Natalie Pinkham opens up on spinal surgery and emotional return to F1 paddock

Natalie Pinkham is talking football and laughing at the memory of taking Daniel Ricciardo with her to a game at Brentford. After a difficult period in her life it feels good to be smiling again.

The Sky F1 presenter is on the comeback trail from spinal surgery which required the temporary removal of her voice box. For a broadcaster that is less than ideal.

Natalie Pinkham details spinal surgery and return to Formula 1 coverage

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“It’s been an interesting personal journey,” she says. “When you have to be physically still, it stirs a lot up mentally. You reflect on everything and you get your priorities sorted.

“I hadn’t stopped for 15 years. Even having kids, I was back after six weeks. These last five months, it’s been a useful process for me.”

Pinkham was in Mexico last October when pain she had been experiencing off and on since running a marathon in memory of her good friend Caroline Flack, flared up.

“It was agony,” she recalls. “A disc in my neck slipped. It was pressing not only against the nerves down my left arm but also my spinal cord. The doctors said ‘you have to have that out. Now’.”

Pinkham, who has not covered a race since Monza back in September, points to a scar on her throat as she continues the story. She warns that what she is about to say is “a bit gross”.

“They went in at the front, took the voice box out and moved the trachea and oesophagus. Then they took the disc out, fused the vertebrae together, put a little cage in to prop the neck back up, and put me back together again.

“When they told me what they were going to do I was like, ‘not a chance’. They were like, “Hmm, you don’t really have a choice’.”

In the days and weeks that followed Pinkham worried she would be left behind as the F1 circus moved on without a backwards glance. She needn’t have.

“I got amazing support from within the sport,” she says. “You do sort of think, ‘oh, God, it’s rolling on without me’. But it’s not like that. Everybody gathers you up and looks after you and care about you.

“I think that is because everybody recognises we all make sacrifices to be involved in the sport. You leave your family and kids and home life. It’s not as glamorous as it looks. So there’s a sense of community, for sure.

“Loads of people say, ‘oh, aren’t they all so arrogant?’ They’re not. They’re actually incredibly modest and down to earth. People think it’s an individual sport but in reality it’s the ultimate team sport.

“Everyone has to pull together if you want the perfect result because just fractions of seconds separate everyone on the grid. You have to bring your A game every week. It’s a huge amount of pressure.”

Pinkham, 48, has been given the all-clear to resume flying. Her first race back on the mic will be the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka on March 29.

“I’ve got a couple more weeks to get as strong as possible before getting on a long haul, which I haven’t done yet,” she says. “I am slightly nervous, from my own physical health point of view, but really excited as well.

“Ever since 2020, when we all had to pull together in COVID, F1 has really felt like a community, a family. I’ve missed it.”

That is the second time Pinkham has mentioned family in our conversation. The first was in relation to Ricciardo, Australia’s eight-time F1 race winner and one of the sport’s most loved characters.

“He’s a close friend, godfather to our son Wilf, very much one of the family,” she says. “He comes to stay.”

It was on his last visit, back in November, that Pinkham and her husband took him to see their local club Brentford play Newcastle in the Premier League.

“He always says he doesn’t like football so we were like, we’ll see about that. [Igor] Thiago scored two late goals, the second in stoppage time, we won, the Gtech went off and Daniel absolutely loved it.”

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Ricciardo’s final F1 race was Singapore in 2024. The paddock, and indeed the Netflix series Drive To Survive, is not the same without the gregarious Aussie.

“I know,” Pinkham agrees. “And, do you know what, there was just never a dull moment with him. We’re lucky we stay in touch and we still see him and take him to Brentford games! But [F1] does feel very different.”

As the countdown continues to Sunday’s Melbourne opener, Pinkham dreams of Suzuka and being in Japan during cherry blossom season.

“I’m just hoping I get through that Grand Prix weekend without losing my voice,” she laughs. “I won’t have talked for that long for five months.”

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