Over the decades, Formula 1 has been full of playboy drivers, their glamorous girlfriends and rivalries revving up off the track. And today it seems nothing has changed, as a love triangle has recently emerged between two young rival drivers.
The talk of the paddock right now is the law student, influencer and model Estelle Ogilvy. The 25-year-old used to be in a relationship with Williams’ Argentine driver Franco Colapinto. She was then dating Ferrari’s junior driver Oliver Bearman, who became the youngest Briton ever to race in an F1 Grand Prix earlier this year. But this summer, she split with Bearman, and is reportedly now back with Colapinto. Even by F1 standards, it sounds pretty… intense.
So who is the young woman who has captured the hearts of two of motor racing’s hottest properties?
She was born Estelle Langinier in Paris to a British mom, who is a lawyer, and a French father. After going to school in the south of France, she moved to the UK, where she lived in Surrey with her mom and brother Mattieu, 23, before moving to St Albans.
She attended the $20,000-a-year mixed boarding school St George’s, and later adopted her mother’s maiden name of Manning, when she moved to London to follow in her footsteps and study law. Ogilvy is seemingly an adopted name and a relatively recent addition.
Although there are hints that Estelle always wanted to be famous. There is a video of her being interviewed for the show Secrets of Our Stars, aged just 10 years old. But it wasn’t until her relationship with Bearman that her popularity soared.
Estelle was by Ollie’s side in March when he was thrust into the spotlight after finishing seventh on his debut at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The 18-year-old was called up last minute after Carlos Sainz, the Spanish driver, got appendicitis. At the time, Tatler described them as Britain’s “glitziest young couple”.
Ollie has 2.2m Instagram followers in his own right and Estelle has been signed up by model agency Storm Model Management. She posed for a photo shoot for luxury watch brand Longines, and appeared on the catwalk for Paul Costelloe at Paris Fashion Week.
“Lettie” as she’s known to her friends, now has over 139k followers on TikTok, using the handle @silly_lettuce. She posts clips of her at the gym or sucking lollipops at her laptop as she studies for her law degree. With a cut-glass British accent, she makes videos which nod to her dual heritage; think strolling around Paris eating eclairs, or posing in front of a London bus. She’s very fond of a micro miniskirt and one of her most-watched videos is her getting ready to party at the Monaco Grand Prix. She often makes content with her friend, the model India Rawsthorn, who she calls the “Serena to my Blair” – clearly, she’s a fan of Gossip Girl. Which is apt.
Because after her and Bearman reportedly called it quits in July, Ogilvy became the one everyone has been gossiping about. She started following her ex, Franco Colapinto on social media again. The 21-year-old Argentine has driven for Williams three times to date, finishing 12th on his debut at the Italian Grand Prix. Franco and Estelle are yet to step out in public together, but insiders claim they’re back on.
Journalist and F1 expert Jessamy Calkin says that it’s not surprising that Ogilvy has dated two up-and-coming drivers. “Formula 1 is a very small world,” she says. “There’s an unwritten rule that if you’re an F1 driver you have to live in Monaco, play golf and have an influencer girlfriend. They all go to the same parties and events. The social circle is tiny, but that means that this love triangle could get awkward for them, or might lead to even more competitiveness on the track between Bearman and Colapinto.”
Even before this rumored partner-swap, Colapinto and Bearman were being compared as two of the most promising new drivers on the circuit. “When you look at the job Oliver Bearman has done when he jumped in the Ferrari at one of the toughest tracks on the calendar in Saudi, he looked like a veteran,” said Christian Horner, principal of Red Bull Racing and Mr Ginger Spice. “Colapinto has been a complete surprise because he was largely unnoticed in F2. Nobody was even talking about him. He jumps in that Williams in the couple of races he’s done and he’s been exceptional. He’s been really, really impressive. The young guys, they get in, they’re hungry, and they just drive the wheels off it.”
With a cut-glass British accent, she makes videos which nod to her dual heritage; think strolling around Paris eating eclairs, or posing in front of a London bus.
The excessive wealth, element of danger and undeniable glamour of Formula 1 have long made its drivers a magnet for beautiful women. Nineteen-seventies British champion James Hunt had the motto: “Sex, breakfast of champions” sewn into his racing overalls and boasted of bedding 5,000 women. Sir Stirling Moss admitted that while racing he could keep, “One eye on the track, another on the gauges and still… spot a pretty girl in the crowd.”
Argentine racing legend Juan Manuel Fangio dated famous first lady Eva Peron. In the Nineties, “Fast” Eddie Irvine was linked with Rachel Hunter, Kelly Brook and Pamela Anderson. Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton was in an on/off relationship with Pussycat Dolls singer Nicole Scherzinger until 2015, and has subsequently been linked to pop stars Rita Ora and Shakira, and models Kendall Jenner and Camila Kendra.
So while a salacious F1 sex scandal is nothing new, this particular love triangle will be watched in a new way, by a new audience. In recent years, there’s been a so-called “fangirlification” of Formula 1, which has seen the notoriously pale, male and stale sport gain an adoring new following from young women. On YouTube, countless videos have been created by fans featuring handsome F1 drivers such as Sebastian Vettel, Charles Leclerc, and Daniel Ricciardo. They’re almost the new boy band members – think slo-mo, moody shots, a Wag running up to ruffle their hair, all set to a Taylor Swift soundtrack. Some have millions of views. There’s even a popular Formula 1 romance-novel series, Dirty Air by Lauren Asher, and podcasts, such as Two Girls One Formula, where an audience of “girls, gays, theys (and cool dudes)” get together to dissect the sport.
The reason for this transformation is that Formula 1 was purchased by the US company Liberty Media in 2016. It axed the sexist tradition of grid girls and relaxed previously strict social-media restrictions. In 2019, it partnered with Netflix for the massively popular docuseries Formula 1: Drive to Survive, which opened up the world of the drivers – and the Wags – in a whole new way.
“It’s reality TV – we got to see heightened drama, we got to see relationships play out in real time. It’s ‘The Real Housewives of Formula 1’,” says Nicole Sievers, co-host of Two Girls One Formula.
There’s now a whole subculture of fans intensely following the lives of F1 Wags like Ogilvy and co. There are numerous Instagram accounts – WagsF1 (with 53,000 followers), Love 4 Wags F1 (19,900 followers), and F1 Wags (27,500 followers) – which document their designer wardrobes, their men and their every move. And these F1 Wags are making serious money in their own right, with sponsorship deals and fashion campaigns.
But the reality of dating an F1 driver may not be all sipping flutes of Veuve from the paddock. “These guys have barely any life outside of the circuit,” says Calkin. “Often they’ve been doing this since they were eight and they have barely any other interests or human experience. I think it’s quite a lonely life and despite the sport opening up, there’s still a sexist atmosphere at the track.”
It remains to be seen if Colapinto and Bearman will develop a rivalry that will make them the Niki Lauda and James Hunt for the Instagram generation. Or if Estelle Ogilvy will be able to use this springboard to launch a long-lasting modeling career. But one thing’s for sure – Formula 1 just got a whole lot more va va vroom.
Kate Wills is a journalist, author, and broadcaster
