Welcome to the 2008 Formula 1 grid: Lewis Hamilton clinched his maiden world championship, Red Bull was on the brink of dominance, and everyone was embracing their emo phase. A resurfaced video from the final race of the season shows key members of the paddock, including most of that season's drivers, lip syncing My Chemical Romance’s punk rock hit, "Welcome to the Black Parade."
If that’s a string of words you never expected to read in a sentence, you should remember that the late 2000s had a very different vibe. The endearing clip, which has the feel of a middle-school iMovie project, was actually an ITV production that aired before the last race of the season in Brazil.
ITV held the series' broadcast rights in the UK from 1997 to 2008, totaling 206 Grands Prix over 12 years (BBC regained the rights in 2009, but agreed to a deal with Sky Sports just two years later). The network was credited with changing the way we consume F1 by producing more interviews, better camera angles, and in-depth reporting. However, it was heavily criticized for interrupting races with commercials, ultimately missing over 31 races’ worth of live action. Notably, the ad breaks meant viewers didn’t get to see Damon Hill’s stunning pass on Michael Schumacher at the 1997 Hungarian Grand Prix or the gearbox issue that dashed Hamilton’s title hopes at Interlagos in 2007, among other pivotal moments.
But let’s get back to the video: long before lip-syncing-as-entertainment was normalized by TikTok, ITV tapped a few familiar faces to help them say goodbye to the sport. While drivers like Hamilton, Mark Webber and Nico Rosberg only made brief appearances, others were clearly very enthusiastic about the task at hand.
David Coulthard, along with future world champions Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel fully embraced the emo spirit, playing air guitar and dancing around while mimicking the American emo band. Martin Brundle, Ted Kravitz, Steve Rider, James Allen (who has since joined Motorsport Network), and the late Murray Walker were also featured in the video, before ITV made a self-deprecating reference to their significant number of commercial breaks.
It was followed by clips of some of the most iconic on-track moments of the previous decade, a brief David and Victoria Beckham cameo, and concluded with an ode to Hamilton’s first title. “Surely the first of many for Lewis Hamilton, the world is at his feet,” the commentator accurately predicted at the end of the clip.
