Once upon a time, in a land about 3,000 miles away, there was an adolescent girl who read Cosmo obsessively, worshipped her rock n' roll heroes, and had absolutely no idea that motorsport was something people did professionally.
That girl grew up into an F1 nut who now works in the sport, thanks to a motorsport-obsessed boyfriend and his insistence that she watch one - just one - race with him.
I've been thinking about that girl over the past few weeks, and wondering how many teenaged girls there are like her currently being introduced to the existence of Formula One thanks to Lewis Hamilton's summer of fashion weeks in New York and London, flirting with Kardashians, Rihanna, and general E! gossip rag fodder.
Love him or loathe him, Lewis' life makes for a potent combination of Rich Kids of Instagram photographs and tabloid headlines that gives the entertainment magazines and websites countless clicks. Those who hate-read every scrap of Hamilton coverage are driving the PR machine just as hard as the Briton's fans, and the endless exposure only serves to expand global awareness of F1.
Growing up in the States in the '90s, neither I nor my contemporaries had heard of Formula One. Among the car-obsessed boys, street racing was king. The only motorsport anyone knew about was NASCAR, and for us coastal dwellers that was dismissed as being "for the fly-over states" found in the middle of the country. F1 simply wasn't on our radar once Ayrton Senna's death had dropped from the front pages.
Not a great deal has changed in the new millennium.
En route to Austin for the grand prix I found myself on the last flight with Ferrari and a few scattered American travellers. Ferrari were all decked out in their travel gear, and the American man sitting next to me spotted a prancing horse on the jacket of the man across the aisle. Declaring himself to be a massive fan of the marque, the American asked the Italian what he was doing in Austin. When he was told that Ferrari were in town for the grand prix, the American replied, shocked: "You guys have a race team?".
Anecdotes like that are not the exception in the States. F1 has a dedicated fanbase in America, but the sport currently remains a minority interest when compared with domestic offerings: baseball, basketball, NFL, NASCAR...
What Lewis Hamilton has spent the summer doing is making Formula One a talking point in the States, even if few of those wondering whether or not he's dating Rihanna have ever seen an F1 car.
This week, the website for US Cosmo asked "Is this race car driving hottie Rihanna's new man?", probably the first mention of F1 that the majority of the magazine's mid-teens to early-twenties female ABC1 readership will have encountered. E! Online, another mass-market US entertainment outlet with a broad reach in the NASCAR heartland, ran with "Rihanna shows curves in bikini and is spotted with Lewis Hamilton again in the Caribbean", while Hamilton has also been featured in People magazine and in the New York Post's infamous Page Six in recent days.
Brand Hamilton is expanding across the United States, and Formula One is riding his coattails to mainstream awareness. The vast majority of those encountering F1 via the dating antics of one driver will never buy a ticket to a grand prix, true. But F1 fans come from the unlikeliest of places, and thanks to Hamilton's endless - if unintentional - promotion of the sport on gossip sites and in the front pages of newspapers, Formula One is now on the radar of the essentially untapped market comprised of young American females.
The next step is for the sport to take advantage of that increased awareness. Perhaps Pirelli could lead the charge with one of its infamous calendars, this time starring the drivers? The average Cosmo reader has the wall space for a "race car driving hottie" or twelve...