BBC Formula One presenter Jennie Gow, 46, reveals she fears Beeb won’t ‘want me back’ after she suffered a stroke brought on by a cough, as she struggles with fatigue nine months on

• Gow worked for the BBC during last month’s Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort 
• The BBC presenter admitted she was ‘wiped out for 10 days’ following the race
• Gow revealed concerns fatigue may prevent her from returning to work full-time 

Formula One presenter Jennie Gow has revealed fears the BBC will not want her back as she struggles with the after-effects of a stroke last year. 

Gow, 46, temporarily lost the ability to speak after suffering a stroke in December 2022, which was brought on by a cough from a viral infection.

She returned to the F1 paddock in July, conducting an interview with Lewis Hamilton for BBC Radio 5 Live at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

Gow, assisted by her husband Jamie Coley, worked the full race weekend during the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort in August.

In an interview with the Telegraph, Gow revealed she had been ‘wiped out for the next 10 days’ due to fatigue after working at the race.

Jennie Gow revealed her fears the BBC may not want her back due to after effects of her stroke

The F1 presenter admits she is struggling with fatigue nine months on from suffering a stroke

Gow revealed she had been ‘wiped out for 10 days’ after working at the Dutch Grand Prix

She admitted to having concerns over whether fatigue will allow her to return full-time, acknowledging fears that the BBC may not want to bring her back to her pitlane reporter role.

‘I’d love to go back at the start of next season but I don’t know if that’s realistic,’ Gow said.

‘It’s a question mark. I think we thought after Zandvoort we’d know for sure whether I could or we couldn’t. But actually until the fatigue goes, I can’t do a race weekend on my own.

‘Then there are other questions? Will the BBC want me back? I’m freelance. I don’t have a contract with anyone.

‘Listening to someone else do [your job] is hard even if all my colleagues have all been amazing, going out of their way to be kind and stressing they are keeping the seat warm for me.’ 

Until the stroke hit, Gow had been a permanent fixture in Formula One coverage since 2012, covering the sport on BBC Radio 5 Live.

Before that, she covered the BBC’s MotoGP coverage after joining the broadcasting company in 1999. Gow is also a commentator on the racing series Extreme E.

The broadcaster has also regularly appeared on the Netflix series Drive to Survive.

Gow’s husband Jamie has previously opened up about the moment he found Jennie on the floor as she suffered a stroke, shortly before Christmas last year.

Recalling it as ‘the worst moment of my life’, he said he heard a loud noise downstairs before realising Jennie had collapsed, as their six-year-old daughter Isabelle rushed to get the phone so her father could call an ambulance.

Gow’s husband Jamie Coley had assisted her during the Dutch Grand Prix in August

Gow’s husband Jamie said finding her on the bathroom floor was ‘the worst moment of my life’

She was treated swiftly at Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey and St George’s Hospital in Tooting, London.

The presenter thought her speech development would potentially take months to recover, but after a nurse advised her to try to get angry and shout, Gow began speaking again.

Gow has revealed she’s developed dyslexia from the medical episode, among other side effects. 

This includes nerve damage in her right hand, meaning she is unreceptive to heat, posing a serious risk of burn, while the right side of her face still has a slight droop.

Gow had broken down in tears as she listened to her husband describe her how finding her after the stroke was ‘the worst moment’ of his life.

In the BBC film, Jamie said: ‘I was trying to call your name and get you to speak to me and I was just getting nothing back from you.’

She asked him: ‘Were you feeling scared?’, to which he replied: ‘It was the worst moment of my life’ before detailing how the couple’s six-year-old daughter Isabelle helped him get Gow comfortable and passed her father his phone to call an ambulance.

In the video, Gow also meets Dr Thomas Pain, a consultant specialising in strokes at Frimley Park Hospital, who explained that a tear in a blood vessel in her neck – caused by vigorous coughing – had resulted in a clot travelling up to her brain, causing a bleed on the left side of it.

The Formula One presenter is raising money with her daughter for the charity Different Strokes, which supports younger survivors with the after effects of a stroke.

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