Edinburgh Napier University

Lee McKenzie has a motorsport pedigree. Her father was a a senior sportswriter for a national newspaper, and this gave Lee access to the sport that most can only dream of. While typical teenagers were working in bars or retail, Lee was either in the pit lanes or the paddocks seeking stories to write!

Edinburgh Napier was a natural fit for Lee. Her uncle was a professor and lead a faculty at the University.

“My life at university was probably quite different to a lot of other students. I had a fantastic experience but did not get the usual pub job, I worked for an Edinburgh sports agency. On a Tuesday and Thursday night, and on Saturdays, I covered the local rugby stories.”

After graduating in 1998 with a BA Hons in Journalism, Lee spent several years working for Border TV, where she covered many stories including the high-profile Lockerbie bombing trial, and the opening of the Scottish Parliament. She holds the distinction of being the youngest person in the UK to present the news having made her anchoring debut on Border TV at the age of 22 after just 12 months with the station.

Missing the sports world, Lee branched out and presented for the TV Horse Racing channel ‘At the Races,’ then expanded into presenting motorsports programmes in 2004. Since then, she has covered the UK’s most high-profile sporting events, including the Olympics, Six Nations rugby, The Boat Race, Wimbledon, and Paralympics, working mostly for Channel 4, BBC, Sky, and ITV.

Now predominantly reporting on her passion of Formula One motor racing, Lee is the first woman to take on an anchor role in F1 on British TV. She recently won a broadcast award and credits this with being part of a talented team and having the freedom to be creative. As well as having a talent for journalism, Lee is an accomplished and award-winning sportsperson. She competed as a co-driver in several rounds of the World Rally Championship in 2004 and the Norwegian Mountain Rally in 2005. And she is the only female to have won the Jim Clark Memorial Award (2007) for contributions to motorsport.

On the frontline of one of the most watched sports on the planet and gaining the respect of F1 world champions with her tough but fair interview approach, Lee has shared experiences, hire cars, parties, and friendships with a host of drivers, from Michael Schumacher to Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel to Jenson Button.

Lee has recently added to her repertoire and published her first book, Inside F1. This tells the stories of seven motorsport superstars using her personal contact and conversations throughout the years. Lee trawled her archive of interviews to take the reader through the trials and tribulations of the drivers’ racing lives and give an enthralling insight into the behind-the-scenes world of Formula One.

“It was fun going through old interviews to weave through the stories of their seasons and the highs and lows of their journeys. I would not necessarily rush to do another one, and certainly not in that way. These drivers are incredibly special and have been such a big part of my life, I do not think I could find another seven that would have such remarkable stories for me to write about. That is what sets it apart.”

The decision to write her first book was borne from an interview article she wrote about F1 driver Lewis Hamilton, during lockdown. Having built up trust over the years of working with the drivers, she was privileged to visit them at home and film behind the scenes. She said, ‘ultimately though, I will always ask that difficult question.’