He’s one of the most popular personalities in the Formula One paddock – and he’s not even a driver.

Originally the founder of Messages On Hold, Australian Kym Illman is now one of few full-time F1 photographers, travelling the world to every round of the calendar and recording the life and times of the sport both on and off the track. And almost always in his signature bucket hat.

Illman’s rise to prominence began when he started his YouTube channel, gaining more than 400,000 subscribers after posting about F1 on the platform six years ago.

CarSauce sat down with Illman at his home in Perth via a video link to learn about life behind the scenes of F1.

CarSauce: How did you get into F1 photography?

Kym Illman: I went to the last race of 2016, Abu Dhabi, as a paying guest of Red Bull, and I got down in the garage, standing at the back, listening to Daniel Riccardo talk to his engineer through the headphones. It was magnificent. It's very calm. It was all very exciting.

At that point, I thought, I'd like to photograph this sport. So when I got back, I contacted the FIA and I applied online, sent them a package, suggested what I might be able to do for the sport.

Initially, I thought maybe I'll do testing, maybe I'll do a season. I was so just delighted that they said: Look, we'll accredit you for testing as a start. And they accredited me for my home race at Melbourne, and the next two, and then I got a gig with Sutton Images shooting for them.

Just out of the blue, I was standing around talking to a guy and it's Mark Sutton who runs that agency, and he'd had a bit of a run-in with a guy and looked like he was a bit flustered. And I said, Mark, can I help you? And he said, yeah, do you wanna shoot for us?

And now I have seven seasons. I only did one season shooting for him because I thought at the end of that first season, maybe I wouldn't do all the races the following year. But I did all but two, and the next year, I did all but one. And I've not missed one except for, obviously, the 2020 season where we couldn't go because there were only a handful of photographers allowed. I've done every race since then.

CS: Your YouTube channel follows your life on the road and in the air with F1, with more than 400,000 subscribers. What made you decide to start the channel and is it just as enjoyable and fulfilling as professional photography?

KI: My son, my eldest one, actually demanded I get involved with YouTube – having pushed me to get into Instagram a year prior – and I was somewhat reluctant to get involved in both of those at the start. And now it's fair to say that they rule my life. I quite love the challenge of seeing what can be done on social media.

It's such a grind. It's nonstop. I've got a couple of helpers, obviously. I have video editors, and [then] I didn't. If you go back two and a bit years ago, I did everything myself.

So I'd shoot the races. I'd travel. I'd produce two and a half, 10-minute videos a week, and they take about seven hours each to do. Now, thankfully, I found an editor that I can trust, and I realized that there are plenty out there. So I'm never going to make the decision that only I can do it.

In fact, editors can do a far better job than I can. And, of course, Instagram, we post direct from our cameras at the track, and we can have a picture and story up within, say, three minutes of something happening. And that takes a lot of work, and it takes a lot of technology and, a fair bit of coordination, but it's proved to be pretty successful.

CS: Now, three of your images have been featured in the Top 10 for the Formula One category of the 2025 World Sports Photography Awards, and you've won a silver, a bronze, and a special merit. Can you tell us a bit about these photos and your reaction to the awards? ‍

KI: I didn't know who was entering them! I didn't know whether there was a handful of people or a thousand. It turns out there were a thousand. Not in F1, thankfully.

But the one that came second is an interesting picture because it's taken at a bus stop in Singapore. And I've never shot that shot before, and I just happened to be in that section of the track last year, 2024. And I was walking past and thought, oh, that's where these guys shoot this shot from. It's not a new shot. I've seen others do it.

It's tough. In fact, it's very tricky because you have to pan at the same speed as the car. And if you do it perfectly, you'll get the bottom image, which is the car, the real car through the wire fence sharp, and then the reflection is from the… I guess, there's a stainless steel roof of this bus stop, but you've gotta muck around a bit. I reckon I probably spent 25 minutes there trying to get those one or two shots.

So I got a sharp one. And even that one's not super sharp, but it's sharp enough. And, obviously, that's a tricky photo because with Formula One, you can spend 25 minutes to get one shot. It's not a very good return on your investment, but obviously, that shot, it worked out well because I got an award – and who doesn't like to be recognised?!

The one that got third was a much easier shot to shoot because that was up on top of a building in Baku, which we’re allowed special access to. There might be five or six of us up there, and you just pretty much stand there and you're shooting it, I don't know, 2/1000ths of a second.

So, there's no great skill involved, but still you have to know that that is a good shot. You have to be there to take it. Then you need an element of luck of two cars passing at exactly the same moment, in a good spot on the track, and I got that. So, yeah, I was pretty happy.

And then the third shot was, at Bahrain. I think it's [corner] 10, 11, or 12 – a left hander – and there's just beautiful lights in the trees. And if you once again pan at the same speed as the car, you get a nice shot. Look, I’ve probably taken nearly better ones, but the car wasn't quite as sharp. And I have to admit, I'm not the greatest panning photographer.

It is a seasoned art. And if you could've done 20 or 30 years of it, you'd be a lot better than me because I've just done probably … seven seasons of panning.

CS: And how do you feel about the awards as well or winning the awards? ‍

KI: Oh, I just I was amazed that I made the finals, and then they said, alright. Well, they'll let you know in January. So you forget all about it, then you get this email, not one, but three. I've gone, oh… you've won an award. You've won an award. You've won an award.

It took me a long time to work out because you gotta go and read this email and work out which photo it was, and that was a bit of a grind. And, eventually, I realised that, yeah, it was these three photos and these three mentions, but I thought three out of 10 is pretty bloody good. It's like I'm not the greatest car photographer in the world.

I think my real focus lies in telling a story with the people inside of the sport, but you've got to shoot every session. So, I'm always improving. I'm always trying new things.

CS: I understand there are very few full-time F1 photographers on the circuit that follow every round. Most will attend a round or two in their region. Why is it that there are so few that do what you do? ‍

KI: It's bloody expensive. It's especially [expensive] when you do it from Australia, it's ridiculous. You wanna do it comfortably. Look, I would save an absolute fortune if I lived in Europe and I could travel economy – those one-hour, two-hour flights, go home after each race. Oh, that would be fantastic.

The other thing is, sometimes [the photographers are] not needed for all races. It just depends on their business model. I'm a freelancer. I shoot for myself, but I also contribute to Getty Images. I do YouTube videos. I do sign prints. I do a whole host of things, and I'm reticent to miss a race.

It would have to be something pretty important, and I've not missed one since 2021. And if I go back to photographers who've done every race since 2021, maybe there's five of us. There's a guy called Charles Coats who's done every one for about the last eight or 10 years, and he is the gold standard in terms of reliability.

But, yeah, five of us have, probably done all those races in the last year. Maybe there were nine, maybe 10. So, it's a grind. It's a lot of travel, and especially when you're doing it long haul from Perth, it's tough.

CS: You've mentioned you've worked in marketing – you've got businesses in marketing and things behind the scenes. Did you use those to fund your F1 career to begin with?‍

KI: On the first two years. Yeah! Because if you have bugger all income coming in, you've got the same costs as I've got now. But at some point, you go from that, to breakeven, then to profit. And I don't think anyone in Formula One has done what I do because no one's ever thought of it.

I think you have to be because I'm more of a marketer than I am a photographer, whereas a lot of the guys in photography are very good photographers, but they just wanna take the car photos, typically.

Even when I started taking photos of drivers arriving, there wasn't that many. Now everyone does it because they realise that's important. Well, they don't like to do it. It's up to them as to whether they do it. But I found that for me, that's what people wanted to see. Like, you can you can find hundreds and hundreds or thousands of photos of cars up on track. Unless they're upside down or in the air or sparking or something's happening, [the pictures are] okay.

But no one's gonna get excited week after week with average car photos, whereas if I can go out and find a story of Daniel [Ricciardo] being last to leave or Max [Vestappen] having a tear out the back of the FIA garage or that sort of stuff, that really gels.

And you look at my Instagram page and you’ll barely see a car photo on there.

CS: Now you're traveling for most of the year with the F1 Circus. Can you tell us what you drive when you're back at home in Perth and why you chose those cars?‍

KI: I've got a [Toyota] FJ Cruiser that is full of sand, and we use it to drive down the beach to put a couple of jet skis in the water. We drive it backwards and forwards to Perth because it's so comfortable. I've got a [Porsche] 911 Turbo, but it's so noisy on the road. I just leave it sitting here.

It gets driven maybe four times to Perth and back. I live in a town about 90 minutes north of Perth. But I've also just bought myself or us, in fact, it's a family car, a Tesla, which is phenomenal and such a different animal to drive than a normal car. So they're the three.‍

CS: There's a there's a bit of a bit of a gap between an FJ Cruiser and a Tesla. ‍

KI: Yep – but you know what? I'll never replace [the FJ Cruiser]. I wouldn't buy a new one because it's not made anymore. But I drive out in the bush. I drive it down onto the beach. I don't want a car that's brand new because I'm just gonna go out and scratch it and ruin it. I'll ruin a car that I know, that has done the hard yards and it's already pre scratched.

CS: Do you have any advice for someone getting into photography who would like to pursue a career as a full time F1 photographer or even just a professional photographer? ‍

KI: I'll get 10 inquiries a week via Instagram. More in season. Everyone wants to do it… ‘I wanna do what you do!’. But I don't think they realise what's involved.

It is a long time away. There are 12, 13-hour days for four days in a row. [Then] there’s a travel day. Most of the photographers will stay in okay accommodation if they're doing alright. If they're doing a bit tough, it'll be basic. Some of them sleep in their cars for the Euro races!

So I think a lot of people think they wanna get into this, but when they look deeper into it… and I've seen a few people get a job as a photographer. ‘Oh, I got this job!’ and they last six months. They don't like it. It was too much time away from home.

But if somebody is dead keen, they just gotta know that there are very few, if any, jobs. Most of the guys – and it is predominantly male, I think there might be two or three females that do a lot of races. But the jobs that are there, that pay 40 hour a week, regular wage, all your airfares and your insurance, are pretty much for the very best guys.

It might be Getty. It might be several big agencies. If you're lucky, you might jag yourself a job with a team, in which case you are an employee, and that's a nice thing. But people who shoot for a team can't go and shoot what we shoot. They can shoot in the garage and paddock. They can't go out on track, typically.

So if somebody wants to get a job in Formula One and they wanna do what I do, I think they pretty much got to look at the accreditation page on the FIA Media website, see if they fit any of those criteria. Maybe they've got a huge social media audience. Maybe that's what everyone's looking for. I have no idea.

But I imagine from time to time, they would change their focus. But it's easier to get a gig as a driver than it is to get a gig as a photographer. ‍

CS: If somebody wants to put one of your winning images on their wall, or any of your other images, where do they go?‍

KI: They go to they go to kymillman.com. They go to the shop, and there is a wall art page – and they don't even have to select the photo. They can just say, ‘I saw this picture in this video, here's a screenshot of it, we want that!’

And occasionally – and I love this – people say, ‘right, I want three meters wide by two meters high’. And I've actually seen one, somebody did it here, not far from my home, and I went ahead and looked at it, and it's phenomenal. I've not got anything that large in my home, but I would love to see somebody take a large wall and fill it with one of my images.

CS: And that’s where they can get your books, too?‍

KI: My F1 photo books… This is my year-end book for 2024. This is ridiculously heavy. It's four kilos, 100 pages – amazing. My best pictures.

[There is also] a much more handleable, sizable tome, 2024 best-of, available at kymillman.com, and they [are shipped] all around the world.‍

CS: Kym, thanks so much for your time.‍

KI: Thanks, mate – ciao.