Clive Rose talks his photojournalism journey, some of his best photos, and F1 2025

MIAMI, Florida — If you have followed Formula 1 the last few decades, or any sport, then you know Clive Rose.

You may not know him by name, although many do, but you know his work.

Rose is an award-winning photojournalist, whose images have become iconic in not just the world of F1, but across the sporting spectrum. From his photographs from both the Summer and the Winter Olympics, to his coverage of the World Cup, and other sporting events across the globe, Rose has taken fans of sport inside the games, to the most recognizable race tracks in the world, and he has even pioneered the art of underwater sports photography.

He is currently the Chief Sports Photographer for Getty Images, and was in Miami to cover the 2025 Miami Grand Prix.

Ahead of the race, I was lucky enough to sit down with him for a wonderful discussion, ranging from his path to photojournalism, his favorite moments over his illustrious career, a discussion of a few of my favorite photos of his, and even some of his thoughts on the 2025 F1 season.

Clive Rose’s path to the top of the sporting world

Rose’s path to the pinnacle of the sports world began with his father. As he told me on Saturday before the Miami Grand Prix it was his father who “piqued” his interest in photography, and with Rose having an interest in motorsport in general, and Formula One in particular, making it to the grid was always on his mind. He studied media and photography in college in the United Kingdom, but soon a decision loomed.

That decision? Continue with school and head to University, or start a career along his chosen path. Rose was fortunate enough to be offered a position that he called a “ junior position with a leading Formula One photographer,” but it was not an easy decision.

“I was faced with a decision to sort of do the work experience route, or do I do the higher education route? So I decided the hands-on approach was probably the best way forward, and it turned out to be the case,” said Rose. “And he gave me a job at the end of 1994, introduced me to the world of Formula One.”

Rose told me the position was a “marriage of two passions,” a lesson he hopes to instill in a younger generation, including his children.

“It was really like a marriage of like two passions. Which, as a father, I try and tell my children that you need to do something that you really enjoy.”

His work focused on F1 until 2003 when he joined Getty Images. That move allowed him to expand his catalog of work, moving from the grid to events including, but not limited to, the Summer Olympics, the Winter Olympics, and the World Cup.

“I joined Getty Images at the start of 2003, really to sort of broaden my photographic horizons,” said Rose. “Obviously a company like Getty Images, the opportunity is vast across the sporting spectrum, and that exposed me to doing, you know, the Olympics and the World Cup soccer and all other sports, and just gave me a good depth of experience across everything.”

Capturing the F1 grid

As Rose explained to me during our conversation on Saturday, his senior role at Getty has him overseeing an entire team of photographers on a race weekend, making sure that they satisfy the needs of all of their clients, including Formula 1 itself.

“When I joined Getty I then like kind of diversified and started doing other events, so dropped off the full-time doing Formula One. But I kept all my experience from doing Formula One, and then more recently I’ve come back to it to manage the team here,” said Rose. “Now we’ve got quite a big team, we’ve got like 14-15 photographers at each race covering many different commercial and editorial briefs.

“We do a lot of commercial work, but we’re also an editorial image provider, so we have to make sure that the people that do that understand the importance of that, and like telling the story about what is going on in Formula One, separate to our commercial arrangement.

“So yeah, it’s grown exponentially.”

For Rose and his team, covering a Grand Prix means entering race weekend with a plan. Not just for the stories they want to tell, but for how they will physically and logistically cover the track.

“We’re obviously one of the leading, if not the leading, content providers of Formula One. We work for Formula One as well. So we have to remain cognizant of evolving stories and storylines, and we have to react to that. We can’t just come in and go, ‘You know, there’s a fancy picture at Turn 7 at five o’clock in the afternoon, so I’m just going to focus on that.’

“We have to make sure that we have a full picture all of the time, so it’s up to us to remain engaged with the stories and the journalists.”

Then comes how Rose and his team at Getty will fan out to cover as much of the track as they can, from the starting grid to the podium. He explained to me how the team puts that in motion early in the week, so there are no surprises on race days.

“So, in my capacity as the chief photographer, I work with some senior colleagues to work out what everybody’s going to do every day. We do a plan every day and with a lot of photographers, they have different windows of opportunity,” began Rose. “So for the race, obviously, we need to make sure that a lot of the track is covered, like angles and this kind of thing.

“A lot of the guys have to do the grid before the start of the race, so that limits their travel time to the rest of the track. So that will fall to myself and some of my other colleagues where we will be further out and they will do this section.

“It is quite a big kind of thing to sort of plan out and then everybody will gravitate back to the parc ferme and podium at the end, and it will be planned out who’s shooting where, so that everything is covered off.”

Some of his iconic images in his own words

The part of our conversation I was most looking forward to? When I asked Rose about some of my favorite F1 photographs of his from recent seasons.

Much like our entire discussion, this portion exceeded all expectations.

The topic of Lando Norris’ win at the 2024 Miami Grand Prix came up earlier in the conversation, so I began with this photo from last year’s podium celebration:

Clive Rose/Getty

“I had some I had some good access last year working for Formula One,” began Rose when I asked about this photograph.

“You know, there was so much talk about him going into this race, he was right at that stage where he was nearly winning races, but for some reason not winning them, and he obviously had one of the greatest of all time he’s competing against in Max [Verstappen].

“And we’d seen him come close, we’d seen him leading races and then the car let him down or something went wrong strategy-wise. Max would just take it to another level and would just get over the line in front of him.

“Even with five laps to go, you’re thinking something’s gonna happen.

“Is he gonna do it?

“Is he gonna do it?

“So again, when he gets over the line and he wins the race, you’re like, ‘okay, great, something awesome has happened, so now we’ve gotta go into making sure that we record this in the right way.’

“Because this is gonna stand the test of time. This will always be referred to.

“I mean in this, he’s just looking down. You can see he’s just … the relief.

“‘Thank God I finally got it done.’”

In a similar fashion to Norris’ breaking through with his first win in Formula One, was Charles Leclerc’s long-awaited victory at the Monaco Grand Prix, his home race, last year. After so many heart-breaking incidents in his home race, the Ferrari driver finally reached the top step of a podium on a circuit that includes streets where he learned to drive.

Three photographs of Rose’s stood out to me from that race, and I was lucky enough to ask the award-winning photojournalist about each of them.

Clive Rose/Getty

“So again, same scenario,” began Rose.

“I’ve done Monaco quite a few times and I’ve seen how close he came to winning, and I was at the chicane when he crashed that year [in qualifying]. He hit the barrier on the inside and then skipped over and went into the wall.

“With Charles, you know, you see these young guns come in and they make these kind of, not mistakes, but this stuff happens to them where there’s something in them or their strategies or their just their timeline is just not ready yet,” continued Rose.

“Some people will come in and win a race right away, and it’ll be like, ‘Oh they’re the greatest thing.’ But there’s others, a lot of the others, will come so close a lot of times, and not a lot is said about it, because until they get to the point where they win, they’re just like all the other newcomers,” said Rose. “They have to go through this kind of process of coming so close but being yet so far. And Charles is another one of these guys where he has always been seen as super talented, but just couldn’t get it over the line for whatever reason.

“So to see him kind of win in Monaco last year was, you knew that it was a pretty special moment.”

Of course, there was context to Leclerc’s win in Monaco that went beyond a driver finally winning his home race. There was also history, and royalty, playing their parts.

“What was really cool about that was that Prince Albert was on the podium as well, and like that whole sort of protocol around him.

“So I’ve done that podium so many times and obviously Prince Albert is there, and they’re in protocol and he hands a trophy, ‘congratulations.’

“But on this one, he was like a kid in a sweets shop.

“He was genuinely all over the place,” continued Rose. “You know, sort of, honest from him.

“We’re so used to seeing these people who run in these circles, sort of always being quite steadfast and serious. But I think I’ve got a frame of him sipping the champagne as well behind Charles on the podium.

“It was great, it was good, he was just like a father really.”

That was the perfect lead-in to the next photograph I wanted to ask.

“What’s always interesting is what happens now. Because you know, when you get that kind of monkey off your back from winning the first race, winning your home Grand Prix,” said Rose. “Particularly with Charles in Monaco, because to have a Monégasque driver win the Monaco Grand Prix, you’re not, I’m probably not going to see another person win the Monaco Grand Prix who is from Monaco in my lifetime.”

Leclerc became just the second Monégasque driver to win the Monaco Grand Prix, joining Louis Chiron in 1931.

“So you’ve got to recognize these things.

“I know they’re not a big deal, the world’s still gonna turn, but if you’re interested in people and sport, which I am, and I think a lot of people are — I think you need to be, otherwise you couldn’t really do this job — but yeah, it’s great when all those kinds of stars align and you’re there to record that event.

“It’s awesome.”

Clive Rose/Getty

It was time to ask about Leclerc’s dive into the harbor after winning in Monaco.

“So it’s a bit of a tricky one because this was after the team, they did a big team photo, and the rumor was that he was going to go into the harbor and there’s not a lot of room around it, and you didn’t know he was going to come out of the gate, and then you didn’t know where he was going to go basically.

“So it’s very difficult to sort of predict and like a lot of these people are nearly falling in the water trying to get this picture.

“It was quite tricky to be in the right place on that one.

“Even if you’re behind it, you see his feet. So it’s quite a difficult one, but it was a nice moment.

“I was surprised he did that dive, to be honest, I thought he might just jump in.

“But what was also funny was Fred [Vasseur, Ferrari Team Principal]. I think he wanted to go in, but I think ultimately he ended up getting shoved in.”

When I was preparing for this conversation there was one photograph that I had to ask about.

Rose’s award-winning image of Verstappen kicking a rear tire after crashing at the 2021 Azerbaijan Grand Prix:

Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images

The picture was selected as the winner in the Formula One category in the 2022 World Sports Photography Awards, and with good reason. From the emotion from Verstappen, to the framing of the photographs, and of course the tourism banner in the background, every aspect of this picture is pitch-perfect.

“The funny thing about this job is that, you know, sometimes it just happens in front of you, and you have the right lens. And you’re just, you know, you’re just able to get in the way that it was intended,” began Rose.

“So a lot of the images we shoot, they’re not like super loose.

“You always look to fill the frame as a photographer, but, when something like that happens rarely are you absolutely on the perfect lens and framing. Sometimes it’s a little bit loose, or it’s a little bit tight, whatever. So I was just fortunate that I was on exactly the right lens,” continued Rose.

“I don’t know why, but when he got out of the car, because he came to a sliding halt, you can see the skid marks he kind of spun around and came to a sliding halt, and I can’t remember the circumstances of the championship at that time, but I know he was charging hard in that race and I know that it felt like quite a big shock that that had happened.

“I don’t know why when he got out of the car, I just thought, because he kind of walked around the back and I just had a hunch he was going to kick it.

“I don’t know why.

“I just felt he’s probably going to kick it, you know?”

That hunch proved correct.

“As soon as he, I think he pressed the tire or he looked at it or something and then yeah, I just instinctively kept pressing the shutter. I’ve got one frame where he’s he’s kicking it and the foot’s on the tire, there’s a frame before and the frame after but you obviously want the foot kicking it.”

The “Experience Azerbaijan” banner in the background was, as Rose termed it, “fortuitous.”

“And the sign in the background was just fortuitous.

“It just happened, I guess.”

Rose outlined how there are “two stages” to an image like this coming together.

“There’s two stages to it.

“It’s a case of being prepared to a point, and also just making sure that when it does happen, you do get it. Because it can fall into the lap like that.

“You know, a lot of crash pictures, people don’t plan to be there necessarily. But I guess there’s an element of you make your own luck,” added Rose. “If you’re prepared.

“I was pretty pleased with that just because it’s not the greatest technical photograph, sports photograph.

“But it is a moment

“It’s a human moment.

“And I think you always strive to record that because that stands the test of time.

“We all go out and shoot, you know, individual action pictures left and right, this that and the other, but it’s these pictures where it’s emotion.

“Those don’t happen all the time, that’s important to catch when they do happen, I think they’re the ones that stand the test of time.”

The 2025 F1 season

As our wonderful conversation drew to a close, I could not resist taking the opportunity to ask one of the most knowledgeable and experienced minds regarding F1 his thoughts on the current season.

Rose began with a discussion setting forth the myriad storylines that have already made this a fascinating F1 campaign.

“I think it’s a very interesting [season], I think it will be very much based around the sport going into a new set of technical regulations next year, probably the biggest that there’s been for quite a while,” began Rose.

“You have the subplots around Lewis at Ferrari. Is that working out? You have a really big subplot about Max, about what he’s gonna do. You have what’s happening with Red Bull, the changes at Red Bull, Like that’s still evolving.

“And technically, teams will get to a point in the year where they will jump off and put all [their] resources into next year.

“Teams only have a set amount of resources, so it all depends on when those teams start jumping off [to focus on 2026 and the new regulations].

“We saw it a few years ago with the change to these regulations where you ended up having Red Bull and Mercedes fighting all the way to the end and having to put resources into it to keep that title challenge alive, and then that probably had a bit of a negative impact right now really,” added Rose. “I know that Red Bull sort of managed to keep things fairly competitive, particularly in the first years, but I just think it will be interesting from that perspective.”

Then there is the story of Hamilton at Ferrari.

“The Lewis Ferrari one is really interesting.

“It’s not, I wouldn’t say that’s probably gone the way that people thought, it doesn’t seem to be going the way that people thought it might.

“I think everybody thought Lewis might come in and dominate Charles, but actually Charles was quietly going about his business.

“So yeah, I think it’s going to be one of the most interesting seasons we’ve had.”

Ultimately like many, Rose believes there is a lot of orange — or papaya to be precise — to come over the rest of the year.

“My hunch would be McLaren [are] in a very strong position. And it’s nice to see that a team has come through like McLaren. I think Oscar [Piastri] is very strong.

“It’d be nice if Lando gets to deliver on what they’ve invested in him and, the way that he’s brought the team through, and then obviously Oscar’s now come in and kind of just quietly going about his business. So I hope sort of Lando can get something out of it, but we’ll see.

“But I’ll say McLaren.

“It’s fairly straightforward, but you know, with a few surprises along the way.”

And when those surprises come, Rose and his team will be there to tell those stories.