grand Prix Screenings and these too, will continue.
There may be other Grand Prix related projects coming in the future, we’ll see. Our Facebook and Twitter will remain open for now and we’ll continue to share some great content and opinions from time to time.
Thank you to everyone who’s supported Badger, written for us and been a part of this great thing, it’s been ace.
On behalf of everyone at BadgerGP.com past and present, thanks for reading.
Yours proudly
Adam
Founder – Badger GP
Team Badger GP past and present: Craig Norman, Sarah Merritt, Emma Thomson, Fern Lock, Nicky Haldenby, Rob Cureton, Jimmy Weeks, Ben James, Ben Briscoe, Geoff Collins, Danny John-Jules, Ciaran Bodenham, Richard Mosley, Tessa Jones, Ant Bradbury, Graham Mogford, Rachel Clarke, Bridget Schull, Charlie Eustice, Emma Spencer, Chris Kirk, Emma Bracegirdle, Georgina, Graham Hoskins, Jaap Grolleman, Kevin Ayres, Laura Leslie, Miles Cook, Nick Bean, Gavin Brown, Zara Daniela, Leigh O’Gorman, Joe Diamond, Duncan Stephen, Chris Fawcett, Hayley Turner, Rob Watts, Dan Thompson and a few others.
Also thanks to those who have helped along the way, including Anna Hardman, Sam Collins, Grant Howlett, Simon Lazenby, Ted Kravitz, Graeme Lowden, Jennie Gow, Jake Humphrey, Eddie Jordan, Andy Graham, Paul Oz, Keith Collantine, Trisha Whitehouse, Mark Hendy, Craig and Leanne Boon, Nick Merritt and many other wonderful people.
And thanks to my Uncle Colin, without him I’d never have started this “fun little project”, or got into F1 at all in fact.
