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Welcome, welcome, welcome to F1 with DRS.
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This is a bonus episode on the Armchair Expert feed.
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Because we got an interview with an incredible team principal, this maybe second most winningest team principal in Formula One, Christian Horner.
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And I wanted to share it on all the feeds.
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If you like it and you want to hear more F1 with DRS content, please go and follow that.
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Just search F1, E-F-F-W-O-N.
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in any app you use and subscribe and we d love to have you along.
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And if you re hearing this and you re on Spotify, if you look down at your phone, you can see this.
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There is video for this interview and for this intro.
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Please enjoy.
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Well, you know, it is on the race weekend.
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First of all, everyone s busy.
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Yeah.
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Understandably.
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And everyone s got something to do.
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It s not like you re trying to stop and chat with a stranger for 25 minutes.
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It s just not an ideal.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So this is fantastic.
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I m so grateful that you came.
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So we were just talking about Disneyland, which is important.
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So did you have a favorite ride?
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I enjoyed the, we went on the race, you know, that is in cars.
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Yes, yes, yes, yes.
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Oh my God.
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Cars is incredible.
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Yeah.
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The world and everything.
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And then suddenly you end up in a race and my, my kids got super excited about that.
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So I got excited about it.
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Did you win or lose?
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Unfortunately we finished second.
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There s only two cars.
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Euphemism to say.
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Yeah, exactly.
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Yeah, I would say that one s top ride for me.
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All the Star Wars stuff was cool.
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That s pretty cool.
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That s incredible when you walk in and they have the actual, you feel like you re on the deck.
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Exactly.
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Yeah, exactly.
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You know, it s old fashioned, but I really love it is Indiana Jones.
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Did you do that one?
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Yeah, we did that.
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That was cool.
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Pirates of the Caribbean, I loved.
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You got to do that.
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Jethro, who lives in England.
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He s never been on Pirates of the Caribbean.
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You don t understand.
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This is the most important ride.
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You haven t lived unless you ve been on Pirates of the Caribbean.
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If I were a billionaire, I d build one.
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You would too?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Oh, wonderful.
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This is great, because I tell people that and they think I m nuts.
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But I think Michael Jackson built one.
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Have you ever heard this rumor?
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Oh, really?
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No, I didn t hear that.
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I ve heard at Neverland, that ranch, he had Pirates of the Caribbean.
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But the person I was talking to didn t realize that the movie series had been based on the ride.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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I went to Florida in 1983.
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Okay.
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I went on Pirates of the Caribbean there and Disney World.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And so you were what, 19?
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I was about 10.
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Yeah.
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And so same age as my daughter now.
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Oh yeah.
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And so I was trying to explain that this was all pre the film.
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This was pre the movie.
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Right.
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And there wasn t anything cool.
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So to see just like the people, the women chasing the pirates with the broom in a circle was like a big technological breakthrough.
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So yeah, how did your kids take it?
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Because there s so many great offerings now.
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They leave the Star Wars thing, that s insane.
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It s like driving somehow, AI is driving the fucking thing.
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Yeah, my six-year-old flew the Millennium Falcon.
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His life is complete.
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Yeah, and then you got to put them in a little boat and float by some bounty, some treasure.
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When we came face to face with a squad of stormtroopers, it was like, daddy, can we go now?
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Oh good, he got scared.
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He got probably scared.
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When Kylo Ren came in as well, it was like, oh my god.
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We re in trouble.
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Yeah, exactly.
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And he s six?
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He s six.
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He has a January birthday?
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He s a January birthday.
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What day?
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21st.
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Damn it.
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I thought we d be soulmates.
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When are you?
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I m the second.
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I argue it s the worst birthday in the world because it s the day after New Year s.
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Everyone s made resolutions.
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No one wants to drink at your party or eat.
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You know?
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And they always combine this as Christmas and birthday present.
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Exactly.
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It s a fucking racket.
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Your aunts and uncles tell you like, oh, we got you something even bigger.
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But it s the same thing your brother got.
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I m in November, you see.
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I m mid-November.
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So I get it the other side.
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Yes.
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Although this year, it s in Vegas.
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for the race.
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You ll be there on your birthday.
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I m going to be there.
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I m going to be 50 in Vegas.
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Oh, my God.
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Are you planning something spectacular?
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Is your wife planning?
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The race has been put on in honor of my birthday.
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Oh, my God.
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That makes so much sense.
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I think a lot of people are scratching their head of how this came together.
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To celebrate my 50th.
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That makes so much sense.
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So you re from the town you re from.
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I ve never heard of, I m embarrassed to say.
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Which one did you look at?
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Leamington Spa?
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Exactly.
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Leamington Spa.
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How far out of London is that?
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That s about an hour and a half north.
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So it s about as central UK as you can get.
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Think Shakespeare.
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That s the next town.
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Stratford.
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Okay.
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So you and I share this in common, which is I grew up in Detroit.
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My whole family s automotive industry.
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Yeah.
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My mother worked at General Motors at the Proving Grounds.
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Okay.
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Dad sold cars.
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Yeah.
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And your granddad worked at Standard?
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Yep.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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So he was in the motor industry.
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He started as a, as an apprentice.
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No shit.
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In what year?
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Like 50s or?
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No, my granddad was, that would have been pre-war.
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Then my father
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He did his apprenticeship at Standard, and he was in the automotive industry, but as a, like an agent, working between suppliers and the industry.
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And we used to go to Detroit, because he had a couple of clients out there.
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Oh, no kidding.
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So we ended up going there to- Not as fun as your trip to Disneyland.
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Not as fun, but we went up to the lakes, and I went to Mackinac Island.
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Mackinac Island.
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We rode a bicycle around.
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Fudge balls and everything, yeah, yeah.
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That s a good memory.
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So we used to end up going up.
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Going up there as kids.
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The two claims of fame for Mackinac Island is it had the world s largest porch in the world at the Mackinac Hotel.
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And then, yeah, you can ride a bike around it.
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Yeah.
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And I remember driving.
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I hadn t got a license.
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In the UK, you can t get a license until you re 17.
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And I ended up driving a car in Detroit at 16 years of age.
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Do you remember what car it was?
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It was a Lincoln Town Car.
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Oh, baby.
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It was like a boat.
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In what year?
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About 1990, yeah.
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That s the apex year, other than my 67 Lincoln Continental.
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You fast forward, that s the town car you were driving.
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Okay, yeah, yeah.
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That was like a boat to me, you know, it was unbelievable.
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Yeah, five liter V8, rear wheel drive.
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Yeah.
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So what age did you start in karting?
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Well, I fell in love with speed because I grew up watching things like the Fall Guy and the A-Team.
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Let s talk about the Fall Guy for one second.
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Yeah.
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When s the last time you ve watched videos on YouTube of the Fall Guy?
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Oh, crikey, it must be years and years.
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I really encourage you to, because as you probably saw when you walked in, I m super into off-road racing.
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Yeah.
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And you know, the average suspension travel on that Raptor out there is like 18, 20 inches.
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Yeah.
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That fucking GMC, he was driving at like three inches of travel, and he launched that.
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And he was flying.
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Oh my God, he would jump like 12 feet in the air.
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Absolutely.
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You must go and watch it, because what you see is that when it lands, it just bounces for a long, long time.
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They must have gone through quite a few trucks.
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I don t think any of the trucks made it through any of the jumps, much like the General Lee.
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OK, so we were raised on the same shit.
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So I grew up watching all that stuff, and I was just obsessed with speed, and I wanted to race.
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Cannonball runs?
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Oh my God, yeah, the cannonball run, all that stuff.
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Oh, so funny.
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So yeah, I was always fascinated by speed.
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And it was actually my mom that we found this go-kart, this motorized go-kart in the back of a newspaper.
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And for my 11th birthday, I twisted her arm, twisted her arm, and we bought this old thing out the back of the newspaper.
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And it was to drive originally around the garden, around the yard that we had.
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So she bought it for me, and it was super cheap, and it was really old.
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But it was too low.
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It was an old racing go-kart.
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It was too low to go around the garden.
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And so my dad knew of a go-kart track that was, I don t know, about 10 miles from where we lived.
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And so we took it up there.
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And suddenly, I discovered this whole world that you could race these things.
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Right.
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But let s also say at 11, you re already five years behind.
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At that stage, no.
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No?
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The earliest you could race was 12 at that point.
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Oh, OK.
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So yeah.
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I guess now, although our drivers, they- Now, it s basically straight out of the womb.
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You re able to drive a cart.
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Yeah, I have a 10-year-old daughter, and I told her, like, hey, you re kind of four years behind.
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Yeah, you re behind the curve now.
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Yeah, you re behind the curve.
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It s like, we ve got to go hard now if we re going to do this.
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So I started racing when I was 12 years of age and it was just all I wanted to do.
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I, I had an engine in my bedroom, you know?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Were they two stroke 125s at that point?
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No, they were two stroke 100 CC.
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Okay.
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Right, right, right.
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And shifter or?
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No, a centrifugal clutch and just the accelerator and brake.
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So, and it was fantastic.
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Yes.
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And did you immediately have an aptitude or did you feel like you had to catch up to
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No, I got into it pretty quickly and it was just suddenly my life was just obsessed with carting and if I wasn t in a cart, I was drawing it or cleaning it or the school at that point became secondary.
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Were you small as a kid?
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Yeah, I was pretty small.
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So I imagine you looked small up there racing to your parents.
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And I read this thing that racing drivers were no higher than five foot eight.
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Yes.
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And so I had a chart on the wall.
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And I was willing myself to be short because my brother was quite tall.
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And I was thinking, I don t want to grow up like him.
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So I didn t want my feet to grow.
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I didn t, you know, I became obsessed about the age of 13 of not wanting to grow too quickly.
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So, um, but it was a lot of fun.
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And as a family, you know, weekends were taken up with going to a racetrack.
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We ve, we packed the car up the cart in the back and so on.
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And, and my dad was a mechanic.
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He was, he was the mechanic initially until I
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I was in the lead of a race and he hadn t done the, the engine clamps up, uh, properly.
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Uh, and the engine fell off when I was in the lead.
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So after that point I d done well enough that a couple of teams said, why doesn t he come and drive for us?
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Okay.
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So that s when you get sponsored as a driver.
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This is 91.
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This is before 89 was the first year I was sponsored.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, because I did have a question if dad was pushing you into it or supportive or tolerant, like which of those three?
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I would say between tolerant and supportive.
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OK, OK.
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So it s like, where s this going?
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But at the same time, you know, as parents, they always they always encourage us, you know, follow your dreams, go for what go for what you want.
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And and and in racing, I had something that, you know, suddenly I had a connection with him.
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Yeah, he was he must have loved it as well.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And so I raced.
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in 1989 in the Junior Karting World Championship.
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And I raced against Max Verstappen s mom.
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No, no way.
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Absolutely.
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She was a champion, right?
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She was top 10 in the world at that point.
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She was incredible.
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That s so cool.
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And then drivers like Jan Magnussen, Kevin Magnussen s father and Fissing Keller and Jarno Trulli.
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And there was some some really competitive guys, Dario Franchitti.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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I love that you were against Max s mom.
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Yeah.
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Did she beat you?
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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How crazy that you re now working with her son.
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I mean, when we met when we were 13, I don t think any of us could have, could have predicted that.
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No, completely unimaginable at that point.
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Like, you know what?
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I bet in 30 years, you ll have this boy.
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He ll be a phenom and I m going to be his boss.
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That s where all this is heading.
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You have two brothers.
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I ve got two brothers.
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I m the middle of three, so my older one is a sensor one.
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SPEAKER_00
He s a lawyer.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, he s smart.
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And so he was the golden child at school, did all the exams properly and everything.
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SPEAKER_00
I was the one that was... School was like a social thing for me.
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SPEAKER_00
Right.
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And then my younger brother is completely wild.
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SPEAKER_01
That is always the pattern with three boys, no?
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SPEAKER_01
The baby brother s the scariest brother of all brothers.
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SPEAKER_00
He is, and he s just moved to LA, so be careful.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, and what does he do?
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He runs an events business.
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SPEAKER_00
He s got a big events thing, so they do a lot of, actually he s doing a lot of work with McLaren at the moment.
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He s doing all their Las Vegas entertainment and everything.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, I don t know about that, but we ll see.
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SPEAKER_00
Exactly, that s exactly what I told him.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, the house divided.
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There must be a point that your parents go,
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okay, wow, he s going to go all in on this and that s obviously going to make it impossible for him to go to uni or start a normal career.
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SPEAKER_01
Are they nervous at that juncture?
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SPEAKER_01
I guess you joined the Formula Three first.
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SPEAKER_01
Oh, I went Formula Renault.
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I won a scholarship.
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I won a scholarship where Renault said, we ll take the top three British karting guys
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and we ll give them a scholarship to move from karting into car racing.
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SPEAKER_00
And that was when I was 18 years of age.
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So my mom and dad, they wanted me to go to university.
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SPEAKER_00
So they insisted that I get a place at university.
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SPEAKER_00
So I just filled out the form for some completely random university somewhere in Wales that I ve never heard of with no intention.
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Just room and board.
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It was just tick in the box.
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And then I left school at 18 and all I wanted to be was a race car driver.
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And I guess they re out of the picture at that point, but were they scared for you?
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SPEAKER_00
They were.
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Yeah, they were.
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They had their concerns.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
I mean, forget the actual physical threat.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
Just the lifetime career anxiety.
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SPEAKER_00
Well, they did a deal with me.
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SPEAKER_00
They said, look, take a year out because you could do that between school and university.
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SPEAKER_00
So I said, take a year out and see where this goes.
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SPEAKER_00
But you ve got a place at university that you can go back to.
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SPEAKER_00
That was the deal.
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SPEAKER_00
They just wanted a safety net.
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SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
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SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
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SPEAKER_00
I still haven t gone yet.
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SPEAKER_01
Well, life s long.
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SPEAKER_01
It s short and long.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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Yeah.
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We don t know.
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SPEAKER_01
Toto s sending lots of people to Harvard, it seems like.
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SPEAKER_01
Somehow I think if you want to exploit that, over tenuous, that relationship is maybe he could get you enrolled there.
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SPEAKER_00
You never know.
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SPEAKER_00
Well, the funny thing is that both my brothers went through universities and got degrees and so on.
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SPEAKER_00
And then I get given an honorary doctorate from Cranfield University in the UK.
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SPEAKER_00
They say, you never did a day.
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SPEAKER_00
You know, we worked our asses off in university and suddenly you ve got a doctorate.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m one of the few actors without a honorary doctorate degree, and I ve even given a commencement speech, so I don t know why.
1
SPEAKER_01
I must have shit the bed on it, and then they didn t give it to me or something.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I guess if we fast forward, you do climb the ladder of racing.
1
SPEAKER_01
You do well your first season with Renault.
1
SPEAKER_00
You win a race, you re the number one rookie.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
1
SPEAKER_00
I beat a guy, Pedro de la Rosa, that ended up in Formula One.
1
SPEAKER_00
I won my first race.
1
SPEAKER_00
And suddenly you start to get a bit of hype around you.
1
SPEAKER_00
This is the new kid and he s looking promising.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I got picked up by Lotus at the time in the Formula One team.
1
SPEAKER_00
And my mom and dad were away somewhere.
1
SPEAKER_00
They put a contract in me.
1
SPEAKER_00
It was like a five-year contract.
1
SPEAKER_00
basically signed my life away.
1
SPEAKER_00
And they said, if you don t sign this now, we re going to give it to the next guy.
1
SPEAKER_00
But this gave me a stepping stone into Formula 3.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I signed this contract and signed up for them to drive in Formula 3.
1
SPEAKER_00
And Lotus were on the up.
1
SPEAKER_00
They had Johnny Herbert and Alex Zanardi as their race drivers.
1
SPEAKER_01
You re going to be disappointed with my knowledge on this.
1
SPEAKER_01
Just, I want to be upfront about it.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m one of the posers who fell in love with the sport with Drive and Survive.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m slowly learning.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, of course I knew Senna, I knew Schumacher.
1
SPEAKER_00
I knew like, you know.
1
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so I m throwing names at you that you have no idea who they are.
1
SPEAKER_01
Right, but I did know some of the Cardi ones.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I am gathering it, but I just want to be very forthcoming.
1
SPEAKER_00
When Zanardi came over, he was pretty successful.
1
SPEAKER_00
He won the Champ Car Series, and unfortunately he lost his legs in a horrible accident.
1
SPEAKER_00
at the loudspeaker.
1
SPEAKER_00
But anyway, they were the drivers at the time.
1
SPEAKER_00
And they enabled me to drive that car, that Formula One car, as a test driver.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I did a little bit of testing in 1993, that was.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I finished second in the championship.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I m still, this is my goal and dream.
1
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, when you can visualize yourself, I could see, you know, I was just visualizing myself being a Grand Prix driver.
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, that s what I was most curious about, what your internal confidence was at that time.
1
SPEAKER_01
There s the presenting confidence, and then there s the home at night in bed maybe, but you were at that stage, you thought, I m going to do this.
1
SPEAKER_00
I lacked the presenting confidence, but I had this, I could just visualize my, I thought, yeah, I m going to do it one day, I m going to do it and blah, blah, blah.
1
SPEAKER_00
But the problem is, the higher you rise, the harder it gets, the more competition, and the cars get faster, and suddenly danger becomes prevalent.
1
SPEAKER_00
And suddenly, racing then up into Formula 2 cars, and having driven a Formula 1 car, I m like, wow, this thing is like... It s getting serious.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s serious.
1
SPEAKER_00
You could seriously mess your hair up in this.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I suppose there was something in me that then started to build in.
1
SPEAKER_00
a little bit of a little doubt, a bit of doubt and a bit of a safety factor, particularly in some of the high speed corners.
1
SPEAKER_01
Would it be fair to describe this as this would be my guess.
1
SPEAKER_01
I ve only raced like I raced the Super Trofeo series.
1
SPEAKER_01
No real downforce.
1
SPEAKER_01
Right.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I ve never experienced real downforce.
1
SPEAKER_01
My guess would be as you re ramping up in these cars and the downforce is getting more and more, it s almost like an exponential curve of commitment
1
SPEAKER_01
where it s like a lot of these turns you go, well, the car s not going to work unless I enter this turn at 130.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I got to get to 130 for the car to work.
1
SPEAKER_00
And getting brain and foot to connect at that point, I had a damper in between.
1
SPEAKER_00
And in the slow speed corners, you could be as quick as anybody because there s less risk.
1
SPEAKER_00
But suddenly you re harrying down a straight at over 200 miles an hour.
1
SPEAKER_00
And you re coming up to the corner that everybody s telling you that s flat out.
1
SPEAKER_00
And your brain is computing this and going, that doesn t look flat out to me.
1
SPEAKER_00
And your heart s saying, now, come on, let s get on with it.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s a leap of faith to think the car will stick.
1
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
1
SPEAKER_00
But my brain would often overrule my heart and say, come on.
1
SPEAKER_00
Let s build a margin in here.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, let s live to see tomorrow.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then you end up building up to it.
1
SPEAKER_00
And the really good guys, they ve just got a natural aptitude for it, a complete inner confidence in themselves, a feeling of the car.
1
SPEAKER_00
And they don t have to build up to it.
1
SPEAKER_00
They just go and do it.
1
SPEAKER_00
Right.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that s something I ve seen from when I was driving with the good guys as well, that they just go and do it.
1
SPEAKER_00
And they don t need to build up.
1
SPEAKER_00
They don t need a session.
1
SPEAKER_00
They don t need to.
1
SPEAKER_00
They hop in and go.
1
SPEAKER_00
They just go.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I had this very vivid moment where I was running in Formula 3000, which is now the Formula 2 equivalent.
1
SPEAKER_00
And there was a driver, you might ve heard of this one, Juan Pablo Montoya.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yes, yes.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m glad this story is true, because I was wondering if it was a popular driver.
1
SPEAKER_00
I know a Colombian super fast driver.
1
SPEAKER_00
And we were at Estoril before the season, I was tracking Portugal.
1
SPEAKER_00
And Estoril is a long straight, and the old school track used to have two very fast right-hand corners.
1
SPEAKER_00
and there d be a barrier that was about 20 meters from the track.
1
SPEAKER_00
And they were sort of like a sixth gear corner.
1
SPEAKER_00
So we re talking 160, 170 miles an hour.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I m coming out of the pit lane that filters onto the track and Montoya comes herring past and he commits
2
SPEAKER_00
to this right-hand turn, and I can just see the car is moving and dancing around, and the rim is trying to pop through the sidewall of the tire, and he s on opposite lock, and he s got his right foot absolutely planted.
2
SPEAKER_00
In the kitchen.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I just knew at that point, I can t do that.
2
SPEAKER_00
I couldn t either have the confidence or the skill or the bravery to commit to that corner in the way that he did.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I knew prior to that season, I was honest with myself to say, look, I m not even going to try and carve a career out in another category.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m going to need to do something because I don t want to go to a university.
2
SPEAKER_00
I need to earn a living.
2
SPEAKER_00
I ve created this team.
2
SPEAKER_01
At this point, you started the team that you re driving for, Arden?
2
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
2
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I want to spend two seconds on that decision because you re saying it like it was obvious to you in the moment and that you were able to accept that, but there wasn t like, that s very hard, especially if you start at 12 or 11.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
For 10 years now, your identity, that s where I m going.
2
SPEAKER_01
This is what I m going to do.
2
SPEAKER_01
Life makes sense to me because I m in pursuit of this.
2
SPEAKER_01
This is like my identity shatters.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s back to the drawing board.
2
SPEAKER_01
Who am I?
2
SPEAKER_01
Where am I going?
2
SPEAKER_00
Was it brutal that decision?
2
SPEAKER_00
It was brutal, but it also, I had another route and having created this team because motor racing survives on sponsorship.
2
SPEAKER_00
And as a young driver coming up, it s dependent, uh, in many cases on the sponsorship that you can generate and you have to go to a team and you buy a ride.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I had a certain amount of money not to go to a top team.
2
SPEAKER_00
I thought, I don t want to go to a shitty team.
2
SPEAKER_00
I may as well buy the car myself, employ an engineer and a couple of mechanics.
2
SPEAKER_00
And at least I got the car at the end of the year, rather than a set of overalls and some pictures.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so really starting the team was a means to an end for me.
2
SPEAKER_00
to go race.
2
SPEAKER_01
You already started seeing the backup plan.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Simultaneous to that.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, not at that point.
2
SPEAKER_00
When I started the team, it was like, okay, this is the most cost effective way for me to get to formula two.
2
SPEAKER_00
But then having seen the Montoya effect, I d like, okay, I need a plan B here.
2
SPEAKER_00
And, and the plan B would be maybe I could build this team up and I could run this team and I can stay in the sport.
2
SPEAKER_00
And rather than, and be honest with myself, and it was like, don t kid yourself.
2
SPEAKER_00
If I can t play at the highest level, I don t want to, you know, I don t want to play.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m going to do something else.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
And at this point you re in Formula 3000.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s right.
2
SPEAKER_01
Which was a league as an answer to Formula 2 because Formula 2 had become so expensive.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, Formula 2, I don t know what happened with the name, but they renamed it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Formula 3000 at that point.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that was like the finishing school for Formula One.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was the understudy.
2
SPEAKER_00
It followed the tour around at about eight or ten tracks.
2
SPEAKER_00
And yeah, so that was the final step before Formula One.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, obviously you reflect back at this age and go, had I stayed that course, I would have never actually been a champion.
2
SPEAKER_01
And by some surrendering of this original goal, I become a champion six times over.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s, it s kind of wild.
2
SPEAKER_00
It is.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I, and in those early days with the team, you know, I had to take some massive, massive risks because, you know, suddenly you re responsible for employing people.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_00
And, and that suddenly was like a big, you know, responsibility at 24, 25 years of age.
2
SPEAKER_01
And how about you out on the town trying to scrounge together money from sponsors.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s an entirely different skill set.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you ve got to hustle, and you ve got to sell yourself, and you ve got to raise the money.
2
SPEAKER_00
And suddenly, you have a responsibility to make sure every Friday, the 10 guys that were in the team were all paid, and their mortgages and their livelihood depended on me.
2
SPEAKER_00
And if I crash the car...
2
SPEAKER_00
I could either afford to repair the car or pay the mechanics, but I couldn t do both.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right, right.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so suddenly, you know, that responsibility became a real burden.
2
SPEAKER_01
How did you handle the pressure of that?
2
SPEAKER_00
I think, again, you build in another safety factor of I cannot afford to crash.
2
SPEAKER_00
Uh, and so, uh, and so for me, it was very clear that I was going to need to stop it as, as well that, uh, you know, when you re running a team and a small business like that was very hand to mouth, you know, I was living off credit cards.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was maxed out at the bank.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Um, I was depending on so many things coming with the smallest thing could have tipped me, tipped me over the edge.
2
SPEAKER_01
My guess is you re good at managing stress, but even if you re good at it,
2
SPEAKER_01
Does that time seem, well obviously nostalgia helps, but does that period seem wonderful in your mind or does it seem like, oh my God, I barely lived through that, that was so stressful?
2
SPEAKER_00
I think it was a great education for me and for sure it was stressful and I was booking the hotels, I was doing the tax returns, I m doing the payroll, I m washing the truck, I m doing all the-
2
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I was having to hustle to make this thing happen and get the money and so on.
2
SPEAKER_01
What was it like to be in your life at that time, if you were a girlfriend or a friend?
2
SPEAKER_00
From a girlfriend point of view, I had a girlfriend at the time and I remember her mother going, you need to be thinking of being with somebody else.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s no room for you in this.
2
SPEAKER_00
You need a guy with a proper job that s going to be able to get a mortgage, going to buy a house.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_00
First paycheck I ever got, I went and bought a Porsche.
2
SPEAKER_00
I ve shown no responsibility of that at this point in the thing.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was thinking, do you know what?
2
SPEAKER_00
If all goes wrong, then at least I ve given it a go.
2
SPEAKER_01
I ve just recently watched the Beckham documentary.
2
SPEAKER_01
Have you watched it?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Brilliant.
2
SPEAKER_00
I went to the premiere.
2
SPEAKER_00
Fantastic.
2
SPEAKER_01
Whoa.
2
SPEAKER_01
I gotta be, again, we don t know about football here.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t know about Beckham.
2
SPEAKER_01
I know he s gorgeous and super popular.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t know that he s as good as he is.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think maybe he s just, he s so good looking that that s why he s so famous.
2
SPEAKER_01
He s a legend.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, what a fucking legend.
2
SPEAKER_01
Also, I loved how honest he was.
2
SPEAKER_01
He s like, I got $50,000 from Adidas and I went immediately and bought an M3.
2
SPEAKER_01
I remember I got £60,000 out of a deal when I stopped racing, and the first thing I did was go and buy a car.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that was when the girlfriend dumped me.
2
SPEAKER_00
So, or the mother told her to dump me.
2
SPEAKER_00
But the funny thing was that when I was driving, I had a sponsor and they made cakes.
2
SPEAKER_00
They made like celebration cakes that they were selling to a supermarket.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they said that we ve signed two licenses, one with a cartoon character called Dennis the Menace to make these cakes with Dennis the Menace on.
2
SPEAKER_00
And we ve signed one with this girl band called the Spice Girls, but we think the Dennis the Menace cake- That s the money in the bank.
2
SPEAKER_00
So put the Dennis the Menace on your car.
2
SPEAKER_00
No.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I had Dennis the Menace on my car, and they said, if the cake sales go okay, we can pay you a little bit more money.
2
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so anyway, they started selling the cakes.
2
SPEAKER_00
I remember getting a call and saying, look, the cake sales are going well, but wow, the gold cakes are flying.
2
SPEAKER_00
So, so we can we can we can actually pay you a little bit more money.
2
SPEAKER_00
So indirectly, my wife, you know, very early age was impacting our ability to buy.
2
SPEAKER_00
She contributed to my career.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Another weird like Max s mom moment.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
You just don t know where all these threads are going to weave together.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
What skills are you picking up in that hard scrabble, scrounging for every part in sponsorship?
2
SPEAKER_01
What is becoming obvious to you?
2
SPEAKER_01
Because you guys go on to win in 2000, what, three you win the championship?
2
SPEAKER_01
2002, four?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, three years in a row.
2
SPEAKER_01
I won it three years in a row.
2
SPEAKER_00
And you cannot be the most well-funded team.
2
SPEAKER_00
No, we weren t.
2
SPEAKER_00
And in 2002, we were properly on the limit.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I thought, do you know what?
2
SPEAKER_00
If it s shit or bust, I ve got to put a driver that can be capable of winning it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And of course, the good guys never have any money.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I took this driver out of Formula One, a Czech guy.
2
SPEAKER_00
And he won the championship that year.
2
SPEAKER_00
He beat a driver, Sebastian Bourdais, that came over here.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then he got excluded for being 1,000% over the legal drug limit.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
On what drug?
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, marijuana.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, really?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Which is so ironic.
2
SPEAKER_01
Cause that isn t going to help anybody drive a car fast.
2
SPEAKER_01
No, they should.
2
SPEAKER_00
In fact, you should get more points if you re bound to be heavily in the first ever drugs case in, in, in, in motorsport.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so anyway, I managed to, I was expecting you to, as soon as I read that, I was like, I can t wait to find out what drug he was on.
2
SPEAKER_01
He must ve been on speed or he was.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was a guy, it was a guy from the Czech Republic.
2
SPEAKER_00
I spoke to his manager.
2
SPEAKER_00
I said, look, we got a bit of a problem.
2
SPEAKER_00
He s tested positive for a drugs test.
2
SPEAKER_00
And his manager said, well, he must have inhaled it.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, he s been in a club, something like that.
2
SPEAKER_00
And he was kind of fun.
2
SPEAKER_00
Bill Clinton style.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so anyway, he made.
2
SPEAKER_00
three of his employees sit in a room while three others sort of blew smoke at them and then go and get tested.
2
SPEAKER_00
And this was like part of his defense.
2
SPEAKER_00
And other than having sore eyes, they didn t even register.
2
SPEAKER_00
So then it turned out that the guy had been taking a medication for some back spasms from a big crash that he had in Japan.
2
SPEAKER_00
And he had a Czech trainer that was just giving him these pills.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it was THC.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he d been on it for years.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
2
SPEAKER_00
But... And he won!
2
SPEAKER_00
He won!
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he won the championship.
3
SPEAKER_00
Think how fucking great he d be uninjured and sharp.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then I got him a drive with Newman Haas.
3
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_00
And as soon as the drug thing came out, bang, they pulled everything.
3
SPEAKER_00
They did.
3
SPEAKER_00
And they gave it to the other guy.
3
SPEAKER_00
So he should have won that year, but that put us on the map as a winning team and I won it the next year in 2003 and then we really dominated in 2004.
3
SPEAKER_01
So in that period, what had you figured out you were great at?
3
SPEAKER_01
What was the thing you were doing that you could recognize in yourself?
3
SPEAKER_01
You have to explain this underdog story of three years in a row.
3
SPEAKER_01
There must be something you tell yourself like, OK, this is what I this is my knack.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think it was a few things.
3
SPEAKER_00
One was having been in the cockpit was understanding some of the motions that a driver goes through.
3
SPEAKER_00
So being able, in a small way, to be able to relate to the drivers, to get the most out of them, to give an arm around the shoulder.
3
SPEAKER_00
And driving like in any sport, it s all about confidence as well.
3
SPEAKER_00
And when you re sat in the car, it can be a very lonely place.
3
SPEAKER_00
And when you re looking out, you want to know that the people around you
3
SPEAKER_00
that they believe in you, that they re not just going through the motions.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so it was creating an environment that was fun, but that was serious, and competitive, and hungry.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we re all in it together, and we re a team, and we take on the rest of the world.
3
SPEAKER_00
We re the underdog.
3
SPEAKER_00
But let s punch above our weight.
3
SPEAKER_01
A lot of what you do, as I was thinking about talking to you, really, really parallels directors of movies.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so often the great directors are the ones who ve acted themselves.
3
SPEAKER_01
They understand the insecurity of doing a job where 100 people look at you and you fail at the job 12 times in a row before you get it right.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s like an important experience to have.
3
SPEAKER_01
So imagine being a driver helps enormously.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so it gave me a great education in that.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then in terms of even with a Formula 3000 team, even though there was only 20 people in that team, it was about getting the best engineers, but also sometimes the best guys are some kind of awkward in some way.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, sure.
3
SPEAKER_00
The engineers, you know- Most of the greats are not- Slightly autistic in some respects.
3
SPEAKER_00
For sure.
3
SPEAKER_00
It was learning how to get a diverse group of people to work together as, as one team.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And, and that s what we managed to do.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I felt that, you know, that was a skillset I had was in recognizing people s strengths and weaknesses and being able to, to, to, to really hopefully get the best out of them.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s such a mental experience, isn t it?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s totally, it s all of it.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m trying to think like if tennis always appears to me to be like maybe apex mental, you watch some of these players just like
3
SPEAKER_01
break down at some point or lose the momentum and it s just tangible.
3
SPEAKER_01
Would we say driving s on that same level or a little less?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you can say it s on that.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, we ve got exactly that going on at the moment with Checo.
3
SPEAKER_01
I know, I know.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s such a heartbreaking thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and we all want to see him, you know, do the best that he can.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I think since Miami, it s been tough for him because he started the year so well.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, he won two races.
3
SPEAKER_00
He won two races.
3
SPEAKER_00
He s right there in the championship.
3
SPEAKER_00
We go to Miami,
3
SPEAKER_00
He gets an open goal because Max got a penalty, not penalty, but red flags and different situations meant that he was outside the top 10 in qualifying.
3
SPEAKER_00
And at that point would have been an open goal for Checo.
3
SPEAKER_00
And by the 12th lap or something, Max is ahead of him.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s a demoralizing experience.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think that then created the questions.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then we went to Monaco.
3
SPEAKER_00
He tried too hard.
3
SPEAKER_00
He crashed in practice.
3
SPEAKER_00
Then you re on the back foot.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then you end up in poker, we d say like, he s, he s just on tilt now.
3
SPEAKER_01
He s like, he s driving on tilt and that s kind of obvious.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s, it s truly heartbreaking.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think if there s any driver, well, there s two drivers, everyone roots for he and Yuki.
3
SPEAKER_01
People love fucking Yuki.
3
SPEAKER_01
Myself included.
3
SPEAKER_01
My kids love Yuki.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, unbelievable.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think he should be in movies when this is all over.
3
SPEAKER_00
He s so likable.
3
SPEAKER_00
He came, he came over to the UK to learn English and drive an English team that was based on the outskirts of London.
3
SPEAKER_00
And.
3
SPEAKER_00
They are something like out of a movie from Snatch or like a Guy Ritchie movie.
3
SPEAKER_00
So this little Japanese guy thought that motherfucker or the word fuck was just part of the English language, part of the English vocabulary.
3
SPEAKER_00
How could he not?
3
SPEAKER_00
So he gets in a Formula One car and his very first test, he s going, I ve got to understand you motherfucker.
3
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, did he really say that?
3
SPEAKER_00
Or, you know, it was hilarious.
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh, it is wonderful.
3
SPEAKER_01
What seems obvious about you and what is appealing about you, or at least what it seems like in Drive to Survive is you love these dudes.
3
SPEAKER_01
You do.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I think the testament to that, and I m the only person I m really friends with in Formula One is Daniel.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
We re buddies.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think there s a lot of people in your position that would have not invited him back into the family that maybe would have felt that he turned his back on the family.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think
3
SPEAKER_01
It shows your colors so much that you were first to go.
3
SPEAKER_01
Let s get you back in the family.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, Daniel.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, Daniel s a great guy.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, what a very badly advised in his earlier career.
3
SPEAKER_00
And everybody fucks up at some point.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think I think he recognized that he made a mistake.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
He had not good advice around him at the point that he that he left us.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he could see that Max was growing.
3
SPEAKER_00
And yeah, I probably didn t realize just how good he was going to be.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, having spent a few years outside of the family, suddenly realized that, whoa, actually what I had was really good.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And, uh, it s like when you break up with a girl and you re like, fuck me.
3
SPEAKER_00
Bad dudes with her.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
That was pretty good.
3
SPEAKER_00
So, and it was horrible to see.
3
SPEAKER_00
It just get worse and worse and worse.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it was actually this time last year in Mexico that I sat down with him in my hotel room and said, look, you need a complete reset.
3
SPEAKER_00
Take a year out.
3
SPEAKER_00
Come back to us.
3
SPEAKER_00
We ve got a bunch of sponsors and a lot of marketing stuff.
3
SPEAKER_00
Which, by the way, he s such a win for you guys.
3
SPEAKER_01
I look at, you know, he went over to Dearborn and he was hanging out with, um.
3
SPEAKER_01
With Jim Farley.
3
SPEAKER_00
Jim Farley.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then I know Jim Farley.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then Jim s like, Oh my God, that Ricardo guy is the greatest.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I m like, he s the dream.
3
SPEAKER_01
Send him anywhere.
3
SPEAKER_01
He can be so useful to a team in that capacity.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he s another confidence driver.
3
SPEAKER_00
When he s got his mojo, he is one of the fastest guys on the grid.
3
SPEAKER_01
He s lethal.
3
SPEAKER_01
He has the magic thing that people have, or they don t have in my opinion, which is.
3
SPEAKER_01
There are winners and there s not winners.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t know what that is.
3
SPEAKER_01
Jordan was one.
3
SPEAKER_01
We have a bunch of examples.
3
SPEAKER_01
And if you look at his career in totality, not great, but he has won many races.
3
SPEAKER_01
People spend careers never winning a race.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he came to us.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, he was one of the juniors.
3
SPEAKER_00
I remember going to watch him in Formula 3 and so on.
3
SPEAKER_00
He really stood out and very smooth, very, you know, just great.
3
SPEAKER_00
Kind of an elegant driver.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, almost like a Roger Federer kind of style behind the wheel.
3
SPEAKER_00
Very, very classic.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, light touch.
3
SPEAKER_00
Very light touch.
3
SPEAKER_00
Great, great, great skill.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then he came through the system.
3
SPEAKER_00
We had Sebastian Vettel, four-time world champion.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, beast.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Mark Webber retired.
3
SPEAKER_00
We took Daniel as the junior with no expectation on him.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he started getting on the podium.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he was coming out, he won three races in 2014 when we didn t have far, had far from the best engine.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And Sebastian never won a race that year.
3
SPEAKER_00
See, this is the thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
Or even his time at McLaren, it sucked for him, but also he s the only one that won a race in McLaren and for a long time now.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And why don t we put in some great performances?
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think he s again, he s another confidence guy.
3
SPEAKER_00
He s got to feel, he s got to feel the love.
3
SPEAKER_00
He s got to feel comfortable in the environment that he s in.
3
SPEAKER_00
And some of his races for us were absolutely outstanding.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s really interesting for me to go back now and watch that first season of Drive to Survive, because that s at the apex of the Max Daniel stuff, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s not obvious at that moment.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t know how you know this stuff.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s not at that point, if you re asked, a thousand people are asked to judge who s a faster driver.
3
SPEAKER_01
Who knows?
3
SPEAKER_01
It s a coin flip, but Max is a fucking phenom.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, he s a, it was obvious at that stage he was coming and he was so young and so young and you could see just the raw talent.
3
SPEAKER_00
It just needed polishing a bit.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
So we gave Max a contract at the beginning of that year in, in 18 to secure his future.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And Daniel, I remember being upset at the time.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he suddenly felt that, hang on, I don t want to be the support act here.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I could tell he was starting to think of being a bigger fish in a smaller pond.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he got a lot of noise in his ear and that this is the- Well, money s also on the table too.
3
SPEAKER_00
Money was also on the table.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I remember I spoke to our owner, Dietrich Malaschitz, before the Austrian Grand Prix, and I said, look, he s looking a bit marginal with Daniel.
3
SPEAKER_00
Can you just show him some love?
3
SPEAKER_00
Because Helmut, obviously very pro max, but I think if you could just balance things out, just let him know that you want him.
3
SPEAKER_00
No problem.
3
SPEAKER_00
I ll speak to him.
3
SPEAKER_00
So he took him upstairs after the race in Austria, and they were gone for well over an hour.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then they reappear both with smiles on their faces.
3
SPEAKER_00
And Dietrich comes up to me, I said, well, how did it go?
3
SPEAKER_00
And he said, yeah, no problem.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s not even a, it s not even a question.
3
SPEAKER_00
I said, well, what did you agree with him?
3
SPEAKER_00
And he said, I ll just give him, I said, well, give him whatever Max has.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was like,
4
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
4
SPEAKER_00
Do you know what we pay Max?
4
SPEAKER_00
He went, how much do we pay Max?
4
SPEAKER_00
And so I gave him the number and he said, who the fuck agreed to that?
4
SPEAKER_00
And I said, well, you did.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he s like, oh, that s a lot of money.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s too much money to pay two people.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then he went.
4
SPEAKER_00
He said, no, he s a, he s a great guy.
4
SPEAKER_00
Let s do it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Give him the same deal that Max has.
4
SPEAKER_00
So his agent was obviously, uh, jumping through hoops at the time.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that was for a two year deal for a two year deal.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then we went off to Germany to the race and, and his engine blew up.
4
SPEAKER_00
Cause the big issue was the engine at that time.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
You had the rotors.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
And the engine kept letting him down, letting him down, letting him down.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then from there we went to Hungary and we got all the paperwork sorted out and this and the other.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then his manager came to me and said, look, Daniel s really nervous about the engine situation because we re going to change to Honda.
4
SPEAKER_00
He ll do one year.
4
SPEAKER_00
I thought, wow, okay, that s not really what we talked about, because in six months, we re just going to be having the same conversation.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I remember, I went back to Dietrich, I spoke to Dietrich, and he said, look, it s about relationships.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s not about contracts or contracting.
4
SPEAKER_00
If he wants a year, give him a year.
4
SPEAKER_00
So at this point, he s got- Everything he would want.
4
SPEAKER_00
Everything he would want.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then he was doing a test for us after the Hungarian race.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it was like, okay, Daniel will sign the paperwork on Monday.
4
SPEAKER_00
And suddenly Monday goes, and he s in the car on Tuesday.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I m saying, I m starting to smell a little bit of a rat here because this is an enormous deal.
4
SPEAKER_00
You d have thought he d have been in a rush to sign this contract.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he didn t sign it before he got in the car in the morning and then now he s going to sign it at lunchtime and all that didn t happen.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then, oh, he s had to get out of the car and go straight to the airport because he s flying here to L.A.
4
SPEAKER_00
He ll call you when he gets to L.A.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I m so I m smelling.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, you re about to get broken.
4
SPEAKER_01
If your girlfriend didn t show up to lunch, then dinner and then.
4
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
You go, I know it s.
4
SPEAKER_00
So he rings me and I was in the car.
4
SPEAKER_00
I had I was Jerry was in the car with me.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he said, look, I ve just got off the plane.
4
SPEAKER_00
I ve arrived in L.A.
4
SPEAKER_00
I ve been thinking all the flight away here.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m not going to sign a contract.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m going to take another contract.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was like, wow, OK, have you got a Mercedes or a Ferrari come through with something?
4
SPEAKER_00
And he went, no, I m going to sign for Renault.
4
SPEAKER_00
The manufacturers of the motor, I hate.
4
SPEAKER_00
The engine that s just let him down for the last two years.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, I was convinced.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was convinced.
4
SPEAKER_00
Because Daniel, you know, he s got a sense of humor.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes, he s brilliantly funny.
4
SPEAKER_00
He s taking the piss here.
4
SPEAKER_01
He s definitely.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because it is kind of a punchline after the season you had the notion that you would go to Renault.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s kind of the most obvious joke.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s no way you re going to Renault.
4
SPEAKER_00
Stop fucking about.
4
SPEAKER_00
Just tell me you signed the contract.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s any team that s not going to be running a Renault motor next year.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s Renault.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so after about 10 minutes, he finally persuaded me that he had gone to, he was going to go to Renault.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I was like, wow.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, it was disappointing.
4
SPEAKER_00
Um, but again, I want to, I want to applaud you.
4
SPEAKER_01
A lot of people that go through that exact experience go, all right, fuck you.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, and there was an element of luck and I m going to enjoy when this doesn t work out for you.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s not you.
4
SPEAKER_00
There was an element of that at the time thinking, you know what?
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
Go and suck on the lemon for a bit.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then actually it was during the pandemic, I remember he called me and he said, Christian, I hate to say this to you, but you were absolutely right and I apologize.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that s nice.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so on.
4
SPEAKER_00
And yeah, we ve always had a good relation.
4
SPEAKER_00
He s a good guy.
4
SPEAKER_00
He was just badly advised at the time.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
The other thing that s relevant, obviously there s so many rumors about like, what ll happen in Checo, who comes to Red Bull, blah, blah, blah.
4
SPEAKER_01
And when we re all talking about it on the show, it s like, I don t even wish that role for anyone.
4
SPEAKER_01
If I love a driver, let s say Charles, I love Charles.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think he s brilliant.
4
SPEAKER_01
I wish he were on a different team.
4
SPEAKER_01
I did no desire to watch Charles come and get beat by Max every week.
4
SPEAKER_01
And be a second driver.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, it s just like driving next to Terminator.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it s, it s just, it s a very, it s a thankless job.
4
SPEAKER_01
He is.
4
SPEAKER_01
He is a generational talent.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then some, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
It s crazy.
4
SPEAKER_01
You ve had two of those drivers because Vettel will also go down in the history books, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Sebastian was a wonderful driver and, and yeah, we re very lucky to have had two guys in, in that category, but I think Max even takes it to another dimension.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think so.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think like what s ahead is still going to be quite stunning what he s done and is doing.
4
SPEAKER_00
And look, to be his teammate is the hardest job in the pit lane.
4
SPEAKER_01
Completely.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_01
The person that you re competing against is the fastest guy to do it for 30 years or whatever we want to say.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
So even if you re driving at your apex, you re going to be 0.3 behind him.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it s soul destroying on, he broke the young teammates that he had come in.
4
SPEAKER_00
And we talk Checo because he s got that bit of experience.
4
SPEAKER_00
He s got, he s a pretty rounded individual, but.
4
SPEAKER_01
And is it fair to say, I think like, say 2021, check out such a role.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
The car wasn t as good as Mercedes.
4
SPEAKER_01
No.
4
SPEAKER_01
And he got to help Max.
4
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, the, the quality of the last race is like without stunning.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s stunning.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
I ve never seen someone fall on their sword in that manner.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like just a hero.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
So it was a thankful job at the beginning, but now we ve transitioned into the car s dominant.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s just like, you want to show up and finish second or even worse.
4
SPEAKER_01
You don t finish second and everyone knows you should.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s a rough, it s a rough.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s tough.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it s such a judgmental sport that you re as good as your last race in, in so many respects.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I think that, you know, Checo bought a bunch of experience and he said, look, he s a tough, tough operator.
4
SPEAKER_00
He s, he s got mental resilience that.
4
SPEAKER_01
He s the last person other than Max, I want to try to pass.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
He s a racer.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_01
He will die.
4
SPEAKER_01
He will fucking die.
4
SPEAKER_01
He s not a qualifier, but he s an absolute racer.
4
SPEAKER_01
I totally agree.
4
SPEAKER_01
He s so fun to watch battle.
4
SPEAKER_01
He s fearless.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
So he has an identity that s still great.
4
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I think that, uh, you know, Checo has done a, done a great job next to Max during the last three years, because when you re looking at the data of what Max is doing and you ve only got a, if you look at a race like Japan,
4
SPEAKER_00
The very first lap that Max does out of the pits is two seconds quicker than the rest of the field.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you re looking at that data and you re thinking, how has he done that?
4
SPEAKER_00
How has he done that?
4
SPEAKER_00
And so often, you know, that will happen.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I think the problem is for Checo, he s trying to compare himself to Max and what he needs to do is forget about Max.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_00
and just focus on himself.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Don t even look at his data.
4
SPEAKER_00
Don t even look at just just focus on being the best you can be.
4
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, as we saw earlier in the year, some sometimes that can be good enough.
4
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
4
SPEAKER_01
But you look at or again, I don t know the guy, but what appeared to be.
4
SPEAKER_01
how much Botas was enjoying that role.
4
SPEAKER_01
It was terrible on him.
4
SPEAKER_01
It was not fun for him to be racing with Lewis in that car.
4
SPEAKER_00
No.
4
SPEAKER_00
Or if you go back against, you know, Senna or his teammates or Schumacher.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s demoralizing.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, you can, you can see there s, there s a pattern with those guys that have just destroyed their teammates, you know, teammates that are all very capable drivers.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
The person that comes in, they have to enter, I think.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Wanting to retire, having finished second many, many years in a row.
4
SPEAKER_00
You see, Chekhov was out, uh, you know, 2020.
4
SPEAKER_00
He was done.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I remember we were struggling at the time with, with, with Alex Alborn because he d come in too soon.
4
SPEAKER_00
And we just needed somebody.
4
SPEAKER_00
Can I just say none of my business.
4
SPEAKER_01
He s the guy I would want in the second seat.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he s brilliant.
4
SPEAKER_00
He s fantastic.
4
SPEAKER_01
And he deserves to be flying.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he did a fantastic job for us when he stepped down as to be test driver.
4
SPEAKER_00
He never complained.
4
SPEAKER_00
He never moaned.
4
SPEAKER_00
He put in the hours and I was really happy.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was able to find him a seat in Williams.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he was.
4
SPEAKER_00
He overdrives that car every week.
4
SPEAKER_00
He s demonstrating what is, you know, he s found his form.
4
SPEAKER_00
He s got the experience now.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
He s toughened for sure.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, he s a hot property again.
4
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, Checo at the time at the end of 20, he just won that race in Bahrain from the back of the grid.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it was like,
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we need somebody with a chunk of experience that can bring another dimension to being Max s teammate.
4
SPEAKER_00
And yeah, he certainly did that in 21, and he s been a big part of the success the last few years.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it wasn t obvious to me when you guys hired him, but as I watched him race and I realized, oh, this is the ideal teammate for Max.
4
SPEAKER_01
How do you, again, you take Vettel, you ve now got to be the boss of
4
SPEAKER_01
Again, two of the greatest drivers to ever drive.
4
SPEAKER_01
I presume their personalities are different.
4
SPEAKER_01
Totally diametrically opposite.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay, great.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
In which ways?
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, Sebastian is very much the analytical German into every single detail.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Would be at the track until 11 o clock at night challenging data.
4
SPEAKER_00
His after race debrief, it d take him half an hour just to do the formation lap before the race even started.
4
SPEAKER_00
He was just driven by perfection.
4
SPEAKER_00
And very Germanic in the way that he went about organizing his life.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he d read the Michael Schumacher School of Motor Racing, and that was how he was going to live his life.
4
SPEAKER_00
And Max is just different.
5
SPEAKER_00
huge, huge natural ability, not really that interested in all the detail.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right.
5
SPEAKER_00
He will give you what he needs to go faster.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that s it.
5
SPEAKER_00
What are my limitations?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
I can feel I m in perfect concert with this thing and I can tell you what feels wrong to me.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s what I need.
5
SPEAKER_00
Just sort that out and I ll go quicker.
5
SPEAKER_00
Sort that problem out.
5
SPEAKER_00
And he does go quicker.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right.
5
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, when you strap him in, you re going to get 110 percent.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s a guy that hates testing.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, testing for him is like a waste of a day.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s just a racer.
5
SPEAKER_00
He just wants to race.
5
SPEAKER_00
And if he s not racing in the real world, he s racing in the virtual world.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s insane.
5
SPEAKER_00
And he ll give you 110%, but he expects 110%.
5
SPEAKER_00
yeah i think you guys are great partners so so yeah just but then when he takes the helmet off he s the nicest young guy you could ever meet very unassuming doesn t wanna he s shy he s naturally shy he doesn t wanna be
5
SPEAKER_00
Fame sits uncomfortably with him.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s not a diva or anything like that.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s just one of the boys.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it s interesting as I ve met the other drivers and I, of course, gather gossip about all of them.
5
SPEAKER_01
And every time I hear these stories, the kind of resounding unanimous feedback is like everyone loves Max.
5
SPEAKER_01
Everyone tells me Max is actually the sweetest guy off the track.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
And shy and nice.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s just a good guy and he s a fun guy and he s old school as well.
5
SPEAKER_00
And, uh, you know, he won the championship in Qatar and I said, okay, let s, let s get the whole team together.
5
SPEAKER_00
We ll just have a couple of drinks.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s not every day you win a world championship and it was unusual to win it on a Saturday.
5
SPEAKER_00
And we got a Grand Prix, by the way, in 42 degrees on Sunday, so everybody needs to be in bed at a sensible time.
5
SPEAKER_00
Max is five gin and tonics in and it s like, guys, we need to stop it.
5
SPEAKER_00
Everybody needs to go to bed now.
5
SPEAKER_00
So everybody was hanging on.
5
SPEAKER_00
On Sunday, we got all the drivers passing out with the heat.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think Max was on some kind of detox.
5
SPEAKER_01
Listen to me, listen to me, and you don t have to comment on this, but many times over the years I ve been watching, I was like, Max might do better hungover.
5
SPEAKER_00
This is now another challenge he can overcome.
5
SPEAKER_00
He trains hard, he takes it all very, very seriously, but he s just got such huge ability.
5
SPEAKER_00
I ve never met a driver with as much self-confidence or self-belief.
5
SPEAKER_01
Um, you know, it s infectious when you re watching him and you see him go for something, you just believe you believe as the you re almost not even afraid for him.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re like, oh, it s infectious.
5
SPEAKER_00
He can do any.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s like a dog with a bone.
5
SPEAKER_00
And you see his helmet in the mirror.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, he s going to have a go.
5
SPEAKER_00
You just know he s coming.
5
SPEAKER_01
One of my other preoccupations with Max is watching all of the OCD things he does.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Which is very fascinating.
5
SPEAKER_01
Watch him put his gloves on the thing and he s got to adjust those three times when he takes his helmet.
5
SPEAKER_01
He s got to do that.
5
SPEAKER_01
There was the tear off strip just stuck to the front of the car and he could not let it go.
5
SPEAKER_01
He had to fucking pull it off while he was driving.
5
SPEAKER_01
That stuff interests me so much.
5
SPEAKER_00
But we all have those things.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I ve had that since I was driving.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I have a lucky toilet at each track.
5
SPEAKER_00
I ll always approach the drivers from the right hand side of the grid.
5
SPEAKER_00
I ll always stand in the garage for the start of a Grand Prix.
5
SPEAKER_00
So there s little things that I think, I don t so much think they re superstitions as they re just ways of getting you into your- I ve heard a lot of athletes tell me, you control all the things you can control before you get to the thing you ultimately can t control.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s kind of what s driving us.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m sure there s a lot of that.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s like, I m gonna control every element until the uncontrollable starts.
5
SPEAKER_01
What have you learned over the, how long have you guys been together now, seven years?
5
SPEAKER_01
Max, since 2016, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Seven years.
5
SPEAKER_01
How have you adjusted how you communicate with him and help him?
5
SPEAKER_01
Have you figured some stuff out along the way?
5
SPEAKER_01
He s evolved so much.
5
SPEAKER_00
When he came to us, he was a teenager.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, he s like 17 years of age.
5
SPEAKER_00
Insane.
5
SPEAKER_00
He had a dream debut.
5
SPEAKER_00
He won on his debut.
5
SPEAKER_00
Fucking unreal.
5
SPEAKER_00
Bang, bang.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, he s arrived.
5
SPEAKER_00
And the most intricate relationship is with the engineer, because the engineer is the closest you re ever going to get to a coach.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s living and breathing the data.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s the only one with you.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s the only one with you.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s in the car.
5
SPEAKER_00
He can see how hard you re pushing the throttle, the brakes.
5
SPEAKER_00
He can even sense your mood by what he s seeing in the data.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s a marriage.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s a marriage, and he s totally in tune
5
SPEAKER_00
with what is going on with his driver in the car.
5
SPEAKER_00
Now, Max is a bit like a thoroughbred racehorse, you know, he s.
5
SPEAKER_01
High, strong or what would we say?
5
SPEAKER_00
He s, you know, he s definitely red blooded and, and, and, you know, he definitely can rev pretty quick.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it takes a strong character.
5
SPEAKER_00
To not take any of that personally.
5
SPEAKER_00
To not take that personally and to be able to channel it.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so the relationship that he has with Jampera or GP is his race engine.
5
SPEAKER_00
They ve been together since day one.
5
SPEAKER_00
And GP joined us to be Sebastian Vettel s engineer.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then Sebastian left and he ended up as Danny Kvyat s engineer for a year and then Max joined.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that relationship has just developed and developed a bit like a marriage.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s becoming very fun to listen to on the telecast.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because he s thrown some jabs back occasionally when he can feel it s the right time.
5
SPEAKER_00
And you ll probably only get in half of it.
5
SPEAKER_00
So this is going on constantly between the two of them where they re jabbing at each other even in the garage and on the stuff that you can t hear that s on our closed circuit.
5
SPEAKER_00
And there s just this banter or this
5
SPEAKER_00
total trust as well between the two of them.
5
SPEAKER_00
I remember at Silverstone this year, Max drove out of the pit lane and he clipped the pit wall and he damaged the front wing.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
The only incident all year.
5
SPEAKER_00
And they had to pull him back in there, back in the grid.
5
SPEAKER_00
And
5
SPEAKER_00
His engineer said, Max, what happened there?
5
SPEAKER_00
And I lent to him on the pit.
5
SPEAKER_00
I said, look, GP, he s just hit the pit wall.
5
SPEAKER_00
And he came back to me and he said, yeah, I know.
5
SPEAKER_00
I just want to hear him say it.
5
SPEAKER_00
I want him to admit that he s driven our car.
5
SPEAKER_01
The flawless person is flawed.
5
SPEAKER_00
So they ve got that kind of banter.
5
SPEAKER_00
And respect is the most important thing.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s a big respect between the two.
5
SPEAKER_01
But you personally, ultimately, it s all rolling downhill from you.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Let me also say to you, I thought Austin was a really beautiful display of the team.
5
SPEAKER_01
So often it s Max, you know, like Max gets so much credit.
5
SPEAKER_01
We know the car s great.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s kind of Adrian Newey.
5
SPEAKER_01
We all go, fuck this guy, Adrian Newey.
5
SPEAKER_01
He s got more championships than anybody, which by the way, you brought him.
5
SPEAKER_01
So yeah, hats off to you.
5
SPEAKER_01
You brought him to the team.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s not always on display, but I would say Austin was incredible where you re watching this race and you re going, everyone, okay, they re on a one-stop, they re ahead.
5
SPEAKER_01
How s this going to work?
5
SPEAKER_01
And similar to that confidence you have as if you were watching Max, when you guys switch to two-stop, or I don t know that you switch, but when you commit to two-stop, everyone I m watching was like, that s not going to work.
5
SPEAKER_01
There are this amount of time, you know, everyone s trying to calculate in their head.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I literally go, there s no way they re wrong.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s no way they re wrong.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like that s, that s how confident I think, that s how well the team is working, where I go, if I got to bet who s right here, it s them.
5
SPEAKER_01
And you guys were, I thought it was a really great moment for the team in Austin.
5
SPEAKER_00
No, absolutely.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I think as a race team, we ve always been an attacking race team.
5
SPEAKER_00
We ve always, you know, we ve pitted from the leads to take better tires to make sure that rather than having protecting track position, we re on the right tires at the right time.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I think as a race team, our mantra has always been, you know, no risk, no fun.
5
SPEAKER_00
You also have maintained this underdog thing, which is crazy.
5
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
5
SPEAKER_00
Even though we re winning a chunk of races, you know, that s the way we ve always gone racing.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that s something that, uh, we ve embodied with throughout, throughout the team is, come on, we can take this on.
5
SPEAKER_00
We can do this.
5
SPEAKER_00
We can achieve this.
5
SPEAKER_01
Who should we credit for that strat?
5
SPEAKER_01
Who s who, who deserves the credit for the impeccable strategy all season?
5
SPEAKER_01
Oracle.
5
SPEAKER_01
Wonderful.
5
SPEAKER_01
And specifically, Alice.
5
SPEAKER_00
Let s just say he in particular.
5
SPEAKER_00
So, we get some great software, but it s as good as the numbers you put into it.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it s something that s, you know, Hannah gets a lot of credit, but she s just one of a team.
5
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, Will Courtney, her boss, and the other strategist, Steve Knowles, and
5
SPEAKER_00
So, you know, everybody works as a team and they ll put options in front of me and then... Yeah, how involved are you in those?
5
SPEAKER_00
How much involved?
5
SPEAKER_00
I want... I m, if you like, we have a chain of command and the strategists will... I m working most with the strategists through the race.
5
SPEAKER_00
So they will present options to me at any point in time.
5
SPEAKER_00
If a safety car comes out now, what are we going to do?
5
SPEAKER_00
Are we going to split the cars?
5
SPEAKER_00
Are we going to pit both?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Are we going to double stack?
5
SPEAKER_00
And sometimes these decisions have to be made in about eight seconds.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I m constantly challenging them, what if, what if, what if?
5
SPEAKER_00
And they re constantly coming up with scenarios in front of me.
5
SPEAKER_00
So it s very much a team effort.
5
SPEAKER_01
If you had to give a percentage to how confident you are, let s say Austin, when you make the decision for the two stop, are we at 60% confident?
5
SPEAKER_01
Are we at 51%?
5
SPEAKER_01
I think in terms of confidence of running our fastest race, we re at 90%.
5
SPEAKER_01
OK, when you make those decisions, you re not like super stressed that no.
5
SPEAKER_00
So so in Austin, we re 90 percent confident that s our best race.
6
SPEAKER_00
What we don t know what s going to happen is how are the others going to react?
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, they reacted poorly.
6
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so Mercedes sort of set off on another journey and then they aborted and then that immediately puts them in sort of no man s land.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so they ended up on a better tire at the end of the race, but they hadn t got the track position at that point in time.
6
SPEAKER_01
Listen, you re reluctant to own your own gifts, but I m gonna keep pushing.
6
SPEAKER_01
So another thing I m curious is how you kept your optimism between you guys win four as a team.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then you just watched Mercedes win for eight fucking years.
6
SPEAKER_01
That was tough.
6
SPEAKER_01
How do you stay optimistic, hungry and focused in that much defeat?
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, I felt a responsibility and I had a belief that we just needed to address the elements that were causing the issue.
6
SPEAKER_00
And we went from winning, you know, 10, 11, 12, 13, four on the bounce, and then a massive regulation changed the engine and our engine supply completely missed the target.
6
SPEAKER_00
And at that point, you know, Vettel leaves because of the engine.
6
SPEAKER_00
Adrian came very close to leaving.
6
SPEAKER_00
He was within about half an hour of signing.
6
SPEAKER_01
Well, I ve been told he kind of just went on a soft retirement.
6
SPEAKER_01
He stayed, but he started working on cars and stuff.
6
SPEAKER_00
He, uh, Ferrari came hard for him and he was, and they promised him the world.
6
SPEAKER_00
You can have a Hollywood lifestyle, fly into the factory for Monaco every day and not pay any tax.
6
SPEAKER_00
And, um, you can design a road car and this, that, and the other.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I managed to persuade him to stay by saying, look, we ll do a road car.
6
SPEAKER_00
If you want to do a road car, we ll do a road car. 
6
SPEAKER_00
He said, well, how?
6
SPEAKER_00
I said, well, I have no idea, but we ll find a way.
6
SPEAKER_00
We ll make it happen.
6
SPEAKER_00
And through the relationship that we had with Aston Martin and so on, their CEO, I went to Andy Palmer and said, look, we ve got arguably the best designer of all time.
6
SPEAKER_00
You ve got a great brand.
6
SPEAKER_00
We re not going to finance the car, but it would make sense to bring these two things together.
6
SPEAKER_00
And that s literally in a pub in England, that s how it happened.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
6
SPEAKER_01
Similar to your relationship with Ford.
6
SPEAKER_01
Now, when I interviewed Jim, he s like, I looked around, I was like, we need Arrow bad for this electric movement.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
How do I get Arrow?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
6
SPEAKER_00
And, and I think we, you know, it was able to, it enabled Adrian to fulfill his ambition.
6
SPEAKER_00
It kept him in the team.
6
SPEAKER_00
Um, and it was not losing sight of guys, you know, we just need to sort out if we can sort the engine issue out, you know, we can, we ll be back in a winning position.
6
SPEAKER_01
So maybe it was helpful that it was so obvious what your shortcoming was.
6
SPEAKER_01
It was, but it wasn t obvious the way out, right?
6
SPEAKER_01
The way out wasn t obvious, but at least.
6
SPEAKER_01
maybe you could hold on to some confidence going, well, that s the thing.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s not a mystery what we have to solve.
6
SPEAKER_00
But the problem was everybody got used to winning and suddenly you re not winning and nobody likes that.
6
SPEAKER_00
So whether it was in the team, suddenly the questions, we lost Vettel.
6
SPEAKER_00
Even the owners were saying, maybe we ll sell the team.
6
SPEAKER_00
We ll sell to Audi.
6
SPEAKER_00
Morale is just in the toilet.
6
SPEAKER_00
So the shareholders for the first time ever, Dietrich was starting to say, we can t do this.
6
SPEAKER_00
We need an OEM.
6
SPEAKER_00
So then thankfully, Dieselgate came along and it stopped that deal.
6
SPEAKER_00
But we came that close to being Audi.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
6
SPEAKER_00
And then Honda came along.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it was a bit of a risk, but it was a calculated risk because we did a season with Toro Rosso what is out for Tori first.
6
SPEAKER_00
I could see the engine was getting better and better and that the Honda guys, they had as much invested as we did for it to work.
6
SPEAKER_00
And we could see the product was, was coming.
6
SPEAKER_00
Their heritage in the sport was fantastic.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
And we decided to go for it.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it, and it all came good.
6
SPEAKER_00
How scary is that decision?
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, it was sort of nothing to lose, really, because the engine was no worse than the Renault and they got a lot more commitment that they were prepared to make.
6
SPEAKER_00
So the safe option would have been to stay with what we knew with the Renault guys promising us every year is going to be better.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
And they re still in the same situation now, whereas Honda.
6
SPEAKER_00
you know, they backed it up by investing, by investing.
6
SPEAKER_00
And they knew when they got Red Bull as a partner, that the expectation was was sky high.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s championships.
6
SPEAKER_00
And then suddenly, you know, they came back in a form one.
6
SPEAKER_00
They never scored a podium.
6
SPEAKER_00
First race.
6
SPEAKER_00
We re on the podium.
6
SPEAKER_00
I race nine.
6
SPEAKER_00
We re winning.
6
SPEAKER_01
Right.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, we won in Austria.
6
SPEAKER_00
And we went on to win three races for them that year.
6
SPEAKER_00
And then suddenly, you know, the momentum you find to find the momentum.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
Is it challenging to have the role you have with say Max s dad so close in the scene?
6
SPEAKER_00
Uh, well, he s not actually that close.
6
SPEAKER_00
He s not, he s just there.
6
SPEAKER_00
He s visual.
6
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
6
SPEAKER_00
But in terms of, it was very clear from the work go that the contract was with Max.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, and, and he was welcome to, to, to be a supportive dad.
6
SPEAKER_00
And to be honest, we ve never, ever had an issue.
6
SPEAKER_00
He s never advised.
6
SPEAKER_00
With him, I m sure he s advised his Max.
6
SPEAKER_00
you know, behind the scenes and so on.
6
SPEAKER_00
But he s been very supportive of Max.
6
SPEAKER_00
He s been, yeah, you know, compared to some of the motor racing dads that we ve had over the years, he s actually been very, very good to deal with and very easy to have around.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
Not the smiliest guy.
6
SPEAKER_00
No, he s a pretty scary looking guy.
6
SPEAKER_00
Especially if you re Sergio Perez and you ve just won in Azerbaijan.
6
SPEAKER_01
What s the drive to survive impact on your life?
6
SPEAKER_01
And I m particularly interested, again, I m in a relationship where we re both recognized.
6
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
6
SPEAKER_01
Her more than me.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
She s far more famous.
6
SPEAKER_01
Right.
6
SPEAKER_01
Clearly, for a while, you re more invisible than your wife.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, for sure.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then the show comes along, and I got to imagine you re traveling around the world.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s not crazy.
6
SPEAKER_01
All of a sudden, normal people know you, not just race junkies.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s not so, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, before Drive Survive, anybody that followed Formula One, yes, you re a name, but
6
SPEAKER_00
you were a name in that paddock and then you leave the paddock and you go back into anonymity.
6
SPEAKER_00
If you leave the bubble.
6
SPEAKER_00
You leave the bubble.
6
SPEAKER_00
You re big in the bubble, but outside the bubble, you re no one.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s kind of perfect.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
6
SPEAKER_00
You can take off the cape.
6
SPEAKER_00
It was absolutely perfect.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
And of course, my wife, being in the biggest girl band of all time, has grown up under the media spotlight with people going through bins and all the stuff that you re not aware of.
6
SPEAKER_00
And
6
SPEAKER_00
They re hacking phones in England.
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, they re fucking brutal.
6
SPEAKER_00
All kinds of shit.
6
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, Drive to Survive comes along and things just go bananas.
6
SPEAKER_00
It used to be we come into the US and they go, are you Ginger Spice?
6
SPEAKER_00
Can I have a photo with you?
6
SPEAKER_00
Now it s like, are you the dude from Drive to Survive?
6
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, no, he s much taller than I am.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it s amazing.
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, even going around Disneyland the other day- I m sure.
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The amount of people that are, and we were unknown in the US previously, but now it s unbelievable.
6
SPEAKER_00
Even in Santa Monica, down on the pier yesterday, we went down there and it s
6
SPEAKER_00
The amount of people following Formula One is just gone off the charts.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s like 5X in the US.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s unbelievable.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
If you think of Austin, what was it?
6
SPEAKER_01
This last race was like 420,000 fans.
6
SPEAKER_01
Five years ago, it was 90,000 or 105,000.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s enormous.
6
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
6
SPEAKER_01
I ve never seen a show that s more powerful to a sport.
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SPEAKER_00
It s transformed the sport.
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SPEAKER_00
It s transformed the sport.
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SPEAKER_00
It s transformed the business.
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SPEAKER_00
We ve got so many American partners now.
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, Ford Motor Company, without Drive to Survive, would not be Formula One.
6
SPEAKER_01
Oh, fucking Ryan Reynolds buy-in.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oracle.
6
24%.
6
SPEAKER_00
Larry Ellison.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
Would not be in Formula One without Drive Survive.
6
SPEAKER_01
Totally.
6
SPEAKER_01
Do you have a good deal of gratitude for it?
6
SPEAKER_00
There s some purists that I don t think love the arrival of me and all the other- So I have a huge amount of gratitude for it s changed it around, but also a responsibility that
6
SPEAKER_00
We bought all this new fan base, a young fan base, a female fan base.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, they love the drivers.
6
SPEAKER_00
So suddenly, my 17-year-old daughter is... Thinks you re cool.
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SPEAKER_00
Suddenly, I ve gone up in the cool scale.
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SPEAKER_00
Yes, congratulations.
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SPEAKER_00
And she s following all the drivers, Yuki or Charles Leclerc or Max or Alex or whoever.
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SPEAKER_00
And suddenly Formula One is cool.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it s brought this whole new following in.
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SPEAKER_00
And of course, it sits uncomfortably with some, but what you ve got to remember is that Drivers of the Vive is a documentary, and it s a bit like the Kardashians on wheels.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, it s giving you a glimpse behind the scenes into some of the personalities and the struggles.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it s it s not just about the engineering and the sport.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s it s about life, you know, lifestyle.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so it s giving it s just opening that, you know, lead into the world of Formula One.
6
SPEAKER_01
You know what I think they ve done a great job doing is showing all the drama that happens from third place to 20th.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
But that s, to me, the thing that they shone a light on where you re like, oh, this is heartbreaking.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
The stakes to get seventh are huge for many teams to get a 10th.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s everything.
6
SPEAKER_01
And knowing how much is going on as opposed to just who won, I think has been really great for the story.
6
SPEAKER_01
And suddenly you meet characters like Gunter Steiner.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yes.
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, how scary is he?
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, he used to work for us.
6
SPEAKER_00
I had to fire him.
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, how scary was that?
6
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
6
SPEAKER_00
Did he take it well?
6
SPEAKER_00
Not really.
6
SPEAKER_00
So it s been transformational for the sport.
6
SPEAKER_01
Did you have any judgment of your wife for how she handled the attention, that now that you ve had the attention, you ve had to reformulate what your judgment was?
6
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely, because she d grown up in that spotlight, and so she was very
7
SPEAKER_00
protective of private time and so on, and you know, particularly family time and so on.
7
SPEAKER_00
And suddenly, bang, you know, this thing turns up and it changes.
7
SPEAKER_00
Diametrically, it changes everything.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
And, um.
7
SPEAKER_00
You started appreciating her boundaries.
7
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
7
SPEAKER_00
You suddenly appreciate, okay, there s a bit of a, uh, you know, a cape that you, that you have to put on a security cape to, to, to just protect, just to protect.
7
SPEAKER_00
The people that you love.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
Who haven t volunteered.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
7
SPEAKER_00
They didn t sign up to dad having a selfie every three yards in Disneyland.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
7
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_01
Rapid fire.
7
SPEAKER_01
What is wrong with Ferrari?
7
SPEAKER_01
They have the manufacturing prowess.
7
SPEAKER_01
They have the budget.
7
SPEAKER_01
They have the drivers.
7
SPEAKER_01
Do you look at that team and think to yourself, I could go in there and
7
SPEAKER_01
fucking change something.
7
SPEAKER_00
I think the biggest problem for us is the national team and that is its problem.
7
SPEAKER_00
It needs to get back to being a race team.
7
SPEAKER_00
What do you mean by a national team?
7
SPEAKER_00
You know, it s an Italian institute and there s too many probably people at the top end that everybody has an input and has a say from the outside looking in.
7
SPEAKER_00
One of our strengths is that we re, you know, we move quickly.
7
SPEAKER_00
We make decisions and we stick to them and we just
7
SPEAKER_00
If we make the wrong decision, we change the decision.
7
SPEAKER_00
Right.
7
SPEAKER_00
You re nimble.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I think for Ferrari, the newspapers have such an influence on what happens there.
7
SPEAKER_00
So, you know, it s a lot of pressure being at being at Ferrari.
7
SPEAKER_01
When you re hearing Lewis act like he will not act like state that he s never seen a car that was so dominant.
7
SPEAKER_01
When we have like data that he is qualified people by two seconds and yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
What is, how do you take that?
7
SPEAKER_00
I feel like he s got selective memory.
7
SPEAKER_00
So, you know, some of the winning that they did in that period was just obscene.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
7
SPEAKER_00
We ve had a good run for a couple of years, but the one guy that shouldn t be saying that I would think is Lewis.
7
SPEAKER_00
He s about the only person that can t be mad that some team is dominant.
7
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
7
SPEAKER_01
There s been this enormous interest, as we just talked about, with Drive to Survive.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s like, who knows how many X it has
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
Gone up in the sport.
7
SPEAKER_01
There is concern that people get bored because Red Bull so dominant.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
Is this something that I can t imagine you have space to worry about, but is it something that crosses your mind?
7
SPEAKER_01
Or do you think, because I guess another solution would be like, no one wants to see a great team make themselves shitty so that the sport s more interesting.
7
SPEAKER_01
But one of the solutions would be like putting someone with max that might win some races.
7
SPEAKER_01
At least we re seeing some battles between teammates.
7
SPEAKER_01
Is it something that concerns you at all?
7
SPEAKER_01
Or are you just, hey, I m winning fucking constructors championships?
7
SPEAKER_01
Well, look, my job is to make sure we re winning.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s my job.
7
SPEAKER_00
And look, 21,
7
SPEAKER_00
was the biggest fight in the history of the sport.
7
SPEAKER_00
It was just heavyweight from the first race to the final in Abu Dhabi, where the two drivers ended up same points.
7
SPEAKER_00
Unreal to a point five, right?
7
SPEAKER_00
Unbelievable.
7
SPEAKER_00
And that year aged me.
7
SPEAKER_00
Physically.
7
SPEAKER_00
I bet.
7
SPEAKER_00
So the last couple of years have been kind of pleasant that they ve been slightly less stressful, but what you can guarantee is that the field is going to converge and it s only a matter of time.
7
SPEAKER_00
And you can already see that happening.
7
SPEAKER_00
Meaning like the further away from the new changes we get, people start figuring it out.
7
SPEAKER_00
So what will happen is 24, 25, you re going to see the field come much closer.
7
SPEAKER_01
Starting to see it a little bit here at the end of this season.
7
SPEAKER_00
You re starting to see it.
7
SPEAKER_00
And the cars, there s things that we see on the McLaren thing.
7
SPEAKER_00
OK, we recognize that.
7
SPEAKER_00
That looks a lot like our solution.
7
SPEAKER_00
It looks very familiar.
7
SPEAKER_00
But that s the way Formula 1 works.
7
SPEAKER_00
And next year, a lot of the cars will look the same, I m sure, because there ll be that convergence.
7
SPEAKER_00
Now, it ll spread again in 26 when the new regs come out.
7
SPEAKER_00
But for the next couple of years, it s going to converge.
7
SPEAKER_00
So therefore, for us, sticking two alphas in the car, you take a...
7
SPEAKER_00
of a Staffan and a Hamilton, that is never going to work.
7
SPEAKER_00
That would ruin your team.
7
SPEAKER_00
Because then you, yeah, you kill your own team.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
You need to have a dynamic in the team where the drivers are driving for the team, not just themselves.
7
SPEAKER_00
Right.
7
SPEAKER_00
And otherwise it can become so, so divisive.
7
SPEAKER_00
If I was you, I would not feel compelled to bring in a Charles or someone.
7
SPEAKER_00
No, absolutely not.
7
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely not.
7
SPEAKER_00
We want, we want strength and depth.
7
SPEAKER_00
And we need to make sure that when those guys come and they re coming, you can see that we re ready to take them on.
7
SPEAKER_00
And as a team, we re strong and we re solid.
7
SPEAKER_01
What year do you think you ll have to start thinking about the new Max?
7
SPEAKER_01
We re very far off from that, right?
7
SPEAKER_01
I mean, we re five, six years out from that.
7
SPEAKER_00
Two weeks ago, turned 26 years of age.
7
SPEAKER_00
So, you know, he s still he s still, you know, very early in his career.
7
SPEAKER_00
But, you know, we are constantly investing in youth and talent.
7
SPEAKER_00
We got some
7
SPEAKER_00
kids as young as 13 and racing and karting.
7
SPEAKER_00
How much attention do you pay to that?
7
SPEAKER_00
I pay a reasonable amount.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s mainly Helmut s domain.
7
SPEAKER_00
He s done such a great job in scouting young talent and developing it and bringing it through that that s his main baby.
7
SPEAKER_00
But of course, we re keeping an eye on the youngsters and how they re developing and training and coming through the ranks.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
Well, this has been such a blast, Christian.
7
SPEAKER_01
I can t wait to bump into you again at a race in the near future.
7
SPEAKER_00
You re going to be in Vegas?
7
SPEAKER_01
I will be in Vegas.
7
SPEAKER_00
You re coming to my birthday then?
7
SPEAKER_01
I m coming to you.
7
SPEAKER_01
I will present the cake to you.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m going to dig up a Dennis the Menace cake.
7
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
7
SPEAKER_00
That event is going to be insane.
7
SPEAKER_00
It will be nuts.
7
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_01
Two seconds on that.
7
SPEAKER_00
And it can go either way.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m going, going, I m either going to witness the biggest shit show ever put on, the most expensive shit show ever put on, or I m going to watch the most epic thing ever.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s either going to be the biggest sporting event on the planet this year.
7
SPEAKER_01
Or one for the record books.
7
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
7
SPEAKER_00
I mean, we re embracing it fully.
7
SPEAKER_00
We re all in.
7
SPEAKER_00
And we got a few surprises.
7
SPEAKER_00
Will you go out on the track?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, for sure.
7
SPEAKER_00
You will.
7
SPEAKER_00
I saw Max on the simulator there the other day.
7
SPEAKER_00
Oh, they have it built out.
7
SPEAKER_00
We ve built it in our sim in the factory and seeing him drive around through Las Vegas.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s scary.
7
SPEAKER_00
And it s fast.
7
SPEAKER_00
It is so fast.
7
SPEAKER_01
What do you think they re going to hit on Las Vegas Boulevard?
7
SPEAKER_00
Oh, unbelievable.
7
SPEAKER_00
Unbelievable.
7
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it is probably quick.
7
SPEAKER_01
I think second only to having a race in Manhattan.
7
SPEAKER_01
This is like second only to that.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s going to be so cool, I think, but I think it s going to be a bit cold in the evening.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yes, it s a night race and it s going to be cold.
7
SPEAKER_00
The tires could be really tricky.
7
SPEAKER_00
It could be 50.
7
SPEAKER_00
That could be a massive curveball for the whole weekend with the tires, with the teams.
7
SPEAKER_01
It could almost be like rain.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, absolutely.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
Oh, so exciting.
7
SPEAKER_01
Cool.
7
SPEAKER_01
Well, Christian, thank you so much.
7
SPEAKER_01
I hope I get to bump into you on that birthday weekend and we ll talk again soon.
7
SPEAKER_01
Thank you very much.