The Formula 1 superfan chasing every race to complete motorsport’s ultimate challenge
He’s the F1 superfan chasing every single race across the globe this year, while working a full time job. Now, Englishman Brandon Burgess is just three races away from completing the ultimate motorsport challenge.
He’s the Formula 1 superfan living out every motorsport junkie’s dream.
Attending every race on the Formula 1 calendar in one season was always at the top of Brandon Burgess’ bucket list and now the UK data analyst is just three races away from completing his ultimate motorsport challenge.
The mission: To attend 24 Formula 1 races across five continents in 2025 on a $40,000 budget while holding down a full-time job at home in London.
It sounds like the ultimate dream for any Formula 1 fanatic, but it has been an expensive and logistically challenging exercise for the Ferrari fan, who has burned through a large chunk of his savings and exhausted his annual leave allowance to tick off his bucket list.
After he decided midway through last year to bite the bullet on his F1 pipe dream, Burgess spent six months researching, planning and booking the ultimate motorsport swing.
Burgess has been documenting his challenge on social media with his Full Time Formula accounts on Tik Tok (70K) and Instagram (28.6K) building up big followings.
“It has always been the bucket list item of my life to try and get to every F1 race in a year, but I never actually thought that it would be possible until I was probably retired or won the lottery,” Burgess, 29, said.
“Then last summer I was thinking about it and I thought ‘Actually, is it possible if I use a massive chunk of my savings’ and also I didn’t want to leave my job so I was like ‘Is it possible to do it while also working full time?’.
“I did some rough calculations and figured out it was possible and it took me a few weeks to pull the trigger and decide to actually do it, but I thought if I don’t do it this year then maybe I never will.
“I did a lot of the logistics before the season started. I booked about 80 per cent of the stuff before Australia in March and that has really helped because ever since the season started it has been pretty hectic, travelling, working and then also making videos on top of that.
“I probably spent a good six months prior to the season starting just booking stuff up, almost every evening, weekend just researching and trying to find the best deals and the best ways to get to places.
“It was a big commitment, but it’s all been worth it so far. I can’t believe that there are only three races left now to be honest.”
Now 21 races into his F1 challenge – with just Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi left on the 2025 calendar – Burgess admitted it was going to be “very tight” trying to come in at budget on his motorsport mission.
He has factored in flights, accommodation, tickets, food and transport in his $40,000 budget, but some cities have hit the hip pocket harder than others.
“The target came from my savings – it’s not my whole savings, but it’s a massive chunk of it and I was limited in that sense – and it was also based on calculations I did before I started booking stuff and I thought that was a good target to aim for,” Burgess said.
“It is going to be tight. I’ve got ($5268) left for the remaining three and obviously Vegas is notoriously one of the more expensive races. So it’s going to be very tight.
“I know what I have booked in terms of flights, accommodation and tickets, but I also include transport and food in my calculations as well and I don’t know that side of it yet.
“I know that it is going to be very close, I might end up just over, but I’m hoping I come in just under.”
The Australian Grand Prix and Chinese Grand Prix legs have been the most expensive in the challenge, owing to their geographic distance from the UK and flight costs, forking out almost $5000 for the two races.
But the most expensive race tickets have been for the Miami and Las Vegas Grand Prix with a one-day pass to the Sin City race coming in at more than $900.
For the most part, Burgess has purchased general admission tickets, preferring to wander around the circuits to take in the action, but he did splurge on grandstand tickets at a handful of races, including China and Silverstone.
Accommodation has been “the cheapest hotels” he could find, although he has steered clear of hostels, while he said the food budget stretched further at some races more than others with Silverstone and Miami Grand Prix the priciest.
Burgess has largely flown home to London in between most of the races, only linking the Australia and Chinese and Bahrain and Saudi Arabia legs.
He has completed about half of the races solo with his girlfriend and mates also joining him on a handful of trips.
They have been mostly hit-run missions, often arriving on a Saturday morning and flying out on a Sunday night.
“Most of them I have flown back to the UK, but Australia and China was one week that I did take off work, just because of how far it was and it made sense because I was flying via Shanghai anyway,” Burgess said.
“So I thought I may as well as it was a back-to-back, stop off in Shanghai for the weekend after. That one I did link together and I also linked together Bahrain and Saudi.
“But other than that, it’s literally been flying in and flying out and back to London each time. Even Brazil, two weeks ago, I flew into Brazil on Saturday morning and I left Brazil on Sunday night so it was a pretty crazy trip.
“I have been to a few Friday sessions this year, but the majority have just been Saturday and Sunday and there have been some cases where I have just been on the Sunday.”
So, what does his work think about his F1 challenge?
“They are really supportive, which is really nice,” Burgess said.
“Everyone is always asking about the various trips and it’s quite funny when we’re at work it’s like, ‘Oh, what are you doing this weekend?’ and it’s like ‘I’m just going to Brazil for the weekend’ and I’m back to work again.
“Everyone finds it quite funny, I think.”
Burgess has tapped out his annual leave allowance for the year and is now taking unpaid leave to finish off the challenge.
He admitted the long year of travel, bouncing around different time zones around the world was starting to take its toll.
“It is definitely catching up with me a bit,” Burgess said.
“But I think the adrenaline is still powering me through. Obviously now we’ve got the final triple-header which is quite savage I guess going from Vegas to Qatar.
“I’ll see how I feel in two weeks’ time in Abu Dhabi.”
But Burgess is planning to do it all again next year – this time with his budget taken care of to cover his full-time travel – after winning a season ticket as part of a Heineken promotion and has given notice at his work.
And the Scuderia fan will be hoping for a better showing next season from Ferrari.
“I didn’t expect to go to all 24 races and not see one Ferrari win,” Burgess said.
“But that might happen, I think, unfortunately.”
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