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Family says I used to pay attention to races when I was 1 or 2 years old, and that I cried a lot with Senna's death, when I was 4. But I can't remember none of these.

My first proper memory is from Monaco 96 GP. I remember some glimpses from 97, and 98 family forced me into catechism lessons, that clashed with race times - the day I decided not to go the church was exactly the day of Belgian GP!

And 99 is the first season I remember that I had followed completely.

Estoril 93.

I was, and am the only one in the family who is a motorsport fan. My first memorie is Monaco 1995, I remember that I liked it but hadn't any idea what was happening, I was 6 years old. I started watching races after my dad bought me the game Grand Prix 2. I remember I watched Canada 1998, the race started at 8 o'clock in the evening, no matter how much I complainend my mother didn't allow me to watch it untill the end. Than came Hockenheim 1998. That race was on my 10th birthday. The weather was nice and we had a lot of visitors, all specially for me ofcourse. Everyone was outside in the garden except me, I was inside in front of the tv. From that moment on my parents must have believed that I really like Formula 1 and from that race on I watched it regularily, starting to watch every race from 1999 onwards.

I think the passion for motorsports comes even before you realize you like the sport. I can say that's my case too because I always liked things related to F1 since very little. There are some very remote memories in my mind that says it all, when for example I was in the kindergarten, there was a day children could take toys to the school and I'll never forget when a classmate brought to the school a whole collection of F1 diecast models (basically he had an entire F1 grid of cars in little scale), that scene remained in the depths of my memory that sometimes I "bring it up to surface". That collection of F1 cars fascinated me so much.

I never talked to that kid again but If one day it happens that I find him, I'll ask, hey, what did you do with your F1 collection?

Earliest memory of a race is of a Senna win. Not sure of the year. I didn't really start watching until '95.

The first I "saw", Canada 97. The first I really watched, Monaco 99.

The first one I saw was 1990 Monaco on a tape. Commentary was ESPN so it had Jackie Stewart and some other guy.

I remember watching Mansell and Prost in the Ferrari retiring due to mechanical issues. Both apparently due to battery. Ferrari was such a horrible team back then, fumbling around in the pits and the car of course was horrible.

And yet Prost only finished 5 points behind Senna.

First race I remember watching was 99 brazilian GP. They showed some footage of Zonta's practice crash before the race and its first F1 crash I saw on tv.

same here, except that I was much older(around 10)

The oldest single event that I can perfectly remember watching live in F1 was the Imola 94 weekend. I perfectly remember viewing on the news about Barrichello's crash, then I saw Roland and Ayrton's fatal accidents live.

Unfortunately, those dark events are the oldest thing I can vividly remember wittnessing live about F1

edit: nevermind the bs above. This post made me remind something I also saw live and still perfectly remember, previous to Imola 94:

Certainly sometime in 1994. I can remember being interested in the Japanese and Australian GP's, yet, as far I can think of have no recollection of any GP before that, save for a news report saying the Williams test driver was going to replace Senna. I can't say I actually have any recollection of Senna's death, though I can remmeber John Smith's death from around the same time.

I was more interested in WW2 at the time. Come 1995, I can remember where I was when I watched some of the GP's. For instance I was in Comet for the European GP, my paternal grandfather's brother for Italy etc. The less memorable ones I imagine I merely watched at home.

Between the start of 1997 when, I had reached 10 and could be left at home to watch a race etc, I watched most races until 2004. There was 4 I can remember not watching (1997 Melbourne, 1999 Italy, 2001 Melbourne, 2001 Brazil). Then I entered the world of work, probably do 60-70% of races a year now.

I vaguely remember 1997 season. But my first memory of a full race is Jerez 97, with his qualifying session and with the spanish commentator going crazy haha

My family always watched F1, recording VHS when we can not see the live coverage. Missing old times.

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@Pereira_FC - Hit the pace car!!!

I remember the crash of Luca Badoer (or was it Tsarazin?) in that grand prix too. And then there was the pre-race stuff where MB said one had to be able to jump down from the pitwall in Interlagos to prove one had sufficient fitness. I'd fail the test miserably, lol.

Sarrazin...and that one was a very wild crash.

the amount of spinning... I wonder how many G he pulled.

I guess your family was quite unique in Spain cause I heard F1 had very low popularity there untill Alonso

Yes, that's true.

Fortunately, we had Satellite TV and we can saw live races (or recorded) . My dad was and is a big fan of Senna and I grow up with him telling me the history of his races. I hope do the same with Michael and my sons in a future haha

Since 2003 we haven't got Satellite TV and we see (and suffer) the races on public TV, with a lot of alonsism and with a lot of hate to other drivers by the spanish commentator. A shame.

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@Pereira_FC - Hit the pace car!!!

Unfortunatelly that's what happens in every country where there is a local driver involved. Imagine in Venezuela or Mexico how do they coverage F1? Hype Maldonado/Perez all the way through and bash the others as much as they can specially if they are rivals of the local "heroes"

I expected to be like that. It isn't. Yes, it's a single channel broadcasting for all of latin america and we do get some extra attention towards both Perez and Maldonado. But they don't bash other drivers and it hasn't become unbearable. Yet.

well, that's solely because it's not for one country specifically. For instance, I don't think Argentinian and Chilean viewers would like a fanboy broadcast towards a Mexican and a Venezuelan

PS: Gabriel, doesn't Venezuela/Mexico have national broadcasters, as well, doing F1 now that they got drivers there?

I started to watch pieces of the races in early 1995 without actually knowing what was happening, but I went to the Friday practice in Francorchamps 95. My dad was a long time fan and it was free on Friday for children, so he took me with him. I watched the 1995 European GP but I remember nothing about it (when I read reviews it's like I never saw it). But I do remember a lot of GP starts from 95, I guess the races were too long for me to keep interested.

When the 1996 season started I knew everything there was to know about F1, collected everything from newspapers, read every article in Autosport (I think I learned most of my English that way) and of course watched every second of every session I could. I don't know what caused the switch from following it 10% in 1995 to 100% in 1996. I have seen every race since, but the obsessive kid with too much time that needed to see everything is starting to grow up. I know more details from the 1996 to 2006 seasons than I do from 2 races ago. Sometimes I forget who won the last GP, but I still know every points finisher from back then.