From around 2000, I’ve been watching Formula 1. Once I got glued to it, I quickly got acquainted with the teams and drivers.

Like many fans, my blood quickly turned red and I was quickly supporting Michael Schumacher and Ferrari. Perhaps their winning ways convinced me to support them, but I was rooting for my team to get that win on any given Sunday.

Even when Schumacher and Ferrari failed to topple Fernando Alonso and Renault in 2005/6, I still stuck with them.

But as my love for the sport grew, so too did my desire to get behind the wheel of one of his cars. That desire turned me into an F1 encyclopaedia. You wanted to know something, I got you covered. Who won what race, no problem.

After 20 years and having seen the changes come and go, one escaped me all these years: driving an F1 car.

Sam Fane in a Renault F1 car. Image: YouTube / VINwiki

My new hero

Like me, Sam Fane is also an F1 fan. Perhaps the biggest there is. Speaking to VINwiki, Fane explains how we everything in life has led him to fulfilling his dream of driving an F1 car.

Like many, he also had a karting career, but life - and his length - came into play and forced him to shelve any dream of becoming an F1 driver. Still, his passion for the sport never wavered and every decision he made was with F1 at the centre thereof.

Even his career choices were made with F1 in mind, so much so that a business deal landed him in the driver’s seat of a Renault F1 car. And though I am slightly jealous, I am living my dream through this video. Living precariously through Sam Fane.

The closest I came an F1 car was in 2014, when I paid the Ferrari F1 store in Sandton, Johannesburg a visit. There, a Schumacher's 2004 F1 car was on show. Despite the car being a replica, just the thought of being so close to one had me shedding a few tears. If an experience with a replica car had me feeling every kind of joyous emotion, I can only imagine what Fane felt in the video below.