Podium Life got the chance to connect with Hamburg, Germany’s very own Pitlane Twins! Learn how they got started in F1, their favorite racing movie, and the best thing about their job.
Tell us a little bit about yourselves.
We are Desiree & Virginia, aka The Pitlane Twins! We’re 30 years old (OMG!) and have our base in Hamburg, Germany. Our father gave us the passion for F1 in the cradle, but it still took some time for it to flourish. We saw our first race live in 2018 and since then we used to say “attending races is our kind of vacation”.
We’ve now seen 18 races live, at 11 different race tracks – we only recently made a note of this and were “shocked” by how many we’ve been to. But that’s just our life: Traveling the world for Formula 1. You should know that we hated traveling before that! So if we hadn’t discovered Formula 1 for ourselves, we’d probably be sitting in Germany 365 days a year haha.
What inspired you to start Pit Lane Twins?
The account was created in 2019 while we were waiting for an autograph session in Hockenheim. At the time, the account was intended more as a private photo album where we wanted to share our passion with other Formula 1 fans. Two years later, however, at the race in Spielberg, we decided to post more and more intentionally. The goal at the time was to work for Mercedes in social media. However, we had no practical experience at that time, so we thought: this account would be our best reference.
Also, at the time there were only a few accounts that regularly showed their “face” – just like influencers do – and we realized that we were missing that, a personal relationship with another F1 fan. So we thought: let’s be the first account.
How did you establish this as a career?
It was not easy! When we started to take the account seriously, we received a promising offer that would have made us big pretty quickly. However, that didn’t materialize and so we continued on our own four feet. The influencer business has not yet arrived in the world of F1 and so we wrote a lot of emails and rarely received (positive) responses. But we didn’t give up and were overjoyed when we received the management offer from wtf1 talents in April 2023. This showed us that we are not the only ones who believe that influencers and content creators will play an important role in the F1 world soon.
What advice do you have for others trying to break into motorsports?
First of all, only do what you really want to do and not what others tell you to do. Because this is the only way you can run the marathon that this business requires. We recently had to redefine our purpose because we realized that the original one no longer sparked the fire in us. And at the end of the day, it’s all about having fun in life and especially at work.
What follows on from this and relates to content creation: find your niche. Don’t do what works well for others but you can’t do anything with. Your audience will notice that. So it should be a well-considered decision.
On the other hand, and we’ve also noticed this, don’t get too cerebral about it. Otherwise you’ll quickly lose the fun and only look at the numbers.
There is a lot more focus on supporting more diversity in motorsports, including women across all roles. How do you see this and are you involved in any way?
We have already considered whether we should make an issue of this and have come to the decision not to do so. Because it always means that it’s something “special” if you make it a topic. And it shouldn’t be something special, but something completely normal that women can take on any role, whether driver or principal of a team.
We have noticed that the majority of content creators are female and that also shows how far the sport has already opened up and how high the need is to share your passion for it. These creators are the best example of the fact that everyone is welcome in this sport.
Favorite book?
We probably should have answered “Survive to drive” now haha.
So for me, Desiree speaking, it’s “The big 5 for life” by John Strelecky. At that time I was reading a lot of books about self-development and this book inspired me a lot.
For me, Virginia, I haven’t read a book in ages and no other than the one Desiree mentioned comes to mind when I think of books that stick to my mind really.
Favorite Racing movie?
We normally don’t watch many movies, we don’t go to cinemas either. Luckily though, on the flight to Abu Dhabi last year they had the Senna documentary on offer. I, Virginia, watched it and it totally caught me. To be frank, I did not have any connection to Senna before that but over the course of the play time I realized how big his legacy is and found it just so overwhelming diving into his career and personality. If I had been at home while watching it, I would have probably cried. His story really touched me and coming to Imola this year made me feel so reverent.
Best thing about your job? Most frustrating thing?
The best thing is to make others happy and inspire them. Especially when we are traveling, we often hear “you girls are living my dream” and that confirms us in our mission #fans4fans, with which we want to bring the sport closer to other fans through our experiences.
And the most frustrating thing? We’ll be honest with you – it’s the performance requirement and the direct feedback you receive on your performance (views, likes, comments, etc.).
We’ve often doubted ourselves when our content wasn’t as well received as usual. You look for reasons and sometimes find none. Then you have to accept that there are natural fluctuations and, of course, as a creator you are dependent on the platform, primarily Instagram in our case.
Favorite race track?
Our experiences on the track have clearly left their mark on us. Because it’s Spielberg and Abu Dhabi where we’ve had our best moments so far.
Our favorite street circuit is Baku and maybe we’ll be lucky enough to see it live this year.
If you could win the Indy 500, 24 Hours of Le Man or Monaco GP, what would you pick and why?
As we’re into F1 and not the other racing series, we’d go with Monaco GP for sure. The history this circuit brings is awesome and we’d surely copy Daniel’s move of jumping into the pool afterwards.
Dream driver pairing and why?
We LOVED the times when Max and Daniel were teammates. They were so funny together!!
Last year we said we would like to see Charles and Lewis in the same team, but to be honest we had seen them together at Mercedes and not at Ferrari haha. Well, for Lewis that seems to be the better option and so we’re excited to see what life is like as Tifosi.
What’s next for you and Pit Lane Twins?
We would like to have a community meeting again this year and also our first merchandise launch or maybe just fan cards – something like that.
There are three race attendances in July for us and we are also planning the second half of the season. If everything goes as planned, we will attend 12 races this year. That’s incredible, because our internal target was 8-10 races. We are most looking forward to Abu Dhabi and hope that we can celebrate Lewis’ last race in the Mercedes.
Any final words?
It’s always a pleasure for us to answer questions for interviews, magazines, podcasts or bachelor thesis for other fans. We feel so honored to be asked for our story and opinions!
