People

Ann Bradshaw

Ann Bradshaw is the press officer of Tom Walkinshaw Racing and reckons that she has been interested in motor sport since she was a toddler. Her brother drove in local rallies in the Peterborough area in England where the Bradshaw Family had a farm. Annie was soon helping out at control points on road rallies. For their holidays the Bradshaws would go off to foreign Grands Prix or to the Le Mans 24 Hour race.

After leaving school Annie went to London to train to be a secretary and found a job with the Thomson Newspaper Group. This convinced her that she could be a journalist and after taking a course she found a job near her home with a newspaper called The Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury. For two years she was a cub reporter but maintained her interest in the sport and in 1971 was approached by the British Racing and Sports Car Club and asked if she would like to be its Competition Secretary.

Annie gave up journalism and spent five years organizing different motorsport events.

In 1977 she wanted a change and went back to journalism as a rallying reporter with Autosport magazine but three years later the Royal Automobile Club Motor Sports Association - the governing body of the sport in Britain - asked her to be its Press Officer and she accepted. That would last for five years and then CSS Promotions in London, which did the public relations work for Canon and John Player Special, asked her to join their team. She spent her first year attached going to all the Grands Prix as Team Lotus press officer (with drivers Ayrton Senna and Johnny Dumfries) but when JPS withdrew from F1 she transferred to work with Canon at Williams.

That job would continue until the end of 1993 when Canon withdrew from F1. Annie was hired by Williams to be press officer for the team and found herself working with Senna once again. After Ayrton's death at Imola she stayed with Williams, looking after Damon Hill but when Damon moved to Arrows, Bradshaw took up the offer of a job with Walkinshaw.

She went to America to work for Panoz for a brief period before returning to TWR again in 1999. She stayed only a year before becoming a freelance press officer.