Diagonal Diary: Asetek’s birthday, cheat meals with the BTCC and Pat’s media day
Monday 9 September:
Our week begins with a focus on producing content for Patrick Heuzenroeder, the 18-year-old Australian driver currently competing in the GB3 Championship, the UK’s premier single-seater series.
He was at Donington Park for the penultimate race meeting of the season last weekend, where, had it not been for a late red flag in qualifying, he could have left with a healthy haul of points. Unfortunately, things don’t always go your way in motorsport, and the stoppage left Pat on the backfoot from the weekend’s outset; just two more corners could have turned things on their head! Once George Brabner, who had been on the ground with Pat for the weekend, returned home, our usual post-round press release was distributed across Pat’s social media channels and website.
Our attention then turns towards creating a 60-second video reviewing Pat’s weekend at the 4.020 km (2.498 miles) Derby circuit. It is spearheaded by a high-paced montage that features a few innovative transitions, some intense on-track action and a sprinkle of lighter-hearted clips of Pat outside the car with his team, JHR Developments, before shifting gear into a one-on-one interview with Pat to get his thoughts on the weekend.
Tuesday 10 September:
On Tuesday, we host the next of our scheduled media days in our City of London offices with Pat Heuzenroeder. However, before we get underway, we have one of our regular bi-weekly catchups with Asetek SimSports, the Danish sim-racing hardware manufacturer, where we discuss some of the plans the company has for the coming months. Stay tuned for more on this!
Back to ‘media day’ and the morning is packed with press interviews that we organised for Pat, both with journalists from the UK and his homeland of Australia. Once these sessions are complete, we begin a productive studio session where we film interviews for Pat’s social media channels and work on an exciting new style of video that will put you ‘behind the visor’ with him in a race scenario.
Once media activities with Pat are concluded, we fire up two of our state-of-the-art racing simulators — which feature hydraulic pedals, a direct drive wheelbase and a steering wheel from Asetek SimSports — to perform a systems check before we transport them to the Royal Automobile Club next week. Next Tuesday (September 17) evening, we’ll be running one of the Club’s glamorous Sim Racing Championship events in Pall Mall.
To top off a busy day, Matt Bishop’s next column for Motorsport Magazine is published. He details the events of the 1977 Italian Grand Prix, which began 47 years ago today. The race was eventually won by Italian-American Mario Andretti, whom you may have become familiar with in recent months courtesy of Andretti Global’s tumultuous bid to enter Formula One, but you could argue that he was the favoured victor over one of the Scuderia’s own, Niki Lauda, that weekend in Monza in the eyes of the passionate Tifosi.
Wednesday 11 September:
If you were dreaming of reading another new Motorsport Magazine column written by Matt this week, you’re in luck! His second piece of the week is published, which digests Tuesday’s official announcement that one of Formula One’s greatest designers and engineers, Adrian Newey, will be joining Aston Martin in March 2025. Having worked at the team from 2021 to the end of 2022, you can read Matt’s thoughts on the latest news from the Silverstone-based outfit now.
Meanwhile, we are busy discussing an exciting charity initiative involving the BTCC, and we are invited to pitch our comms, PR, social media, content creation and digital marketing services to two brand-new clients! Exciting times are on the horizon and we get to work forming two new pitch decks.
A new video that our BTCC media team filmed on the ground during the series eighth event of 2024 at Donington Park is published on social media, where a handful of drivers from the tell us what their dream ‘cheat day’ meal would be. Personally, we’ve got to agree with Tom Ingram’s rundown – yes, rundown, not meal – which you can see here.
Thursday 12 September:
Today, Asetek SimSports launches its 3 Year Celebration Bundle. Back in September 2021, Andre Eriksen, a former racing driver himself, founded Asetek SimSports and oversaw the release of their first product: the hydraulic Invicta pedals. To mark the occasion, Asetek is running a month-long campaign that allows you to pick up a pair of 750+ € Pagani Huayra R replica sim racing pedals when you purchase any wheelbase and steering wheel as part of a three-year celebration bundle! The deal is limited-time and isn’t one that you want to miss out on if you’re looking to upgrade your sim racing hardware.
In the meantime, we schedule a meeting with a potential new client, a race team that currently competes in multiple series across the globe, and continue to work on expanding our presence as an agency on our social media channels.
Friday 13 September:
As the week draws to a close, we place more attention on our client Asetek SimSports. There are an important few months coming up for the Danish sim racing equipment manufacturer with the ADAC Sim Racing Expo and the launch of their new Invicta wheel both on the horizon, whilst the run-up to Christmas also marks an important period in their calendar. We are busy planning how to amplify their activities from a comms/PR standpoint and we begin by contacting a variety of mainstream gaming media outlets to continue raising their profile within the sim racing space.
We round out our activities on Friday with further work on our bid to win a prestigious motorsport media award, fleshing out the details of some of the amazing work we’ve done for our clients in the past year and we weave in some data to show the impact our efforts have made.