“Ernst Hausleitner:” … and then they took us out of the pit lane “

In the OÖN sports podcast, the native of Grieskirchen spoke (in advance) about the upcoming Austrian Grand Prix, at which he will finally be able to comment again on site, as well as about his career as a Formula 1 presenter. Excerpts from the podcast:

OÖN: ORF and Servus TV have been sharing the rights to Formula 1 since this year. You were not involved in the first Grand Prix, both Austrian channels will be broadcasting next weekend. How does this affect your work?

Ernst Hausleitner: Interviewers are allowed in the paddock this year, but commentators are not. The press boxes are in the territory of Formula 1 and are simply not unlocked. This is not directed against the commentators, but Formula 1 just wants to protect the people in the inner circle as best it can. That is why we comment from Vienna and our colleagues from Servus TV from Salzburg. The coming weekend is an exception. We’ll be commenting on the racetrack, but from outside, on the Schönberg straight.

Is there a prospect of when you will be able to report live from the paddock again?

I’m afraid that this season won’t be any more. In there are only those who have to be inside. But I’m afraid I just stifled the question you asked earlier.

Never mind.

We only have 50 percent of the races live, and that’s a turning point. It is crucial that the public can watch all races on free television. The Formula 1 audience in Austria honors this with incredible quotas. The colleagues in Salzburg are cheering, we are cheering. The last time in Baku we had a peak of 760,000 viewers. That is the positive. But if you ask me about the pace of work, it’s not that pleasant.

There is a lot of work behind broadcasting the race for you as the moderator. How intense will the weekend be for you?

It’s the busiest weekend of the year. We broadcast more or less continuously for three days. Since this year we have been showing all training sessions, qualifying sessions and races live on television. But we will also broadcast the breaks between the sessions and we will show all other competitions – three Formula 3 races, a Porsche Super Cup race and the women’s series race live. We have reporting that has never been seen before. And we’ve been tinkering with it for weeks, if not months. And of course the new fact also plays a role that we are on air with Servus TV this weekend – and it will be the only one this year. And then the viewer has a free choice. Of course we hope to be so well positioned that the audience will choose us.

You are always well informed about the drivers. Hence the question: How many cell phone numbers of current drivers are stored in Ernst Hausleitner’s cell phone?

Not many. Maybe five. Six. Like this.

Can you call these contacts in preparation for a weekend, or do you tend to avoid that?

Rare. There is someone I talk to more often. But otherwise you don’t want to overuse it.

If you read on Twitter, it seems as if the Germans envy us our Formula 1 commentators. In soccer it tends to be the other way round. What makes you and Alex Wurz so popular?

I am happy to leave this assessment to others. But of course I like to read such reports, am happy about them and answer most of them. The tenor is – and as I said, that is not my opinion – that the relationship between entertainment and information is probably right. And if that’s the case, then we’ve done everything right.

How did you get into motorsport and Formula 1?

My dad is also a Formula 1 fan and took me to the Austrian Grand Prix for the first time in 1975. I was five or six years old then. And in the years that followed, I always watched Formula 1 like a hundred thousand other children. And later the ORF editorial staff knew about my passion for Formula 1. And in the summer of 2004 they were looking for an interviewer for Formula 1 and came to me. I’ll never forget that, we were just in Athens for the Olympic Games and then the editor-in-chief came and asked me if I wanted to do that. And I said: ‘If I can do that, you don’t have to book me any trips because then I’ll run on the handstand.’

The rally sport is known among motorsport fans as familiar, as motorsport to touch because you can get very close to the drivers in the paddock between competitions. How familiar or how elitist is Formula 1?

Absolutely elitist. But that doesn’t happen by chance, that’s Bernie Ecclestone’s marketing concept from the 1980s. He wanted to do it so elitist and aloof and the success finally proves him right. As I said, I was always at the Austrian Grand Prix from the mid-70s. We went around everywhere, in every garage, to every car, to every driver. There are also videos of me walking from garage to garage collecting autographs in a little booklet. I even still have that. Incidentally, I have James Hunt’s autograph, and I’m particularly proud of that. So you could go anywhere. And in 1983 I went there again with my dad and we went in everywhere again because it was so common for us. And then they took us away, they threw us out via security. Everything was rigorously sealed off, and that’s Bernie Ecclestone’s signature. And then the real success run of Formula 1 only began. And this aloof, this inaccessible, is an important building block that makes Formula 1 successful.

Is it this aloofness that makes drivers superstars?

Yes, absolutely. And that’s how it should be. I also oppose any technical simplification. It also has to be so technically and strategically complex. And if a front wing breaks, then it shouldn’t only cost 1000 euros. It has to cost 30,000 euros to make something. And that’s Formula 1.

Your ORF colleague Rainer Pariasek recently said that you have to be a bit vain as a moderator. How vain is Ernst Hausleitner?

I got used to that quite a bit after Niki Lauda gave me the title Schönleitner in the early stages of my work in Formula 1. Before one of my first interviews with Niki Lauda, ​​I straightened my hair in the reflection of the camera lens. And he asked me what I would do there. ‘If you do that again, I’ll call you Schönleitner in the interview. And then, fatally, I reached into it again.

Who is your tip for the Formula 1 world champion?

Max Verstappen.

You can listen to the interview and the podcast in the following length as well as many other episodes with local athletes at the top of the article, or on the following podcast platforms:

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