Interview with Pauline Sanzey, face of Formula 1 on Canal+

2022 was your first season within the F1 team, how did your first steps in the paddock go?

Very well, I took the plunge. I did the first Grand Prix in Paris, in a studio setting, and my first on-site race was in Imola. It’s a whole new working environment because until now I had only done some in-ring presenting for boxing… but it’s completely different, we only spend one evening there, the rest of the time we’re in the editing room, whereas here it’s really four days away from the office. We’re outdoors, so we have to manage the noise, we have to manage the crowd around us, it’s truly a very different experience but the first one went very well. There’s a super supportive team who have been doing this for ten years now on Canal+, so they’re all experienced, they’re used to it, they quickly gave me the codes, the keys… so yeah, they guided me, it was very pleasant.

How is this transition from the studio to the field decided?

There are very different paths, I started in other sports, I was already at Canal for a long time, it was my seventh year so I had already spent six years before moving to motorsports. I worked on golf, boxing, I worked at Infosport, so in fact I didn’t do my entire career and early years in motorsports. Then it turned out that they needed people because there were more and more Grand Prix races and Thomas Sénécal was becoming the director of sports, so he was going to leave the department. They needed someone and that’s when they offered me this opportunity, and I already had some experience as a presenter, so that’s why I immediately took it. It was what I did before that led to it happening like this, but I think there are very diverse paths.

Just as you have covered boxing, golf, Moto GP, and Formula 1, how do you manage to be knowledgeable in so many areas?

It’s something that has always appealed to me actually. The thing is, I started at Infosport, which is Canal’s continuous sports news channel, so we are expected to cover all sports. That’s something I developed right away when I arrived at Canal. When I first started after finishing school, I wasn’t affiliated with just one sport, otherwise I would have focused more on that sport. For a long time, I had to talk about many different sports, so it became a habit that I quickly embraced. And it’s something I really like because, first of all, I’m a big consumer of many sports. I won’t say that I watch everything, but I do consume a lot. And besides that, as a journalist, we are expected to talk about things we know very well and things we know less about. That’s our job, to ask questions in order to talk about them.

Why journalism? When did you become aware that you wanted to pursue this career?

Quite fast. It’s an idea that came to me as early as middle school because I watched a lot of sports, I loved it so quickly I thought to myself “I want to be a sports journalist”. Then I had a phase in high school where I hesitated a bit because I was more inclined towards the sciences, so I thought to myself, “what if I continued in this field?” In addition, I had been told a lot, and it’s true, that it was quite competitive, that there were a lot of people, it wasn’t necessarily the easiest career path or the easiest branch to pursue. But in middle school, in 8th grade, I remember I had a supervisor who took journalism school exams so I inquired with him.

Tell us about your background.

I had a scientific baccalaureate. After high school, I knew that the schools I wanted to attend required a bachelor’s degree plus three years of study, so I decided to do a literary preparatory class (Hypokhâgne, Khâgne) for two years in a high school in Nancy. Then I did a third year in history-geography, and I took the entrance exams for journalism schools, but I failed them. So I thought to myself, “Oops, I will retake them next year, but what is the best way to prepare for them?” And since I loved political science, I did a Master’s degree in political science at the Sorbonne while also re-preparing for the entrance exams. That’s how I got into the Professional Institute of Journalism, and then I spent two years in journalism school.

I had done some research, so I knew that it wasn’t always easy to succeed in the exams on the first attempt because they were very specific exams, and I gave myself a second chance if I failed them again the second time, I don’t know what I would have done. Actually, the first time I took them, it really helped me because the second time, I knew the tests, so I was able to prepare much better. It’s true that each path is very different, but yes, I ended up having a relatively traditional path. Even though you can become a journalist without attending school, it still gives you a work method, it gives you a certain rigor in how to research information.

What does the preparation for Grand Prix weekends look like?

The weeks when I will be at a Grand Prix, on Wednesdays I will travel, on Thursdays it’s the day of interviews so we are at the circuit, we do what we call “plateaux” or “duplex” for the different channels of the group and the different shows, and then on Fridays it’s the beginning of the weekend so we wake up early, I prepare my notes again to go on air and that repeats itself for three days. It’s true that it’s difficult to give a typical day, for example this weekend I will be in the studio so before that, I am at the office and I prepare what will happen. I read, I gather information, I build the script with the editors-in-chief, I check the segments because, for example, on Saturday there are several moments where I will intervene, so that’s the preparation beforehand. On the days when I will be in the studio, if I start the show at 12pm on Saturday, I will arrive around 9am, finish my notes, reread the script, go get my makeup done and then I am in the studio until 5pm.

What is the most rewarding aspect of this profession?

It’s specific to Canal+, we are a paid channel, people pay a often significant amount to watch our programs, so the most rewarding thing is that people are happy and in their feedback they tell us “I had a great time”. That’s the most rewarding thing.

And the thing that you like least?

It’s a very demanding job, it’s a big part of our lives so during nine, ten months of the year I hardly have any weekends. I have hours that are not necessarily common, so afterwards there are plenty of professions, we are not the only ones, like doctors, nurses… it’s the same. So maybe that’s the biggest downside.

What does your wishlist for the coming years contain?

Maybe covering the Olympic Games because as a sports journalist, it’s always something that we want to do. I think it’s an incredible experience, but honestly, I am very happy with what I do. It was a real challenge to join the motorsports field because there were so many new things to discover and learn, so it’s a big challenge. For now, my challenge for the upcoming months is to continue to integrate myself well into these two teams in these two sports.

How do you see the 2023 season?

I want to believe that there will be suspense. We always have doubts, after the tests we have just gone through for three days, we don’t necessarily see everything that will happen, but I want to believe that there will be suspense, so I don’t think we should expect Red Bull and Verstappen to slow down. I don’t think that will be the case. If we want suspense, we should rather bet on Ferrari and Mercedes. We hope that Ferrari’s car will be as performant as last season and that there will be fewer mistakes. And for Mercedes, we hope that, like at the end of the season, they come back to the forefront so that we have a real fight and they are really capable of challenging everyone. I want to believe in a season with a little more suspense than last year.

A favorite stable?

No! I have a favorite soccer team but not a stable. This year, we will all inevitably support Alpine because we are a bit patriotic, we want this “French F1 team” to make us thrilled.