Diagonal Diary: The best of 2024
The past 12 months have been very busy at Diagonal Comms. Our team has grown in personnel, we have served tens of clients across the globe in various facets of the motorsport and automotive industries, and we have written more press releases, organised more interviews with mainstream media, uploaded more social media posts, and edited more videos than we could ever find the time to count. So, as we reach the end of our first full year in operation, let us take you on a trip down memory lane as we look back at some of our highlights from 2024.
The Bernie Ecclestone Collection
At the beginning of December, we had the pleasure of handling the comms & PR for the sale of Bernie Ecclestone’s magnificent Formula 1 and Grand Prix car collection through Tom Hartley Jnr – one of the world’s most respected and exclusive high-end dealers in classic and historic sports cars and racing cars.
Former Formula 1 supremo Ecclestone, 94, spent more than half a century building the stunning ensemble, which features 69 prestigious race- and championship-winning cars spanning 70 years of Formula 1 and Grand Prix racing history. It is one of, if not the, most impressive collection of racing cars to ever be sold.
Our Diagonal Comms team worked in close collaboration with Tom Hartley Jnr and his staff to craft a comms/PR strategy that effectively promoted his company’s outstanding global reach and its internationally recognised reputation. Our work included the distribution of a press release, which contained extended quotes from both Bernie Ecclestone and Tom Hartley Jnr, to media across the world, as well as proactive media liaison which resulted in widespread coverage by leading online, print, and broadcast media outlets across news, sport, business, consumer, and lifestyle.
Prodrive’s 40th Anniversary
We were delighted to devise and manage the comms, PR, social media, content creation, and digital marketing activity for Prodrive, the world-leading motorsport and advanced technology business, as it celebrated its 40th anniversary this year.
Prodrive, which is headed by David Richards, has achieved an incredible amount of success in circuit and rally racing since it was founded in 1984, and gained legendary status in the process. While nobody can resist reminiscing on its past glories, it has widened its operating window to encompass many activities outside of motorsport, including high-tech engineering in the automotive, aerospace, marine, and defence sectors. It was our job to celebrate its history, and the dedication and talent of its 550 employees while communicating its exciting vision for the future.
Highlights of our work included a three-part video series that highlighted Prodrive’s 40-year journey which you can watch now on YouTube, and organising a variety of print, online, and broadcast interviews with David Richards, including the Financial Times and BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
A ‘perfectly untamed’ evening with Guenther Steiner
In July, we helped propel the much-anticipated launch campaign for Buffalo Trace, the celebrated Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, into the spotlight with a ‘perfectly untamed’ evening at their new London distillery in Covent Garden, where former Haas Formula 1 team principal (and Netflix’s Drive to Survive star!) Guenther Steiner was unveiled as a brand ambassador.
Our team led the activation’s comms/PR efforts, managing all elements of the announcement, crafting compelling narratives to maximise earned editorial coverage, hosting a Q&A with Steiner for invited media guests, and creating engaging digital content around the event’s key moments with our team of videographers and photographers.
The event resulted in widespread media coverage for Buffalo Trace, including features by Autosport, Reuters, TalkSport, and Sky Sports News.
The Renaissance Foundation at Brands Hatch
As a fiery head-to-head battle between Team Bristol Street Motors’ Tom Ingram and Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport’s Jake Hill for the driver’s title loomed, 16 young carers and patients aged between 14 and 18 from the Renaissance Foundation travelled to Brands Hatch for a behind-the-scenes view of the British Touring Car Championship season finale as part of a special activation devised by Diagonal Comms.
The Renaissance Foundation, whose mission is to help young carers and patients reach their full potential, was hosted at the iconic Kent circuit by BTCC title sponsor KwikFit and enjoyed a money-can’t-buy experience that included hot laps in the BTCC Porsche Panamera GTS safety car, exclusive tours of the BTCC garages – including talks with Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing’s Aron Taylor-Smith and NAPA Racing UK’s Dan Cammish – hospitality in the Brabham Stewart suites, and more.
Our team bolstered the activation by organising mainstream media interviews, including this feature in Autosport, and video and photo content for use across social media.
Asetek SimSports’ at the RAC
We visited the historic Royal Automobile Club for a media event hosted by Asetek SimSports, the Danish sim-racing hardware manufacturer, in June. The activation, which aimed to attract earned editorial coverage for Asetek as it looked to cement itself as a key player in the sim-racing hardware space, featured a round of media interviews with Asetek’s founder & CEO Andre Eriksen, and Deagen Fairclough, the 2024 ROKiT British F4 champion who earned his seat by winning a sim-racing competition and is an advocate of Asetek’s kit.
With the gold trophy that Lewis Hamilton would emotionally raise atop the Silverstone podium after winning the British Grand Prix for the ninth time just over one month later gleaming in the corner of the RAC’s Committee Room, Fairclough gave a Silverstone sim-racing masterclass using an Asetek rig, before our media guests attempted (and failed!) to beat his time.
Topped off by a delicious three-course lunch, the activation was deemed a definitive success and lead to coverage in media outlets such as The Telegraph, Mail Online, and Planet F1.
Hard Rock Cocktails collaboration with Patrick Heuzenroeder
During Round 5 of the GB3 Championship season, our Diagonal Comms team executed a carefully crafted comms/PR strategy to mark the beginning of a new collaboration between Hard Rock Cocktails and the 18-year-old Australian racing driver, Patrick Heuzenroeder.
Our work began with a press release that announced Heuzenroeder’s new partnership, including exclusive quotes from ‘The Racing Kelpie’ and Hard Rock’s Hagay Naor. This was distributed to media and amplified across Heuzenroeder’s social media channels.
On the ground at Circuit Zandvoort, our team organised two events: a livery reveal to show off Heuzenroeder’s all-new paint job carrying Hard Rock Cocktails’ colours, and a first-of-its-kind event hosted by Hard Rock Cocktails that was attended by members of the media and the GB3 paddock. Diagonal Comms provided videography, photography, and media liaison throughout the weekend to raise the profile of Heuzenroeder’s latest collaboration.
Lunch with Otmar Szafnauer
Back in April, we enjoyed lunch at a London restaurant with former Aston Martin and Alpine Formula 1 team principal Otmar Szafnauer. Our team attended the lunch with a variety of invited guests from motorsport, business, and technology media to manage interviews with Szafnauer about EventR – the app designed to simplify the logistics of team travel planning solutions, which was built by a team of software developers led by Otmar – and, of course, Formula 1.
The activation aimed to secure significant earned editorial coverage and came as part of our overarching comms/PR strategy that was designed to raise the profile of EventR by positioning Szafnauer as a thought leader, leveraging his expertise in software development and his unparalleled knowledge of sporting logistics — and the pinnacle of single-seater motorsport more broadly — having worked in Formula 1 between 1998 and 2023.
The response was impressive. Our expertise led to Szafnauer and EventR receiving coverage internationally, including in The Race, Motorsport, The Independent, Mail Online, The Mirror, and The Japan Times.
