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[Assistant] And though he had managed to get out of town just ahead of a scandal breaking, McGregor himself does not appear to have learned any lesson from any of this or demonstrate the least bit remorse that he had just swindled a bunch of people and sent hundreds off to die.


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[Assistant] Because when he got to Paris, he started the scheme right back up again.


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[Assistant] He partnered with an investment company looking to grow their business in the emerging free nations of Spanish America. And McGregor sold the company 500,000 acres in Playa for them to then sell to would-be settlers. But this time, there would be no death toll.


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[Assistant] When the French government started getting requests for passports to Poyer, which no one in the government had ever heard of, and did not seem to exist on any map,


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[Assistant] A few of McGregor's accomplices were arrested in October 1825, and then McGregor himself was finally tracked down and busted in December.


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[Assistant] But by a stroke of luck, their main point of contact at the investment house had escaped to the Netherlands with all the incriminating documentation, so McGregor spent the next six months blaming it all on that guy and saying I too am the unfortunate victim of this swindler.


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[Assistant] Even after the guy was successfully extradited from the Netherlands, McGregor managed to convince the French judge that he too was just an innocent victim.


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[Assistant] McGregor was acquitted, and the other guy got 13 months in jail.


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[Assistant] Whatever else he was, Gregor McGregor was a hell of a talker.


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[Assistant] Since it had now been nearly three years since the first Poirier survivors had returned to London and the press had all died down, MacGregor returned to England, and I kid you not, got right back to selling the same lie.


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[Assistant] This time he managed to get an £800,000 bond issue floated on behalf of Poirier, but this time it went nowhere.


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[Assistant] Word had gone round in financial circles that the bond was junk.


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[Assistant] But incredibly, it was not considered junk because Poyer was invented, and the previous Bond had literally gotten people killed.


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[Assistant] They all just looked at the old record books and said the return on the previous Poirier bond had been horrible, and a part of a speculative bubble we all now regret. So McGregor was forced to sell the whole lot of the 800,000 for nothing, and nothing ever came of it.


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[Assistant] Gregor McGregor spent seriously the next ten years wandering around floating various versions of his Pouye scheme, either in Edinburgh or London.


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[Assistant] But was now running into the problem of other unsavory characters starting to claim that they were the true representatives of Poyer, and selling competing bonds to McGregors, which just had to have been infuriating, these liars trading on my lie.


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[Assistant] In May of 1838 though, Josefa, who had been with him this whole time, finally died, and MacGregor could think of no further reason to stay in Europe.


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[Assistant] In October 1838, he returned to Caracas for, I believe, the first time since the fall of the First Republic way back in 1812, and he presented himself to the government of Venezuela.


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[Assistant] He claimed that he had been unjustly exiled by Believer and requested to be reinstated to his old rank of General and be given 25 years back pay.


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[Assistant] Now some of the old revolutionary crew was still kicking around and a few of them had become enemies of Believer by the end. And they vouched for McGregor's service. So the Venezuelan government reinstated his rank and granted him severance at one third pay.


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[Assistant] Gregor McGregor then lived on this income for the next seven years, dying of natural causes in December 1845 at the age of 58.


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[Assistant] Gregor McGregor never repented, nor faced any real punishment for his con artistry.


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[Assistant] He started out a fairly run-of-the-mill mercenary adventurer and did some good work on behalf of the Spanish American Revolution.


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[Assistant] But then just gave himself over to lying, and scheming, and then running, which between Amelia Island, Portobello, Rio Hacha, and the Poie scheme, probably led directly to something like 500 deaths, I mean, directly attributable to his various actions and inactions.


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[Assistant] I'm not sure what exact criminal charge would be best to haul him into court for, but some version of depraved indifference to human life would seem fitting.


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[Assistant] But he's dead now, and he can't hurt anyone else, but I gotta tell ya,


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[Assistant] So that concludes our little supplemental diversion, and as I said last time, we're now going to return to the main story again in two weeks, as I turn my attention to other projects, but luckily, one of those projects will launch in one week.


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[Assistant] And we'll take the place of our next full episode because the second revolutions podcast fundraiser launches one week from today on October the 30th, 2016.


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[Assistant] We will have two new t-shirts available, three totally awesome screen printed posters, and five, count them, five new episodes of the History of Rome.


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[Assistant] So I will see you in seven days for the grand opening of the second revolutions podcast fundraiser.


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[Assistant] Casper is a sleep brand that created one perfect mattress sold directly to consumers, eliminating commission-driven inflated prices.


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[Assistant] Its award winning sleep service was developed in house with a sleep design and is delivered in a small, how did they do that size box? And this is true. I had a Scion XA, which is a tiny little car and the box fit in the trunk.


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[Assistant] The mattress industry is built on forcing consumers into paying notoriously high markups, so Casper is revolutionizing the mattress industry by cutting the cost of dealing with resellers and showrooms and passing the savings directly to the consumer.


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[Assistant] An in-house team of engineers spent thousands of hours developing the Casper mattress, creating a special supportive memory foam for a sleep service that's got just the right sink and just the right bounce. Plus, its breathable design sleeps cool to help you regulate your temperature through the night.


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[Assistant] Time Magazine named it one of the best inventions of 2015, and buying a Casper mattress is completely risk free. Casper offers free delivery and free returns to the United States and Canada with a hundred night home trial. If you don't love it, they'll pick it up and refund you everything.


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[Assistant] So the special offer we have is that you get $50 towards any mattress by visiting casper.com slash revolutions and using the promo code revolutions. That again casper.com slash revolutions and the promo code revolutions terms and conditions apply.


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[Assistant] Plagued by an almost certain case of tuberculosis, he traversed the hard road from Ecuador to Colombia in the fall of 1829, slowly and painfully.


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[Assistant] Where old iron ass had once ridden from dawn till dusk, he now struggled with even a few hours continuous riding before he had to stop and rest. He was pale. He was thin. He coughed blood and bile. He was a weak skeleton held erect by little more than a starched white shirt.


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[Assistant] But the sickness was not just in Believar's lungs, it was everywhere. It had spread to his heart, it had spread to his soul. His fellow South Americans were the virus that infected him.


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[Assistant] These he found everywhere, whispered behind his back, trumpeted in the press, it was read between the lines in friendly correspondence, and embarrassingly obvious when he was heckled from a crowd.


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[Assistant] It had spread beyond the shores of South America, where in the United States and France and Great Britain, the name Bolivar no longer meant dashing revolutionary hero, but petty and hypocritical tyrant of a backwards kingdom.


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[Assistant] Believar was sick of everyone, and everyone was sick of Believar.


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[Assistant] As Bolivar's body and soul slowly died, so too did Gran Colombia. He had first tried to sell his fellow Venezuelans on union with New Granada in the triumphant days at the end of the admirable campaign in the summer of 1813.


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[Assistant] They had been skeptical, but Believar kept pushing. After all, had it not been thanks to the new Grenadines that the Venezuelans had just been liberated,


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[Assistant] And then after the fall of the second republic, he had gone back to Nukronauta and made the same pitch in reverse, but found the Nukronautans just as skeptical.


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[Assistant] But in his mad way, after years of failures, exiles, and defeats, Believar still managed to induce the Congress of Angostura to unilaterally declare Gran Colombia a thing in early 1819. And then he wrote off to prove that for him, union was not just words.


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[Assistant] He led an army of Venezuelans up into the mountains to liberate New Granada.


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[Assistant] Now after the battle of Boyacá, surely everyone would recognize the necessity of working together.


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[Assistant] But they did not. Even after Grenadines turned around and fought to liberate Venezuela at Carabobo, they did not.


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[Assistant] But everyone did recognize the necessity of Believer, and so let the Liberator have his way, and the unnatural union that no one wanted was born of little more than his willful insistence.


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[Assistant] Then, with the help of his protégé Sucre, Believar had used Grenadines and Venezuelans both to liberate Ecuador and make the Gran Colombia of his dreams a reality.


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[Assistant] In reality, it never existed anywhere but in Believar's dreams. What he celebrated, everyone else tolerated. What he thought sublime, they found inferior. It was only a matter of time before the sand Believar had built his republic on shifted under his feet.


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[Assistant] And as he struggled to reach Bogota at the end of 1829, the last grains of sand slipped out of the hourglass.


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[Assistant] On that road to Bogota, Bolívar was dealt a further emotional blow when General Cordova, the hero of Boyacá and the man who had just suppressed an anti-Bolivarian rebellion, himself went into rebellion.


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[Assistant] A native of Columbia, Cordova believed that Believer's obvious sickness and Santander's recent expulsion from the country left a power vacuum that he could step into. So in the fall of 1829, he had dispatched letters to Paz in Venezuela and General Flores in Ecuador, and he said, join me, we will rid ourselves of Believer and each get a country of our own.


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[Assistant] But neither Paz nor Flores felt the need to join Cordova's rebellion.


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[Assistant] So the revolt fizzled and wound up only drawing a few hundred adherents. Cordova himself was cornered and killed on October 17, 1829, much to Believar's increasing depression.


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[Assistant] The gods continued to curse his personal enemies to hellfire, but increasingly those enemies were men who had once been his friends, trusty allies and long time supporters. Their deaths brought him no comfort, only sadness.


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[Assistant] Aware that the union of Gran Colombia had always been more figment than reality, and with yet another constitutional convention convening in a few months, Belivar decided to issue a circular letter asking the citizens of Colombia, all of Gran Colombia, what they wanted to see in the new government.


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[Assistant] What did they want? What did they need? What would it take to get them to believe?


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[Assistant] It was, I think, an honest question, but Believar's reputation was now so diminished that the letter was compared to the bogus plebiscite Napoleon had circulated just prior to his imperial ascension.


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[Assistant] Distrust of Believar ran so high that even an offer to engage with his people was mocked as a prelude to yet another disingenuous power grab.


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[Assistant] So as believe our skeletal frame slouched still further. He said there is no such thing as good faith in America. Treaties are worth little more than the paper they are printed on. Constitutions are pamphlets, elections an excuse for war. Liberty has dissolved into anarchy, and for me, life has become a torment.


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[Assistant] But when they were done mocking Bolivar's circular letter, the Liberator's enemies in Venezuela took the opportunity to tell him what they really wanted.


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[Assistant] Under the auspices of José Antonio Paz, these men gathered in Caracas in late November 1829 and demanded total separation from Colombia. They wanted Paz to be their president, and they wanted no part of Simón Bolívar. These points, they said, were non-negotiable.


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[Assistant] This meeting was convened in the very room where Belivar had once been declared liberator after the admirable campaign, and many of the same men who had stood by him then, Arismendi, Mourinho, even Bermudez, now saw that Venezuela's future no longer lay on the same path as her most famous son.


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[Assistant] Believar had gone from being a nearby father to a distant tyrant.


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[Assistant] Paz even said that he would fight a war with Bolivar if the Liberator did anything to stand in the way of the Venezuelans withdrawing from the Union.


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[Assistant] Thus, even the happy omen of the tangled swords just a few years before turned out to have been invented from the same wishful pixie dust that had driven so much of Believar's career.


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[Assistant] With no more wishes left, Believar entered Bogota on January the 15th, 1830 to an understandably subdued reception.


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[Assistant] Now, he did have a few comforts left, though. Manuela Sainz welcomed him with her tender care, and even better, Sucre had been convinced to serve as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, and would himself soon be arriving in Bogota, giving Believar hope that he may yet make the handsome young general his heir.


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[Assistant] In fact, when the convention convened on January the 20th, it would be Sucre who stood in for Believar.


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[Assistant] Accepting a gracious welcome from the convention, the Liberator proved too weak to stay in the hall for long, and he had Sucre read a sharp speech which stated unequivocally his intention now to resign the dictatorship.


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[Assistant] As soon as the convention was done and a new government formed, they would all get their wish and be rid of Simone Bolivar.


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[Assistant] The delegates rustled a bit, but as when San Martin had announced his intention to leave Lima, the delegates in Bogota had no plans to talk Belivar out of his decision.


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[Assistant] They knew what he wanted, and if it was not what they wanted, then so be it.


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[Assistant] Retiring to his estate outside of town, Believar got ready to remove himself from the country. While such an exile could be honorably self-imposed rather than dishonorably mandated,


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[Assistant] But he was now faced with an uncomfortable and embarrassing reality. He was broke.


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[Assistant] As we've seen, Believar made a virtue of being a revolutionary pauper. He refused all salaries, and anytime he was offered additional money, land, gifts, treasure, he either declined or accepted, and then immediately redistributed it amongst his men.


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[Assistant] So though he had been born the prince of Caracas and had inherited one of the largest fortunes in Venezuela, all of it was gone.


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[Assistant] Now most had been confiscated and sold back during the original struggle against the Spanish, with Belivar just never coming back around to reassert his old claims.


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[Assistant] All he had left in his decimated portfolio was a Venezuelan mine that was in a bad state of disrepair.


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[Assistant] At least passingly aware over the past few years that A, his public career really might be drawing to a close, and B, he did not have any ready cash, Believar instructed his sister in Caracas to sell the mine, but the process had been going on for years now.


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[Assistant] His financial troubles were further exacerbated by the fact that nobody found it plausible that the Liberator really was broke. I mean, everyone assumed that of course he had been squirreling away money this whole time. I mean, he was the Liberator after all. Everybody showered him with everything. He had been given silver and jewels and crowns, land, palaces. But he had kept none of it.


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[Assistant] And since he never planned to wind up in exile he had never made a backup plan for himself. There was no secret Swiss bank account.


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[Assistant] Only a few in his inner circle knew that his austere Republican act had never been just an act.


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[Assistant] When Believer said that he only owned the clothes on his back and a few books, he was telling the truth.


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[Assistant] So when he got back to the estate outside of Bogota that he occupied but did not own, he dug up some silverware and sold it, getting just enough to hopefully arrange passage on a ship to Europe.


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[Assistant] After that, who knew how he would support himself, and his hopes were now pinned on the proceeds from selling the mine.


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[Assistant] But his now ex friends in Venezuela had other ideas about that. The Venezuelans cancelled a pending sale of the mine to a London buyer, refusing to grant permission for the mine to be sold to a foreigner.


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[Assistant] The cancelled sale left Believer with no financial future whatsoever.


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[Assistant] And then, adding insult to injury, or perhaps just injury to injury, they stripped Believar of his citizenship and ordered him to never step foot on Venezuelan soil ever again.


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[Assistant] For the fifth and final time, Simon Believer was in exile from his home country. The country he had sworn to liberate or die trying, and then did.


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[Assistant] As the Constitutional Convention in Bogota proceeded well out of Believar's hands, it predictably went in the opposite direction from every place he had ever tried to lead them.


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[Assistant] Bolivar was practically the last man alive still representing that Republican centralist quadrant of the Spanish American revolutionaries. The rest of them were all staunch federalists.


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[Assistant] Bolivar's allies had tried to at least secure union by suggesting three essentially autonomous states, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela. But it was clear that even this was too much.


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[Assistant] The Venezuelan position was already that any further discussions with Bogota would be of a diplomatic nature, not a constitutional one.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, over in Ecuador, General Juan Jose Flores was positioning for a declaration of independence of his own.


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[Assistant] The Ecuadorians had no interest in being ruled from Bogota anymore.


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[Assistant] So the Colombian constitution that was now being finalized by April of 1830 would apply only to what had once been the territory of New Granada.


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[Assistant] And it is in fact how it from among these three states retained the name Columbia because it was what was left of old Gran Colombia after the departure of Venezuela and Ecuador.


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[Assistant] The sand giving way all around him, Believar himself decided it was now time to leave it all behind.


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[Assistant] He had technically retained the title president dictator during these final months to ensure that there was some legal sovereign while the convention did its work. But with that work nearly complete, he resigned his office on April the 27th, 1830.


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[Assistant] It was the last time he would hold political or military power.


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[Assistant] Believer on the way out the door, the framers of the constitution then cleverly ensured that his anointed heir Sucre could not and would not be able to succeed him. They made the minimum age for the presidency 40, and Sucre was still only 35 years old.


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[Assistant] But when somehow the delegates elected another Bolivarian ally to the presidency, the rest of the delegates erupted in anger and forced through a new election that brought a minor Bogota liberal into office.


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[Assistant] But when your very first election has to be tossed out because you don't like the results, it's hard to believe that you've put yourself on sound political footing.


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[Assistant] And Columbia was not really on sound political footing.


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[Assistant] But for the moment, the Colombians cared more about what they were getting rid of than what they were building, and what they were getting rid of was Belivar.


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[Assistant] The new constitution was unveiled on May the 4th, and within days unrest in Bogota peaked with sporadic rioting, as the people of Bogota made it plain that Believar continuing to linger was not acceptable.


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[Assistant] The convention delegates now seamlessly transitioning into Columbia's Congress did vote the Liberator one incentive to help him move along now, please. A life pension of $15,000 to live on. It wasn't much, but it was something.


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[Assistant] So on May the 8th, 1830, Believer packed up his few remaining belongings and with a small entourage of still loyal servants and aides, he prepared to leave Bogota for the last time.


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[Assistant] A group of dignitaries and officials greeted him at the door of his residence to bid him a polite farewell.


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[Assistant] But he did not get a polite farewell from the people of Bogota, who took the opportunity to mock him and hurl insults as he departed.


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[Assistant] When he finally passed through the gates, they followed the lead of their distant cousins in Lima, and celebrated their liberation from the Liberator.


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[Assistant] But in a bit of a replay of that departure from Lima.


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[Assistant] Believar wasn't yet convinced that this would really be the last time he would see Bogota.


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[Assistant] Or at least, that's what Manuela Sainz chose to believe. So rather than accompany Belivar out of the city, she elected to stay behind, believing in this latest of late hours that the Bogota liberals were far weaker and less popular than they liked to believe, and that it would not be long before the Colombians begged the Liberator to return.


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[Assistant] So she stayed behind to help lay the groundwork for his eventual return.


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[Assistant] And the thing is, she wasn't crazy at all, and that's nearly how it played out.


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[Assistant] But instead, when she embraced Believer and bid him farewell, it was the last time they touched.


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[Assistant] And the last time that she saw Simone Believer alive.


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[Assistant] Sucre, meanwhile, wasn't even allowed a final goodbye. Even if he too would not have known that it would have been their final goodbye.


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[Assistant] Sucre had been out of Bogota when Believar made the decision, or had the decision made for him, to leave.


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[Assistant] Now with my heart breaking, I don't know what to say. Words cannot express my feelings for you. You have known me for some time now, so you are well aware that it is not your power but your friendship that inspires my most tender affections for you. Goodbye, my general. Take as a measure of my fondness these flowing tears.


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[Assistant] Just a few days after Belivar departed Bogota, General Flores led the former Audiencia of Quito and would-be state of Gran Colombia to declare independence, giving birth to the independent state of Ecuador.


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[Assistant] Taking a slightly different tack from the Colombians in the Venezuelans, Flores tried to seize on what remained of Belivar's prestige and legacy by offering the Liberator asylum.


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[Assistant] But Believar politely refused and instead took the Magdalena River down to Cartagena.


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[Assistant] The Magdalena is where he had transformed himself from a dismissible young radical to the leader of Spanish American independence.


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[Assistant] In 1813, he had swept up the river on a mad dash, clearing the river of Spaniards and making sure that the world now knew the name Belivar.


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[Assistant] But though going up the river represented the soaring promise of his career, coming back down the river was another matter.


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[Assistant] And the Magdalena served as both an entry and an exit during a revolving door phase of his career that he'd been trapped in.


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[Assistant] In 1815, remember, he had been forced to come back down the Magdalena, but rather than relive his triumph in reverse, he had arrived at the bottom only to find Cartagena had shut its gates, General Murillo's armada on the way, and given no choice but to exile himself to Jamaica.


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[Assistant] As the door slowly revolved one final time, he would once again be carried away in disgrace.


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[Assistant] When he got to Cartagena, he had enough money to secure passage on a ship heading to Europe.


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[Assistant] But the first available option was considered too small to accommodate a man in as bad a shape as Believar was. But he was told another would be along shortly.


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[Assistant] So Believar waited, and when the second ship arrived, it was pulled in against the rocks and had its hull smashed.


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[Assistant] Then a third ship came, this one manned by an extremely generous British captain who promised to take Believer to Europe in dignity and comfort. But there was a problem.


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[Assistant] The ship had to make a run to LaGuardia and back before he set sail for home.


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[Assistant] And Believar was not welcomed in Venezuela, and if he were to accompany the captain there was a good chance the Liberator's enemies back home would take it as a sign that he was trying to come back, and possibly he would wind up like old Miranda, tossed into a prison and left to rot after being accused of betraying his people.


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[Assistant] Whether Believar had thought much about Miranda these days, I have no idea, but I have to think he would have given the precursor a thought or two, as he now shared the fate of the old man who Believar had once been so utterly convinced of selfishly betraying the patriot cause, just as he himself now stood so unjustly accused.


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[Assistant] While he waited for the ship to return, he got a letter on July the 1st, 1830, the contents of which nearly killed him.


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[Assistant] We regret to inform you that Antonio Jose de Sucre has been murdered.


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[Assistant] Sucre had left Bogota to return to his family in Quito, and outside Posto he had been ambushed by gunmen and assassinated. He was shot twice in the heart and once in the head.


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[Assistant] My God, believe our cry. They have slain Abel. If there is justice in heaven, hurl down your vengeance now.


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[Assistant] Back up in Bogota, Manuela Science led a rearguard action against the incoming government.


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[Assistant] The new president had been out of Bogota when he was elected by the Congress and did not arrive in the city until mid-June.


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[Assistant] When he showed up a triumphal parade passed right beneath Science's balcony. A gathered crowd began hurling insults up at her, and some suspect that they intentionally started tossing firecrackers in her direction, which led her to retaliate, and she and a few of her faithful servants tossed fireworks of their own right back.


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[Assistant] Rifles and pistols soon appeared, but Bolivarian General, still in Colombian service, rode back, defused the situation and cleared the street.


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[Assistant] But Sein's implacable love of the Liberator and hatred of the Bogota liberals was soon pushed even further when Pedro Carrujo, one of the innermost conspirators of the assassination plot and who was only alive today because of the generosity of Bolivar, was elevated into a position in the ministry.


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[Assistant] So science battled with the government relentlessly, so much now that her continued presence in Bogota was considered nothing less than seditious.


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[Assistant] They tried to seize Believar's archives, but she beat them off with a stick.


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[Assistant] Then both the national government and mayor of Bogota made it plain that they planned to investigate her for treason and toss her in jail. Death threats were now a daily part of her routine.


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[Assistant] In August, she finally faced the fact that she was in real actual danger and abruptly decamped the city.


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[Assistant] Riding to the Magdalena River, which she planned to follow down to her lover.


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[Assistant] If she had stayed just a few weeks longer though, she would have been able to witness firsthand the equally abrupt collapse of her enemies.


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[Assistant] The liberal government that had taken over after the Constitutional Convention was proving itself to be as inept as they were corrupt. Science really did have a knack for keeping her finger on the pulse of the people, and was correct that the Bogota liberals were not as popular as they liked to think.


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[Assistant] A faction emerged that combined the professional military with the power and wealth of the Catholic Church, and it openly pined for the return of Believer, who though exhausting and not without flaws, was at least a man who provided stability.


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[Assistant] This faction was led by General Urdaneta, who had been the de facto governor of Bogota after the expulsion of Santander but before the inauguration of the new government.


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[Assistant] On September the 5th, Urdaneta led a coup that deposed the new president and his ministry, and though Urdaneta was eager to move out from Bolivar's shadow, there was no play he could make that did not require a public call for the Liberator to come back and once again take power.


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[Assistant] As soon as she got the news, signs turned around and came back to the city to once again set up the return of Believar.


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[Assistant] A delegation representing Urdaneda made a trip down the river and found Belivar still stuck in limbo.


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[Assistant] Trapped in the labyrinth from which he could not escape, the very idea of trying to pick up his dying body and transport it back up the river was absurd.


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[Assistant] He could barely cross a room these days without exhausting himself.


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[Assistant] But the physical impedement was perhaps only a final excuse.


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[Assistant] More than that, he told Erdeneta to stand down, to restore the legitimate government.


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[Assistant] Suffocating now in the sweltering heat of Cartagena, his friends moved him inland to Barranquilla, but it did little to improve his health, or his mood.


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[Assistant] It was not just Bogota that came calling these days while Believar hovered outside the graveyard.


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[Assistant] Though his rivals and enemies in Venezuela had been ascendant in his absence, their final capture of power and punitive exile of Belivar had done much to undermine support for them in the country.


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[Assistant] They were as petty and corrupt and inept as the liberals in Bogota, and across Venezuela cities and towns agitated for their expulsion and the return of the Liberator. But Believar brushed these aside too.


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[Assistant] You must reconcile yourselves with each other. You must forge a future with each other, but not with me.


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[Assistant] But he knew that this advice was worthless. They would never work together. They never had worked together. They never would work together.


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[Assistant] To General Flores, who had once been his subordinate, but was now president of Ecuador, Bolívar wrote the last great entry of the Bolivarian canon.


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[Assistant] The Cartagena Manifesto, the letter from Jamaica, the Angostura Address, all the constitutions that he had written. It had now finally come down to this. Quote, one, America is ungovernable. Two, he who serves revolution plows the sea.


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[Assistant] 4. The country is bound to fall into ungovernable chaos after which it will pass into the hands of an undistinguishable string of tyrants of every color.


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[Assistant] Five. Once we are devoured by all manner of crime and reduced to a frenzy of violence, no one, not even the Europeans, will want to subjugate us.


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[Assistant] Six. And finally, if mankind could revert to its primitive state, it would be here in America in her final hour.


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[Assistant] Believer had never been a starry-eyed idealist about the prospects for South America. He had always been aware of his country's flaws.


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[Assistant] But from birth, he had believed those flaws ultimately surmountable. It would be hard. It would take both cunning and brute strength. But like the Andes, South America's problems were surmountable. But he believed this no more.


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[Assistant] He offered Flores a final bit of personal advice. He said, avenge Sucre's murder. Then, get out while you can.


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[Assistant] For Believer the time to get out while he could now finally seem to be at hand.


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[Assistant] A Bolivarian general of long-standing loyalty was in charge of the defense of the northwest coast of Colombia, and when Believar wrote him asking for a few supplies, this man dropped everything and took Believar under his personal care and protection. He not only procured the requested supplies, but found a competent French physician and dispatched him to assess and treat Believar.


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[Assistant] And then he arranged for a ship to transport the Liberator to far more comfortable lodgings in a mansion in the town of Santa Marta, a little port tucked away in a safe harbor on the Colombian coast.


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[Assistant] There I believe I would be able to recuperate once and for all and then finally sail for London.


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[Assistant] But when Believar arrived in Santa Marta in early December 1813, it was clear to everyone that Believar had, yes, been brought to the point of his final departure, but his destination would not be London. It would instead be the Elysian Fields.


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[Assistant] In Santa Marta, Belivar was tended by the French doctor and also an American surgeon who happened to be in town.


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[Assistant] It was pretty clear the Liberator was dying of tuberculosis and that the end was fast approaching. He was too tired to move but too sick to sleep. He did not eat and mostly lived in a feverish half-dream.


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[Assistant] He was moved a few miles inland to a beautiful sugar plantation, and there lay on his deathbed.


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[Assistant] Believer's will had never been of his own making. It was an energy that he did not consciously create, but instead had merely harnessed it on behalf of revolution and glory. And even now, here at the end, it refused to just let him die.


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[Assistant] He lingered for a day, and then another, and then another, and then a week had passed.


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[Assistant] In a moment of fleeting lucidity, he dictated a few final thoughts.


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[Assistant] My enemies have toyed with your confidence, destroyed what I hold sacred, my reputation and my love of liberty.


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[Assistant] They have made me their victim and hounded me to my grave. I forgive them.


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[Assistant] As I depart your midst, my love for you impels me to make known my last wishes. I aspire to no other glory than the consolidation of Columbia. If my death can heal and fortify the Union, I go to my tomb in peace.


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[Assistant] On December the 17th, 1830, the labored breathing of Simone Believar finally slipped from inaudible whisper to silent calm. The Liberator was dead.


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[Assistant] Word of the death of Simone Believar spread out from Santa Marta and was greeted by either relief, joy, dread, or sorrow, depending on the ears that it hit.


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[Assistant] Concerned that Believer never seemed to leave the country or come back to Bogota. Manuela Sainz was on the road to Santa Marta to rejoin him when she was stopped by messengers coming the other way.


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[Assistant] As she had convinced herself that the stories of Believar's deteriorating condition were exaggerated lies promulgated by his enemies, and it took a few staggered moments to face the fact that she had already never seen him again.


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[Assistant] But in typical defiant fury she stated boldly that in life I love Believer and in death I worship him.


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[Assistant] But for the moment, few shared her stubborn adoration. So she became the steward of a positive memory of Believar that had now been overwhelmed by the image of a hypocritical tyrant.


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[Assistant] She managed to live in Colombia for another two years, but the inevitable return of Santander forced her out of the country.


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[Assistant] She spent time first in Jamaica and then attempted to return home to Quito, but Ecuador refused her attempt to cross the border, so she was forced to instead sail for Peru.


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[Assistant] Not welcome in Lima, nor with the means to fund a life there, the liberatress found a final stop in Paita, a small port on the Peruvian coast just south of Guayaquil.


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[Assistant] There she set up shop as a tobacco merchant, an English translator, and a composer of letters for illiterate sailors.


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[Assistant] She faded into impoverished obscurity but had enough to take in an utterly senile Simone Rodriguez when the old man hobbled back into her life in the 1850s and she took care of Believar's old tutor in his final years.


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[Assistant] Manuela's science died of diphtheria in November of 1856, with almost nobody remembering who she was or what she had once been. And it took another century at least for her name to return to the story that she had played so prominent a part of.


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[Assistant] The authorities in Ecuador that had refused science return was an unstable government shared by the founder of Ecuador, Juan Jose Flores, and a fierce rival whose name I'm not going to trouble you with because we're about to leave South America behind.


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[Assistant] The two of them vied for, shared and split power off and on for the first few decades after independence. And as had been distressingly common both during and after the revolution, power was defined by powder and steel.


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[Assistant] Politics, a sport of blood. Flores was forced into exile and then he returned and forced his enemies into exile.


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[Assistant] Because that's where it went everywhere in post-independent South America.


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[Assistant] Flores never could heed Believar's advice to get out while he could.


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[Assistant] Men never can quite believe that they are not indispensable or bound to finally win in the end.


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[Assistant] When word reached Venezuela of the liberator's death, there was relief from the conservative Criollo, who would now ensconce themselves in power under the protection of José Antonio Páez.


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[Assistant] The rich criollo and the generos warlord refuse to even allow the return of Believar's bones, afraid that even the ghost of the liberator might somehow defeat them.


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[Assistant] Pause now strode forward as truly the most prominent of the revolutionary caudillos.


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[Assistant] The man who had once been an illiterate, penniless servant of a slave was elected president of Venezuela in 1830 and served in that office soft and on for the next 18 years.


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[Assistant] But even when he was not technically president, Paz was the overwhelming power behind the puppets in Venezuela elected to run the country.


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[Assistant] Twelve years after Believar's death, the fears of his ghost began to subside, and Paz decided he could afford to recloak himself in the Bolvarian legacy. In 1842, Paz initiated the process of disinterring Believar's bones and bringing them home for a proper burial.


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[Assistant] But though Paes was the predominant power in Venezuela, that did not mean that the other Caudillos who had once fought with the Liberator were done aiming at personal power.


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[Assistant] Santiago Mourinho, the man who had once been Bolivar's equal in the early days of the revolution and then his ever disloyal subordinate, led a revolt against Paz in 1835. The revolt failed, which forced Mourinho out of the country, but he returned in 1848 and led another revolt that forced Paz into exile.


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[Assistant] But then another decade passed and another revolt allowed Paz to return in 1858. And he served as president again from 1861 to 1863 before, you guessed it, being forced into exile again. Like I say, this is how it goes all over.


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[Assistant] So rather than spending his last days in the rural Janos that he knew so well, where men like him sat on skulls and slept on horseback, Jose Antonio Paz, the centaur of the plains, spent the final decade of his life in the exact opposite surroundings.


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[Assistant] He made a home in exile in New York City where he was a colorful, if eccentric member of society and where he died in 1873.


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[Assistant] Aside from Paz, the only other man in the story of Gran Colombia who matches his stature is Francisco de Paula Santander. And really, it was the three of them.


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[Assistant] Believar, Paz, Santander, who formed the critical trinity of the failed country.


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[Assistant] Their contentious and occasionally brilliant blend of rivalry and partnership had first founded Gran Colombia and then defined its failure.


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[Assistant] Santander had wound up in Europe after being booted after the Assasian attempts of 1828.


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[Assistant] But the death of Believer was all the signal he needed to return.


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[Assistant] He came home to Columbia in 1833 and promptly ensured that the demon woman Manuel Assange was ejected from his country.


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[Assistant] Then he sat about restoring himself to his rightful place in Bogota.


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[Assistant] A new, new constitutional government elected him president in 1832, and he served until 1837, trying to restore all the laws and institutions that Believer had tried to dismantle in his absence.


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[Assistant] No longer quite as committed to free trade principles that flooded the country with cheap foreign imports which destroyed home manufacturing, he tried a more protectionist approach but with only limited success.


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[Assistant] Everything in South America always seems to be defined by those words. Limited success.


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[Assistant] Though Santander would die in 1840 at the age of just 47 after 30 years of revolutionary labor, he did enjoy something that few of his revolutionary brethren enjoyed.


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[Assistant] Now there is simply no way to account in any meaningful way for the subsequent 200 years of South American history.


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[Assistant] But Believar's final depressed vision of the future proved prophetic. The country is bound to fall into ungovernable chaos after which it will pass into the hands of an undistinguishable string of tyrants of every color. And that seems to about cover it.


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[Assistant] Ambitious warlords and treacherous politicians ensure that the nations believe are liberated, never really enjoyed stability or unity of purpose.


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[Assistant] And the same was true across South America. As both the remainder of the 19th century and for most of the 20th century, South America was wracked by constant strife. Foreign wars and civil wars, annexations and counter-annexations, revolts, invasions, insurrections, repression, bankruptcy, and then let's do it all over again.


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[Assistant] In a macro way, South America mirrors the course of Haiti, with its government and economy unstable and at the mercy of North American and European merchants, bankers, and politicians who saw South America as a resource to be exploited rather than a land of co-equal partners in the project of Western civilization.


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[Assistant] And speaking of Haiti, despite Bolivar steadfastly maintaining his promise to Petyon to ensure that the South American Revolution meant freedom for the slaves, slavery was only outlawed after long periods of foot dragging.


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[Assistant] No one missed that all the wealth was held by the heirs of the white Criollo, and all political offices dominated by their sons, and then their grandsons, and then their great-grandsons. A fact that persisted deep into the 20th century, and it wasn't really until now that men with Amerindian blood, for example, were first able to crack into the highest rungs of leadership. There are no races in South America. Okay. But the face of power always seems to look the same.


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[Assistant] Overall of this history, now hung Believar, who, for about the first decade after his death, remained the hated hypocrite of recent living memory.


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[Assistant] But as the years passed, his earlier exploits were remembered with more clarity and his later conduct now seen in a clearer light.


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[Assistant] Particularly that in his final years he had enemies who had been eager to paint him with as black a brush as possible.


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[Assistant] So within about a generation, Simone Believer transformed into the Simone Believer that is frankly still recognizable today. A somewhat nebulous revolutionary deity.


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[Assistant] A face, a name, a few battles, and a statue. He's everywhere in South America. He's all over North America. You can find him everywhere in Europe.


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[Assistant] More than any other single man, he represents the entire process of South American independence, and without question, he is now mostly remembered as a romantic hero of an adventurous age. The details of the man himself, little remembered or even needed,


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[Assistant] I hope that as we've slogged our way along with him now over the past 27 episodes across mountains and grasslands and through deserts and in freezing cold.


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[Assistant] In the city and in the country and victory and in defeat aiming for glory, getting it, losing it, and then winning it again that we can appreciate him as a man riding through difficult times, trying to take the world he had inherited and turn it into a world that he dreamed of.


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[Assistant] And even if the project in the end only met with those fateful words, limited success, he had done the one thing he had set out to do. He had liberated his country.


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[Assistant] Now through all of this, Simone Believar had been honored to maintain a sporadic correspondence with a hero from the previous generation of revolutionary heroes.


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[Assistant] Having left his own trials behind for a life of relaxed retirement, the old Marquis de Lafayette was himself honored to write and receive letters from the Liberator of South America,


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[Assistant] The youthful exuberance of Lafayette's early years never had been crushed, not by the French Revolution, not by an Austrian prison.


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[Assistant] Lafayette thrilled at the exploits of Believer and his fellow South Americans and always encouraged them to think of themselves as he heirs to the project that he himself had helped begin in the United States so many years ago.


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[Assistant] This mutual admiration peaked in the mid-1820s after independence had been won, and Lafayette gifted Believar a pair of pistols alleged to have been owned by Washington himself.


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[Assistant] But as Believar kept writing, and as he became more and more autocratic, Lafayette too soured on the Liberator.


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[Assistant] And among the letters Believar received while he was dying in 1830, one came in from Lafayette, which curtly chided him for the embrace of a lifetime presidency and urged him to reconcile with Santander, the man who Believar believed, not without good reason, had just tried to kill him.


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[Assistant] This rebuke from Lafayette made a cold believer turn yet colder, and they were the last words he ever heard from the hero of two worlds.


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[Assistant] But though it's always fun to wallow in Believar's miseries at the end of his life, that's not why I told you about that letter.


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[Assistant] That letter was dated June the 1st, 1830, when Lafayette was living on a sprawling estate under the obnoxious but not directly threatening rule of King Charles X of France.


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[Assistant] Less than two months after writing this letter to Believer, Lafayette found himself suddenly thrust back into the tumult of revolution, as the pressures that had been building under King Charles finally exploded at the end of July 1830.


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[Assistant] Lafayette's revolutionary career had one final chapter.


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[Assistant] And when I return from my break, with a whirlwind of edits on the storm before the storm hopefully behind me, I will come back to man the hastily erected barricades in Paris, topple the bourbons once and for all, and replace them with Orléans branch of the family.


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[Assistant] Something that happens in this sport, the effort you put in doesn't match the result you get. Sadly enough.


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[Assistant] It's easier, it's harder to get better things. And sometimes when you relax and you let things come to you, you actually perform better.


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[Assistant] I think that probably the highlight is, is Indy when Rubens had the broken gearbox and I went to pass him and I was inside and he turned into me and he spun off and, and I got a penalty for it. I'm like, Oh, there you go.


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[Assistant] No, but like, like that's really, I mean, in, in a crazy way, it sucked because it got me out of the championship. But then we went to the last race and I was leading and the engine blew up. So I would have lost the championship. You know what I mean? It would have probably, that would have


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[Assistant] It was, you're there to do, I mean, you're there to do a job. You know what you need to do. Um, I think 03 was very special because the amount of development went through the year in the car.


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[Assistant] I don't think the car was as good as it needed to be at the beginning of the year, but the amount of evolution we had through the year was unbelievable. And I think that's what made the car so good is the amount of development through


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[Assistant] How you could roll through the middle of the corner, like everywhere, like how much speed you could roll in and how, like how good the car was. It's kind of funny because we go, for example, now that I'm coming in a lot of races with my kid and you hear, ah, the car is unstable and the car is doing this and the car is doing that and rear locking and all this.


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[Assistant] And I keep telling him it's like...


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[Assistant] You know, once you get here, all that things go away. Uhm, like, I know, like, Oli Berman raced against him quite a bit. You know, they went at it for the F4 Championship a few years back. And I was talking to Oli a couple days ago here in Australia, and I said, it wasn't much easier to drive, was it?


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[Assistant] Yes, it's like you spend all these years preparing with the cars that are a freaking handful and you get into this car that you're pretty much the limit. The car just does everything right and, and


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[Assistant] Yeaah, I think 03 had the best engine, I think 04 we were there, but I think Honda was maybe a little better.


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[Assistant] And electronics and everything like that. I'm surprised, you know what I mean? It's hard because bidding Ferrari in those years was like what Red Bull is today.


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[Assistant] I mean, it was hardly, it was nearly impossible. And, and realistically you could beat them when Michelin brought about a tire.


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[Assistant] Like, but when, I think when the tires were even, I think Ferrari still had a better car than us.


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[Assistant] It was really cool, yeaah. It was really cool, the amount of testing we did, the amount of running we did.


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[Assistant] It was a different world, you know what I mean? Nowadays they don't do any running.


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[Assistant] I think it's nicer the amount of races they do now.


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[Assistant] And it's funny because everybody complains about it, they're too many. But they're really not too many.


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[Assistant] Yes, there are more races that traditionally 15 races or 16 races a year, but I think it's personally, I'd rather be doing 10 more races in my time than a hundred days of testing by myself in somewhere.


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[Assistant] Oh yeaah, we used to race Friday, Saturday, Sunday, like race weekend, and then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.


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[Assistant] Of the next week we were in the car. And then the week after, like Monday and Tuesday, we were doing sim and then race weekend again. And that was kind of our...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our way of going about it and precision testing, we used to do what 15, 20 days of testing before the first race and then end of the season was the same thing. You know, we used to take what I think the rules was December.


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[Assistant] 10 to January 5th or something, that it was the no driving, it was like 3 weeks or something, and that was it. Get you fit.


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[Assistant] Yeah, you are, you are so much in the car that like.


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[Assistant] I mean, when, when you're doing 400, 500 Ks a day in the car testing and the race is 300, it's like.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah. It's kind of funny because I was, this was like 2002 and they said oh we're gonna run it next year and why not.


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[Assistant] And I don't know what happened with the hands and I didn't, I couldn't fit with the hands. So I took the car to the grid or somewhere without the hands. I don't remember there was something without the hands that I had to do an install app or something without the hands.


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[Assistant] And it fails. And it was funny because I remember the engineers telling me, be really careful. You don't have a hands. And I'm thinking, dude, I've raced all my life without a hands. It's not, you know what I mean? It's not, this is not different than 12, six months ago or you know what I mean?


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[Assistant] And it was really funny and he felt really insecure without the hands. Right. And that happened very quickly. The problem is the first hands were so uncomfortable.


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[Assistant] The shape was wrong, the padding was awful, uh, and now, like nowadays you have like gel pads and you have like, oh they're so nice.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I mean I've raced with a Hansi Vice for the past 20 years. So it's like, yeah, I wouldn't really get in a race car without a Hansi Vice.


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[Assistant] And I did well at it, but it was, for me, the four laps were the best. When they used to call it 12 laps, the four lap qualifying for me, it was so good. Cause you- Why did you prefer that? Because you could build on it. Like-


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[Assistant] So the way I always looked at it is, okay, lab one, let's match what we did in practice. If you can match what you did in practice or even a little better because you got to take less fuel.


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[Assistant] You started really well. Because, so, if the first run, you're on par with practice, it means from now on, whatever you do, it's a plus. And, and if you already did this, it means you, like if you had a car for the pole, that first lap was good enough maybe for six, seven, eight plays.


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[Assistant] So it means, even if I throw the car off now, I'm starting in a decent place.


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[Assistant] It was better, and I remember my engineer used to tell me, and even the mechanics, when we were going at, like in, like 2002 when I got all those polls, they used to tell me at the end of qualifying, they go, like when it was closed, they said, they would come to me and say,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A lot of people and mechanics get really moody when you crash a car.


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[Assistant] And then you start feeling, oh, I don't want to do that. You know what I mean? And when in your mind, crashing the car is irrelevant.


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[Assistant] You normally don't crash it because you, but you're not thinking about it and, and you're so comfortable.


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[Assistant] So basically where the way I looked at it in qualifying anywhere where the car didn't move, it means it could go quicker.


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[Assistant] And that was the mentality. It's like if I break, then between finishing the break and getting on the gas I had space, means I needed to break later.


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[Assistant] You can't really get any earlier on the gas because you need to do the corner.


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[Assistant] And in high speed, if you went and the car didn't freaking tail slap or anything.


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[Assistant] The thing in my time, the races were qualifiers.


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[Assistant] We qualified every lap. One of the coolest experiences I had in F1 is when, you know, I started doing all the testing with Michelin and I came from IndyCar where you had to, you know, manage the tires a little bit, not like today, but you couldn't, you know, beat the tires of the car.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I went and then I'm, I remember I went like, really good lab.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, and then it backed off and then it got better and better like just managing the pace.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I stopped and they said, is the tire coming back? I said, no, I'm just managing. And they got mad at me and they go, no, we need you to qualify every lap. Just, we need you to destroy the tire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, like you did that first lap, do all five laps like that first lap, even if you're three seconds off, please destroy the tire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow. Different mentality today. Yes, because the way they're thinking is, we need to see what's the failure of the tyre, where is the fatigue of the tyre, what do we need to work on to make it better?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I, I'll give you the best example. And I was just getting started, but my first race here, I remember I was running and I had panics in front of me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and in my mind I'm going, I should be able to beat Panis.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what I mean? Nothing against him. He's really good. You know what I mean? He's done hell, you know, he won Monaco or everything. But in my mind, I'm thinking, I gotta be punished. And...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm, he's in front of me and I'm running, I think P6 and I'm in the points and I'm going, oh my god, like, I'm, he's driving away from me, so I push harder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, still a little, and I push harder, and I keep pushing, and I'm like qualifying every lap. I go to a point now, I'm like, I'm thinking, I'm pushing harder right now than I did in qualifying.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm like every lap, every lap. And I finally started like taking a tenth away from him and I'm catching him. I'm all excited and then D and you blew up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But then I realized, it's like, oh my god.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You need to drive so fast the whole time. You needed to, like, there were tracks where you could, you never needed to manage the tires. There were other tracks where you had to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but there it was like, oh my god. And it was really cool. It's a different experience. It's like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, we had so little day that as the fuel burned down, we used to go quicker. You know, our pace got quicker, not slower.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You love that, didn't you? Yeah, because you're like, and they would come in the radio and like, why don't we need a couple more tens? And you're like somehow figure out how to go quicker.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like you're pushing to the limit and then they go we need more and you go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where the hell am I going to find more? And then you go, I think I can throw it in a little faster here. And you try it. And sometimes you screw up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Play with me for so long. It was so annoying.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was so hard, it was so hard and like the things he could do with a car in one lap pace, it was unreal. Like it was really unreal and it was so annoying and so frustrating to not be able to match him at the beginning. So do you think he hasn't got the credibility?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, because, so nowadays with social media and everything the teammates are best friends and they go for dinner together and they all go play paddle together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In my time you didn't talk to anybody, you know, I used to talk to Fernando and still do and Rubens and Massa sometimes and that was it. Why? So the paddock was a more hostile environment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was very hostile. It was like, it was, it was a different, like you, you didn't talk to anybody. And honestly, uh, from my IndyCar days and even from back there, I think Ganassi had probably one of the best lines ever. It said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was nice to somebody, a driver somewhere and I, I, I wasn't cutthroat when I raised him and he got pissed at me and said, if you want friends, bring them. You're not here to make friends. That's a good line. Yeah. And it's true.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what I mean, it's, nowadays with the social media everybody talks, everybody's nice and everything and, but when you're that nice, it's hard to be an asshole.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's hard to pull a move where you're gonna drive the other guy off the track when you like the guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, but if, if it's the guy you had dinner with last night, it's a lot harder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To go and throw the car and, I mean, you're going to race him hard. But now the rules are a little more that you can't be that extreme where in my time you could just drive my friggin' race truck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the thousand one is, they were quicker than us, but we were really quick on...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On fresh tires. Our tires, when they were new, they were really good. So if I had to pass them, I had to go straight away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I got there and honestly, I was okay. He drove me off the track and I would have done the same thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like I was okay with it. I tried, like on my side, I'm going to try. But he drove me off the track, so I'm going to mirror him in. And if he would have done in the interview and they asked him what happened, I said I just drove him off the track. I would have been okay with it. But he said I just didn't see him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know the other day I saw a comment that he says... that...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sometimes I surprise myself with the things, like I don't think, like everybody thinks then talks, I talk then think, and I end up surprising myself as much as everybody around me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, the annoying thing with Michael is nobody raised him. When Michael was coming from the back...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like, oh, Michael's coming, ah, everybody would get away from him. I mean, that...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Piss me off. Cause like, why are you, yeah man, it's like, oh, it's my


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the kind of my approach with racing was I was such an asshole racing and people thought I was so crazy that it worked because when I throw the car in, they knew I was going and I wasn't going to get out of the way. So you had two choices.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was racing for BMW, and he was still Ferrari, and Norbert Hogg invited us to a party in Nurburgring after the race. And I said yes, because we had our staying there for the night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I went there because Norby invited me and it was Michael and Rubens and the three of us got drunk and that was it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'll give you an example, like, you know the relationship I had with Villeneuve when we raced? Like, it was cutthroat, you know what I mean? We hated each other. And when I started coming back to the races, we looked at each other and we just laughed about it. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and that was it. I think that's my point, right? Yea, but at the point, you, you remember, we nearly punched each other in the driver's meeting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I got in his way and he wasn't like, it was one of those things that I, I was, I don't know if I was doing an install, it was the first run, I was in an outlap, and he was coming, I didn't see him, and I got in his way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I ran into the back of a man actually really hard and he went and the rear suspension fell and he had a massive shunt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then he bled me for the shunt. And I'm like, screw you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because if you look at that, if you're another driver and you look at that...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm behind you and I've thrown the car in. What do you think they're gonna think? Oh. Just go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, because the guys we were fighting mainly were, were in Michelin's as well, so I think that didn't really change.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, because we were going I think at like 16,000 RPM because we had no oil.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, they didn't think, they were actually surprised we made it to the end of the race.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like the last five laps, I was going bubba, bubba, bubba, bubba, like short shifting like crazy. You know, 20,000 RPM and you're 19.5 or whatever we're going. Like think about your road car that it goes to 7,000, you're shifting at 4,000.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't know how bad the oil situation was, but they said we need to do this or we're not gonna make it. I'm okay. And I just drove as slow as I could. I think we had enough pace to drive away pretty easily.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With that and with the Indy 500 wins, especially the second one, probably the biggest wins for me, because I grew up watching Senna, and Senna was all about Monaco, you know what I mean? And in my time, that was the only street course.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The only time you went to a street race was Monaco. So that was in itself was really cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, you know, it's the only time in the year you took a Formula One car to a street course. And I think that's really cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For example, F3, the only street course they do is Monaco. And I think that's really nice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and, and we had only 80% throttle from like halfway of the race. Like I remember going into the stadium and the thing shut down and it came back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we had this power and this, yeaah, I just managed it to the end.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And funny enough, we really only had 80% throttle and we nearly lapped the field.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I think part of it being so fast is there was a shunt in turn one that made the race easier and I was on a three stop race and most of them were in a two stop and the deck was a little high so it made a huge difference.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So different, I think something that it was different then than now with the tire war and everything, it wasn't that it was not only you that were competitive. So when we were competitive, my client was competitive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what I mean? Or BAR were competitive, or Renault was competitive. Where in the other side, when Ferrari was competitive, was Ferrari, I think, what was the other team, Minardi?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're only two teams on the other tire. So for us was, was harder. And the other thing that was hard is Michelin had to build a tire to make three or four teams happy and everybody's asking for different things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like we're asking for traction and McLaren is asking for front end. So what do they do?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They cannot, I think you could pick different tires. Yeah. So they, they,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, exactly. And, and there were weeks where you had to compromise a little bit and weeks where they had to compromise a little bit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what I mean? Always finding ways to make the car better. For me, the technical side of the driving was really cool. Like, like making the car better and figuring out how to make the car better. That for me was probably the coolest thing about the racing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I never did. Really? No, I never did because...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With the, with the Ferrari and the Bridgestone, every time they got better, then they would just go out and do what I did, but instead of doing it one time a year like I did, they used to do it seven, eight times a year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, we did, but, I don't, I mean, you take it race by race and you see what happens, but again,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't know how the development is and how everything goes. And even with everything that happened, we were looking pretty decent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't like counting my eggs before. You know what I mean? It's like you need to focus on the job in hand and the job in hand is the easiest way to win a championship is to win races.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was so little interaction between the two cars.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we did so much testing anyway, you know what I mean? Like months I used to, what, five, seven days of testing, a couple of weeks before there. What you didn't figure out, you didn't figure out. You don't need a teammate to figure it out, you know what I mean?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, I relied on myself a lot. More than on other people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was funny because when I went to McLaren and he went to Toyota, we looked at each other and we just laughed. Oh, it happened as quickly as that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We looked at him in the first race and we looked at each other and we just laughed at each other looking at the suits.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The result, something that happens in this port, the effort you put in doesn't match the result you get. Sadly enough.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's easier, it's harder to get better things. And sometimes when you relax and you let things come to you, you actually perform better. Sounds like golf.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's the same thing, you know what I mean? It's like, it's like, if somebody tells you don't crash the car, in your mind you're thinking, okay, whether it's enough, you know, sorry. You can tell, you know, I mean, Tom to screw off and, but in the back of your mind, you're still thinking about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, so sometimes being relaxed about it and letting it happen and just, you know, I mean, like have a little more self-belief and just.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, I'm gonna prove everybody wrong. For me, probably that was the biggest drive. Like, the way I looked at it is if you can do it, I can do it better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't think I'm better than you. I never felt myself better than anybody, but they said, oh, like a rouge, 2002, a rouge before they repaved.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I went flat through a rush before in the morning because it's raining qualifying. I went flat the last half of practice. It's going to have to be flat somehow. I might as well just get rid, get it out of the system and I tried it and I did a flat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, it's kind of funny because we gave him, uh, like a baby card, but we limit the hell out of it because...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, he's like three or four years old, and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think that's where it came from. And then once, you know, once he got old enough where we felt he could, you know, drive without injuring himself, then we, when we turned that up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was really cool. I think we had probably more fun doing it in America than ELMS. The way the rules are personally, I think it's better. Uhm, so the races in America were, you know, the ones we did together were a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun as well doing ELMS, but it was, I think, a little different.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, it helps a lot with the team understanding what he needs, what we're missing and everything, but as well, I'll give you an example. I think a good example is last year,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I saw Andreas Teller and we were talking about it, you know, how things and, and, you know, about tire management and things to do and la la la la la.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, you know, last year he was a junior driver with Red Bull, so I said, you know what I mean, he wanted to help. I said, nah, it's okay, thank you. Like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, but I never really pursued. And this year, you know, he's still with Red Bull, but as an athlete, not under the junior program. So I thought, you know, I saw Andrea in Bahrain and we were, you know, I watched a lot of the practices and things in the McLaren garage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we were talking about it actually this morning, we were with Andrea this morning talking about, you know, things to do, you know, I think it's good for him to see not only what I think and what my point of view, but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A guy like, like Stella that, I mean, see what he done with McLaren, it's unbelievable. Somebody like him to be able to give some advice to Sebas about it, I think it was really cool. And I think it's good because it's not the, I think we have a really good relationship now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we understand each other and we work really well together and we have a really good relationship. But I think sometimes it's still good to hear from somebody else.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or do you? I do tell him what I think. When, when he does well, I don't tell him as much as when he does bad. School of hard knocks. Yeah. You know what I mean? I'm. Do you get nervous watching him? It sucks. Yeah. It's so much better being a driver.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a cool experience, you know what I mean? But as a, you know what I mean, the dad side, it's, it's, it's kind of hard, but it's what, you know what I mean, you gotta be there in the good and the bad and in the evil. You know what I mean, it's, we went for example this year to Bahrain to do the precision testing and he was sick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In three days he did what 15 laps in three days. We did a 12 lap long run and a couple of short runs, but he was so sick. We didn't do anything. We didn't learn anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and then you get to the race weekend when everybody did four, three days of testing. We haven't done anything and you do one lap in practice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I'm serious. Things with coordination, uh, physics, stuff like that. I'm really good. I don't know. I just catch things pretty easy. Sebast, what else is he good at? Golf. Golf? Really? Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I used to be, when I, when I left Nascar, I was a 2 handicap, 1.7 or something index. Oh wow, okay, that's decent, yea. I would say more than that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now last, so last year I hadn't, we picked it up last year, this year we haven't played because of the weather in Europe, but last year I got, at the end of last year I got a 6.6 index.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, exactly. Uhm, probably Senna, just, cause he's the only guy I looked up to. He would probably hate it, because I would be really annoyed, but yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's say, oh yea, Jay Balvin, probably. Balvin, the singer, he spends a lot of time with Lewis. Okay. He goes to, comes to a lot of F1 races and is always on the grid and stuff, he's huge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's kind of funny because a lot of his friends are big fans, so a lot of times we do video calls and stuff, it's kind of funny.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you over and over and do the same thing and end up in the same position, you have to wonder yourself, like, you know, you have something to do with that. So I thought, it's me. I can't blame all these teams and all the situations. So I thought, well, if it's not my driving, then I have to smarten up a bit, you know, I'm probably not smart enough.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm happy because I know that if I would have won one Grand Prix, I would have been annoyed that I didn't win more. It's good to strive for perfection, but if your strive for perfection ends up in never being satisfied with anything anymore, then you go a little bit too far.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, it's pretty awesome, of course. I'm literally born here, not in the hospital in Haarlem, you know, it's 10 miles away, but literally in my mom and dad's bedroom, about 200 meters from,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From the sea, but about, uh, 100 meters from a garage, uh, that was called Garage David's. It was a Volkswagen garage there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in the old days, we had like a Jim Clark there and we had the McLarens there and well, some other teams had Tyrol, I believe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But then also in the other garages, like the Fiat garage at Ferrari, so all the local garages were hosting the teams.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And on like Friday morning, if practice started, there was the moment of glory for the mechanics. I think the older folks will probably remember what I mean, because then they could drive their cars over the street, the regular street, like a parade over the road with the engines not being towed, but really drove them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, and then lucky enough I ended up at the skit school from Robbie Slootermaker. He's like an old Dutch legend, mostly known for his car control skills. He did all the spins in the movie of Le Mans from Steve McQueen. So I was there when I was 14, it was lovely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Eh, but Rob had a skit school here and, and, uh, yeaah, when I was 12, I, uh, I walked in there and he, he taught me all I know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So until I was 16, I didn't even know how to drive straight, you know, he was teaching me everything. So to be born here, to live here, to be, uh, become a racing driver, to end up in Formula One and to do a few of the local Grand Prixs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, that is already fantastic. But then Max comes crawling from the sky and he did so well. He's a world champion now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, we, we, uh, if we missed it, then we missed it the way it was. And the way it was, it was almost, always initiated by, uh, yeah, sports clubs. And so people not, not particularly there for their business skills, but more for their passion and enthusiasm for motor racing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was always like a battle here financially. So when Prince Bernard, uh, Junior and, and, and, uh, uh, his partner Menno de Jong started the initiative to get the Grand Prix back and that started with Bernie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But then if you see with the organization now behind it, it's two sports marketing companies, Sport Vibes and TIG from This is Golf.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the racetrack of Zandvoort, those three companies are in fact Dutch Grand Prix organizers and there's a lot of business and commercial and entertainment skills behind that and that's what produces this. Do you think the race could have come back?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even though we had mugs when people started talking about like, do you believe that the Dutch Grand Prix will be back?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I said to many people like, well the chances of me being struck by lightning in the next ten seconds is probably higher. So it shows you how much I know about it. But anyway, I have to say I couldn't know that these skills were in this country. So it was a wonderful experience.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and then, then, uh, we have, uh, Atze Karakhoff, uh, and, uh, Rudy van Buuren, who will in the future be the driver coaches. Uh, Atze Karakhoff is a Dutch guy who's, who's doing the driver's coaching for Alfa Romeo, uh, in The Sims and everything. And we have Rudy van Buuren who will do the same thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and I think, uh, that enthusiasm, uh, for motor racing is, is absolutely, uh, yeah, escalated, uh, through Max.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I really think, uh, as objective as I can, I take my orange glasses off. I really think he's the greatest of all time. It's hard to compare, uh, Fonjo with, with the likes of, of Senna Schumacher, uh, Hamilton and, and, uh, and Verstappen, uh, because it's different eras.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You've seen that glazed look, and I've never seen that with Max. He's always there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sometimes in one of those press encounters after a session, uh, he's impatient because he's so angry that he's off the pace that he wants to talk to his engineers and not to lots of journalists, so he wants to get on with it. Uh, so we've seen that, but I've never seen him with that vague look like, like, I don't know what's going on and I don't know why I'm so slow today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it just, uh, yeaah, calmed his mind, uh, because uhm, that was always the target, uh, and he's always very clear in his, in his communication, sometimes a little more clear than, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He never set out to have eight world championships. So I find that clear communication.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that also shows his appreciation for what he already achieved. We all know that winning 5, 6, 7 championships, you can't do without the best car. You need to have that. What I find impressive with Max is that he didn't always have the best car.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And still he won so many races and in the end the championship.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He started off this year with a car that wasn't quite as good as the Ferrari's.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, uh, great compliment to, to, to the Red Bull team and Max, that they've turned that around and I think now they have had the best setup also with strategies and everything. But still, uh, it's, it's great for a team to know, as we say in Holland, it's great to know that you're not milking in a basket.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know that with, with Max, if you develop your car, that he will make the best use of it. That just sort of like hinges you up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's almost like the term of success, I call it. So their interaction between the drivers and the team.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Know that you can ask questions to the team that they can answer eventually. And the other way around, whatever you ask the driver, he will deliver. And that's, that's of course an unbeatable combination as we have seen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I think if you compare Joss with Max, then the great example is that Max, when his talent was at its highest, the moment was also there. There was a place at Toro Rosso, and Toro Rosso was quick enough, the team was good enough to show his potential.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he could do something with that, because the last thing you want to experience, if you go from the lower categories, Formula 2, Formula 3,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Usually for a lot of drivers, they, they, they collect lots and lots and lots of trophies in karting, in Formula Four, Formula Three, Formula Two, and then they go to Formula One, and sometimes that trophy cabinet stays empty for, for like, uh, two, three years, and even longer, sometimes for their older career. Look at Ralph Schumacher.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He enters into Formula One and then, uh, you drive at best in the middle of the pack or at the back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And still you have to get in the car with the winning mentality.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's like an artificial, eh, sort of like self-hypnotized, eh, way of like, you know, you have to get the best of that potential. And somebody like Max, he comes from the karting, which he already was very special.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then he goes into Formula 3 and in a very short time he, he, he's a front runner. And then he, he has the connection in Formula 1. He gets with the team that also is successful. And because, and that keeps your, your, your flow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and, uh, and that's difficult for them. And Max have been able to, to connect and win the races, uh, very soon in Formula One. Somebody like Jos, uh, had the difficulty of having to start next to Michael Schumacher.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was extremely physical in those days. Jos already had a bit of trouble with an old neck injury. I think Jos was battling forces that later on Max didn't have to deal with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whatever else around it that I experience, you know, being in Japan for two and a half years, eh, all together, living in California for a year, in England for a bit, and the experiences that you sort of like go through.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the people that you meet and that what you learn from the experience and the people, that is something that I have never could have had in my, my focus. So I'm very privileged. It was also, uh, the, the accidents and the death of Ayrton Senna. Uh, that was, was, uh, yeah, quite a mind changer for myself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, because you're watching, uh, Ayrton Drive and there's a racing driver who's doing all the things that you would have loved to do. Uh, so you envy him very much, uh, with a lot of respect. You're watching him and then all of a sudden you see that horrible accident and he passes away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've never driven for a team that was good enough that I could either show the level or the lack of my talent. Because maybe if I would have driven for Ferrari or one of the other wonderful teams, McLaren, Williams, you name it, if I would drive for them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe I would have seen that I was like an Irvine or a Barrichello, so good enough to win the odd race, but not the world championship.