With the Formula One season under way for 2026, British Touring champion Paul O’Neill explores how his popstar sister helped him break into the sport dogged by accusations of elitism

“Was I stealing a drive from someone who deserved it more? Maybe. Did I care? Not really. You can’t sit around feeling sorry for people.”

For Paul O’Neill, a place in motorsport was a pipe dream. Born on a Widnes council estate, the glamorous world of motorsport was a world away from his humble beginnings.

“I just wanted to race British Touring Cars,” O’Neill reflected.

“But the sport isn’t built for people like me.”

Expensive to the extreme, O’Neill would need preposterous money to fund his prospective career. A lucky break beyond what his parents could provide.

“I needed luck,” he said. Luck was exactly what he got.

His sister, Melanie Chisholm, better known as Mel C of Spice Girls stardom, made it big, and decided to bankroll her brother’s dream.

“My sister funded my first three years in motorsport and I’ll never hide that,”

“In 1999 that was £200,000, and then I was on my own.”

An established personality in motorsport now, featuring on Top Gear, ITV4 and Gogglebox (alongside his sister) O’Neill is clear that he would not be in the position he’s in without that financial backing.

His viewpoint on both sides of the coin, being an ordinary kid with a dream to now cultivating a career in the sport has given him that appreciation for the difficulty of earning a career.

“It was expensive then, it’s even more expensive now.”

What O’Neill reflects is a growing attitude that simply working hard is not enough anymore.

Nowhere reflects this shift like Formula One. O’Neill was inspired by a rock-and-roll era of Formula One. Names like Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Ayrton Senna dominated the grid. Other British drivers like Martin Brundle, Jonny Herbert and Derek Warwick were also finding success. It all seemed achievable.

Prost was picked up as a talented karting prize winner, Brundle was found after building his own Ford Anglia to race in, and Mansell famously sold his house to gamble on his motorsport career.

In those days, a moderate backing might get you noticed, and talent was the sellable asset.

Speaking to grassroots coach and former driver Tim Arnold, who first started racing in 1980, those opportunities are few and far between now.

“You need £25,000 minimum to get on the British Touring grid” he reflects.

“That’s just not realistic whilst managing a full time job.”

Allen himself worked in car manufacturing and as a salesman alongside his racing career, but that is no longer an option, from the average hobbyist all the way to the elite hopeful.

Add those thousands to the cost of getting the car to the venue, the various safety accoutrements and sometime paying for the seat itself, it all adds up.

Arnold has taken up coaching to supplement his racing income and to offer the cheapest possible route into the sport, but, in his own words “results are secondary.”

Instead, to secure sponsors and generate traction, you need an inspiring story to tell or a well-crafted marketing spiel.

Or a famous relative. As O’Neill says: “Formula One is the sexiest thing on the planet.”

Looking across the teams of today, only Lewis Hamilton can truly claim to have been plucked from the herd through hard work, graft and talent.

Lance Stroll is the son of billionaire Lawrence, who bought the Aston Martin F1 team (then Force India) so that his son could have a drive.

Max Verstappen, son of former F1 driver Jos utilised his father’s exposure and natural talent to earn a lucrative Red Bull contract.

And most recent champion Lando Norris reportedly had £40 million invested in his career by property developer father Adam.

Teams simply are not interested if you don’t bring revenue.

The principle of a pay driver is not new. Brazilian Pedro Diniz raced in Formula One between 1998 and 2000, benefitting from the financial incentive his father, owner of Brazilian supermarket chain Companhia Brasileira de Distribuição.

Ostentatious levels of money is par for the course in motorsport, the first ever Grand Prix was held in the tax haven of Monaco in 1929.

Inflation is natural for such a resource intense sport, and O’Neill reflects on an answer he gave to Top Gear magazine in 2001 when quizzed on this very issue.

“Do you really think Michael Schumacher’s parents ran a hotdog stand?”

In reality, Schumacher’s parents worked at the karting track where their son would later showcase his talents, and they invested everything into their son’s career, but his father Rolf’s connection to the track gave a young Michael unprecedented access to prodigious sponsors.

Once again, luck is the name of the game.

“These guys are still unbelievably talented, but the level of money you now need to make it toes the line between luck and money.”

£3.3 million was the yearly figure produced by former Ferrari race engineer Rob Smedley, and that’s just for aspirational young boys, female drivers may need further investment.

“It’s absurd amounts of money,” Smedley told Autosport.

“Ordinary people are denied access.”

Smedley’s point has been proven.

He drove young prodigy Abby Eaton around the country with the figure emblazoned on the side of her car. Since then, Eaton has been left without a drive as she was £300,000 short of what she needed to continue.

The crux of the issue for motorsport is not the money itself, after all “without money the sport doesn’t exist,” but the sport is gradually shifting into a billionaire’s plaything.

Formula One began as the first proper ‘regulated racing,’ with talented drivers offered a leg up by teams to compete. Like all sports aspire to be, a pursuit of excellence.

Even for sports like golf, the figures in motorsport have taken on a new stratosphere.

For O’Neill, the onus is not on drivers or teams to produce this ludicrous amount of money, this has to be driven by governing bodies and government departments.

73% of the Formula One teams are based in the UK, and five of the 22 drivers were born here, so it is clear where O’Neill believes the responsibility lies.

“The financial element is impossible for British drivers.”

“Countries like Mexico have put so much money into their drivers being recognised on the global stage and we can’t.”

Motorsport UK have received limited funding from Sport England, but it will still cost in excess of £10,000 to train there per year, and that quickly expands to £200 and £600 thousand as a driver rises to Formula 4 and Formula 3 levels, for which there is no funding subsidy.

In an era of increasing competition from simulators that are still expensive enough to be just out of reach of those from more modest backgrounds, this is no longer a competitive price.

Ultimately, motorsport enjoys its elite status in the sporting world. The synthetic feel is one of the things that makes it so attractive through mediums like Netflix’s Drive to Survive.

But for young people who have picked up an ambition to go racing, the numbers behind the career are debilitating to all but the top 0.001%.

“There was an old saying from Richard Branson, if you want to lose money start an airline,” Arnold reflected.

“These days if you want to lose money go racing.”