Source: Mercedes F1 Instagram
Whenever you see Lewis Hamilton out of the car during F1 broadcasts, you can see Angela Cullen next to him. Here are eight interesting facts about her!
After each race win, one of the first people you can see congratulating Lewis Hamilton is a blonde woman named Angela Cullen. Most F1 fans already know Angela is Lewis’ physiotherapist, but her job description actually includes much, much more.
She is responsible for Lewis’ daily routine, personal logistics, his diet, sleep patterns, travel arrangements and more. Here are some interesting facts about her.
1. Angela loves sports
Born in New Zealand, Angela Cullen has been involved in sports since she was a child.
“I was born and grew up in New Zealand, famous for outdoor activities,” said Cullen in an interview with her current employers Hintsa Performance.
“I have always had a passion for all sports. I was hugely competitive and got involved in everything from netball, soccer, cricket, volleyball, basketball, to swimming athletics. If there was a sports team, I wanted to be part of it.
“But it was field hockey that I represented New Zealand in from the ages of 15 to 21. This was my first introduction to high-performance sports and human performance.”
2. Angela has a degree in health science and physiotherapy
Angela went on to get a degree in health science and physiotherapy, which led to her first professional job involving high-performance athletes.
“My first private practice job was working near Crystal Palace in London, UK’s hive of world-class track and field athletes. I’m hugely grateful for this opportunity which fast-tracked me into the world of high-performance sports.
“Initially, my work was primarily with 100 and 200-meter sprinters, although I worked across all track and field athletes, endurance athletes and the British triathlon team.
“You could say that the 100 and 200-meter sprinters are the F1 of athletics. And my role was like the engineer or mechanic working closely with the athlete; fine-tuning their body to optimise their performance in terms of speed, power, mobility and control.
“This was an amazing opportunity to learn about achieving ultimate body performance. I worked alongside some of the world’s best physiotherapists with some of the world’s best athletes.
“Working trackside before, during and after training sessions, constantly monitoring, mobilising and adjusting the body to achieve maximal speeds.”
© LAT Images for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd
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3. Angela follows the teachings of Dr Aki Hintsa
In 2014, after learning about Dr Aki Hintsa‘s work with Ethiopian runners, Olympic athletes and F1 drivers and his ‘model of wellbeing and philosophy’, Cullen decided to join Hintsa Performance and become a performance coach.
“Hintsa’s model of wellbeing and philosophy, that ‘performance is a by-product of wellbeing’, resonated with me and reflected my beliefs and ideals of understanding human performance.
“It was then that I decided to come on board as a physiotherapist and Performance Coach at Hintsa Performance.”
Finland’s Dr. Aki Hintsa, originally a specialist in orthopaedic and trauma surgery, has been involved in Formula 1 since Mika Häkkinen invited him to assist him and his family in his quest to win the 1998 World Drivers’ Championship. After Häkkinen won the title in 1998 and 1999, Hintsa found Formula 1 to be “the most fascinating laboratory” for his philosophy of wellbeing and high-performance.
Later Dr. Hintsa became one of Lewis Hamilton’s mentors in his early years at McLaren. After Hintsa died from a heart-attack in 2016, Angela Cullen joined Hamilton’s team and the rest is history. Her move to Formula 1 was explained by Pete Mcknight, Hinsta’s director of coaching and sports science.
“At the time, Angela was mainly working with corporate clients, but when the opportunity to work with Lewis came up we thought: ‘Why not give this a go?’,” McKnight told MSN.
“It has worked out perfectly. People don’t always ‘get’ the performance environment, but she does. She understands that it’s performance first.
“It’s her level of experience, too – she has worked with top-level British track runners, and she just knows how to put the athlete first.
“Sometimes you get physios who are more interested in the therapy than they are in the athlete. Angela is a good physio and she understands her trade very well, but she puts Lewis first.
“There’s also just something quirky about it: a woman in her mid-forties, with a family at home, two young kids, and then there’s this mid-thirties racing driver.
“It might seem a really weird match, but it just works,” concluded McKnight.
© Sebastian Kawka for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix ltd.
4. Angela is “one of the greatest things that’s happened” to Lewis
Aside from her usual work as an assistant, Angela is always there to provide emotional support for Lewis and helps him stay in the best frame of mind possible. It is no wonder then, that in 2020 the Briton described her as “one of the greatest things that’s happened” to him.
“People for sure won’t understand it, naturally, because they see it from a distance, but she has been one of the greatest things that’s happened to me in my life,” Hamilton said.
“I’ve been fortunate to work with a lot of people… and she’s the single hardest-working woman that I get to be around.
“She’s focused, selfless, and she makes my weekends peaceful. Every day I wake up, whatever time it is, she’s just positive – never a single day has she been negative, so that’s very, very important.”
Hamilton went on to describe how he came to realize he needed a person like Angela in his life.
“When you come into Formula 1, there’s this whole idea of physios, but a lot of them, or some of them, are just trainers. They still take on the title of ‘physio’ – but a physio is a physiotherapist.
“And for years, I’d always had a male trainer, but I noticed that I was always having different problems. I’d have, like, muscle tightness in my neck, or I’d have problems with my lower back, or glute, whatever it might be, and my trainer could never fix it.
“So you’d have to just deal with it through the weekend and I was like, ‘This doesn’t make sense. I don’t need to train on the weekends.’ So I was like, ‘I need to find a physio.’
“Angela had done a bit of work on me back home, so I spoke to her and asked her, ‘Would you like to come on the road with me?’ and little did I know that we would have the greatest partnership.”
Lewis also emphasized the importance of Angela’s role in his life and career.
“Angela is with me until 10pm or 11pm every day – and with me from 6am or 7am every morning.
“It’s a very, very important role. A very important relationship. I don’t think this year has brought us any closer together than any other year because we are incredibly close as it is, but we love our job.
“We love doing what we do, we love doing it together, and I’m incredibly grateful to have her on the road, I don’t think I could do it without her,” the Briton concluded.
5. Angela and Lewis have matching tattoos
Over the years the bond with Hamilton has become so tight that they even share the same tattoos, according to paddock photographer Kym Illman.
“She’s loyal to Lewis, so loyal in fact, that on her wrist she has loyalty tattooed like Lewis has on his wrist. The inner-circle are loyal to each other,” explained Illman.
“One of her roles is to get Lewis to the track. Sometimes she even has to act as a bodyguard for Lewis.
“She’s been in the field of sport for some 25 years, she’s his PA, his driver, his performance coach, his confidante, his friend.
“It is her role to eliminate all the distractions for Lewis over a race weekend, so for 4 days, she’s with him almost every minute of those 4 days.”
© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
6. Angela and Lewis sometimes spend their free time together
The pair’s relationship also extends beyond their work in Formula 1. There have been numerous occasions when Angela could be seen participating in various activities with Lewis in their downtime
For example, after the 2020 Australian Grand Prix was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Lewis remained in Australia and went rock climbing with Angela.
Another instance of the two hanging out together was right after the 2021 Monaco Grand Prix, when Lewis, Angela, Toto Wolff and other friends were seen enjoying their time aboard Sir Philip Green’s yacht, in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France.
It was another day of sports, as Lewis could be seen riding a jet ski and generally winding down after a difficult weekend.
Then there was that time when they were doing cryotherapy together, when they went partying after the 2022 Miami Grand Prix, or when they went bowling with George Russell and the team after the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix Qualifying.
7. Angela refuses to let Lewis carry grid bags
Angela Cullen can often be seen next to Lewis, carrying loads of stuff. Although this is a part of her job, she reveals Lewis has offered to help, but she refuses to let him.
“You will see me carrying many things over the race weekend and is very much part of my amazing job,” Cullen wrote on Instagram.
“When my boss [Lewis] offers to carry [the grid bags] I won’t let him, because that would be me not doing my job! I’m very bossy like this.
“In my grid bags I carry everything that could be possibly needed for a complete reset on the grid. I have a full race kit, which we needed once when the drink bottle in the car leaked during laps to the grid and also for rainy races and red flags to refresh and keep dry.
“I have a spare helmet, balaclava, gloves and radio again for a red flag or failure or a problem with the ones he has on.”
However, she reveals most of the times the items are not needed.
“Often we will use nothing from the bags, but when we do it is always a critical change so good preparation is key to ensuring you have everything in hand,” Angela concluded.
8. Angela is married, with children
Since Lewis and Angela obviously share a close bond, it’s natural that observers often wonder if there is more to their relationship than just a professional connection and friendship. However, there are no romantic links between the two.
Although Angela is very guarded when it comes to her personal life, it is known that she is married, and lives with her husband, a cycling coach, and her two children (a son and a daughter) in the Alps region of France.
Hinsta Performance’s director of coaching and sports science Pete Mcknight describes the “quirky” appeal her private life brings to her relationship with Lewis.
“There’s also just something quirky about it,” Mcknight said.
“A woman in her mid-forties, with a family at home, two young kids, and then there’s this mid-thirties racing driver.
“It might seem a really weird match, but it just works,” he concluded.
Source: Mercedes F1 Instagram
For those of you who want to know more about Angela, you can follow her exploits on her Instagram page. She joined the platform in 2018 and has around 500 thousand followers.
And, finally, here is a fun video of Lewis pushing Angela into the St. Lawrence river, after the 2022 Canadian Grand Prix! 🙂
