I was at Suzuka last week. And it was one of those experiences that reminds you exactly why saying yes to unexpected opportunities is almost always the right decision.
I was invited to serve as one of the judges for the Honda Mobilityland Youth Innovation Awards 2026, held alongside the Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix. The competition invites high school and university students from around the world to propose ideas on how to make the journey to Suzuka more sustainable, how to bring new audiences into motorsports. And yes, the finalists get to present on the Fan Zone stage at Suzuka, in front of live audiences, during a race weekend that drew over 110,000 spectators. Not a small thing.
I have been a Formula 1 fan for a long time. So being there in that capacity, not just as a spectator but as an invited guest as part of a judging panel alongside academics and industry leaders was, to be honest, a bit surreal. A good kind of surreal.
The student proposals were genuinely impressive. They ranged from fan experiences and digital storytelling to low-carbon travel solutions. Some ideas were rough at the edges, as student work often is and that is completely fine. What mattered was the thinking behind them, the courage to develop an idea from scratch and bring it all the way to a stage like that. That is not easy. That requires discipline and persistence that many adults struggle with. In this case the students are supported with the team at Honda and the organisation committee lead by Altair Lee. And this iterations and support made the ideas sharper, demonstrations better and the presentations in higher quality. I guess that made the Fan Zone stage experience much easier for the students.
I said as much when I had the chance to speak to them: being on that stage at Suzuka is not something you just stumble into. Every team there had worked hard to earn it, and that deserved to be acknowledged.
There is something I find increasingly important about this kind of role; judging student competitions, mentoring early-career researchers, reviewing work from people who are just finding their footing. It is easy to forget, when you are deep in your own research or buried in editorial work, that you have an obligation to the next generation too. Not in a heavy, formal way. Just in the very practical sense that your attention, your honest feedback, your presence at an event like this matters to them more than you might expect.
And for me personally? Seeing themes like sustainability, human-centered design, and the role of technology in real-world experience being explored by students — at an F1 Grand Prix of all places — was a good reminder that these ideas are not niche. They are exactly what the next generation is already thinking about.
Formula 1 is fascinating from a research perspective too, by the way. Digital twins, real-time data analytics, autonomous systems under pressure, it is all there, compressed into a race weekend. I find it genuinely useful to engage with worlds like this, where the pace and stakes are different from academia. It keeps things real.
I will never forget the VIP Paddock tour with our Honda collaborators telling us details about the circuit and the sport. I must admit, I know a lot about Formula 1, so very little was surprising to me. In fact, so many things were familiar because I rarely miss a race and a lot is common in every circuit for the paddock. I count days to the pre-season testing. I watch the pre-race show, post-race show, the quali and the race circuit by circuit whole season. And I have done this for many years. I sometimes even disagree with the comments in Tech Talk and comment at the same time with the presenters 🙂 Classic! So it was weird to see some of them in the paddock. You feel like you know people, wild!
But the most unforgettable moment was seeing Lewis Hamilton in the paddock and I am a big fan of him, that I will not hide. I had to change my Mercedes mech to Ferrari like many. So I had my Ferrari cap with me. I shared this in my Instagram as “You never know who you are until you get VIP access to the paddock and ask a signature from Lewis Hamilton.”
So while we were walking, though I took my cap from my bag out saying you never know, I still never ever imagined that I can walk to Lewis. Yet, it happened 🙂
I saw him coming and a girl stopped him to take a photo together. I was not interested to take a photo but a signature would have been really nice for Idun. The thing is, whenever Idun sees a F1 car on TV, she starts to cheer, “Lewis Lewis” and I think it is so cute.
I had no pen with me and you know what, you cannot get a signature on a cap with a normal pen 😀 But as I said you never know. The next thing I know is a guy approaching him with a pen just in front of my eyes and asks for a signature and I got my signature too.
I have some good friends, family members and students who thinks Lewis should have been as happy as I am and should have asked me for a signature. I do not think they are Formula 1 fans 😀 But I am incredibly lucky to have all of them thinking so highly of me, that is a good thing.
Long story short, if you ever get the chance to judge a student competition, take it. You will probably give them something useful. They will definitely give you something back. And who knows, maybe you also get a memory for a life.
#Formula1 #Suzuka #YouthInnovation #Honda #Sustainability #AcademicLife #NextGeneration #Research
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