Adam Hay-Nicholls was born in Winchester, England, in 1981. He was educated at Stowe, to which he won an art scholarship, and Bryanston School where his passion for motor racing was encouraged. He gained a 2:1 honours degree in Public Relations & Media Studies from Exeter University in 2003, by which time he’d already launched his writing career.
Adam’s style has been described as “punchy, concise, witty and elegant” by Patrice Meignan, publisher of Intersection and TheArsenale. “He’s one of the world’s top car, design and lifestyle writers. I really love his turn of phrase.”
His journalistic heroes are Hunter S Thompson and AA Gill. After a stint working in the USA, Adam moved to Paris and became staff writer on The Red Bulletin F1 magazine. Here he developed friendships with drivers such as Lewis Hamilton (pictured above). Adam has been the F1 correspondent for Metro since 2006 and has attended around 150 grands prix.
In recent years he has branched into car, travel and ‘luxury gonzo’ journalism, earning regular commissions from some of the most prestigious and widely-read magazines and newspapers in the UK and beyond, including the Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph, GQ, Conde Nast Traveller, Air Mail, The Spectator and Country Life. He’s also been responsible for launching half a dozen magazines and has authored several books.
Adam benefits from senior-level PR and marketing experience both in-house and on the agency side, working across premium automotive and motorsport brands. He has a unique understanding of cars and F1 in the context of luxury and lifestyle media and collaborates across fashion, arts and entertainment.
As a visual director, Adam’s career highlights include coordinating a 34-page cover shoot for Vogue, reimagining Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up with Rolls-Royce, scripting a major social video project with Lewis Hamilton for Tommy Hilfiger, producing a documentary about a record-breaking round-the-world private jet flight on which he embarked, and writing an innovative book with Hoxton Mini Press x Penguin entitled Smoke & Mirrors – Cars, Photography and Dreams of the Open Road.
In 2023, Icon Books is publishing his biography of the Ferrari Formula One driver Charles Leclerc.
When he’s not on assignment, Adam lives and works in London SW1. A ‘gentleman racer’, he occasionally competes in sports car championships.
Adam Hay-Nicholls 