Some Say (Ben Collins) Mar 14, 2025

12: Who Is The Best F1 Driver?

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Concept

Formula 4

Formula 4 is a type of race car that young drivers use to start their racing careers. These cars are built to be similar so that the focus is on how well the driver can perform rather than the car's speed.

Concept

F3

F3 stands for Formula 3, which is a type of race car that is faster and more advanced than Formula 4. It's often where drivers go after starting in lower categories like Formula 4 to gain more experience.

Term

suspension

Suspension is the part of a car that helps it ride smoothly over bumps and turns. It keeps the wheels in contact with the road for better control.

Term

aero

Aero is about how air moves around cars. When cars are designed well in this way, they can go faster and handle better because they push against the air less.

Term

grip

Grip is how well a car's tires stick to the road. When a car has more grip, it can go faster around corners without sliding.

Concept

simulator

A simulator is a machine that lets you practice driving a race car without actually being on a real track. It can be very realistic and is used by both beginners and professional drivers.

Concept

F1

F1 stands for Formula 1, which is a type of car racing. It's famous for having very fast cars and exciting races held in different countries.

Concept

Formula One

Formula One is a top-level car racing series where teams compete in fast cars. They spend a lot of money on technology and training to win races.

Concept

Formula Ford

Formula Ford is a type of car racing that is designed for beginners. It uses small, open-wheel cars and is a great way for new drivers to learn racing skills.

Concept

Formula Renault 2.0

Formula Renault 2.0 is another type of racing series for young drivers. It uses similar cars to Formula Ford but is a step up in terms of competition and speed.

Concept

karting

Karting is a type of racing where people drive small go-karts on tracks. It's often the first step for kids who want to become professional race car drivers.

Part

clutches

A clutch is a part of a car that helps change gears. In racing, clutches can wear out quickly because they are used a lot during fast driving.

Part

brakes

Brakes are what help a car slow down or stop. In racing, they are used a lot and can wear out quickly, so they need to be replaced often.

Car

Mercedes-Benz Bclass

The Mercedes-Benz B-Class is a small, family-friendly car that offers a lot of space and comfort. It's known for being easy to drive and has nice features that make it feel more luxurious than other small cars. The story about the driver shows that even older models can still perform well.

Car

Vauxhall Lotus

The Vauxhall Lotus is a special sports car made by Vauxhall with help from Lotus, a company known for making fast and light cars. It's designed for racing and has great handling.

Concept

Mallory Park

Mallory Park is a racetrack in England where cars and motorcycles race. It's a well-known place for racing events and attracts many fans.

Concept

Norris Ring race

The Norris Ring is a racetrack in Germany where different types of car races happen, especially for young drivers trying to make it to higher levels like Formula 1.

Brand

McLaren

McLaren is a car company from the UK that makes very fast and high-tech sports cars, and they also race in Formula 1.

Concept

IndyCar

IndyCar is a type of car racing that takes place on different kinds of tracks, including circular ones called ovals. It's known for very fast cars and exciting races, especially the famous Indianapolis 500.

Concept

Formula 1

Formula 1 is a top-level car racing series where teams build fast cars and compete in races around the world. It's known for its exciting races and cutting-edge technology.

Term

qualifying

Qualifying is a part of a race weekend where drivers try to get the fastest lap time. The better their time, the better their starting position will be in the actual race.

Concept

Le Mans

Le Mans is a famous car race that lasts for 24 hours. Teams of drivers take turns racing their cars to see who can go the farthest in that time.

Term

manual shifters

Manual shifters let you change gears yourself instead of the car doing it automatically. This gives you more control over how the car drives, which many enthusiasts prefer.

Term

DSG

DSG is a special kind of automatic transmission that can change gears really quickly, almost like a manual, but without needing to use a clutch pedal. It makes driving smoother and faster.

Term

naturally aspirated engine

A naturally aspirated engine gets air into it without any help from a turbo or supercharger. This can make the engine feel more responsive and gives it a different driving experience compared to turbocharged engines.

Term

hybrid

A hybrid car uses both a gas engine and an electric motor. This helps save fuel and can make the car more powerful when needed, like in races.

Term

synthetic fuels

Synthetic fuels are fuels made in a lab or factory instead of from oil. They can be cleaner for the environment and work like regular gasoline in cars.

Term

normally aspirated engine

A normally aspirated engine is a type of engine that gets air naturally from the atmosphere, without any extra help from a turbo. This can make the engine sound different and feel more responsive.

Car

McLaren F1

The McLaren F1 is a famous supercar from the 1990s that was very advanced for its time. It has a powerful engine and is known for being very lightweight and fast.

Brand

Ferrari

Ferrari is a famous car company from Italy that makes fast and luxury sports cars, often seen in races.

Brand

Red Bull

Red Bull is a company that sponsors a Formula 1 racing team, known for being very competitive and winning many races.

Concept

W Series

The W Series is a racing competition just for women. It helps female drivers showcase their skills and gain experience, with the goal of moving up to bigger racing series like Formula 1.

Concept

F1 Academy

The F1 Academy is a program designed to help women get into racing. It gives them a chance to compete and learn in a supportive environment, encouraging more female participation in motorsport.

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Boys, thank you for signing up to the channel.

It's great to see you, though.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Could you just for the benefit of people who don't know who you are, legends of motorsport,

I know you are.

Could you introduce yourselves and who are you and what do you do?

My name is Trevor Carlin.

I'm used to running a Carlin race team.

I've been involved in motor racing for about 40 years.

So quite a lot of people have been involved in motor racing.

Quite a lot.

Yeah.

You?

Anthony Hyatt.

I was born in the racing world and I've done racing since 1986.

I'm not good at maths.

I can't tell you how many years that is, but it's a long time.

It is a lot.

Now, the reason I'm fascinated with you two is because you've run some of the best racing

drivers in the world for a very long time.

There's not much you don't know about the sport, what it takes to be a successful driver

and the business generally.

I'd love to get some of the insights, I suppose, of how you see things, people you've run over

time to start with.

How easy is it running a racing team in the modern era?

Is it easy?

It's never been easy.

It's always a challenge in industry because it's competitive, so you're always working

away.

I mean, we're double-racing in a unique position now where we're probably one of the busiest

racing teams in Europe, but we're not actually racing.

We've stepped down to this tested role, nurturing young talent because there's a massive market

for it, but we still run the racing exactly like a competitive racing, but this year we

probably done 130 days on circuit by the end of December.

It's still exactly the same, but we're not racing.

And that's largely driven by these cost-cutting, so-called cost-cutting, where there's reduced

testing and drivers from different formers are coming down from F1, aren't they, to hop

in junior formers of cars to get mileage in the winter?

Yes.

It's from America down to Formula 1, F2, F3, there's not enough testing.

When you grew up as a racing driver, you were driving a race car every week at the moment,

they're not doing that.

So we've filled a niche that enable drivers to keep the next strengths, keep their driving

regime going, and it's proven all right.

It's very enjoyable.

So the irony is you're running a racing team by not going racing.

Yes.

That's how you're making that.

So the other is it's not easy, though.

It's not easy.

It's hard.

Well, it's a conflict, isn't it?

Because with a racing, you want to win, and like in anything, if you want to do well

at it, you've got to spend a load of money.

So the more you spend, the faster you go, because you may have subsidized a better driver,

you may spend more on tyres, more on testing.

So the end of the day, you can get success, you're not necessarily making any money.

And then of course, then you're in trouble financially.

So you're on a knife edge all the time.

If you make it, there are exceptions, of course, and teams that make really decent money, but

even some of the best teams today were in financial troubles many years ago.

So it's a real knife edge and a difficult situation.

Bear in mind, from the one teams, we're making money four or five years ago.

They're all losing money.

Yeah.

So if I didn't start in any racing career at all, and I decided today, I want to get

a part of cash, I want to become a 4-way-1 driver, how much do I need to spend and how

long was it going to take?

In excess of 10 million euros to get to a point where you're good enough and on the

radar to get from the line.

With a straight face, it's 10 million euros just to get on the radar, that's just to get

you there.

So potentially that, because some of the drivers obviously having to take that money also into

everyone to get there, whether with a sponsor.

So 10 million doesn't get you into F1, gets you into a position where you might go in.

That's for two years of from the fall, two years of F1, F3, two years of F2.

And then if you're top three, then you've got the credentials and the points, which

are super important at the moment, then you can start talking to F1.

So you've pre-assumed 10 years of go-karting or whatever.

Oh yeah, you've got to arrive at a certain level of talent by the time you...

So that's not in the budget?

That's not in the budget.

That's another million.

And you've got to start testing for the four cars when you're 13 or 14 or when you're tall

enough.

That's become the limit now.

The height.

Yeah.

Because there's some kids that are 14, they're too short, they just can't reach the pedals

and fit in the car and it's not safe and they're too slight.

Lando, he had to start testing me last week, he was 14 and we had to extend the steering

column and move the pedals forward.

There was a borderline, you know, dangerous, but they wanted to test and he didn't crash

so it was all right.

But what's F3 and Colm would be doing this because it was just so even leverage as that

one?

Well, if you have just so far away from the support on the bulkhead.

Right.

So you've got to start when you're really young and have access to the 10 million, whatever

pounds you have.

Yeah.

That's how it's about it.

It's actually, they are really young.

They are really small.

They've got go-karting.

In my ignorance when I went as a racing and was are you, you've missed out by not going

go-karting.

I had done indoor go-karting once and I went, it did 20 miles an hour, I thought it was

really crap.

So yeah, it was fun.

Yeah.

It was pretty nice though.

Yeah.

I had no idea what these kids were actually racing were 100cc go-karts that came from

nice miles an hour.

Get there in a split second.

The hyper reactive braking on rear axle only and the stereo was unbelievably sensitive.

That was a grip.

Set up lots of grip.

Wearing rear protection because the cornering G is strong enough to break a rear.

So the next getting built up there, race craft is a super high level.

Nevertheless, it's still a long way away from a car and there was an entry point was

a Formula 4 with Otto Jr.

And you had a gentle progression through this, those things just all work really fast.

Now you go from go-karting straight into Formula 4, which is, in my understanding, it's about

the same performance the F3 car I used to race back in the day.

Similar?

It's got wings, big tyres.

It's probably a second slower at trucks than when you last raced there, that was an entry

level.

It's quite incredible.

And in case of racing, I'm 15 years old, a grid of 25, 30 cars all heading into the

chicane from a massive slipstream at 15, I mean, it's pretty crazy stuff.

Because I remember it, looking at it, feeling it driving it, it was big boys racing, and

this big acceleration was punchy and it was a big deal.

Cornering speeds were about actually 35, and I do the spares for Tatas in the UK, which

is a good contractor.

And the damage isn't as much as you think, because the kids have done so much testing,

they're all pretty bloody good before they get to their first race.

So this isn't newbies arriving with two-day testing on the grid.

These boys have done 10,000 kilometres before they get on the grid.

And the cars are so much better.

The designs with aero-involved, decent suspension programs.

So cars are nicely balanced.

So it's just an easier car to drive on.

It's easier.

Is it?

Yeah.

It's more grip.

Right on.

So, yep, it's a nice car.

I personally think it's a bit too quick for the 50-year-olds here, 11-year-olds here.

It's a bit too fast.

But the way they're coping is that, plus the simulator, is what I hear a lot now, with

people going into F1 very young, Neil Lawson, you've run as well, was just saying that being

at the access, a lot of it's come through SIN, because the SINs have become so much

more accurate.

You can log real, almost real-time.

That's the top-end simulators that the Formula One teams have, our Gini team, like ourselves.

You can get a budget simulator, which is a million euros, whereas a Formula One simulator,

they're constantly spending money on it.

So it becomes millions and millions and millions to build it and install it.

And then you've got a crew of half a dozen people constantly working on it and engineers.

And they're supremely accurate.

And they're quite secretive.

The Formula One teams don't want anyone to see their version of the simulator.

Even their junior drivers on the program don't get to use the top simulator.

That's reserved for the golden ones.

All right.

So what do you say to people who are watching this?

You totally demoralized there with a 10 million euro budget.

But you don't have to have 10 million euros for staff with one season and if you're great

and you're getting results, then there are packages out there that you love.

Well, it's quite a few of the really top ones.

So we can go back.

We start with Kenny Reichen, although it's going back a bit.

One of Boyer's best friends.

He did a year of Formula Ford, or half a year of Formula Ford.

We did one year of Formula Renault 2.0.

So he's so far he's in for about 250 grand.

Yeah.

He then got picked up by Sauber F1, strained to F1.

So he got there on 300 grand.

Max Verstapperen, OK, he spent a fortune with Karting.

He did one year of Formula 3.

So he skipped F4, he went straight into F3.

The following year, he was in F1.

So that cost him 350 grand.

So if you're good enough and you're prepared enough, you will go through it.

And that means starting early.

Five years old.

All right, so there you go.

So you want to get into F1, but start when you're five years old.

Do a lot of practice.

Get on the sim and go Karting, what to say?

There are the iRacing and the rRacing sims,

which weren't available on you over a young boy all those years ago.

Well, GP2 might be.

And they are really good, you know?

So you could spend five, six grand on your home package.

And it is really, really good.

It's at a level for learning tracks, especially on track.

And you tell them something you've never been before, passport,

a dot on a map, whatever.

And if you've been, if you've racked off a load of laps on the sim,

I think it does help.

But also, there's been some gamers, some competitions that take gamers.

People have never driven a racing car.

They found that this game with them and they've taken them into real car racing.

Now, none of those are quite made.

It's a Formula One.

Yeah, yeah, that's part of them.

They become professional drivers.

Jan Marlin were one of the first GT Academy.

And he's a professional racing driver, get paid, you know.

So it can work.

And he didn't have any personal money.

No, you know, he's a young lad from Cardiff, Lidgen and Cowson house.

And so he made it.

So I think it all stems from you've going to have the drive

and the ambition to want to do it.

And the perseverance.

If you haven't got that, forget it.

Go play some, go and do something else.

I think that's what Esports does as a filter.

It's, you know, people who are successful at that have been determined.

And disciplined enough to ruthlessly go after developing skill.

Yeah.

And the consistency to rack it off and the consistent times.

And there is pressure.

It's quite surprising when you jump in a sim on your own again.

No problem.

But if there's a bit of a competition, as soon as there's you've got

a few other drivers next to you, the adrenaline is there.

It's amazing.

It's exactly the same amount of adrenaline you get at the track.

Real car, it's not quite the same.

No, I guess it's not as exciting.

You can't get them because they're the same.

But the higher adrenaline you get, if it's the qualifying lap,

you don't want to stuff it up.

That concentration level, the adrenaline tends to match it as an

assist, sort of natural thing that you get to try and really hone in on

that concentration that we need for the next week.

You're a driver.

So, you know, we'd never driven because we can afford it at the end of the day.

We both love motor racing and would have loved to have been racing drivers.

But of course, we realized from a very early age.

We probably have a good laugh.

Maybe we wouldn't laugh and be, we just didn't have the money to do it.

So, that's my next best thing.

The world's a safer place for that as well.

If I'm right, Clint.

But I'm looking at what you've got in the car park, maybe not.

No, it's what, but nevertheless, what you guys are amazing at is for talent.

And so, you know what the raw qualities are that make a driver

because you run the same man.

I just want to run through this little list.

This is just the list from the web, of course.

This is not all the covert testing activities you've done.

This is just the F1 drivers that I'm aware of.

So, Karen Chandot, Noreen Karthikeyan, my former teammate, Max Chilton,

Brendan Hartley, Takuma Sato, another teammate, Bruno Senna, Kevin Magnuson,

Jolian Palmer, Nelson Piquet Jr., Carlos Sainz Jr., Daniel Ricciardo,

Nico Rosberg, George Russell, and Lando Norris, Britain's great out.

There's a pretty punchy list.

It's pretty well, but I've probably missed so off.

There's others lurking out there that you've probably tested.

It's probably the guy if you miss him, because we've been going for,

I couldn't say I'm a driver, we've had to give a double or quadruple more.

We've had through the door.

Yeah, it's a bit older.

We go back to David Bramham.

So we both ran David in 1989, bowman racing,

and he drove for Bramham only one season, but there's another one.

And time to fill it in, absolutely in the blood.

And that was a different world then, because obviously there was the simulators.

So there were not that weren't as many people involved in the sport,

whereas now because of drive to survive, every every young kid wants to do

from the one driver.

So they have to start a carting.

So your base of carting used to be like this.

People doing carting well.

Now it's this and then it goes to F4.

And so the base has become much, much bigger.

I mean, motor racing is still a below form one.

It's still a huge business in the U.K.

I don't know how much money we turn over on tires, fuel, racecar parts

and we're a small team in this.

And I was a snet in this today.

And I just counted there were 16 R-Tip trucks on a gloomy October day.

How many rounds?

Wearing out tires, wearing out spares, wearing out engines,

wearing out clutches, wearing out brakes.

It all just paid for is a huge huge industry supports a lot of families

through the U.K.

Yeah. How can you?

How do you spot time?

How do you know people walk into your office all the time?

You know, you know, I'm saying you've you've seen these drivers

come in and out for decades and you probably can tell quite quickly.

They obviously want to see the drive.

But now you've got data logging as well.

So there's a few different metrics.

But you spot are you looking at the young ones in go carts?

Is it the first time they drive a car?

A rainy day in Pembury?

Well, we had one of those this week.

It was his first ever day in a car and he was 14.

I can't tell his name, but he was pretty special.

You know, he was I don't know how you know it.

You just know, you know, for because because of our experience,

we see things slightly different.

The younger generation, they're all about the data

and looking at the wiggly lines and making a decision based on science,

which is actually the way it should be because we're dinosaurs

and we're doing this such a lot of time.

We can we can see it when they're on track.

We can see the way they behave, their confidence.

So for us, it's slightly different.

Ultimately, the the single biggest gauge is the laptop.

Yeah, it's quite easy.

It's like 12.99 stopwatch from there.

There's your answer.

Yeah. But when we back in our day and your day,

we we fell in love with Lorraine Cartagena

because we watched him drive in other cars

and his driving style was just full commitment.

You know, not necessarily the fastest, but he'd come into sight

when he's taller, completely sideways and all the time

and then still doing a fast lap time.

So Lorraine was our first real passion

at the drive we loved to bits.

And then, of course, while we were watching Lorraine

whizzing around his car, there's a Pembley as it happens.

Sideways, someone else was testing on the same day

and it was this little Japanese driver, Takumi Sato.

He was driving an old B-class car

and he started coming around the corner exactly the same way.

So of course, we being race fans

and love watching false racing cars is all we like in there.

And we were lucky to get him.

And of course, you're truly even more obviously

than Lorraine, you know, who was really up to the side.

I'd say it's a lack of commitment, you know.

So both incredibly tenacious.

Yeah. So then I mean, I actually I remember racing

against Lorraine in Vauxhall Lotus.

So we did a it was a test for the race weekend at Mallory Park.

And I was trying to get past him, actually, in testing

and ended up wheelbanging with him on the straight.

But I didn't, you know, I didn't really foresee

because it's a bright yellow car.

And anyway, I decided I was coming in and fortunate

and it came at the same time as him.

I don't know who it was, just a white helmet in a yellow car

and a thug by all intents.

So I pulled in and sort of like there's going to be

he's going to kick off now, the pits.

And I saw the helmet start to come out of the car

and there was this tiny little person attached to it.

Spinning by. Yeah, it was just the rain.

And he's just a lovable bloke.

And so I just, you know, nothing, nothing came of that.

He's a he's not a nasty character at all, but he's a very hard racer.

I think it's very spectacular.

Yeah, and very few people quivered in the rain in the high speed corner.

But yeah, talent.

Yeah, very rarely seen the difference between some outside car

and then when they're in the car. Yeah.

I mean, he was so like a fish out of water

when he as a human being in England.

Yeah. I mean, when he used to race, he had his race suit on.

He didn't have fireproof underwear.

He used to wear a Ralph Lauren button down the pair.

He underneath his race suit, even at the race weekends until it's like a James Bond character.

Mr. Bean. Yeah, Mr. Bean was the one who was the other one.

Johnny, Johnny, Mr. Johnny, this is a budget version.

I guess what you're saying is it's so speedy, but also, you know,

flamboyant driving, but that's car control, isn't it?

Yeah, because those people are quite fast, they'll fire it off with it.

And yeah, I don't they don't very, very crash, very crash.

People have crashed a lot.

But this young child would be an easy child because he's 14.

I thought it in the first time I took him around

Pembury and just this this is very we want you to be this is where you change gear.

And this, even though you tell them this isn't automatic, that they do it.

But this young child like first lap.

So they take on board.

As long as you're not talking crap, you know, if you're talking

out of shit, they don't listen to you.

But I haven't been there a few times and the boy was faultless.

It did exactly because sometimes some corners, you know, you can rush in.

You can carry more speed in, but you've got to think of the end game.

You should get out of the corner and this this boy was he had it all.

So he's going to be a good thing.

What nationality is he? I can't tell you.

What series is he starting?

Are you still carting? Still carting, yeah.

But we'll go into one of the other.

There's only two entry notes in the effort was already tested after signing the A's.

Yes. So absolutely.

No, yeah. But you know, yeah.

So on that, then who would we be using?

Let's go back to Jensen Button.

You know, we did this test for Jensen Button, which is a long time ago.

Yeah. And it's the world champion, world champion, Jensen Button.

And very good in slow corners.

Very good in slow corners. Very talented.

And we had a phone call just calling what before it just started.

We were on a little bit of a downer at the time or something.

So we weren't doing much.

And David Robertson called me up and Steve had stopped racing.

And they've passionate racer who's asked what we're going to get into the manager of the game.

And we'll, we'll up here.

He's phoned me up.

Well, I've got this driver and he used to find out about it.

What's his name?

Jensen Button.

And I'm right.

Right. So we're up.

OK, funny then.

We didn't know much about carting.

So I phoned up my carting, mate.

He's got a little driver called Jensen Button.

And he's like,

what is it? There's a Jensen Button.

Yeah, that's close enough.

I felt all the way in.

Oh, he's really good, boy. He's really good.

That's good. You get me a number.

That one for him.

That one for us.

So I phoned his dad up and we invited them down for a test.

And they turned up in this old

shonky old seven series white thing, you know.

And I think they thought they would turn up some historic F3 tests, you know.

And there was a cutting edge dollar there.

And I think they were a bit surprised that I don't think we made a seat.

I think he jumped into somebody's seat.

Foreign cars in.

He died a few form the four days.

Well, all of a sudden, we had a single car on the circuit

and there's manual gearbox.

And is he the toe?

I don't know. That one was perfect.

He just sucked it up one.

We had one, didn't even have a driver license.

Well, so how does that come from?

So that's an innate thing.

It's just there and just brought it.

Do you know me? Well, Jesus Christ, that sounds all right.

And lap time was it wasn't spectacular, but it was good.

You know, it wasn't at forty nine.

It was a fifty point four or something.

But you still remember something.

It wasn't like we had this special, you know, fifty and you didn't do that.

But it was good.

It's good that Pampery that I read that.

It was it was good.

But just didn't put a wheel wrong.

Just and then we brought it back to the Robertsons that we think is pretty good.

So let me do a few more tests and they signed him up with us history.

Yeah. So you've got a guy in Go Karting who's there to scanning.

So you can quite quickly pick up the phone and see who's hot.

Who's not. What's going on?

Well, I think we know lots of people in the industry.

But what's what's changed dramatically is the F1 teams now

have got their own scouts, but they're all trying to find the next.

The answer is that.

Yeah, because Toto's admitted that he feels he missed out

on signing Max, so that's why he signed Gignacinelli,

who, boy, might have tested in the past.

That's interesting about the young lad.

It's pretty. It's amazing to see someone that is that that young

and can't keep all that quickly, isn't it?

Yeah, it's not uncommon these days.

It's the thing.

But there's not that many hurtling through the internet.

Everyone is there.

It's not the spaces, but if you start thinking about it.

You know, if you look at some of the stuff in Lawson,

but then Yuki, Lando, George, Albon, Max,

they're all the young generation still

and how they can do it in five years, right?

But they are the young generation.

All the oldies are just falling off the top.

Yeah.

And Antonelli next year.

So there is a youth culture coming through.

About Audie Berman as well, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

Where's he running that?

Yeah.

He's already tested.

He's signed a house.

OK, yeah, that's it.

Signed a house.

He did a couple of races this year, didn't he?

He built up the science when he was up and he's a peddler.

And then he did.

He covered for Kev.

Well, Kev brought the band.

So as far as Toto have wanted Max.

Yeah, they're all looking for the next Max.

Yeah, still are.

OK, so by virtue of that, where you put that,

you think Max is the best driver in F1 then?

Probably.

You guys have got an interesting grading.

You could use different drawers, don't you?

The cupboard.

Yeah.

So who is in the top drawer?

Last time I asked you this.

Max is.

Who else is in the top drawer?

Both in the top drawer now.

Both in the top drawer for me.

You promoted Lewis.

I'm sure Lewis has always been in the top drawer.

He was always in the top drawer.

I think we'll have to find out where his motivation is next year

when he gets in the Ferrari.

I'm not sure if his age is how tempering his performance.

So that's why he's not quiet.

He's competitive.

He used to be.

And Carnop is a good.

So he's got to lift his game.

Now he's going to Ferrari.

And then we'll see the truth if Lewis has still got it.

Well, if you look at Fernando at his age,

he's still supremely motivated.

So I don't see why Lewis shouldn't be.

Lewis is an incredible talent.

He's the goat.

Yeah.

And the goats.

And that goat.

You think the goats?

Well, he is.

It's all statistics.

Okay.

All stats.

Is that your view of the history of motorsport?

That's hard because it's different from generation to generation.

And he has had a massive car engine benefit for a lot of those championships.

Meaning he's been in a good car.

Yes.

But he did thrash to one zone in his year one.

That's quite spectacular.

What he did in his first year of glaring was a sensation.

Should have won the championship and should have won the championship.

But what we have to remember is every guy,

every boy, girl, there's been many girls.

I'm sure there will be.

The guest of 4-1 is a crazy good talent.

So even the guys in the back of the grid are still pretty good.

Yes.

Yeah.

That's what we have to do.

And you mentioned earlier about the 10 million getting you on the door to F1.

And then some bring sponsorship to get into F1.

But that's not relevant anymore because the teams don't need the money.

So teams have funded.

So it's all on there.

Okay.

So there might be one driver out there that's possibly not there on there.

But the rest of now it's there because they deserve to be there.

So it's interesting you put two in the top drawer,

but currently one and two in the championship and this one out.

So it's Lando Norris, who potentially could win the championship this year.

And as you can see, I opened my drawer.

I don't have Max and Lando.

Okay.

They're not possible at the moment.

And so he says the jury's out with Lewis.

I think he's just slipped.

Yeah.

And if we take a look at the last five years,

I'm not talking just this one race weekend,

but if you're going to judge it on Austin,

it's probably Lando and Piazzaro will be the two best.

But you know, you know, I'd say Lewis has had a great car

for the last five or seven years or something.

So I think overall, I tend to judge it on who makes the fewest mistakes

under pressure and stuff.

Lewis is historically being pretty good at not making mistakes.

And Max is in that tub as well.

Yeah.

Lando, the clerk.

Still a little bit of room to grow in that area.

I think that's what really separates.

Then do you think that comes from when you've actually won a championship,

then the pressure's off.

You can relax.

You see with Max, once he won that in 2021, whatever it was,

that championship, or some different guy,

like a car of advantage, but he's relaxed.

Max is not making crazy moves.

Plus, there was certainly a real grudge thing between him and Lewis

in that championship year.

And following you, when you saw Max and the clerk go at each other,

Max didn't do it in dirty.

He kept it clean.

Because if that had been Lewis, you know, Max would have run him off the right.

So there's something personal going on there.

Whether it's Max wanting to show that he's the best,

no, he's done it.

He's chilled.

Yeah.

No, I agree.

I think Lando will.

He's definitely a real champion at one point.

He's got, he had it.

He's had it like we're saying about this young lad.

He's tested this week.

We did the same with Lando.

And he came through.

He's really quiet.

You know, when he was out of the car, couldn't get anything out of it.

We put his buddy up to sit in the back of a truck on his phone

and just keep himself to himself.

Then he started, even when he was racing, he was very shy.

But we, I looked at his statistics from his first two years in car racing.

So he did British F4 with us.

He did Toyota Winter Series in New Zealand with a totally different team.

He did the Renault 2.0-litre championship in Europe with another team.

And he did a couple of British F3 races with us.

And I looked at his stats.

90% of the qualifiers qualified on the front row in four different championships.

Four different teams.

That's amazing.

And there's no way you have the best car in every one of those sessions.

Yeah.

Still put it on the front row.

So he used it really fast.

Yeah.

But he didn't convert all those front rows into wins because it starts

and his first laps weren't very good.

Yeah.

Which is what's happening now or happened in F1.

But once he cracked it, he was all right.

So hopefully now he's just dried off.

It's also a mistake because I don't know what it is because I'm a Lando fan.

When you're watching him go, first person got an elite and it was nerve-wracking to watch

because he was like, don't drop it, will you?

Yeah.

And I think that he is extremely talented in his way of consistency and it doesn't

make any of that much of a mistake.

But there is the off...

I can't always track towards this year, but he ran wide all the slow ones in the lead

and scraped the wall.

Got away with that one.

Oh, that's so important.

I think he's looked twice.

Yeah.

So twice.

He's...

Yeah, but this is to a point.

At that...

Then we're in the race.

It becomes a point that we're...

He's 23 years and he's 20 seconds in front.

And that's the point where you...

That's probably the hardest thing as a race driver to be driving a bit slow.

It all has got to be.

Just why can't we end the race five laps sooner?

Yeah.

Because I've got 22nd lead, what else?

But you can't.

This doesn't have words.

And he's grown with the team.

Because let's face it, the town five years ago were not particularly brilliant.

So he's grown with the team.

The team's getting better.

He's getting better.

It's good to see you.

The racing's finally got...

I mean, F1 for me went through a very dull patch.

There was no retaking.

Yeah.

Thank goodness for the sport.

Max turned up.

Yeah.

With a new overtaking move.

Which completely reinvented how you overtake.

Which is...

No.

The corner is actually longer than the apex and the middle of the track.

It goes all the way to the white line.

No.

And it's revolutionary.

Yeah.

And it's completely different to how everybody's driven before.

Just seemed unsporting to use the entirety of the track.

So that...

I thought when he came in, it was a bit like when Lewis came in.

He lent on people.

He was aggressive.

Yeah.

He was taken aback.

He was raw speed.

He was talented.

Great in the wet.

Max versus Lewis.

We've got some of that.

And then...

He is the greatest of all time in the wet.

Who?

Max.

Yeah.

He's just...

Lewis and Frick are handy, though.

Yeah.

By service, by service.

Do you remember that?

Yeah.

The Norris ring race.

That was the F3 race before Dr. Marco signed in.

And there was a field full of wannabe F1 stars.

And he annihilated them.

On a short track, it was two, two and a half seconds in lap.

People were just looking at that.

We watched it on TV.

Yeah.

And he was...

The Norris ring is basically two straights.

Not much depth.

And two hair fins.

Yeah.

And Max, considering that there's no real corners.

He was driving a completely different line to everybody else.

To such an extent, we radioed our driver, was Jordan.

Yeah.

Jordan King.

Yeah.

To try to explain to him what to do.

Because it was so obvious.

Max was going right around the outside.

Everyone else was dying to the apex.

And he was putting, like, half a second, a second in lap.

The whole field.

It was ridiculous.

It was up to two seconds or so much.

It was that shit bonkers crazy how much quicker he was going.

And then Dr. Marco signed in.

Yeah.

He's throwing the result.

Everything, you know.

And he was watching on TV.

It wasn't even there.

It was in Austria.

Yeah.

Having a glue by him.

Yeah.

It's still the wet that shows the cases of talent, isn't it?

Because in the dry, the lap times will be very close.

Yeah.

There's a pretty defined line, small deviations, driving style.

But in the rain, you've got everything going on.

You've got to think out the box.

Yeah.

New lines.

The carpet spin really easily.

Yeah.

The way the powertrain comes in nowadays, I think it lights up.

I don't know enough about more than four more cars to know how they manage all the stuff.

But, you know.

It's a thousand horsepower.

With two-wheel drive.

Yeah.

Traction control.

It's a three.

Yeah.

And it's every involvement, you know.

And where Max is an revolver of the grip, he chases it all the time.

Lando's pretty handy.

Yeah.

I think so.

Yeah.

Well, that's what I thought.

I felt this year, I was watching at Silverstone Grand Prix.

And it rained and there were slicks.

And it was quite amazing.

Lando just shot to the front.

Yeah.

He was weight.

They were quite a bit back.

And also noticed that Adrian Newey had departed Red Bull.

And the Red Bull car wasn't straight away.

It didn't seem to be as quick.

And he was strobing.

And the Mercedes were fast.

But it was interesting to see the McLarens, particularly with Lando at the wheel, were

very fast.

And it seemed to be like they had more grip.

And that seems to be playing out now in the second half of the season.

We're now in a more downforce oriented tracks.

Lando, it's very quick.

And he's got the...

He seems to have adopted the Max overtaking manoeuvre.

That race in Austria when they were dicing.

And he basically did the same technique.

He drove it to the white line.

He's assimilated.

He's learned from what Max does.

And he's going to get back to him.

It is a form of combat, isn't it?

Racing, you're in front.

You don't want to come in past.

And I think you have to use every possible way to defend.

That's what we want to see.

We want to see racing.

We don't want to see the parade of cars just driving round and round.

Like we did back in the 90s and stuff like that.

But we didn't have the courage to lap everyone, didn't we?

We used to lap up to bits, really.

I mean, if you thought that now, you'd say it was all or is it ever?

And the agree is so that all the cars...

Was it 1.5 seconds between pole and last?

No.

We should have done nothing.

So it's pretty intense.

It was great.

I was a sports fan at the end of the day.

It was great to see.

I still prefer to watch IndyCar.

I don't know.

It is the greatest motor sport.

Probably.

IndyCar.

You've got street tracks.

Short ovals, medium speedo, full leg fables.

There's a lot going on there.

Yeah.

It's good, but there's not the...

With motor racing, it's about the technical side.

It's about politics.

It's about everything else that goes on around and technology.

And where IndyCar is fallen behind.

And it hasn't really upgraded its cars enough to change.

They've been using the same cars since 2011, effectively.

A lot of the drivers in the same drivers since 2011.

So there's not enough new stuff going on.

Whereas F1 reinvents itself every couple of months.

It is the technical side.

They're getting around it.

That's an engineer.

I'd love to see them take on a few of the American tracks.

Yeah.

But there are 20, 22 seats at F1.

20.

So with all these drivers who enter the world of F4, F3, F2, and car for everything else,

going west isn't a bad option.

Because there are so few seats for so few of these.

We've got Alonzo blocking the seat for 28 years or whatever it is.

I can't believe he's blocking us.

Yeah.

But he is quite useful.

He's definitely useful, but he's been there a long time.

I find that a bit stale.

How stale is that?

What about next year?

The engineering of the car?

I'm not sure of that.

What makes a difference next year?

Really?

That's your prediction.

Well, unless there's too much, do you think?

Unless Adrian's got a bit of a tweak.

Yeah.

But he could take from thing to thing.

It seems to have walked off with something from Red Bull, didn't it?

Possibly, yeah.

But I think it's an achy month lead time for Adrian getting in the door with his pencil

to produce his stuff.

It's not a short lead time anymore.

Could you talk me through some of these demon tweaks?

There's one with the steering wheel that you push forwards and backwards to move the

wing around.

It's an hour at me.

No, that was the front tracking.

Tracking?

That's it.

Sorry, yeah.

It's not in Australia.

That was all banned.

From that event.

That should be a fantastic idea.

British.

That's banned.

Brilliant.

Really clever.

Is it a tweak or a cheat?

I mean, it's within the rules, so it's great.

It was, obviously, now.

What they do is a minute is an inkling of anything like that if I just cranked down.

So what's this thing I just heard on the news today?

Red Bull, they've been picked up for something.

They've never said who it is, have they?

I heard Red Bull radio this morning.

They've been looking into something on the car, but they're not sure if it can't be

something that can be chained between qualifying and the race.

I don't know what that means.

You've got a front bin, which is adjustable, and it touches the ground.

So that's your limit on how low you can run your car.

So in a race, you've got 100 kilos of fuel in.

So you have to, the car has to be high enough at the start of a race.

In qualifying, you've only got 10 kilos, 20 kilos of fuel in.

You really want the car a bit lower.

So what somebody might have been doing is adjusting this bib.

So it's down for qualifying.

And there for the race, they've lifted it up again.

Right.

Okay.

And just to see what happens.

I'll see this when you walk up and have a fit lane with poor race mechanics.

They measure them and load test them all the time.

And they're worrying if they're in or out.

And they are.

You've got to adjust them.

Right.

You have to make sure you're legal.

And the drivers go to the curbs and mess with them and stuff.

They're sort of hinting that normally you adjust them from underneath,

and you put it, put it on the car, it's job done.

There's room for someone out there to adjust the whole inside the car.

So when we can't explain the cockpit, you just leave it and just do this,

or just wind it up a little bit.

Right.

So that's what's been intimated.

Right.

You've got 1,000 clever people on each team.

They've got to have something to think about.

And that's the art of motor racing.

Whoever gets away with it, isn't it?

These engineers, they're scientists.

They really, what they should be doing is sending men to the moon.

They're that clever.

They're geniuses, these guys.

Right.

And Newey in particular.

I mean, how many championships he's won now?

Is it nine?

A couple of it.

Every team he's been to, it's Ross Braun.

Yeah.

There's a few of these people that make a singular difference.

So how it's, you know, and whether you say Red Bull's lost performance immediately,

but he's left, whether Aston can benefit immediately that he joins.

Oh, I agree.

Well, I don't think it would be an instrument.

So 18 months.

18 months.

But Aston had been on an upward.

You haven't seen it in the results, but the factory in the wind tunnel,

it's a fantastic wind tunnel by Will Cannes.

So it's leading, it's going to be the best wind tunnel,

but a wind tunnel takes 12, 18 months to really get honed in.

So, you know, the correlations correct everything else.

And Mr. Stroll, I think he's going to be a force to be reckoned with,

you know, with that team.

We want to watch.

Yeah.

They might have to change the driveline.

Yeah.

Because I think Max would go there.

26.

Yeah.

So.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

You know, he's worked with Newie.

He will respect Newie.

He's probably out of contract.

I don't know that there's much level of loss between the Stateners

and Christie Horne at the moment.

Dr. Mark will probably retire because he's 18.

He's lost a bit of love for it, I think.

So, I think Max would like a new challenge as well.

It's just like Adrian likes a new challenge.

So, I think.

That's a good prediction.

Good for going forward.

I think that will be a strong, strong team.

No, Max could then, in a few years time,

when he gets bored of F1, because he's made that quite common knowledge

that he's not going to do it forever.

He could then go and do Le Mans with an astronaut,

which is what he really wants Pantsy's doing.

So, there is a, you know.

I mean, it's hard to think of a course.

But it's an interesting trade.

I don't think Max will be at all to a 42, you know.

So, parody.

Yeah.

One so given chance.

It's a live a life.

You've got to be careful of that, though,

because it does affect your mentality and your approach.

If you've got, if you've declared,

or you've got a finite time you're going to do it,

there's a tendency to be impatient.

And I think now that the car is struggling to stay,

you know, at the front end of it,

you know, Paris can't keep up with him.

He's stretching the limits of what the car is capable of doing.

And it has become a bit scrappy.

But he's a good driver.

I mean, he's done the most of his stunts.

He's never been mega.

He's not.

He was good at keeping tyres alive.

Yeah.

When you needed to keep tyres alive.

Okay.

And that's what...

And you now rag it the whole way through.

They look like they're pushing more.

Yeah.

I think they can, the tyres are better.

You can...

We'll do one stop one now.

But Rob, he didn't pass the Rob Wilson test.

You got better.

And then straight away,

the results were a little bit better.

But Rob said he was shocked how bad he was.

Really?

He couldn't change gear.

You know?

Where did he last change gear?

Yeah.

Probably eight years ago.

He was always driving an automatic road car,

an automatic F1 car.

Boom, boom, boom.

Rob was like two-sevenths quicker than him

on the start of the day.

And you get improved on that stall.

Rob, yeah.

Rob is a bit like...

But like...

Is this up at Myra?

You see that where he's...

Bedford.

Bedford, the Bronxingsville.

Yeah.

I did that, of course, was it.

I couldn't believe what I was doing.

But it is mad at me when you say about automatic cars.

I was on a simulator on Monday.

And it's a client that makes manual shifters

for racer simulators.

So it feels like you are in a car.

And my simulator at home is...

I make golfers,

and the Vans, DSG,

and you get in a...

My brain struggles for a good 10, 15 minutes

to compute how we need to use the clutch again.

And, you know, all those things are not used

for 10, 15 years.

You've just been driving DSG, it's...

No.

It isn't at all.

It's just for the police.

They're going to automatic now.

All one less thing.

I took this young Dreespan log,

and his name is...

He signed them with Clarem.

But he stopped telling me where he was at.

Fuck, he's took...

And I took him around in my little master.

That was still there.

And he nearly put the fucking rear axle out of it

into the airpin.

I'm like, fuck, no, mate.

Easier when you come off the clutch.

Okay, so he was great,

but he's not so good with manual shifters.

No, but he did one lap.

I was like, all right, just slowly with the clutch.

Yeah.

Because obviously he was...

I thought we dropped the axle out of the back, yeah.

And within two laps,

it was like, wow,

what a beast of goods we are.

We're in the road car.

So...

I don't know how Rob teaches people

where a front-wheel drive,

a front-engined car.

I did it with him.

You know, he went around.

I knew, like, how does this...

How does this really apply to the F3?

It's...

I know he's looking for things like,

you know, you do your weight transfer and stuff.

Yeah.

But it's a...

It's sort of...

I guess you're thinking about...

Well, yes, it is.

It's just getting you thinking

about what you're doing,

because it becomes a natural reaction.

You don't have the ganassi with him yesterday.

I thought, yeah.

He is good.

He does...

He's extraordinary, though.

But Perez used to go a lot.

I mean, the tyres were shit.

It really worked, you know.

But now the tyres aren't shit.

Right.

Yeah, it doesn't work.

That's where he's just luching his speed.

You know what?

He was a brilliant F3, wasn't he?

He wasn't brilliant in the GB2.

And then he had a couple of decent results.

He's already bought loads of money.

So, yeah.

So, Alonso will come out hibernation.

He'll get going fast.

And he might have Max as a teammate

in a couple of years' time, which would be interesting.

Yeah, he knows.

He knows.

Long thing.

I'll find it a bit frustrating

that they're changing the car in 2026,

because this set of rules doesn't seem

like it's been around for that long.

And we're just getting into it,

whether that time's getting closer and closer,

and the racing's getting so competitive.

And then we're going to turn it all on his head again

from 2026.

And of course, then, it's the haves and the haves-nots.

So, the gap will grow again.

So, I'm going to ask you a question now.

If you could change the rules for 2026,

what would you do?

I don't know what I'd do.

What would I do?

What I would do would be very unfashionable.

I'd ditch the hybrid side of things.

I'd have a naturally aspirated engine

and take at least 100 kilos of weight out of the car,

which I've just done by taking the hybrid off.

Yeah, I could.

900 horsepower, naturally aspirated,

slightly less downforce, so the car moves around.

But get the weight out of the car,

because the problem is,

the heavier we keep making these cars,

the stronger we have to keep making these cars

and then they're crashed.

So, the heavier we have to keep making these cars,

it's just a spiral of going the wrong ways.

Make them lighter,

and then the crashes aren't as much the energy involved.

That's the one thing I don't think is really

tall for it too much, is the energy

with these 940 kilo monsters.

It's right near silent.

So, I would go, yeah, 900 horsepower.

Maybe have a small hybrid that you go up and down a pit lane

on electric, you know, like a 2 kilowatt battery

or some fashion thing, you know,

but I think all this stuff about generators

and everything else is not familiar as a racing man.

And synthetic fuels.

Yeah, yeah.

Because you go around Formula One,

there's not done a few races,

and the waste isn't in the Formula One car.

It's in the package that goes in with it,

the motorhomes, the 25 trucks that turn up.

For each team.

I set them eyes on them.

I mean, and you're so frugal.

I looked at your, you know, that huge art,

you've got offices in there.

So, you'd be happy to sit on the side

with your engineering notes.

We've got two trucks and four cars.

It's a different world when you see freight

around Formula One, you know.

And, I don't know, I think a simpler car.

I mean, the Formula One teams are now monsters.

There's a thousand people,

and they have to have these thousands of people

to make the cars work and everything else.

But, I think if you ask the majority of Formula One personnel,

they'd love to go back to a normally aspirated engine.

It's simply cars.

Noise.

You know, because I go to races,

I just miss the noise.

I miss the noise.

And the cars now are massive.

People are putting those things up

next to one of the other cars from the 90s.

I think, is it 150k or more heavier?

It's a lot.

It's a lot heavier, and they're just in August.

The places I want to go.

I mean, we can't go back on technology

to make the cars safer.

You know, Haydor's going to stay and everything like that.

You know, there's side impact structures.

That's all going to stay.

But the cars can be 200 years lighter.

Yeah.

Smaller wings.

Yeah.

Side ramble.

And entertainment.

Because there's an entertainment game in there, isn't it?

People turn on to watch cars overtaking.

We want to see drivers make mistakes

because the cars are a bit edgy and stuff.

But then the F1's seems so good.

But designing the way around the regulations,

ultimately they find a grip out of the package.

Yeah.

And the cars are so complex.

You know, the stuff they're allowed to do.

So complex, so clever.

What's the cleverest, what's the smartest bit

on the car now?

Well, we don't know, do we?

Honestly, the things that do with suspension,

geometries and processes and things, it's super.

What's the best top cheats of motorsport law

that you've been aware of?

Well, first thing I want to say is that I know 100%

that boyos never cheated and nor have my team.

So that's the first thing.

And so we're not really, it's not in our brains.

We have to go about cheating now.

So one thing I saw recently was the F-duck car at McLaren.

I just think that's fantastic, you know.

And I think the guy, I don't know.

It wasn't a cheat.

It wasn't a cheat, no.

It was just genius.

It was just absolute genius.

You know, he had a thing in the car.

The only strange thing was the driver

that take the hand of the steering wheel to block the duck.

Well, no, in the end they got it just like that.

They're all like, block the hole, see the hole,

and it changed the pressure around the car.

Yeah, around the rear wing, you know.

But that's not cheating.

That's just being a genius, you know.

And some bloke's sitting at his desk thinking,

you know, that and Formula 1's full of that stuff, you know.

So it might not be cheating, but it's...

The wings bending, the body work there,

the all this stuff, or there's a constant battle

for the FRI just to stop.

Trying to work in active error elements

that aren't usually meant to be that.

Everything's load tested, but it could be 150 kilograms

cooled down on the front wing, you know,

and it moves four mil, but...

And they've designed it there.

Well, actually, that's great.

The past 100 and 50 kilos, but a 400 kilos

could be pulled down 12 mil, you know.

But yes, then that's the stuff.

You have to absolute respect for the people

designing it and making it.

And that's all there is.

Because the ray areas, that's not cheating.

The proper choosing is people that, you know,

in championships, they have air boxes,

they assume box on, they drill holes in them,

and all that sort of things like that.

Because they come down, it's all that error,

it's very clever.

In the junior formulas where you guys have

slugged it out over the years.

I mean, I remember we picked places where

there's been dodgy fuel, which you could tell

because the fuel bag has melted.

When you smell it.

Exactly, your eyes are watering around that car,

in particular.

So things like that, you've got to have

some stories on those.

F3 with the air box on the side,

famously someone was spotted with a Christmas tree drill,

went straight through the side to get more air in.

Actually, modern-day Formula 3 engines

doesn't make much difference.

Because, you know, we've run so many miles,

we had an air pressure sensor which

dropped out, coming up to the end of the run,

and there's an 18mm hole in the back of the air box,

it didn't make any difference.

Because the engines built in the modern-day ECU

was only run on that 28mm, right?

Listen, if you go and simulate a car

in a modern Formula 3 car,

and you want to go half a second quicker,

and you dial the power up 8%,

you'll go 600 quicker.

But if you put 2% more grip on it,

you'll go 6 tenths quicker.

So the grip and aerodynamics is worth it.

Top tyre software used to be a thing.

So how does that work?

You coat the tyre in some chemical,

you let it cook overnight or in the morning,

and it gives you a peak of grip.

I'm not sure if some people have been doing it,

but it's bloody hard to spot.

We had this legendary Avon tyre sleeper thing

which came out.

It was like a pretend box.

But it was a pretend box,

just to worry people doing it.

But people used to use fuel additives,

in Fency and Macau.

Macau, they are done.

It's a big trophy though.

Best race in the world.

Everybody used to send their hazardous goods before,

and all the hazardous goods arrived in one garage.

And the Scrum near was pretty good.

You'd arrive a day or two to go through the hazardous stuff,

to check chemicals that were taken out.

And there were definitely a few instances

that stuff wasn't there when the teams arrived.

So with back to what you guys do,

and have done,

Formula 1, the cars were all different,

got all the boffins and engineers,

1000 people and per team.

In Formula 3, Formula 4, F2,

the cars are all the same.

Sometimes there's different engine manual actors,

but they're the same.

Everybody's got pretty much fast drivers.

There's not many people who can't drive a greasy stick.

And you've got to try and win.

And famously, you engineer these cars,

and you've always had a knack of setting them up.

There's a mix of instincts and knowledge.

But how do you keep the edge?

Since recently, you were first and second fastest

in the group test Formula 4.

You obviously still got it.

Yeah, but that was the first time

we've been in public test for a long time.

I basically didn't want to be 21st, 22nd.

So we put all our good stuff on the fresh engines

and fresh intercoolers and stuff,

because I didn't know what level it was.

Nothing I should deal with your setup, though.

No, it was set up pretty good, obviously.

But we had our best early washing,

whereas I think against Prima and the US

around Amishfoot, it was just an ordinary test.

They're saving their best stuff.

So I can't tell you about that,

but myself and Trevor are very lucky

to have worked with a great racing engineer, Bruce Carey.

The hardest person you've ever worked for,

because his standard was so high,

nearly killed us, you know?

And just nearly killed him.

Yeah, he killed David as well.

But just do the basics correct.

Yeah.

You know, nothing flashed.

Do the basics correct.

It stands you in good stead to go forward, you know?

It was just not messing up too much.

So is Bruce, in the backbone of your racing

the last 10 years, engineering-wise?

Because you were the engineer when I was racing.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

It's a...

DeLarro used to produce a handbook,

which he put in the drawer.

No, just read it, and I phoned up,

and said, what do you have?

I trusted what DeLarro told us.

Whether other people did or not,

I don't know, but it was pretty good.

We weren't clever enough to be rocket scientists.

We just took advice and just did the basics.

Trying to make as few mistakes as possible.

Yeah.

So not necessarily the fastest car,

but it's always reliable.

Yeah.

Always balanced.

Yeah.

It's always...

It goes as much straight-line speed as you can possibly get,

which means attention to detail in the build of the car,

which is where Boyer's really strong

doing uprights and gearboxes.

So all that stuff, all that detail makes the difference.

And then you put the new tyres on at the right time.

You have the right driver in the car

who's been taught how to use the tyres properly,

and the whole thing just keeps getting better and better and better.

Yeah.

So you're being very humble about what you do,

because there's a huge education piece

you guys bring into these young drivers coming through.

You've hinted at it there with how to use the tyre

to get the most out of it.

Those whisper in the ear moments

you do through the helmet, close up.

It's like, right, now is the time.

It's a key point in the session or in testing.

Yeah.

You've recognised, right,

you've got as close as you can get on those old rubbish tyres

and how to activate.

And how do you...

So how do you know?

Well, again, nowadays,

the kids don't get to drive rubbish tyres anymore.

They don't want to buy new tyres.

Yeah.

It's all God of it.

That was training process.

You know, the new tyres are the only tyre

that matters in qualifying.

So they, you know...

I don't know what we think,

but there seems to be more money in the junior formers

to allow drivers to test and train.

So, you know, the access to good equipment

is just more, basically.

Back in the day, your day,

we probably used one set of new tyres a day.

Yeah.

And then it went up,

so there's a long period where everyone's using two sets

of new tyres a day.

Greedy.

And then the stroll,

Mazepin, all these big money guys came on

and they would use five sets of new tyres a day.

They wouldn't use...

They'd roll out on a 20K set

and then go new, new, new, new, all day long.

Wow.

And it's hard to compete with.

So now the young...

Because you're acclimatising to that number of grit.

Yeah.

So otherwise it is a bit of a...

You have to imagine what the grit will feel like

before you go out and try to use your...

So if you want to...

200K set is a big jump.

Mazepin, that's a jam.

So now the jam's not quite so big.

But I'd imagine now you're using three sets of those.

Three normally.

Yeah.

So that's become...

It's gone from one to three

in not a long period of time.

And so the really rich guys will use five sets.

Well, it means there's not going to be any more wheels.

You need people to fit the tyres.

So you need a bit more infrastructure behind it.

Everything else.

But if you've got three cars running,

you use nine sets a new a day.

There's nine sets of new the following day.

You get through tyres that crazy amount.

But the kids don't want to learn old tyres.

The only thing that counts is new tyres.

So everything's focused on the new tyre stuff,

bringing the tyres in.

And then we do it in the winter.

We do it in the summer.

We do it in the rain if it's raining.

I'm a big advocate of getting out in the rain.

Because the British drivers have always been great at the rain.

Or not British drivers.

The drivers have been schooled in the UK.

They've been great with the rain.

Yeah.

We're lucky, aren't we?

You're out on the wall with us from the best track to the world.

In a fairly close distance to each other.

Yeah.

For me, we've got old school circuits.

Silverstone middle school, maybe.

But Alton Park, Pranshatch,

you've got to have some balls,

bringing stuff going through all the forms of Diggledale.

The grass is there.

It's a barrier.

And it teaches you to be really precise.

Which, nothing wrong with hungaring,

cock and iron, whatever.

There's a bit of, oh, I'll just, I'll overcommit.

And I can always watch out.

In the UK, Lando, I think, did a great job by learning on these sockets.

He has Piastri did as well.

Many others.

That precision really counts for something.

So how good is Lando?

He will be in the top level.

We could talk about Lando,

but we need to talk about Oscar as well.

Because he's only in his second year now.

And he's starting to match.

We'll get close to Lando.

So you have to say he's fairly special as well.

He's a different personality, much quieter.

Very analytical, I've been there to believe.

And the one thing he's got that maybe Lando doesn't quite have,

I think Oscar is more ruthless.

So I think at some stage that situation will come to a head.

I think he's held his hands up.

The student said, Lando's championship to fight for.

I'd imagine come the first of January 2025.

He's got the game on.

And I think that'll be a proper fight.

I think it's pretty difficult to shoot.

I can't see it both.

I think in the end he will start to fall out.

I know how competitive Lando is.

I know he doesn't show it, but he's super competitive.

And he doesn't like, he doesn't like getting beat by his team.

Like no did he.

And Oscar's got both of them.

With every experience to manage him and guide him.

I think that's a real powerful.

He's got that experience that he had with Vettel.

So just crushed him.

Exploitation in the team is key.

Because Mark was in a situation there where Vettel took the front wing from this car.

So I think that's around it.

It was a more advanced component because he was seen as the senior driver.

Higher in the pecking order.

The pecking order thing, it does count.

It's a big thing, isn't it?

I think if I was going to choose a new team, I'd be quite happy with Lando and Oscar.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was a strong line.

Strong line.

Probably if I could choose one, I'd be happy with that.

You keep them together even though I might end up...

You want the best then.

You want the best.

Center and Prost.

Because I don't think Max is ever going to go into a team I really want.

I don't think he cares.

Yeah.

I don't think he cares.

I mean, he's so confident.

He's on such a level.

Max and Lando.

They get on so well.

I think ultimately that's got a longer future.

As we saw in Austria.

I think you can fall up quickly.

I thought in Austria they drove like twins.

If you change the color car, you wouldn't know which one was which.

They were driving the same style, same overtaken moves.

Yeah.

And you know how Lando, a couple of hours later, apologised and said it wasn't Max at all.

Hmm.

I'm sorry I was sharing a check with him about how...

No, but because he told it through.

Yeah.

And he said, Lando, what are you doing there?

Yeah.

And then they talked it through.

And of course, it was a...

It was a...

It was a death fight.

That's what we were seeing.

Everyone watched it.

That's what I want to watch when I watch 4-1.

Me too.

I want to see cars being pushed off and drives getting angry.

If it's a procession, I just fall asleep.

So I need some excitement to keep you motivated to watch 4-1.

Because the noise is so bad.

You can see little hints though when they're chatting that even...

I think Lando just...

Even it was half joking.

But they watch what Max does.

Yeah.

Places like Monaco when you look down on that lap.

There's nothing more soul destroying than two corners into your lap.

And you look at the dash and it's got a delta.

It tells you exactly that you are not going to be on pole.

You're one on our 10th down.

And it's a massive distraction.

Yeah.

And someone at Monaco, you can't pull out a huge amount of time.

And yet he had been around the track.

He obviously walked that course, looked at where the boarding was,

seen where the armcode was.

And I can bend that back about, you know,

six or seven mil and shave some extra time.

Those things is pretty rare, isn't it?

Pretty rare.

And what do you think about the torque?

I think it's brilliant.

I think he seems...

He's more cautious, isn't he?

And there was that classic clash with Lewis going car stall.

You know, that move with Max.

It's almost like a couple of years ago.

We went up the inside, it touched.

Lewis was pulling back out.

Max always from wing and had a massive accident.

But he turned in.

At that point, when the car's fading behind you,

if you're hesitating at that speed,

at cops, which is practically almost flat,

it's so high speed.

It's crazy.

You have to turn in. You have to be committed.

But it was interesting, same manoeuvre,

a few laps later on the clerk,

to clerk back off and let him through.

I think that there's a different mentality there,

in terms of commitment.

That's a hard one to bring back in.

If you set your stall out...

I think the clerk was super fast.

Probably one of the better qualifiers out there.

But maybe not one of the better racers

over the course of the race.

Yeah, I mean, we took in tiny margins

between these cars.

I think when Lewis and the clerk together,

the clerk will probably have the edge in qualifying.

But in the race, Lewis should be right.

It will be fantastic to watch, see where they are.

Because there's already a difference

between him and Sines.

Sines tends to be good in the race.

Their flow is a little bit quicker in qualifying.

So yeah, it will be fascinating to see how that goes with Lewis.

I think the clerk will learn from Lewis.

Because I think in the car,

when Lewis is probably one of the superstars

of making the car work throughout the race,

with the tools they've got, with the adjustments,

he's ahead of the game.

So what is he adjusting the car?

Diff, brake balance, everything.

Whatever they're allowed to do.

The regen, the brake, everything.

There's so much stuff they can do.

I think Lewis is really on top of that.

So I've never understood that.

Because Lewis' style is quite aggressive.

If you point it in, your tail has to hang on and deal with it.

And particularly when the tyre life was a problem

and they were overheating, I was amazed

that his performance didn't just drop off a cliff.

I mean, it didn't.

So you think it's partly because he has that deep set

and innate feel for the car, what he's doing to it.

But you also, you're saying that there's also

a technical element.

I think Lewis is probably the best at that.

You get fine tune in the car, do it in the race.

I've got a few people who have told me that it's pretty special.

So I think the clerical learned from that,

because Lewis is never happy with the car.

They always want something else.

He has an innate ability to know what the tyres are going to do

in two or three laps.

I think that's where Lewis becomes super style good.

And I think the clerk will really gain from that.

Yeah, he's a nice guy as well.

He's a nice person, a great team mate.

I think they'll get on well.

Be a nice atmosphere in that too.

But the clerk is, I think, one of the fastest qualifiers.

I think you can learn from Lewis.

On the race.

On the race of something.

And the team will learn as well.

So 2025, we should get all our Christmas gifts in one hit.

Because there's a load of new drivers coming in.

Yeah.

Oli Behrman, Kim Janssen Eli, plus the existing guard.

They're not old guard though.

We're young and really good.

The biggest thing is that Ferrari is strengthening their line-up,

potentially.

McLaren have already got strong line-up.

The saviour is, once Anthony gets up to speed,

he's going to be fast, he's going to have some mistakes,

but he's going to be sick playing on it.

So all of a sudden it leaves Red Bull sort of in trouble,

unless they change their sector, right?

You'll get exposed.

They're slipping towards the third or fourth best driver on that.

So how good is Anthony Oli?

He's pretty good.

Can you elaborate?

I think he's got a good name.

He's got a great name.

Minikimi.

A speed-wise, like, sensational.

Absolutely incredible.

So he's got everything.

The thing that I hope, I've never run him,

so I don't know, I can't come out accurately.

I saw some video thing on YouTube or something,

him talking to his race engineers,

and he was talking about lap times that he did

three years ago on a certain track.

You can remember all of them.

But given day, given lap, in a certain car,

you can remember all the lap times.

And I think that's very similar about Piastri.

So they've got, like, the brain power to take everything in.

So then when they're driving, they're not of capacity.

So they could do other things.

They can turn into a count.

They can watch the big screen and see what other people are doing.

It's raining down the other side of the track.

So they've got that brain power.

So then it's just a bit of practice.

And they'll be fast.

So I think with Antonelli, he'll just follow the Piastri

and train very quickly.

Very quickly.

I'm not allowed to tell you the drivers we've tested.

But I think with Antonelli and Bearman and Piastri,

they're amazingly good.

I'd like to tell us.

I'll just do it for a while here.

Like, they're all superstars.

So with Bearman and Antonelli,

I think the full ones are going to be really exciting.

And I think it will lift, you know, George is going to be...

Kim, he's going to make a few mistakes.

George, can't see where you're going.

Team leader.

And he's going to be Afro-Motionist where you'll be mirrored

because Antonelli's going to be there.

And Bearman, they're just super excited.

I'd be excited.

I think it's what form one needs, young blood.

They're not just young, but they're supremely talented.

These guys have really got it amazingly talented.

They're products of what we've all been talking about,

how we started off.

From a different perspective.

Different progress, isn't it?

Yeah, so they've had eight years now.

They've had 21, 2021.

They've had eight years of all this training, all this practice.

They've done it away from the limelight.

So when they tell it up, they're ready.

They're ready.

And there are a few circuits they haven't been to,

but they've been on every simulator, the Great Simulator.

So when they turn up FP1, they're working.

They're not having to learn the circuits or anything else.

They just bang on it.

So I think it's a really good time for form one

to have this young stuff in there.

The one that's missed out form one is Drogovic.

There's that Felipe Drogovic, F221 champion.

They're right, yeah.

What's he good for?

He's after more of a reserve driver,

but he's also very, very good.

Right.

So he's there in the wings.

There in the wing, obviously.

They said, I think it's a great driving.

But I'm getting to turn the drivers over.

The Hulkenberg, yeah.

He's been there.

He's got a lot of lack in him though, hasn't he?

Which is to get the callie lap out, obviously.

It's the thing that he's put, whacked it in the top six.

Yeah.

A good driver, but like,

I prefer to watch Bayman than Hulkenberger.

Interesting.

Just because, you know,

we want to watch young talent emerge, you know.

And it's not all we need is more cars.

Absolutely.

All more cars, you know, I send it.

But if this would solve all the problems, you know.

Because to have F2 champions sitting out,

not getting promoted.

Was it this year?

It was the first time ever.

There was no new drivers at F1.

I think so.

At the start of the season.

Which is wrong, yeah.

Well, it sounds like, you know,

who the next world champions are going to be.

So you get, pick those two, sign them up,

and then get some funding and put two cars on the grid, boy.

It's challenging.

Easy.

Yeah.

We've got a brilliant line around here.

I think you've got them all tested.

I think you need more ability in there.

Well, yeah.

It's telephone numbers to set a team up.

Telephone numbers to buy a team.

Yeah.

No more wants to sell,

because they were making tons of money.

Yeah.

That is the big difference,

is I think nearly every F1 team is making profit now.

Right.

Finally.

Finally, yeah.

So the world has changed.

You turn that with a driver now at 25 million,

they don't open the door for you.

You can't buy a suit.

You can't buy it, so.

Honestly.

Which has changed.

So, and as well as recently,

and probably Netflix is a massive attribute to that.

My daughters, I've got two daughters,

and thankfully they had no interest in motor racing whatsoever,

until Drive to Survive.

Yes, I am.

My daughter was like,

and asking me questions.

Oh, what do you want?

Questions like, could I go go karting?

No, but they're a bit older than that.

So they were like, do you know that one?

I was like, do you know that one?

And all of a sudden they're asking,

you know, who's Hassan?

Who's that?

Who's that third driver?

I'm like, I have no idea.

So I think the world has changed,

and there's more money available,

because there's a whole new audience out there,

and a lot of them are women,

which is a fantastic thing.

We've got this F1 Academy and W Series,

which I was involved in,

and it's really fantastic to see that

girls are getting the opportunity

to be involved in motor racing,

because it's been a male-dominated sport

from the last 15 centuries, whoever it is.

And, you know, there's a long term there.

So we've been into a lot of questions,

and have you had a female driver in the car yet

that has given you that same thing right?

Is this going to be the next world champion?

No.

But I've had female drivers in the cars

who are very good.

Jamie Chadwick's the best.

The thing I love about Jamie is that

she continues to invest in herself.

She does test it with me,

it's obviously a secret of that one.

Before Indy Car Test,

she did days with me just to keep honing,

getting strength, getting the next strength.

And...

That's a question, then.

Yeah.

Nature versus nurture.

If you work at it,

can you overcome someone,

or beat someone who's got more natural talent?

If you keep working at it and develop your skills,

do you hear that part of it?

I think nowadays that the chaps

and girls with natural talent

are working hard at it anyway.

So, you know...

So the days of the blinding talent,

the Cotty Bullard is kind of, that's gone.

Everybody's working hard.

Yeah.

Everybody's working hard.

But what the manufacturers could do,

and the FIA could do,

is make it easier for girls to drive cars.

Because the cars have heavy steering,

F3, F2 cars are heavy, Indy cars are heavy.

You know, when I got my road car,

your road car, your road car,

we've all got power steering.

If we want to make a car similar to road cars,

which the FIA always are about with hybrid technology,

and everything like this,

well, fit the junior cars

or allow them to have power steering.

Because they do in Japan.

Right.

And Galara can do it.

But F2, F3,

they're still model around them.

Yeah.

And the girls.

I was trying to save money,

which is a false economy.

False economy.

Because if we had girls who, you know,

Jamie is as skilled as many of the boys.

But when it comes to hanging on in the high speed,

physically, she isn't as strong as the boys.

And we have the technology out there.

Galara have it.

It's an unnecessary barrier, isn't it?

Yeah.

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About this episode

A deep dive into the world of Formula 1 with racing veterans Trevor Carlin and Anthony Hyatt, who share their insights on what it takes to become a successful driver today. They discuss the financial demands of reaching F1, the evolution of driver training, and the impact of simulators. The conversation also touches on the current top drivers, including Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, and the competitive landscape of F1, including the emergence of young talents like Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. Their experiences and anecdotes provide a fascinating look at the challenges and intricacies of modern motorsport.

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Original notes

That's the question that Ben Collins is asking in this episode of Some Say. It's been a long winter, but Ben is out of hibernation and ready for the new F1 season which is shaping up to be one of the best in the modern era, with a whole crop of new drivers joining the grid.

He sat down with a couple of people who know a thing or two about this - Trevor Carlin and Anthony 'Boyo' Hieatt to find out who really is the best F1 driver. Their thoughts may well surprise and shock you.

Ben also looks into what it takes to get into Formula One, the cost involved and the prospect of women finally racing in F1.

Some Say (Ben Collins)

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