This weekend, Natalie Pinkham, presenter of Sky Sports F1, will make her return to coverage of the Japanese Grand Prix after being absent for five months due to neck surgery.
Pinkham was forced to miss the 2025 Brazilian Grand Prix due to a herniated disc in her neck, which was pressing on nerves affecting her left arm and spinal cord. Following an operation, the British professional has been recovering and has received the green light from her doctors to travel.
In an Instagram post during her recovery process, she shared her feelings with her followers: “Hello friends… I had hoped to fly to Brazil yesterday, but the past few months have been more complicated than I expected after neck surgery; and I’m still not there…”
“Huge thanks to the Sky F1 team and the rest of the company for their incredible support. Love and gratitude to @biowellhealth for helping me heal… And to @drbencarraway for helping me get moving again,” Pinkham added.
A long and painful recovery process
In an interview with _Planet F1_, Pinkham detailed the severity of her operation, explaining that she hadn’t stopped for 15 years. With two young children, she had returned to work six weeks after giving birth, but this time the situation was different.
“It was a real ordeal. A disc in my neck slipped and was pressing on nerves in my left arm and my spinal cord. The doctors told me: ‘You have to take it out. Now.’ And they performed a front surgery where they removed the voice box and moved the trachea and esophagus,” she explained.
“Then they removed the disc, fused the vertebrae, and installed a small cage to support my neck. When they explained the procedure to me, I thought: ‘No way.’ And they told me: ‘Hmm, you don’t really have an option.'”
Written by FormulaRapidaAI
