[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe you can answer this then. I saw, and this was, this came under one of our questions that we put up on Twitter.


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[Assistant] Could F1 get Adrian Newey involved for the new regulations? Could you ever see that happening?


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[Assistant] Which as we know from Lewis's contract with Mercedes, it's very possible. It's always clauses.


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[Assistant] Right now it's January, sorry it was not January, but right now it's March of 2024 and we're talking about things that are going to impact 2026. It's a unique sport, isn't it? Because it is...


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[Assistant] One thing I think we can say is this story is not done, is it? I think it's going to evolve in Saudi Arabia this week and it's going to keep going and keep going and keep going.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We can, we can talk about some other things now. Uh, and yeaah, this is the mailbag section, so questions from people at home.


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[Assistant] Bit of context for this, Sonoda was, was due to, well, was trying to overtake Magnusson for 12th place. Then the team told Riccardo, or said to Riccardo, you can overtake. He was on faster tyre compound and let him challenge Magnusson. Sonoda was not happy about that. And then on the in-laps,


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[Assistant] So obviously the lap where you're no longer racing, you're just coming to go back into the pits to bring the car in, it all got a bit dicey.


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[Assistant] Do you think now Tost has gone? Tost seemed to get a handle on it.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I think he might have been. It's a lot for Laura Mekas to deal with in his opening few months.


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[Assistant] Yeaah. Definitely. Uh, I've got another question for you Naomi actually.


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[Assistant] If the domination from Red Bull Racing is to continue, what effect could it have for younger drivers wanting to make it to F1? Could it possibly put them off the sport and have them looking at other series like IndyCar, Formula E, or WEC, before Formula 1?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No. You think Formula One is still the pinnacle for every driver.


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[Assistant] Hello everyone, a very warm welcome to this bonus episode of the Sky Sports F1 podcast, and we're recording this the week after Max has won his third world championship. Uh, Qatar was the weekend before, and we're joined by a very special guest, someone who has been there for all three of Max's world championships, and you might recognise the clenched fist.


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[Assistant] We're going to come on to what that means in a little bit because I'm fascinated to hear more about that. But this is an amazing time to talk to you because as we know, Max Verstappen won his third world title this weekend in Qatar. I wanna know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Take us into inside the team. What was the atmosphere like this weekend in Qatar? I mean, obviously, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know better than anyone Formula One is a team sport, but in case there's anyone who at home who maybe doesn't quite understand just how much of a team is needed in Formula One, describe how it feels.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When the whole team wins, you know, when, when you win a constructor's title, when you win a world championship with Max, it's, it's, it's not just Max Verstappen, is it, that's winning the world title. It's, it's everyone around him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I guess we see you and we see a lot of the pit crew regularly, but there are so many people aren't there behind the scenes in Milton Keynes. Just describe how large that team is. And obviously, you know, they're not traveling necessarily to every race, but they are there working, also working the race weekends, but just from Milton Keynes, right? And contributing in the same way.


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[Assistant] Take us inside then, the party. Well, first question is, was there a party on Saturday night? Because obviously you had a race on Sunday and then was there a party on Sunday night?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Goodness me. I mean, yeah, if ever there's proof of the hard work that goes on in Formula One, that, that is it. Um, but there must, I mean, there must be some good parties at Red Bull. There might, you know, there will be, I'm sure, there'll be a celebration of, of what Max and you've achieved.


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[Assistant] I'm intrigued and you don't have to answer this. Do you get a bonus when you win?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. And I guess that, that, that really helps the team all kind of move forward as well. And I guess everyone's getting a bonus right across the whole structure.


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[Assistant] 10 wins in a row for, for Max this season, 14 wins in a row for the team. And you've won 26 out of the last 28 races. That is just utter domination. And then I saw that you put up an Instagram post. You said, I've never seen anything closer to perfection than what Max Verstappen has achieved this year. Tell me, tell me about that perfection that Max has achieved.


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[Assistant] Yeah. He, I mean, you, you've worked with quite a few drivers in your time. I mean, you've been at Red Bull since 2015. Yeah. So you've worked with a few other drivers. What, what attributes does Max have? And, and, and in terms of working with, I mean, you've worked with Riccardo, you've worked with Caviar, you've worked with Gasly, Albon. What, what, what are all, what are their kind of traits? What, what do they all share? And maybe what are the differences between some of them?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, I'm jealous that you get to see behind the scenes. I mean, obviously we only see this stuff on the, on the television, but I'm sure a lot goes on behind the scenes that we don't see. And yeah, it must be amazing to be, to be up close. And talking about the car then for this year, obviously it's, it's the RB19 has been an incredible car so far. Is it, was there a point in the season where you weren't hold on?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is a, this is a good car. We, we might be, I mean, obviously up until, uh, Singapore, you know, it was likely you were going to win every race this season. I think we kept asking Christian, I think he started getting a bit annoyed with Skye. We kept asking him. I don't like talking about Singapore. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there was a genuine chance you were going to win every race this season. And that just even saying that as a sentence, when we're talking about a race like Singapore so far into the season is crazy. But, but yeah, when did you start to go, this is a pretty, pretty good car.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as pit crew, are you, are you looking up and down the pit lane in Bahrain in testing, for example, at what other teams are doing? Do you, do you look at the Mercedes at testing and go, well, that looks very different to what, to what we've got here. I wonder who's right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. And people are running different fuel loads and all sorts of things, aren't they?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I was, I was going to ask you about the pit stop because this weekend you lost the world record for the falsest pit stop. How annoyed are you with McLaren? I'm not annoyed at McLaren.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you look at the 2023 season and you've dominated the season.


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[Assistant] What, what for you do you prefer? Do you prefer something that, that, that is down to the line and, and, and keeps the whole team moving right to the very end? Or do you actually quite enjoy this stepping back a little bit and going, no, we are dominating and there's, I don't know. How do you see it as pressure?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is it, was that the mindset then, you know, especially in a pit stop where you go, God, if I don't get this right, that could be the world championship. Gone for, for Max.


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[Assistant] And what's so interesting, I find with that side of the sport is you're, it's not just you, it's not just the guy next to you, it's all of the people around the car all have to be on the level that you just described. And if one person is off, the whole pack of cards falls down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's what I find so remarkable about, about a pitcree. Yeah, that's it, you know, when you think of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's uh, incredible. Um, yeah, and really good, really amazing description of what it's like. So, so thank you.


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[Assistant] I want to talk a little bit about the team and Red Bull and some of the key figures and Christian Horner, the team principal, always fascinates me. And we see him obviously on Sky quite a lot. And he's obviously on the pit wall with us sometimes. And we see, you know, we get a great version of Christian. He gives us a lot of information, but I'm intrigued to know how.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you're managing a Formula One team, how does he communicate with everybody in the team? Do you have big team meetings very often? Do you have like internal emails saying good job everyone? Like how does it, how does it work? How does he play a role in your, in your part?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The likes of Adrian Newey, people like that, I mean he, probably the greatest designer of Formula 1 cars now in Formula 1 history.


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[Assistant] Do you have much relationship or do you, do you, do you spend much time with people like that? And, and when you're working on a car like the RB 19 as it is, I mean, it must just feel amazing to be part of that, that piece of Formula One history. Adrian's brilliant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's incredible. I know that he obviously loves, he's still a drawer, isn't he? You know, in an age of obviously technology and computer design, it's great that he's still, still there with a pencil. I find that so interesting. Uh, and then, and then in terms of, we spoke about the work hard, play hard culture at Red Bull, but you know, who, who do you hang around with? Who are like your best mates in the team? Like what, what, what's kind of your, your experience of the culture of Red Bull?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I can definitely imagine this. Yeah. Those people almost become as important as anyone else, don't they?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh dear. I don't know if there's any house music artists listening, but please, please nothing in the Red Bull garage. So your role, let's come to talk about your role specifically. So senior power unit assembly technician. You must be asked this a million times, but I'm going to ask it anyway. What does it mean? What do you look after? Okay. So essentially.


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[Assistant] Very good summary of what is no doubt a very complex job and talk me through like a regular sort of race week for you. What, how does that, how does that play out? When do you travel to the race? When do you come home?


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[Assistant] Your sort of social media profile, I don't know how that kind of came about. Just tell me how that all started, because last check this morning, 175,000 followers.


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[Assistant] That's brilliant. Yeah. And how important has Lewis been in getting, and I think from my point of view, what Lewis has done amazingly well at is getting people interested in not just being a racing driver. He's, he's all about the STEM subjects and getting kids


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And have you, you mentioned in terms of the data and the changes that have been made there, but have you noticed a tangible difference in the paddock in the last four years? What, what I have noticed?


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[Assistant] And do you think F1 are doing enough? Do you think enough is being done just generally across the paddock or do you think there's still a long way to go? There's still more, more that needs to be done? I mean, we're not there yet. No, of course.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's such an interesting conversation. And yeah, I mean, your profile and what you've done on social media has been incredible. And yes, I imagine it's probably a bit overwhelming now in terms of the amount of people that probably message you asking for advice. And I mean,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You said it earlier, you want to win every race.


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[Assistant] What, what are you, what are you hoping for, for the next five races? What's the focus? What's the target? I mean, exactly that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, there you go. Uh, Callum, thank you so much for coming in. Really appreciate your time. And congratulations on this season as well, because obviously it's been a remarkable season. And we're going to be back next Tuesday with Nico Rosberg. So I hope you can join us then. Bye for now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hello everyone, welcome to the Sky Sports F1 podcast with me, Matt Baker. And for this one, I've managed to pin down David Croft for a bonus summer Q&A.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, yeah, well, maybe if the weather's good. Such is, such is, such is our English weather. And there's a, there's all sorts of things I want to get into with you, uh, Crofty. And we, we've gotten a lot of questions from people at home. So thank you very much for sending in those. I'll try and get through as many as possible.


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[Assistant] Um, and I want to just go through your career. I want to talk about how it all began. And also we've got plenty of questions in about F1 now and maybe as well the future of Formula One too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, I thought I'd start off with some maths, okay? Because I was doing some, I was doing some research on you. Now, on your Wikipedia, it says that your 250th race was in Azerbaijan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Correct. And I did also cross check this with your own Twitter. Yep. Which I think you did celebrate that as well. So I make Belgium your 340th Grand Prix.


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[Assistant] So look, 340 Grand Prix, which is, which is a, an amazing amount, but I want to, I want to understand from the start, was that always your plan to be a Formula One race commentator? When you, when you went to your careers meeting, 15, 16 years old, did you always want her to do that?


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[Assistant] You're perhaps in quite a unique position, having already covered other sports.


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[Assistant] Don't try to be too clever. Yeah. What was your, so your first radio commentary in F1? What, take us back to that moment. What, what was it like? Is it one of those that you look, I feel like a lot of these things when you ask broadcasters for the first time they ever did something, they go, never again. I will never ever watch that back.


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[Assistant] And I actually remember when I, um, Nat Pinkham very kindly took me in Barcelona in 2020. She took me into the paddock for the first time and she just knew everyone. She'd be saying, oh, hello, hi, hello, hello, hello. That's the thing. Cause you knew nobody. How do you know all these people? But obviously that's been in the paddock for many, many years. Like the grid is so hot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's definitely one of those sports, I think the more you know, the more into it you get, the more, the more you'll get out of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From, obviously still now, as to when you, I mean, goodness knows what that adrenaline was when you first started.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, absolutely. A few more questions. Sean on Twitter would like to know which track has the best commentary box and which has the worst.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fascinating, fascinating. Michael on Twitter would like to know if you ever re-watch your races.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To critique your commentary. And if so, have you ever had a, oh, I wish I'd said that moment.


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[Assistant] And one thing I want to ask you about as well is your, you do the Formula One game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The manager, the manager and the sort of the regular one that you, that you, that you play, uh, that you race. That's right. Yeah, yeah. So what is that like to record? And, and I, so many questions is how many lines do you record and how do you, do you just have a big old, do you go in for one day and, and have a list of line after line after line?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. Ever aspired to. Yeah, yeah. And it was, it was amazing that, that final lap. And, and I think...


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[Assistant] And we're trying to process what we're seeing. You're having to process it and speak about it and do it without ums and ahs and all this other things that broadcasters are trying to avoid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, but it just elevates the sporting moment, doesn't it? Having the right commentary at the right moment. Brings me on nicely actually to ask about your favourite sports commentators yourself. Adam on Instagram wanted to know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When was the first time you met Martin? And what was it like? How was your relationship built and developed? Because obviously, you know, it is a relationship you have to nurture and develop, right? Being a co-con.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, we want to get through some more questions. Jay on Instagram would like to know if you could drive any F1 car on any F1 track in history, what would it be and why? And also, can you please tell us the story of you driving an F1 car?


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[Assistant] The reason why we need to tell the story is because I think it's quite remarkable that I fitted into it. Yes. Well, maybe, maybe.


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[Assistant] But, that, it just goes to show the skill of the people who drive the Formula 1 cars, because, you know, we might all sit there at home and go, God.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, maybe not as fast, but I can still drive a Formula 1 car. It doesn't quite work like that, does it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very few people get to drive a Formula One car that are not Formula One. And it's a very small pool of people that have ever done that.


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[Assistant] Let's, we'll try and make it happen a bit extraordinary. Uhm, what else have we got? It's a good idea for a feature.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think he might say yes. Might make it, might make space in his diary. Uhm, what a, just, just sort of running out of time a little bit, but I want to talk about F1 today. And we've got a question here on Twitter of what you would do if you were Stefano Dominicali.


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[Assistant] What would you do to change the rules in F1 to make it more competitive?


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[Assistant] Couple more, two more. One is- Sorry, I go on a bit. No, no, I mean it's brilliant. Uhm, Chris on Instagram would like to know if you enjoyed your time at Download Festival this year. Just a change.


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[Assistant] Next time, next time, next time. I like, I like that, you know, cause we do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, you can walk, especially at Silverstone, you can walk down a Formula One paddock and you will see celebrity after celebrity, musician after musician.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Actually a three pronged and metallic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, final question, um, and sort of, uh, hopefully kind of sums up quite nicely is from Max on Instagram. What do you love most about your job?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah. That's a lovely answer and a very lovely way to end, end the podcast. David Croft. Thank you. Crofty.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Crofty, you'll do nice. Yeah, lovely. Crofty, thank you very much for your time. Uh, we will be back next Tuesday on the Sky Sports Afternoon podcast. Hope you can join us then. Bye for now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hello everybody, welcome to the Sky Sports F1 podcast with me, Matt Baker. I hope you're doing okay. To help me look back on a thrilling Singapore Grand Prix and a win for Carlos Sainz, I'm joined by, well, two ships in the night. We've got Simon coming back from Asia, from Singapore, and Anne, this evening, you're going to go out to Japan.


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[Assistant] Hello to you both. Uh, Simon, firstly, how are you? How's the jet lag?


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[Assistant] Unique experience, certainly is Japan. Okay, let's get straight into it. Our one word race reviews from the Singapore Grand Prix. Simon, let's start with you. You were there, go on, after you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A glimpse, isn't it, into what would have happened perhaps this season if Red Bull hadn't have been so far ahead? And can you beat night fever? And I bet you can, because you'll probably pick one word, which was within the rules.


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[Assistant] Remarkable race. I've gone for Wise, actually. And I've gone for Wise because of Carlos at the front. I thought he was incredible.


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[Assistant] I just, I can barely do one thing at once, let alone what the drivers are doing. I think it's absolutely remarkable, so yeaah.


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[Assistant] Strategic yes, and sometimes strategic races can be guilty of not being overly exciting, or the spectacle of it not being as good, whereas I think no one is in any doubt that the spectacle of this race was phenomenal, certainly those last laps.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's just chat to you about, um, science versus Leclerc. You alluded to it there that they're now quite evenly matched. And if we look at the points, you've got science on 142 points in the, in the drivers' championship, Leclerc on 123. Do you think now, would you say this was the weekend or this, this period since the summer break is where?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ferrari now do officially have two, I mean there's no doubt that Carlos Sainz has been a world class driver, but they've got two excellent drivers who are ready and if they get given the car next year will both be in contention for a world, world championship.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we're waiting to see a lot of things at Suzuka, mainly about the Red Bulls as well. We'll come onto that. Uh, just sort of finally on the, on the Ferrari story, uh, and Anne, what, what, we've obviously spoken about the drivers and where the speed has come in terms of Carlos and, and, and Charles stepping up, but what about the car? Because it seems like since, well, the last two races, Monza,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and, and, and, and Singapore, the cars looked great. I mean, where's this change come from?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's going to be very, very interesting in Suzuka. Simon, let's, let's, let's move on to Red Bull. And this, this was a weekend in which certainly from my perspective, not being there, it felt like Red Bull were on the ropes a little bit all weekend. And we've seen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Haven't we, throughout the season we see Max on a Friday perhaps be, uh, you know, frustrated or annoyed with the way the car's set up. But by Saturday, by Qualy, generally all those problems seem to have eradicated themselves. That's been the trend across the season so far.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This weekend in Singapore, that wasn't the case and he was having problems, wasn't he? All throughout the Saturday and into Sunday. What's your take on, on what went wrong for Red Bull this week, this weekend?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What I was hoping for you to say there, Anne, is that there is some hope and that maybe when we get to Suzuka, Red Bull might not look as good as they did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Christian Horner really this weekend, because it was the first weekend, like I said, that Red Bull looked uncomfortable. We know obviously he was fielding a lot of questions at the start of the weekend on the Helmut Markow comments.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then as the weekend progressed, he was obviously fielding a lot of questions from the media on the lack of performance and the lack of improvement in performance in the Red Bull.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How, how did he, or how was he this weekend? I mean, you must have interviewed him a fair few times throughout the weekend. How did, how did it change and, and, and how has it changed from say early on in the season when obviously everything's going well? I guess this is where you earn your money, isn't it? As a team principal, when the chips are down and when you've got to come out and face the media.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And to be, to be fair when, when you, it's likely they're going to win the Constructors Championship in Suzuka and it's like, exceptionally likely that Max is going to win the Drivers Championship in Qatar. So I guess that will help them move forward and move on very, very quickly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, I want to sort of honourable mentions to some other people within the field and George Russell. I think we need to give a, give a shout out and commiserations to George. He obviously crashed out in that final lap.


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[Assistant] Um, and I think it just goes, just goes to show the fine margins involved in this sport. You know, that one lapse in concentration, if that's what it was, just that, you know, millimeters and he's into the wall and he loses all the points. And, and I don't know if you've ever had any sort of similar experience, but you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, particularly in Singapore, particularly with the physical demands, particularly with the mental demands of that track.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After 62 laps, you then, you then crash out and put it in the wall and lose all the points that you gathered for the team. I mean, that must just make you feel sick, mustn't it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A couple of other stories, the Lando, uh, Lando obviously finished second, but I also want to bunch this in with the, with a chat about Aston Martin as well, because McLaren are closing in on fourth place. There's 78 points behind Aston Martin. And I think what's interesting here is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We talk about how McLaren now, with the, with the upgrades, have got two drivers who can score points consistently over the weekend. Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris are generally there or there about since, since the summer.


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[Assistant] What you made of Mike Crack's comments. He, he said after, after Stroll's crashing call, it was a big hit, meant he wasn't, wasn't in the race on Sunday. He said it's proof that he's in. I think this is another proof that he fully has it. He tried to make it a positive, spin it so that it looked like, yeah, he's committed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you agree? Do you think that that's maybe a bit of a PR line from Aston or do you think Lance is genuinely struggling in that car?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very unique to Formula One as well. Not many sports have your father owning a team.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And your son driving for that team, it was very unlikely to happen in football.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, other, other, other team sports. I can't really imagine that happening. Um, or if it did, that would be quite, kind of, kind of amazing. Uh, okay. One, one other story I just want to wrap up before, before we move on to Japan and that's the Liam Lawson story. We, we mentioned him earlier.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Incredible performance from him. It was his first points in Formula One, finished P9. He also knocked Verstappen out of, out of Q2.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, which meant he could proceed into Q3. And what, what do you, where do you see his future? Because I'm seeing reports on Twitter that, you know, stuff is, is worrying around that obviously Yuki Tsunoda is going to be announced for.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think what, what will be interesting as well is, is what happens with Logan Sargent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's tough to say, but you can be a rookie. You can come into a car and you can look really, really good. I think we've seen that with Oscar Piastri. We've seen what Liam Lawson's done there. And I do wonder if perhaps you might see James Vowles looking at what.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Someone like Lawson has done and go actually is, is, is Logan Sargent our driver for 2024, but I'm sure time will tell as to what happens, what happens with that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Time will tell. Uh, final, final couple of things just, just before we say goodbye. Um, Japan. And you're obviously going out there this, this evening rather, I should say. Uhm, what are your expectations? I know, I know in terms of, we've spoken about the Red Bull and we've spoken about what we think that perhaps they, they might be back with, with a vengeance, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What, yeah, what, what are your expectations for that? And who do you think is going to be looking good around Suzuka?


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[Assistant] On that note, we will leave it. Uh, Simon, and thank you very much for your time. Uh, we'll be back next Tuesday to look back at the Japanese Grand Prix. Hope you can join us then. Bye for now.


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[Assistant] Hello everyone and welcome to this week's episode of the Sky Sports F1 podcast. Coming to you from the lobby of our hotel here in Austin. For this one I'm joined by an array of guests that I've managed to drag here.


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[Assistant] 9am on a Monday morning after a Formula 1 race in Austin. Thank you everyone for coming. We've got Rachel Brooks, we've got Jack Dewan, F2 driver and Alpine reserve driver. We've also got Blake Hintze, who's an F1 content creator.


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[Assistant] Former performance engineer to Max Verstappen, uh, I think that's everyone. Oh, and Texan as well. Howdy y'all. Yeah, there we go. So, uh, very good. Uh, let's start by however one's weeks were. Jack, go on. How was your weekend?


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[Assistant] And Jack, you're only staying three minutes round the corner. So I'm a big fan of how convenient this is.


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[Assistant] Absolutely. Right. Loads to get through on the podcast. I guess the only place to start really is the news that Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were disqualified from the race and


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[Assistant] Let's try and give a brief kind of, uh, overview of what happened. So, so the race finishes, Lewis finishes second, uh, just a couple of seconds behind the, the eventual race winner, Max Verstappen. Uh, they, Hamilton and Leclerc then get referred to the stewards, stewards for excessive wear.


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[Assistant] On the underfloor skid blocks in the car's plank. I'm gonna pause there, Blake.


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[Assistant] Over to you here. What is a, what is, just explain to everyone at home. What is a, what is a plank? Why were they reprimanded?


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[Assistant] Jack, sorry, I just wanted to get your view on this. Mainly in the sense of as a driver, when something like this happens, when...


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[Assistant] Your car is found to be in breach of the, of the rules. There's nothing really you can do about that as a driver, particularly when Lewis, you know, that was an incredible race from Lewis. I mean, goodness knows what would have happened if he'd have won if Mercedes had got their first win of the season. So as a driver, Jack, how, how, what's your reaction when you hear something like this happening?


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[Assistant] Rach, what was the, what was the mood in the pen yesterday? Cause obviously you would have spoken to the drivers before all this news had broken.


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[Assistant] Do you think because it was a sprint race, because they hadn't run those tyres long enough, they didn't have the data, they couldn't have possibly known?


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[Assistant] And you, you realise you're in this no man's land that you, this sort of no man's land that you mentioned. What's that feeling like? How dispiriting is that? And obviously Lewis is a very experienced Formula One driver. He's, he's racing, you know, hundreds and hundreds of races. So he will know and he will be aware, won't he, of just exactly what's going on with the strategy.


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[Assistant] Rachel, this actually though is evidence that Mercedes have come a lot further forward maybe than, than we expected. Toto referenced Japan and how they didn't perform well in Japan. He said this was a similar track in the sense of, you know, fast flowing circuit. And they were, they realistically could have won the race apart from the disqualification. They could have won the race yesterday.


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[Assistant] Like you, you've worked with Gian Piero Lambiatti, uh, Max's race engineer. What do you make of the, I know they have this, this sort of strange relation, I don't even know what we, how we define their relationship.


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[Assistant] Let's say old married couple. You've worked with him and we've worked with both of them. So how do you kind of see that relationship?


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[Assistant] Let's move on to a couple of the other big stories from the weekend. And I want to talk actually about McLaren's success through the lens of Alpine, if that's okay, Jack, because I think, yeah. Well, this is my question to you is because last year, 2022, Alpine finished fourth ahead of McLaren.


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[Assistant] And are Alpine looking at what McLaren are doing? And does it, does it inspire Alpine to go, well, look, if that's the turnaround that can happen mid season, not even, not even in the off season, mid season, then where Alpine are now, they can absolutely within the space of six to eight months, you could, you could be where McLaren are, I guess, at the moment.


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[Assistant] If you, I mean, I'm just going to say later data in front of you. How, how have you made sense of McLaren's improvement in, in Ford?


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[Assistant] Alpine have had a really interesting weekend, Jack. And, and I say that more in terms of who you've managed to get on board with the team.


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[Assistant] You managed to get Ansi Joshua, Rory McIlroy, Patrick Mahomes, Trent Alexander-Arnold, all involved in the consortium.


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[Assistant] Swifty. Swifty, yeaah, there we go. Very, very exciting. I thought Esteban's comments were really interesting. Esteban said he thinks it will help him perform better.


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[Assistant] Can you, can you just unpack that a little bit? What, what kind of influence does, does having that sort of those names, those sporting names come to a team? What impact does that have on, on everyone within the team?


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[Assistant] Yeah, good to see that Logan's finally got some points for Formula One, and particularly after retiring in Qatar. You know, I think, I think that's a nice, it's a nice moment that it's happened the week.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and double points for Williams as well with Alborn, Alborn and P9. And the sort of final, final thing I want to talk to you guys about really is sprint races. And this was, this was obviously the fifth of the sixth this year.


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[Assistant] Let's do a little round the table. Uh, I'll start with you, Blake. How do you feel about sprint races in Formula One? How successful do you think they've been and what would you do to improve them?


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[Assistant] Final, final point, we've got a few minutes left, uhm, Mexico, you're gonna get behind the wheel of the Alpine. It's Monday today, you'll be doing that on Friday of this week, just walk me through the next five days, how are you gonna spend it and what are you gonna be doing?


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[Assistant] It's strange. I do find the FT calendar strange in the sense of you, the last time you raced was Monza. You're not going to be racing an F2 to Labadabi. So it's a big gap, isn't it? It's a massive gap. So how, how are you like physically, how are you keeping yourself sharp and race sharp?


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[Assistant] Exactly, I think James is going to get it now. Very good. Rachel, Jack, Blake, thank you so much for your time. We're going to be back next Tuesday. I hope you can join us then. Bye for now.


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[Assistant] Well, it's, we've done the classic thing of, of everybody said, oh, but we've got that break in April, haven't we? So we'll save it for then. And now the break in April's come around and we find ourselves with a lot of...


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[Assistant] I'm going to say, I'm not going to complain too much about it. We've got some really exciting shoots planned over the next couple of weeks that will take us into Baku and beyond. So not going to complain, but yeah, it's definitely not downtime. Um, as much as I'm sure everyone else at home and listening are counting down the days you sit at the top of the show mat until Baku, which, um,


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[Assistant] I've got quite a soft spot for Baku, I quite like it as a race, so looking forward to going back. I think it's a good one to come back to after a bit of a time away.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it's interesting. I don't think I really came down to a conclusion as to whether I enjoyed it as a fan or not. And for a lot of the reasons that both Simon and Damon have said, in that it clearly, it was a confusing format.


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[Assistant] In fun- in fundamentals, because as we've said, it impacted...


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[Assistant] More than just the days it was running, like the whole faff around qualifying not actually being set, like setting the fastest, uh, position for the race on Sunday. It caused a lot of debate and I could definitely see why and the fact that we've got now an asterisk in the history books from year one in terms of the pole sitter isn't actually the pole sitter. That's all been very confusing. So I think


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[Assistant] That was a complexity that maybe just hadn't been thought through very well. So the fact that that's changing, I think, and has changed for this year is better.


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[Assistant] And when they first came out, I was definitely in the camp of this is too gimmicky. I don't like this. I'm quite a traditionalist. I like my Saturdays and Sundays staying as they were. There's no denying that every time we've had a sprint, it's massively impacted the race on a Sunday. Um, and because we essentially,


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[Assistant] Again, to Damon's point, having a third of a race on a Saturday and then two thirds on a Sunday, you did get a sense of, you only have to think back to Silverstone 2021.


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[Assistant] If we hadn't have had the sprint, that race, the result would never have been the result that we had. I don't think Max and Lewis would have come together because Lewis knew, having run the sprint, that if Max gets away on lap one, that's it, race over. So you did have that


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[Assistant] You did have that added information that the drivers and teams had in order to


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[Assistant] Potentially make Sundays more interesting. Uhm, but, yeaah, it's, our jury was, was still out. The, the issue I kind of have,


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[Assistant] With, with the, the new proposed format is again, it feels just a little gimmicky. Like what, what do we do sprints for? Yes, entertainment. Yes, more racing, but it's just.


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[Assistant] For me, whilst leaving Sunday alone, which again to Damon's point I completely agree with, leave the sanctity of the racing alone, are we ultimately diluting the product by having lots of racing across a weekend? And I think that's...


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[Assistant] I'm, I'm happy to, to, to see it, but I'm also, for me as well, I don't, I don't... Why are we doing it for six races in a year?


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[Assistant] Surely if it's a race weekend format, that's the race weekend format.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I'm definitely all in favour of getting rid of practice sessions because they're just, as Damon said, but this is the whole nature of where the sport's going. You know, we never used to televise practice sessions, but we took it because it's more content.


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[Assistant] And, you know, that's, that's, that's kind of, I guess, an issue for, for broadcasters like us is that we're greedy and we want to broadcast everything.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but, you know, practice was never there to be broadcast. And I guess to Damon's point earlier, when you, Damon, you spoke about why the format changed in the first place. I guess the reasons we had warm-ups and everything was also to do with how reliable the cars were. Like, the cars these days, this day and age are so reliable.


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[Assistant] You almost want to take away the ability for them to dial it in and get it perfect straight away. And having three practice sessions.


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[Assistant] You know, we've seen how good the racing can get when there is a rained off FP2, which obviously is the...


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[Assistant] We take that away from them and things start to shake up a little bit.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and obviously the new regulation changes were to try and help that in the, in terms of its purest form. You know, fundamentally we do need to get the racing right and we want a competitive


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[Assistant] Grid, I think the issue is that there are so many variables at play in order to get that to a point.


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[Assistant] And what I've always thought is that F1's problem is, is it changes a lot of things at once.


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[Assistant] And then you don't really get to see the full impact of one change and whether that is, I mean, I mean, it's a thankless task, I think, to try and come up with the crux of why


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[Assistant] Racing is deemed boring or what the, what the fix is. Cause I mean, we've had regulation change, we've had cost cap, we've had sprint, we've had all these different things come into play to try and alleviate boring races. Cause that's fundamentally what this is coming down to, right? It's about providing entertainment and making sure that it's, it's at its pinnacle.


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[Assistant] And then added to that complexity, you've also F1 and the FIA, there are so many stakeholders at play that each have a say. So, you know, we're talking about changing weekend format. A big part of that is the promoters.


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[Assistant] F1 is starting to command so much money, I mean, always has commanded a lot of money, but is now commanding


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[Assistant] Like, eye-watering sum of money for these promoters to host places, you know, they're talking about, there's rumours that we might even be going up 25 races next year, uhm, rather than 24, as previously said. And we've always known that Domenicali's talked about 30 races at some point. Each one of those need to sell tickets.


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[Assistant] And if we're saying actually to get better racing on a Sunday, we drop Friday practice, what have they got to sell for their weekend tickets? All of a sudden there's nothing for anybody to watch on a Friday at all.


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[Assistant] We saw, we saw the almost perfect season recently, didn't we? I mean, 2021 was, was absolutely,


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[Assistant] I know I'll be careful, I'll be careful, but let's-


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[Assistant] Abu Dhabi aside, let's put that back in a box somewhere, off to one side. But, you know, as controversial as it was,


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[Assistant] There were some absolutely outstanding races. There were two teams properly in it. It just, it was...


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[Assistant] And it got everybody, that was the, that was the season that got everybody, whether you were a new fan, an old fan, you know, someone that had fallen out of love with the sport and come back. Like that was the, that was the season where everyone went, this is it. Like this is it. This is how we, we need to bottle this up and do this. And obviously then the regulations changed.


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[Assistant] This is the guy who said he's completed Formula One after winning his first...


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[Assistant] I think that's what he's saying, like if we're adding more races, putting more, like, you know, more strain on drivers, more travel, and then you're adding...


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[Assistant] These mini-races into that mix. I think that's what he was upset about. He's saying that the, the,


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[Assistant] What, what I'm being paid for, what we are agreeing is my base rate. You're now asking me.


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[Assistant] Like media stuff, like everything that comes with that. And what I think what you're saying is if you- there's gonna come a point where I don't- I won't wanna do any of it.


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[Assistant] That's another level of complexity, isn't it, Damon? Because there's all the, uh, how do they, what's the politically correct way of phrasing it? The Ferrari fund?


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[Assistant] The, the, the, the loyalty fund. How many, how many Grand Prix, how many years, how many seasons have you competed in? You get another little bump because obviously there was a time where you wanted to make sure that teams stuck with it. Nowadays it's so much of an investment.


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[Assistant] You're probably not going to get as much of a kickback of teams going, mmm, actually, we're done.


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[Assistant] Uhm, especially if it was competitive and especially if the prize money was, I guess the financial structure of it was a bit fairer. I mean, we're going down a whole other rabbit hole here.


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[Assistant] I mean, there are various levels that they have to go through, you know, the World Motorsport Council has to agree and...


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[Assistant] And they've already sent them, right? They've already, they've already made the selections and sent them out. And the worry is, is that there aren't enough of the, you know,


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[Assistant] Qualifying tyres to, to do two qualifying sessions, it's, it's not.


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[Assistant] Tenable for them right now, and as, as we're recording...


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[Assistant] Offered up in terms of, well, will, will we have more tyres or what, what are we going to have to do? Like it's, it's, that is logistically something that is still a massive, massive question mark.


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[Assistant] I mean, we all love talking about tyres, don't we?


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[Assistant] But, but that is, that is, that is an issue. I mean, are we gonna see people having to go out and qualify on hard tyres? That's, that's just, that would just be bonkers. I mean, it would cause a mix-up.


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[Assistant] If people, if people have to factor in how many sets they want to keep in reserve for...


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[Assistant] For the different qualifying sessions, et cetera. But again, like, I mean, good luck to, uh, to, to us trying to explain that to people at home. I just think it's just...


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[Assistant] To the, to the very front and make, make points advantage, then you go, eh, alright, I'll settle for 8th, and then I'll be on the front of the grid for the next race. And granted, okay, the points aren't as, for, for as many, but it's, I think,


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[Assistant] When I'm trying to explain, when people have come to me and said, oh yeaah, love watching Formula One, I'm quite interested in getting into the junior categories.


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[Assistant] It is something that I find hard to explain to them exactly how it works over the course of a weekend, especially with


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[Assistant] The, the latest updates and changes to the series. So, it's just, I don't...


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[Assistant] I think that's where I would agree with Formula, with, with Max, that it's not in the, it's not in its DNA. Yes, it's great to see drivers carve their way through, we've had great races, you know, even, although Max made, you know,


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[Assistant] Very light work of it. Saudi was good to see how far he could, he was gonna get up and whether he could win.


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[Assistant] But, I dunno, having that as the format rather than on the occasion that something goes wrong or there's a penalty applied, like,


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[Assistant] I'm, I've always been vehemently against reverse, the idea of reverse grids. I just don't, I just think it's just not necessary. It's basically what it's saying is that we've not done our job, like F1 has not done its job, if we're having to think about


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[Assistant] Making the fastest driver at the back to make it entertaining. I think that's what it's saying for me. It's making it not a...


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[Assistant] So to our point earlier about making things seem special, those races are the ones we remember because they're such epic drives from people. Not the rule.


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[Assistant] Rob Smedley said on this podcast a couple of episodes ago in terms of, you know, we need to be realistic. They've had a pretty major change in getting rid of Bonotto totally from Ferrari. I mean, I think a lot, what a lot of people tend to forget is that he was straddling, Bonotto was straddling a number of jobs at Ferrari and


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[Assistant] You know, with hindsight, maybe that wasn't the right way to go and he should have kind of given over a bit of his technical directorship over a little bit, which was starting to happen, but.


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[Assistant] Potentially not fast enough. Uhm, Fred is, is, is, is got stuck in straight away. Uhm, but it's gonna take time for that change to


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[Assistant] Essentially become impact and, and for us to see what's going on behind the scenes, so.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I don't, I don't want to say, I don't want to write them off. I don't think anybody should be written off. Again, we've only had three races this season so far and don't forget that we were talking, I know it's slightly different.


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[Assistant] We were almost writing off Red Bull this time last year because of their reliability issues and look what happened there. So I think...


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[Assistant] It's, it is early doors, uhm, there's, there's clearly, you know, from what Fred's reported back already, there's clearly a lot of, that still needs to change.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but, you know, everybody wants, we all want to see all of these teams up there and fighting and getting in the mix and at least causing Red Bull a little bit of a headache. And you know, that can pick up on opportunities where Red Bull maybe falls down because


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[Assistant] Uhm, whilst they, Red Bull definitely have all the makings of the ability to win most of the races this year.


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[Assistant] That's still a very tall ask of one team, so we need, we need.


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[Assistant] I'm really well, thanks Matt, thanks for having me. It's a real, it's a real pleasure. And yeah, I really have made all my favourite things into work, which is a huge problem.


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[Assistant] Well, I can't, I can't let the side down. This was a, this was a very, like a knee-jerk, instinctive decision when the lockdowns happened. I thought, what am I without a microphone?


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[Assistant] And so I made the spare room into the podcast room and that's where I'm broadcasting from today. And the podcast room is, is something that I call it. My wife, Bella does not refer to it as the podcast room, which is like, it's not that it's the spare room. Get over yourself.


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[Assistant] Yeah, the Fast and the Curious celebrates all aspects of the sport. The off air, the on air, the on track, the off track, and...


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[Assistant] Crofty is uhm, is one of those figures that transcends the sport really and I met him maybe about 10 years ago, uhm, we nerded out on radio and we sort of did the same thing on the latest episode of the Fast and the Curious because I personally think that


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[Assistant] Great commentators have learned a lot of their craft while doing radio because obviously they are describing the pictures.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and with it, and his career and his craft, I guess, without sounding too pretentious, but it is a craft, it's a real skill to be that good at commentary.


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[Assistant] And uhm, we just had a really fun chat and we, we, we nerded out about radio things and fast things and uhm, and also we got him to do some commentary of mundane things that our listeners had sent in. This was great. This was so good. It's, it's all in the tone with a commentator. If you,


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[Assistant] Like it's, it's, that was a terrible Croft impression. Crofty watch out. No, no, no, no, no. But the, I find it so interesting, the pacing of commentary, the way that you draw in the viewer or the listener with a, with just a little bit of description of the, of the place or the weather or the, um, or the view that they have. So we talked about


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[Assistant] Test match special was obviously a huge influence on me because I could just listen to my favourite thing. And I think it was just on quite a lot because my mum and dad would listen to the cricket. And I've always been obsessed with sports.


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[Assistant] Coverage, I guess, uhm, probably as much as I'm obsessed with the sport itself. I really love the way it's presented, packaged up, and uhm, and we talked a lot about that, and I think the team at Sky, particularly brilliant, you're brilliant at bringing the Grand Prix to life, the Sky cricket team is the same, the BBC 5 live


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[Assistant] Sport team, like the football team, I think they're, they're amazing as well, like John Murray and Juliet Farrington, all these characters. I think they're so, I'm, I'm really in awe. That's, that's when I, when I listen to the radio and I hear sports commentary, that's the thing I go.


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[Assistant] Wow, I just, I don't, I don't know how I, how you do that. I think it's, it's such a brilliant underappreciated skill. So it was, it was amazing. Short answer is loved having Crofty on. He's welcome back.


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[Assistant] The clarity of thought to see it from a strange angle because it's very difficult to see perspectives, isn't it? You can't really get a good angle of cars that are going that fast. So he's, he knows every single thing, every move and you can work out


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[Assistant] Who's nudging ahead on a corner and, and I, I try and, I, I try and practice. I try and do it. If I'm at home watching on, on telly, I'll go, how would I do this? How would I, cause I don't know who that, who is that?


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[Assistant] Oh, hang on, Lando, oh no, that's Oscar. So you do that bit of that. And the same with tennis, I find that extraordinary. Tennis on the radio, because you've got quite long, long named tennis players. Yeah. Medvedev, Djokovic, cross-court forehand from Djokovic.


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[Assistant] And you've just, suddenly you've completely lost the thread. So I'm nothing but respect for people that bring sport to us. I find it so interesting.


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[Assistant] Mainly because I was, I've always been obsessed with cars and I love everything to do with cars and it's...


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[Assistant] I wouldn't say it's a secret passion of mine, but I don't go on about it too much. I know that I've now got a full podcast, but it was always a thing which ever since I was a kid, I would always want to drive something, be in a thing that was moving.


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[Assistant] Make a thing move, anything with wheels, whether it be a little tractor that I had when I was a kid that was a pedal thing, or changing the gears in my mum's car on the way to school.


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[Assistant] All of that stuff I was completely obsessed with driving and that was the only thing I ever wanted to do as a grown up was get in a car and drive. So I would do...


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[Assistant] The thing at Brands Hatch, I don't know if they still do, I'm sure they do, it's like an early, it's called early years or early drive or something where you could go and drive the, uhm, the horseshoe at Brands Hatch.


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[Assistant] We lived in Bromley in Kent, so quite near. And, um, and so I did that on my, I think my 15th and 16th birthday. I was like, please, I just want to drive a car. And then, so when I was 17, my, obviously my only present was a driving lesson and that was sort of it. It was the only thing I ever wanted to do. And I've always been fascinated with.


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[Assistant] Video games that are either Colin McRae Rally, World Rally Championship.


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[Assistant] Uhm, having an actual steering wheel and pedals when I was a kid, that's really all I did. It was just like Grand Theft Auto, just anything that had a car.


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[Assistant] But with Grand Theft Auto, I'd hate the missions, and I would just drive a bus around for a couple of hours. Yeah, very much the same. Yeah, yeah, I remember that. Right, so there's a whole load, and I know I'm not unique at all in that way, but there's a whole load of people that just could not wait to drive. Yeah.


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[Assistant] I got obsessed with everything. Everything from like, quite boring family cars to...


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[Assistant] Sort of like really nice, uh, executive cars to like sports cars and at Jaguar XJ220s that you could collect from Shell service stations with the right amount of vouchers. Anything, remote control cars, anything I could make move was kind of it.


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[Assistant] And, and then I just therefore graduated onto... Oh! Grand Prix! They're like, they're the fastest cars in the world!


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[Assistant] And they're extraordinary, and they're like rocket ships, and I suppose it was the time of Damon Hill, really, that I was like, oh, and then Jensen Button, I was like, oh, these people are quite fun, and then obviously Schumacher, and all those sorts of complete legends, so it was around that era.


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[Assistant] I've never pretended to be and never said that I'm the world's biggest Formula One fan or know everything about it.


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[Assistant] And I compare all my sporting knowledge to my cricket knowledge, which is really, really good. And then everything else is kind of pretty good that I really like. And part of the reason to do the Fast and the Curious was because I wanted to dive into it even more. And Christian, who's one of the hosts alongside Betty, so Christian, Hugh Gill and Betty Glover.


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[Assistant] Uh, he is a complete Formula One racing addict. He is an encyclopedia. He knows it all. He's got all the notebooks. He's written everything down. He's been obsessed since he was about eight years old and he's got


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[Assistant] All the details from every single race since about 20, maybe 2005.


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[Assistant] And we just got chatting, we met at Radio 1 when he was on Newsbeat and he would do the sport and he did the news a bit on my show. And we just got chatting and became friends and he was the person I would message during a Grand Prix because I'd go, why?


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[Assistant] What's happening here? Tell me more about the, tell me more about the compact, the tyre compounds. Just try and explain to me.


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[Assistant] They explained to me, from scratch, DRS. Just, you know, all of that, all of those sorts of things, and uhm...


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[Assistant] And I, and I really love, I love the granular detail of a sport. I think it's, I think it's brilliant. If you've got time to dive into a sport, then you really should. I've got so much out of cricket, just


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[Assistant] Sounds so tragic, but I get so much out of the stats and the history and the form of players and the internal battles of each player and why they're getting picked, why they're not getting picked, why is that person's action more economical than that person's action?


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[Assistant] The development of some of the shots like Joe Root suddenly changing his whole game to add new shots to scoops and ramps and all the rest of it. I find that so interesting. So really I needed someone to help me do that with Formula One and Christian was the perfect person. And then he had left Newsbeat and I'd said to him, oh we should make a


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[Assistant] Make a podcast at some point, you'd be brilliant, and I'd really love hearing him enthuse about it. In fact, I heard him do...


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[Assistant] And I found it so funny that I messaged him and said, well that was brilliant because I didn't hear anything you were saying, but I knew you were excited about the Grand Prix. I knew that he wanted people to love it as much as him.


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[Assistant] And that's what I thought, that's what I love about doing my cricket podcast, TailEnders, is that you hopefully find people who want to love it as much as you do. They might never get to that level of self-obsession, and I probably will never get to the level of obsession of Christian Huguil. I'll probably be divorced if that happens.


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[Assistant] But that was it, I thought, well this person clearly loves the sport, gets why lots of people don't understand it, and I think that's crucial in the Fast and the Curious' success so far, which is...


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[Assistant] Not pandering to people and not dumbing down too much, but just appreciating the fact that people learn at different rates and will find different parts of it interesting and therefore different parts of it boring. So, The Personal Curious was supposed to be a


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[Assistant] A place to hang out, if you really like Formula One, you can get access to the drivers and to people behind the scenes, whether it be Randy Singh, who's one of the McLaren strategists.


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[Assistant] Or to Toto Walford, to all these sorts of amazing characters, or the lesser known people who are the engineers, or working on different bits of strategy, or working in the, in the garage or whatever.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and alongside celebrating the fans of the sport and welcoming them in and using them as the hosts and using them for games and using them for ideas. A bit like I do on The Breakfast Show, because the show is hosted by me on Radio 1.


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[Assistant] Really, it's, it's, it's, the listeners are supposed to be the star of it. So we've got the drivers, we've got the listeners, we want to marry those two worlds together to demystify certain parts of the sport. So that's essentially the fast and the curious.


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[Assistant] The circus of it, which everyone talks about, I guess the circus has become a bit of a cliche actually, but I guess the calendar of it and actually getting your head around the logistics of it and having to move that.


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[Assistant] Wholesale all around the world. Learning that there are European sort of...


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[Assistant] Trucks that only take the, the, the, uhm, the, uh, big motor homes to the European destinations and then there's a whole one for...


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[Assistant] How come there's this huge mansion for every single team? Who's building this? Well this is mad. So all of that I find brilliant. And then getting to know some of the teams. So we've been working closely with, well most of the teams really, but with uhm,


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[Assistant] We got invited to the, the, to the Silverstone, the British Grand Prix at Silverstone with, uhm, with McLaren, and seeing how they...


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[Assistant] What's their week like? What's their race week like? What's their race weekend like? And we actually, we bumped into Randy, Randy Singh.


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[Assistant] Their chief strategist on the Saturday evening. We were just leaving the paddock. We just recorded some stuff.


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[Assistant] The most extraordinary motorized vehicles ever created, literally around the corner in the back of the garage, around, away from that, away from the glitz and the glamour and the photoshoots and the whatever else and the pomp and the fireworks and Cavanares performing and all that stuff. There is a man who is stressed out.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I'm, I'm really nervous about tomorrow, sort of thinking about, you know, what, are we going to do a one-stop, a two-stop, or, sort of, yeah, just thinking about the ties, have a chat to, you know, Lando a bit later, and,


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[Assistant] Of, of that, I think, and I, I just thought, well, of course, of course that happens, cause that's, it's a job for people. But you don't really see that. You, you don't think, but there's, there's a Randy in every team and there's, you know, there's departments full of people that are just going.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, we're gonna try and drive as fast as possible tomorrow, but I really don't... I don't know what we're gonna do. There might be a bit of rain, and he was talking about how they spot the rain, and who's gonna be telling everyone stuff. So, I love all the detail of it.


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[Assistant] I guess my answer is, they all go to the toilet like normal human beings. That's the most surprising thing about Formula 1. But the most surprising thing about the drivers is how calm they are.


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[Assistant] At all times. I mean, it's not a huge surprise, but actually seeing it is, is extraordinary. They are.


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[Assistant] They are not like you or me. They aren't, they are not like every other human being really. They are wired differently. There's a stillness. There's in interviews when they're being interviewed, we interviewed Oscar Piastri quite early on. I just couldn't believe how still he was. He is the stillest.


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[Assistant] Measured, unflappable, but of course you have to be. And then very relaxed, walking in and out of the home, the motorhome all weekend, saying hi to fans who are in there.


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[Assistant] Special guests who have been brought in by McLaren, stop and talk to them, have a photo with someone's kid, chat to us, you know, and pretend to be interested in everyone else, but actually all they're thinking about is driving that car as fast and as, and as smartly as possible.


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[Assistant] Incredibly impressive. Seeing top level sports people is something that, I mean it is like meeting a superhero. You just can't quite believe that that is the same person that then goes and sits in that car and drives it that fast for that long. It's uhm, I find that quite special actually. There's a real magic to


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[Assistant] It's very, very exciting. It's a very exciting sport and I, and I've always been drawn to it. And this season, more than ever really, uh, cause I've been following closely for work purposes, but it's really helped me really dive into, into the calendar.


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[Assistant] On the grid, I'm not working with the team, I'm not helping out, I'm not part of the official coverage.


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[Assistant] It, it feel, you feel a little bit like, I felt a bit like a lost child on the first day of school, big school. So I was looking around, I was looking around in the playground, sort of going, oh god, look at the sick formers, they're massive. Oh my god, I'm never gonna be.


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[Assistant] That tall and, and then sort of looking at the teachers being like, oh, I don't know if that's, I don't know, I don't know who any, not that I didn't know who anyone was, but you just kind of go, Oh God, is that, that's the coverage for whatever. So I felt a little bit.


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[Assistant] It's very intense. I mean, it's loud. You've got celebs walking past you and I've obviously encountered a few of them doing my job. So I knew of Hannah Waddingham.


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[Assistant] And then you've got Cara Delevingne, who's, but I saw the moment where she was interviewed by


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[Assistant] By Martin Brundle. It's sort of like a Where's Wally. Imagine if you were in a Where's Wally picture. And I'm the Wally in the middle.


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[Assistant] But you, you can't see for people. And then in the background, the even madder things, there's madness surrounding us, so all these famous people.


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[Assistant] Uh, photographers, all the teams, all the mechanics, just crowding around the cars, keeping everyone happy and more, you know, cool and everything. And then in the distance, we saw Brad Pitt walking towards


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[Assistant] His Formula One car, cause they were filming the, the, uh, the, the film that he's in.


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[Assistant] Uhm, at the actual start line of the British Grand Prix. So then you saw the fuss, the fake mechanics, the fake Formula One team.


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[Assistant] The film crew, the fake film crew, and then the actual film crew following Brad Pitt. So the whole thing was a complete mess. It was a extraordinary thing. And then you got Damien Lewis singing the national anthem.


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[Assistant] The drivers have to deal with all of that and then go and drive at 200 and whatever miles an hour. So, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a real mess.


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[Assistant] And I, and you know, I think Martin Brundle brings it across perfectly. That is exactly what it is like.


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[Assistant] Uh, very luckily I've been to, I've been to two or, I've been to three British Grand Prix's now.


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[Assistant] Uh, and I've been to, I've been to Spa a couple of times as well, and it's, there's really nothing like it. And you're just totally engrossed in this mad spectacle, which is essentially a very simple spectacle, which is who drives fastest around this circuit.


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[Assistant] But there's so much more to it and there's so many different factions as well which I think really adds to it. There's so many teams and there's so many drivers that the crowd is


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[Assistant] Obviously divided, but weirdly united. They just want it to be really fun and they want it to be a great, close race. And I think that that gives it a certain spice as well because you've obviously in the British Grand Prix, you've got your, you've got your George fans, your Lewis fans and your Lando fans.


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[Assistant] But you've also got a load of Ferrari fans, you've got people who just love Mercedes, you've got people who were cheering for Valtteri Bottas, you know, because they just love him. You've got people who were just shouting because they spot Gunter Steiner, and they're like, I know you from Tribe to Survive!


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[Assistant] And there's so much you can latch onto with Formula One that you can't help but be excited at the madness of it. And it is sort of...


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[Assistant] It's a sort of beautiful nonsense, Formula One, really. I mean, I love that they just really press the button and they go, yeah, well it's kind of a mad stop, should we just send the red arrows over?


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[Assistant] Send them over. Yeah, why not? We can do what we like. We are Formula One. So it's, it's nothing like it to answer your question short, in a short way. It is, uh, it's unparalleled in terms of a sporting event. It's like nothing else.


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[Assistant] So yeaah, there are lots of parallels. Uhm, I am really interested in...


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[Assistant] Why people like sport, and what bits of it people really like. So...


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[Assistant] The lucky thing with, or the reason, the reason we started TailEnders was, was uhm, because we thought it would be really fun and we wanted to get Jimmy to do some fun, Jimmy Anderson to do some fun stuff, but really, the uh,


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[Assistant] The other option about, if I wanted to do something with cricket, because cricket is one of my biggest passions, if I wanted to do cricket stuff, I would have to sort of be a cricket pundit, or a cricket commentator, or a cricket anchor.


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[Assistant] And I've done a bit of that, cricket presenting and anchoring, and I didn't really enjoy it that much because it started making my favourite fun thing into quite a serious job.


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[Assistant] So, TailEnders was born out of that really. It was to shirk that responsibility of having to do the cricket line. What's, but what's the, but we need to hold these players to account for how badly they're doing in, in, in India. Like, it was, it was to try and negate that a little bit.


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[Assistant] Which was just to say, that is done brilliantly somewhere else, and you need all these things, because if you don't have that, then our thing doesn't make sense, and if you have that, you might, you know, you need something for everybody, I guess, to a certain extent.


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[Assistant] So that's what Tailenders was. It was our attempt to go, we don't think there's any, any, anyone really doing this on the BBC at the minute.


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[Assistant] TMS is obviously really fun, but they're hamstrung by the cricket, because they have to do the cricket. Where sometimes...


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[Assistant] We got sick of the cricket and in the pandemic there was no cricket. So we had to just have that podcast survive on its community and cricket stories from the past and looking to the future and all the rest of it. So it was really to celebrate the sport in the way that I've always loved it, which is to


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[Assistant] When the cricket's on, be really obsessed with it. When the cricket's not on, look at all the stories around it. Look at...


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[Assistant] Celebrate village cricket and talk about all those sorts of stories and it's bringing all those worlds together and Jimmy was the, is the linchpin of that. We all, we're all, we all love cricket for the same reason, even Jimmy, because you love the game.


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[Assistant] At whatever level it's at. So I guess we have, I have sort of transported some of those ideas across to the Fast and the Curious, but it was to really get an insight into those drivers because


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[Assistant] There's always a bit of chat about, uuuh, F1 drivers are a bit boring, aren't they? Drive to Survivors really helped with that, but...


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[Assistant] I've never believed in that really, because if you have chosen to do that with your life, you're definitely weird.


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[Assistant] You're definitely, you've definitely got a screw loose and you're definitely interesting therefore because you've decided to get really hot in a very dangerous machine and drive it as fast as you can on the absolute edge of crashing like a catastrophic accident.


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[Assistant] So I think there's a lot, I just thought no, they've got to be interesting, there's definitely something going on here. And the other thing about the person curious is that we wanted to pitch it so that it wasn't, sort of, it wasn't too...


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[Assistant] Pundity. I don't, I don't actually want to see it as a motorsport podcast because there are some, as I said earlier, there are some brilliant ones that already do that. So this is much more of an entertainment-y lifestyle podcast where we don't have to ask, uh,


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[Assistant] Lance Stroll about his, you know, confidence levels. Do you think you're gonna have a seat next season type thing? We don't have to ask that. We can, we can talk to them.


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[Assistant] A little bit about racing and their process and where they started and all the rest of it and what they think of.


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[Assistant] The world and things and traveling around and all those sorts of things. So I, that was, that was really key for me. Uhm, and again I don't, it's not shirking, it's just that those things are done brilliantly elsewhere.


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[Assistant] But I wanted to make the drivers feel as if they were the co-hosts, not the guests. I think that was the crucial thing about the Fast and the Curious and they, and they do seem to get it really. They, they like playing around with it and they know that they're not going to get a gotcha question.


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[Assistant] My friends still take the mickey out of me when I try and talk to them about football because I'm not as big a fan as they are. They've got sort of draft leagues that they're in. I can't bother with that because I'm too busy doing my cricket draft leagues. But I really hope that I never, I hope I never make people feel


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[Assistant] Unwelcome to talk to me about cricket because i love it when someone comes up and goes, i watched, i watched harry brook the other day. Isn't harry brook brilliant. I'm going.


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[Assistant] But, you just go, that's amazing that you know about that. Let's talk some more about it. Are you going to get down to the Oval soon, or whatever it might be. So uhm, yeaah, the gatekeeping thing, you will always have this in


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[Assistant] In every sport, and my article was not to try and fix the problem. But the podcast is not even to try and fix the problem, it's to give people a destination.


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[Assistant] And to say this is a Formula One podcast for you if you're open minded and you want to hear about some silly stuff and you want to have a laugh with a nice group of people. And also we will go serious when we want to.


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[Assistant] I love that things go serious sometimes and then they go light all of a sudden, because that's what life's like. But that's really it. Yeaah, the gatekeeping in sport has always put me off certain sports.


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[Assistant] You get it a lot in Formula One, and you'll always get that. There'll be people who, uh, will think that I shouldn't be on this Formula One podcast, and that's absolutely fine for people to think that.


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[Assistant] Uhm, you wouldn't, you never, and there's lots of, and when I started looking into the Formula One world, there's a whole load of people that are like, well, you're only a fan because I drive to survive.


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[Assistant] Good, because you need, you need people, you need new people to come into your favourite sport, whether you like it or not. And I have those feelings sometimes about cricket. When the hundred came along, I went, I was like, grrrr, but test cricket's the purest, the purest


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[Assistant] As long as all the things can coexist, then that's brilliant.


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[Assistant] But the reason why Formula One will survive is only if new people come to it, which means, I mean, very cynically.


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[Assistant] These people that run sport are not stupid. They need new people because that's more money. They need to broaden it out to a younger, more female audience because that is more money. There's more families through the door. And I know that's cynical, but that's sort of how it works. That is...


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[Assistant] That's uhm, that's what happens, that's what happens with capitalism. You know, you need to broaden these things out in order for them to grow. And uhm,


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[Assistant] I do think it's really important for sport to appeal to lots of people and also


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[Assistant] The other thing is you don't need everyone to love it as much as the biggest nerds in the whole world. You don't need that. You just need an entry point to it and go. Oh, I like.


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[Assistant] I like Total Warp, it seems fun, I'm gonna, I'm gonna watch it. I'm gonna go to a Grand Prix, I'm gonna buy a hat.


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[Assistant] Or whatever it is. So there's lots of different ways you can get into the sport.


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[Assistant] Well, the genius touch was to do Drive to Survive.


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[Assistant] And tell stories, that was, they're obviously very different sports, cricket and Formula 1, but uhm, it's the stories and the battles and the drama.


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[Assistant] Uhm, within the teams and, and within the, within the, within the, just the personalities really. So that was, that was the real genius move. And then actually at the Grand Prix themselves, Silverstone is sort of trying to turn itself into an actual festival.


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[Assistant] So obviously, you camp there, you stay there, you've got Calvin Harris performing, you've got Tom Grennan performing, you've got DJs all day, you've got events on the main stage, so.


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[Assistant] You've got simulators, you've got, you know, the F1 2023 game was, was there. You've got all of those sorts of things, which make it more of a festival and make it more of a destination to hang out for the weekend. It's like, it's a theme park essentially. And that's, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Um, as long as you, as long as.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The sport itself is attractive to everybody at some point, and it needs to still be really good. And that's I think what the breakthrough of the hundred was this year, is that the standard of the cricket, particularly in the men's game,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was really brilliant. It was really world class. And what you've seen with the, with the new formats of cricket, I mean T20 is not even new anymore, but when it came in, you now see all the different formats of the game.


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[Assistant] Coexisting, still scheduling problems and issues with money, but you've got transferable skills now, so you see the skills of the short form game coming into the test game, which makes that more exciting, innovates it, changes it again for another year, so uhm.


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[Assistant] I think all these things can help each other, so to translate that to Formula 1.


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[Assistant] If it becomes a more attractive thing, then it's just gonna get more and more exciting. Because, uh,


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[Assistant] It's a great spectacle anyway, but when you are invested in the spectacle of the race or invested in the drivers or the, uh, or the teams, then you'll go, yeah, I'm going to come back and watch it again and again and again. Cause I'm really, I'm really into these people. I want to see them do well, or I want to see them crash.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's just explaining the basics and just saying like those two, they're batting.


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[Assistant] They cross over, that's a run. They hit it over the boundary, that's a four. These other people, they're all dressed in white. She was like, why are they all dressed in white? I went, don't worry about that. But here's a, they're trying to bowl them out for this total, da da da. And in half an hour's time, she just went, oh okay, I get that now. I understand why they're doing all that stuff. So, things like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Various podcasts that are around, yours included, some brilliant stuff, there's some great YouTube channels, doing some great work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, obviously Drive Survive, your sky coverage. It's about sort of joining the dots of it all and going, that's why that's interesting. How about this? Do you like this? What about that? Have you thought about this? And you can.


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[Assistant] Alonso, why that's, you know, I think that's sort of a jigsaw puzzle, I guess.


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[Assistant] You don't know everything. Don't tell everyone that, because then we go, oh, I can't bother them. It's a bit like when you get too deep into, uh, like, if you missed Game of Thrones and you start on series 7, you can't bother them actually, yeaah.


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[Assistant] And Logan were the first ones we met in real life. And I was immediately impressed with both of them. It was obviously Logan's rookie year. And I think he's sort of finding his feet slowly, but surely. And it's been really interesting and sometimes heartbreaking being


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[Assistant] You know, following him and being rooting for him. Alex!


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[Assistant] He has just had a phenomenal season. He is such a great driver and a really interesting guy. He talks to me a lot about his background, his upbringing, the funding that's needed, the luck he's had.


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[Assistant] Bad luck he's had. Very open guy, really open and smart and interesting.


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[Assistant] And doesn't really take it too seriously until he's in the car.


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[Assistant] And just goes, I know how to do this. I'm just going to do this really, really well. I'm going to blank everything out, but realizes that it's an absolute nonsense job. What a mad job that they have to do. So I think he takes it all with a really appropriately sized pinch of salt.


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[Assistant] I really love George because he's like a sort of unflappable young James Bond actor. Uh, and he's just sort of suave and saunters around the paddock. And I really love his sort of exudes confidence. Lewis is just, he just glows with.


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[Assistant] And I'd say that the one that I've been most excited about was Oscar Piastri. And he was our first interview we recorded.


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[Assistant] And I didn't know much about Oscar because, uh, I hadn't really followed much Formula 2 and, but Christian knew a little bit about him, but had never met him. And then we, we went to a hotel just outside Heathrow Airport where he's obviously flying in to do a media day and we had about 25, 30 minutes with him.


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[Assistant] And we set up our mics and we were quite nervous. We'd never done this all together before. And he walked in and was a little bit nervous about doing this sort of thing, but immediately understood what we were after, which was like a co-host. And I just thought he was, I just thought he was brilliant. I thought he was so.


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[Assistant] So calm, so interested in what we were doing.


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[Assistant] Uhm, willing to talk about how much he liked cricket, which really pleased me, because he's an Aussie. Uhm, we were taking them out of each other for the ashes, or throughout the whole ashes really.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and I was just really impressed with how mature he was and how calm he was, but you could tell he was very, very apprehensive about that first race.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, I think he was just wanting to get it done and to see.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How far he's come in such a short space of time is really... It's exciting for the sport, isn't it? You're no better than me, Matt, but...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a really good start to a, to an F1 career, what he's managed to do. It's the, the pace is good, his confidence is good, he's really going for it on the track, isn't he? He's not, he's not looking intimidated in any way. Helps that he's got a good car, but he must have impressed you as someone who's watched the sport


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That wasn't the bit I was surprised about, yeaah. No, what?! Yeaah, but actually, we had him on around the ashes, and do you remember the picture that he put up on his Instagram of him with Ricky Ponting when he was a kid? Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, we questioned about that and I said, that looks like Photoshop, that looks like AI. And he said, no, no, no, that was at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and they needed a kid who loved cricket to go and stand with Ricky Ponting who was the captain at the time and it was him. So we had a lot of chat about that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm just excited for the future with him. I just feel like he's a potential future, dare I say it, world champion and he needs to be looked after and encouraged and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And given all the toys to play with because I, I just, he, he just feels like, uh, he feels like a superstar in, in waiting. He's just got that car, as I said, that calmness and sort of unflappability of the, of the person. And so I, I'm really excited by him and I'm so pleased and it's kind of luck, I guess, that we, we, we, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We attached our wagon to his horse? Is that the phrase? I don't know what I'm talking about anymore. I'm quite tired.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh my god, yeaah, we're gonna, I tell you what, we are gonna rinse that to death. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, they are, I mean they are pop stars. They are, they are, that is the, that is the closest, uhm, comparison. They are, they are pop stars. Uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I, I don't look at that as a, as a negative. You know, people like these people for a reason and you're, you're a snob and you're shortsighted if you think it's sort of fluff. Because the people that love, I'll just do a comparison, people that love Harry Styles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Worldly has got big dreams, big ambitions. She is obsessed with Harry Styles and you are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, it's, it's dangerous and short-sighted to dismiss people that are obsessed, uh, with things, that really are passionate about things, because those people will grow up, and they will, those things are really important to a human, like those first touchpoints of,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's my favorite Formula One driver. That's my favorite pop star. You never forget about that sort of thing. They help.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Shape who you are, they- they te- they help you shape what you like. I know that sounds a bit grand, but-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How amazing to have Lando Norris as your, as your favourite celebrity. That's a great person, because that is an incredibly talented person. That's a person who's worked really hard and is so great at their job. So, there's a lot of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a, there's a lot of sort of, oh, you're a life form once you fancy the drivers. Great! Whatever your way in is, whatever your way in is, that, that's fantastic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pia, my niece, she told me the other day, she went, I want to marry a Formula One driver.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she's joke, she's joke, she's being stupid with me. She's being silly. Yeah. But how fantastic, you know, this, this thing, which is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So a 15 year old kind of mad to dive into the data of a Formula One car, uhm, who just kind of likes it. I, I just, I don't know how you could, uhm, not just find that sort of charming and, and really sweet. And as I said, you can like any bit of sport that you like. No one is, no one is supposed to be gatekeeping this thing. I also would like to say, not to generalise, there will be as many 14, 15 year olds, whatever,