My week in cars: the Autocar podcast Dec 24, 2025

A Christmas special: talking to Pat Symonds of Cadillac F1

Annotations will appear as you listen

0:00

105:19

Company

Anderson EV

Anderson EV makes chargers for electric cars. They give you free miles and help set up the charger if you buy one.

Concept

Formula One

Formula One is the top level of car racing, with very fast cars that race on tracks around the world.

Term

hybrid power unit

A hybrid power unit mixes a regular gasoline engine with electric motors to make the car faster and use less fuel.

Brand

Cadillac

Cadillac is a famous American car brand that makes fancy cars and is now getting involved in racing.

Concept

Silverstone base

Silverstone is a famous race track in England where big car races like the Formula 1 British Grand Prix are held.

Concept

Indianapolis

Indianapolis is a city in the U.S. famous for its big car race, the Indy 500.

Term

Formula 1

Formula 1 is the top level of car racing, with very fast cars and teams from all over the world.

Concept

motorsport

Motorsport is racing with cars or motorcycles, like the races you see on TV where drivers compete for speed and skill.

Concept

motor racing

Motor racing is when people drive cars or bikes as fast as they can in a race, trying to finish first.

Concept

Snetterton Circuit

Snetterton is a race track in England where drivers practice and compete in car races.

Car

Ford GT40

The GT40 is a famous racing car made by Ford in the 1960s. It was very fast and won many big races, especially at Le Mans.

Concept

automotive engineering

Automotive engineering is the field that creates cars—designing how they work, how fast they go, and how safe they are.

Concept

vehicle dynamics

Vehicle dynamics is about how a car moves and reacts when you drive it—how it turns, stops, or goes fast. Engineers study this to make cars safer and more fun.

Company

Royale

Royale was a company that built and raced cars in competitions like Formula 2. They were known for their work in the 1970s.

Concept

Formula 2 car

Formula 2 cars are racing vehicles that compete in a series just below the top-level Formula 1. They’re fast, lightweight, and follow strict rules to keep competition fair.

Car

Ford Transit

The Transit is a big van made by Ford that people use to carry stuff or passengers.

Concept

component engineering

Component engineering means focusing on making individual parts of a car, like brakes or engines, instead of building whole cars.

Company

Hawke

Hawke is a business that makes and races special cars for competitions.

Brand

Dunlop

Dunlop makes car tires that help cars grip the road. They are used by many drivers and racing teams.

Term

tire data

Tire data is information that tells you how a tire behaves—how much it grips the road, how quickly it wears out, and what pressure it needs.

Concept

weight distribution

Weight distribution means how a car’s weight is spread between the front and back. A good balance helps the car handle better.

Concept

engine forward

Putting an engine closer to the front of a car shifts more weight forward, which can help the front wheels grip better and improve steering.

Concept

Formula Ford

Formula Ford is a type of car racing where all drivers use very similar cars. It’s like a beginner’s league for racers, helping them learn how to drive fast and compete fairly.

LIVE

Blood donation is now more inclusive. More people are able to donate blood with the American Red Cross through FDA guidelines that eliminate eligibility questions based on sexual orientation. The Red Cross celebrates this historic change, and welcomes those who may be newly eligible to donate blood. There's a place for everyone in the mission of the Red Cross. The Red Cross is committed to achieving an inclusive blood donation process that treats all potential donors with equality and respect while maintaining the safety of the blood

supply. Join us and help save lives. To learn more and make your appointment to donate blood, visit redcrossblood.org-slash-LGBTQ. That's redcrossblood.org-slash-LGBTQ.

If you've used Babel, you would. Babel's conversation based technique teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world.

With lessons handcrafted by the 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babel today. Get up to 55% off your Babel subscription right now at Babel.com-slash-Acast. Spelt-B-A-B-B-E-L.com-slash-Acast. Rules and restrictions may apply.

How did you get all that fast? It was easy. It was a Fred Meyer. It has our products always and it's a very good price. It's even the one that suits you.

Yes. And the queen of mass? Yes.

Clavos, tomatillos, verdes, platanos, maduros. Check, check, and check.

In Fred Meyer, you can get your quality products for the family recipes of these beautiful parties in each room.

Fred Meyer, fresh for everyone.

Hello. Welcome to the Orange Guard podcast My Week in Cars with Priya here. Stephen Cropley there. Hello, mate. Very well, mate. Very Merry Christmas to you.

And the same to you. Listener, welcome to the Christmas special episode of The My Week in Cars podcast. We're here every week over the festive period and in association with our sponsor, Anderson EV.

Would this be the third Christmas we've done these? Yes. Yes. No, fourth. Hang on. How does it work? One, two, three. It's fourth.

It might be the... You know when you go on a on a work trip and they go, right, you'll get four laps in the car. And then so you come back it so you need to...

And I think, how many is four, including a warm up and a bind? And I can't work out in my head. How many times I have come past the pits in our three and a bit years? Do you know what I mean? I don't know if this is...

We're starting lap four, or if we are... I forget. I think we might have... Just keep lapping me. I think this might be awful. Anyway, we tend to have a special guest at Christmas. Oh, hang on a minute. Still brought to you in association with Anderson EV.

Anderson, the... Anderson-EV.com, and there is still time if you contact them before December 31st to go in 5,000 free miles with intelligent octopus. Go when you buy an Anderson charger.

Designer chargers, British design and made very highly rated. And they have a concierge service who will talk you through the whole thing very straightforward and very nice people. Anderson-EV.com. We tend to have a Christmas special guest, don't we?

Anderson-EV.com. Yeah, I'm feeling a bit apologetic about this one, because...

Anderson-EV.com. Why are you feeling apologetic about it?

Anderson-EV.com. Well, not because how guest is an absolute hero of mine and has been for many years, but...

Anderson-EV.com. One, you weren't there, which was a bummer.

Anderson-EV.com. It was a shame, but I... Yes, I was.

Anderson-EV.com. And two, we ran off at the mouth. We really ran off at that.

Anderson-EV.com. That's all right, mate. Well, as you say, he's a hero of yours and has been for many years.

Anderson-EV.com. But the thing is, I normally get bored in interviews.

But if we're trying to construct a story, I find that half an hour is plenty.

They've said all the good stuff by then.

This went on for an hour and a half. And it was...

Honestly, he's such a good bloke, Pat Simmons.

Anderson-EV.com. Yeah. So it's Pat Simmons, who is the technical consultant at the new Cadillac Formula One team.

Tell us a bit about his... Do you touch on this in the interview? Tell us about his past.

Anderson-EV.com. Yeah. I think he's won.

It's actually specified in the interview, but he's won.

Oh, crikey. I think he's won...

Well, to drive his temperatures with Schumacher and Alonso.

And he's won, and obviously for Benet and Williams.

And I think it makes something like nine world championships.

So he knows about winning. Yeah.

But he's greater credential, I think, is that he spent the last seven years working for Formula One management,

who are the people that are trying to change the rules for Formula One,

particularly for next year to make cars corner a bit slower, drift a bit,

travel closer to one another and so on.

Changing the... Also changed the power unit so that there's more electric and less petrol.

And it all comes to a head in the first race next year,

but Pat has been working away all these years on what the Formula should be.

And now he's nipped over to Cadillac to apply his own rules to a new Formula One car,

a new American Formula One car.

And there's loads of good things attached to it.

That was a trouble. He couldn't stop talking.

You know, it is going to be an American team, albeit with a lot of local knowledge.

There's a Silverstone base at the moment, but eventually they're going to have this huge facility in Indianapolis,

which is going to invite people in.

So when you go on your holiday to America, you can, you know, instead of going to Disneyland,

you can go and see the Cadillac F1 works.

That sounds borrower.

And they're going to have tracks and, you know, people will be, you know, most un-F1 way.

People will be invited in.

Yeah, that's unusual, isn't it?

It is.

That's very unusual.

And of course, Pat's just the man for the job because he's so obliging and interesting.

So, I mean, I don't say he's going to take everybody around,

but he doesn't have represent a thing well.

Well, let's find out just how obliging and interesting that Pat is.

As Steve joins Pat Simmons for our Big Christmas interview.

Hello, Steve Cropley here.

It's my special pleasure to introduce our star Christmas guest this time for our podcast,

My Week in Cars, Pat Simmons,

one of the great men of Formula One.

Welcome, Pat.

Thank you so much for joining us.

And thank you for inviting me.

It's great to be here.

Pat, you've had, by any, any measure, an extraordinary career.

You've, you started as you just told me, 49 years ago, very long time.

But you're also involved in both configuring the regulations that will start next year,

and you'll participate in a team that uses them.

So, that's a hell of a breadth for anybody.

But let's start, and of course, along the way,

you've masterminded world championships for Fernando Alonso

and for Michael Schumacher,

I'd like to talk about that a little bit if possible.

But just the story that you, sorry, the question that you get asked probably too often is,

why, what keeps you going?

49 years.

It's a long time.

You could be sitting in the West Indies looking at the far horizon, couldn't you?

Yes, I could, but I think what keeps me going is passion.

And, you know, that's what I get involved in education a lot.

I teach universities and, you know, obviously,

do a fair bit of mentoring of some of our graduates.

And the thing I would say to them is if you want to be successful,

you've got to have passion.

And I'm very lucky, I think, because I have a passion for motorsport,

but I also have a passion for engineering.

So, putting the two together actually just makes my day every day.

So, you couldn't put it down.

I haven't been able to yet.

Nobody's asked it too clearly.

No, no, that's true.

No, I think there's a few years left in me yet.

Excellent.

Just go back to the beginning.

I was done the, you know, a little bit of research, not enough,

but the official story seems to be that you started as a Ford apprentice.

Is that right?

Yeah, that's right.

Because you've got all kinds of cram field degrees

and God knows what, haven't you?

Yeah, I did.

I mean, really, it sort of started.

I think my sort of passion started with my father who was an engineering officer

in the Royal Air Force.

And he loved cars.

He loved aircraft.

He passed it on to me.

And, you know, I spent weekends in inverted commas helping him fix his cars.

And, you know, just picked it up from there.

And it's funny, you know, because people say,

when did you decide you wanted to get involved in motorsport?

And for a long while, I thought, well, there wasn't a specific point.

It was something that just came through, through my father,

through his sort of love of cars and motorsport.

But actually, when I think about it, I can trace it back

to being a 13-year-old kid who already loved motor racing

used to go to Snettaton because we lived in Norfolk.

Used to, as I say, help my dad fix his cars.

And when I was 13, it was actually Good Friday, 1967.

Went to Snettaton.

And his first race of further knew what was then new international formula, too.

And I saw those cars.

The support races had things like GT40s, which was, you know,

that was my bedroom wall car at that age.

All these fantastic cars.

And I just thought, wow, you know, this is something I really would like to do.

Now, because I still remember at that time getting into motorsport

was virtually impossible.

Teams were tiny, very little in the way of engineering in them.

A lot of it was sort of c to the pants stuff, not academic.

So I decided, well, next best thing is I want to design cars.

And I decided at that time I wanted to work for Ford

because, you know, Ford in the, in the sort of 60s, 70s,

were the motorsport company.

And I was lucky enough to get an undergraduate apprenticeship with them.

Went off to an interview in the Café Royale in Regent Street.

And they accepted me.

I was one of 13 that went on to the scheme that year.

And of course, it was a brilliant apprenticeship because we spent

six months at college and six months working at various places.

So exactly.

It was a bit more than,

it wasn't just an apprenticeship.

It was going to lead you into a university degree in engineering.

Yeah, absolutely.

Actually, it was H&D that I did first.

I see.

And then I, after I'd done my H&D, I wanted to know more.

So I went to Crownfield then to do an MSC.

Well, I could sort of specialize.

So I'd done mechanical engineering, general mechanical engineering first.

And now I could do automotive engineering.

So I did that, specializing in vehicle dynamics.

And while I was there,

I noticed I went up on the board.

You know, it's long before social media and things and LinkedIn and things like that.

I noticed I went up on the board to join a company called Royale,

working with a guy called Roy Byrne,

to design actually a Formula 2 car.

So I thought, well, why not?

And you've got to remember what, you know, this is now the early 70s.

And you've got to remember what the British motor industry was like at that time.

The idea of going back to Ford, although I love Ford, I'm very grateful, you know,

for the chance they gave me.

At that time,

the motor industry in general was going through a bad time.

Ford were getting quite a hard time from America.

And it really looked like they were going to move Ford UK over on to doing things

like the Transit and D Series truck and things like that.

And also there was this sort of move towards component engineering,

where you became a real specialist.

So, you know, you might know more about tooth belt cam drives than anyone in the world,

but you know, that didn't float my boat.

So, I thought, well, let's try and get this job working with Rory at Royal.

And where were they?

They were actually just outside Bedford.

So, actually, very near Cranfield.

So, I went to see Rory. He offered me the job.

I thought it was even principal. It was either going charge.

Now, the company is actually owned by a chap called Alan Corner.

But when you talk about it, you know, there were three or four people

working there at the time, and that was it.

So, I decided, right, I'm leaving Ford, I'm going to do this.

And having made that decision, the funding for the Formula 2 car then suddenly disappeared.

So, I was left high and dry.

So, I just wrote to everyone,

everyone who had anything to do with motor racing and said,

I'm looking for a job.

And I ended up working for a company called Hawke.

Hawke racing cars down on South End Airport.

And it was a funny thing.

The guy who owned that was called David Lazenby.

He used to be Jim Clark's number one mechanic at Indianapolis,

when he won Indianapolis.

Great guy.

And actually, a really good opportunity because at Royal,

it was very much a sort of assembly place with everything subcontracted.

Whereas at Hawke, we made everything.

And so, it was a really great place to learn.

But I will remember my first day there when I sort of walked in.

And David said to me, well, we, you know, this was September 1976 now.

They said, form the Ford festivals in November.

You know, that's the biggest sort of race of the year.

And we need, we need to do something good for it.

You'd better go on with it.

So I said, okay, show me where the design office is.

So I walked into this portic cabin and there was no one there.

And that's first time I actually realized I was the only,

doesn't where the design was the design.

So it was interesting.

So the first thing I did was something I don't think had been number four was,

having had this sort of academic background,

I got on to Dunlop, who supplied the tires.

And I said, I want some, I want some tire data.

And I said, oh, we've got some, but no one's asked for it before.

So as I was sharing with me, when I looked to there,

I thought, well, I think we can do something.

We weight distribution, et cetera, et cetera.

So, designed the car, modified the car.

I'd say the DL-15 had been a very successful form of the Ford car.

We produced the DL-17, which we shifted the engine forward

to get slightly better weight distribution.

And so we went off to branch hatch for the Formula Ford Festival,

my first professional race ever.

And we finished first, second, and third.

I thought, I thought, this is easy.

How amazing to do the three cars.

And I think we actually did two of them.

I think the third was one of the car cars.

Two, two, seven, ten, fifteen.

But yeah, I thought it was easy and how wrong I was.

But there were a lot of Formula Ford manufacturers

in those days, weren't there?

They were.

Yeah, they were.

So to come out of the pack was a seriously big achievement, surely.

It was, but we had some very good drivers.

It's actually Derek Daly, who won that race,

though it wore it the second Bernadouany was third.

Yeah, they were good drivers.

Hawke had produced a good car with the fifteen,

so I was starting from a good point.

You know, I'm not going to take credit for it.

But yeah, that was the start of it all, really.

And thoroughly enjoyed it.

And it was still a three-year project.

And as you said earlier, I'm on year 49 of that three-year project.

So you thought that you'd ever...

You wouldn't actually necessarily stick in motor racing.

It was just...

I didn't think I'd be able to.

I wanted to, but, you know, as I said,

the teams were tiny.

Formula One teams will come on to it when I did get into Formula One as small they were.

So while I wanted to stick in Formula One,

I honestly didn't think, you know,

I could bring up a family and pay a mortgage and things like that.

So you're making this all this stuff?

Yeah.

So then, I mean, it's...

Well, the customers come to you when you win...

Absolutely.

You know, Hawk was quite successful on the track,

but not as a business.

You know, David was a great guy to work for,

but I didn't give his a business man.

And Hawk...

Well, I think I'd had a couple of paychecks bounce,

and I'd always time to move on.

Now, funnily enough, how this sort of almost incestuous part of motor racing

was that Rory Bern, who'd been at Roy Al,

was now going on to Tolman, to do Formula Two.

And Rory had, when he left,

it suggested that I'd take his place.

So I moved over to Roy Al,

and we had an incredibly successful time there,

with Kenny Atchison initially.

We set a record for the number of Formula Four Dresses one in a year.

Where are we, 77?

About 78, 79, something like that.

Yeah, probably 78, when I moved there, in the 78.

And also produced a Formula Four 2000 car,

which, again, was immensely successful.

In fact, we didn't actually lose a race until they told August,

if I remember it rightly.

So, you know, really...

That's a demoralized the others.

Well, that's the idea.

The funny thing was, actually, when I was at Cramfield,

in my class was Adrian Raynard.

And Adrian was making a bit of a name for himself

as a racing driver and as a constructor.

And Adrian decided he was going to leave Cramfield

and concentrate on building his racing cars.

I said to him, you're mad.

You'll never get anywhere like that.

You should finish your degree in everything.

I was wrong.

And he was highly successful.

But it's a little bit ironic that Adrian and I

still laugh about the fact that we see each other quite often

about the fact that with the Formula Four 2000,

the RP-27 Royale,

very nearly put him out of business

by beating his cars in a regular basis.

But very, very enjoyable times.

And again, it got to that point where you think,

oh, you know, how sustainable is this?

I think, by this time,

so I had my overstore to have been born

and how do we keep things going on?

The sort of miniscule salaries

that you earn in Formula Four in those days.

And just as I was sort of thinking,

you know, it's time to get a proper job,

which my mum was always encouraging me to do

in wider engineering.

Yeah, I've been going back to Ford or whatever.

I was approached by Alex Orkridge,

and he said, you know,

tallmen are going into Formula One.

We'd like you to come and join us.

And I thought, well, I can't pass that one up.

No. I think the clincher was that

my salary was certainly raised enough

to be able to pay the mortgage for a change.

But the real clincher was he said,

and you get a new golf GTI.

Yeah, that's me.

So, when off did that?

I was employing number 20.

Where were they?

They were in Whitney at the time.

Oh, so handy.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, I was living over in Bedfordshire,

or Copman where I was,

but yeah, it's always been in this sort of

bit of sprint in the GTI every moment.

Exactly.

Yes.

Yeah, so I was employing number 20.

And actually, even by the time we went racing, you know,

bearing in mind, we were producing nearly all the car,

very little going to subcontract.

We were still only about 65 people.

So it just illustrates how difficult it was

to get into Formula One at that time.

Now, some of the people at racing against were bigger,

but you know, I'm talking about maybe a hundred people.

Not the sort of 900,000 that you've got now.

You did told them and have when you went there.

I mean, did the, was it starting from dead in the water or?

Yeah, anything they had was ambition.

I love it very little else.

Is that good or bad?

Presumably, you can indulge your ideas, at least.

You haven't got somebody leaning over your shoulder.

We were crazy.

You know, we used to have our management meetings

used to be in the pub every night at about 10 o'clock,

and we used to talk about what we were going to do and everything.

And I remember before we, before the car had even hit the ground,

you know, we were talking about how many points we might get in our first season

and everything, because we actually struggled to qualify.

But our ambition was, was limitless.

And we went into Formula One.

And at that time, a lot of people were producing relatively simple chassis.

Space frame?

No, no, monocog.

And starting to use sort of honeycomb aluminium.

Oh, okay.

Of course, it's where downstream from the load is 25 and 1.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, this is 1981.

Yeah, so now, of course.

Yeah, so the, and sticking a DFE in the back,

sticking a heel and gearbox on it and going racing.

And we said, no, that's not the way to do it.

We need a turbocharged engine.

We need a tire advantage.

13 inch wheels are crazy.

You know, you can't get big enough brakes in them and stuff like this.

So having been very successful in Formula Two,

having won the championship, the idea was to take the heart engine,

the force on the two liter,

and make it into one and a half liter turbocharged engine.

Yeah, it sounds simple, doesn't it?

It's not.

It was difficult.

And then on top of that,

we brought Pirelli and, you know,

he had been Pirelli had won the Formula Two championship

with, with Tom and so let's go to Formula One.

But we don't want 13 inch tires.

We want to go to 18 inch,

so we can get bigger brakes in.

So, you know, developing everything brand new.

And even the monocog, although that first monocog was an aluminium honeycomb chassis,

we made it in the same way that we wanted to make a carbon chassis.

So, a lot of people at that time,

they'd buy these sort of honeycomb sheets

and they'd route them out and fold them.

And that's how you made a monocog.

Whereas we did separate skins,

just as a wood with a carbon skin,

honeycomb on that, then an inner skin, et cetera.

So, incredible ambition, incredible naivety,

but so much fun, you know, it really was great.

But, I mean, you did gain altitude, didn't you?

You did, you...

You got better and better.

Yeah, it did.

I mean, 81 was a really tough year.

With the original car, the 181, the car,

we called the flying pig,

because that was its chances of getting points.

It, I mean, it rarely qualified.

I think we qualified for a couple of races.

And we thought, well,

we just need to modify it in 82

and things will get better.

So, we went to the first race in 82,

and which was in Brazil,

and once again, we didn't qualify.

So, we had a bit of a crisis meeting in Rio,

and, very much, I'm 29 years old,

and Alex Hortkridge and Ted Tolman said,

well, Rory, you've got to go home,

and you've got a designer, so a car,

one John Gentry who was the assistant chief designer.

And he said, Pat, you're going to run the team.

So, 29 years old, I'm running a Formula One team, effectively,

which was a challenge, but I love rising to a challenge.

And we sort of struggled through that year,

because the idea was not to try and develop the car.

But it was an interesting lesson, actually,

because once we stopped fiddling with it,

actually got a little bit better.

Not great, but we started finishing races.

Remember, in those days, you only got points in top six.

So, we didn't get points,

but we were regularly finishing in top 10.

Tolman is fondly remembered, though,

and there was a center connection, wasn't there?

There was, yeah.

And that comes a little bit later,

because the great thing is,

we go from 82 where we're struggling to,

but we don't get points.

We're struggling to qualify at some races,

doing reasonably well in others.

And we had a secret weapon.

We, Rory and John had gone back to design the car for 83,

ground effect car.

And we'd really found something in shaping the monococ,

because most people had a flat monococ,

and they were relying on the underwings

to get the downforce,

whereas we shaped the whole little bottom of the monococ.

And this had improved the downforce

to such an incredible amount

that we debuted that car in the last couple of races of the year,

which I think were Monser and Las Vegas, actually.

But we didn't want to show our hand,

because anyone who saw it would be able to copy it for 83.

So we actually ran it in a disguised state

in a lower performance state,

and we thought, eh, you know,

it's all coming together for 83.

And then of course they dropped the bombshell

that they banned ground effect for 83,

and it was a flat bottom car.

So things like this can be disappointing.

And it's quite interesting, you know,

when I've went many years later,

sort of be a regulator,

rather than a gamekeeper rather than the poacher.

It was interesting how you were acting to that,

because the way we were acting to it was we produced a car

that was totally different to everyone else's.

And first race of the year, once the game was in Rio,

and in those days, what it used to do before the first race,

you'd go and test at the circuit,

what much as we do these days,

but we would probably go for two weeks of testing

before the first race.

So we went off to Rio with the 183 Batmobile.

Those who remember it,

front radiators, very wide nose,

very clever exploitation of the wing rules,

which allowed us to have a very wide wing

just forward of the rear axle centreline

in addition to the conventional rear wing.

An idea that actually a lot of people copied

as soon as they saw it.

Anyway, we went to Rio,

this Talman team, you know,

was struggling to qualify, struggling to get points.

And we are actually fastest in testing.

Amazing.

And it was just the creativity that we had within the team,

largely from Rory.

You know, Rory was just my mentor

and such a brilliant guy to work for.

Yeah, so you know,

we had a competitive car.

Now, actually,

we had a lot of reliability problems still.

And it wasn't until Zanvo,

that year that we scored our first points.

But you know, we were there fighting by this time.

And in my mind,

you know, we had come from nowhere in 81

to points scoring again,

only top six scored points,

points scoring in 83.

And along the way, we learnt so much.

You know, the 81 car was originally built

even without going in the wind tunnel.

And one of the jobs I did was to build the wind tunnel model,

get wind tunnel,

working at Southampton and Imperial College,

as a lot of people were,

and start to understand the aerodynamics a little bit.

And that led us to produce the 84 car still at home

and TG184.

And we signed this young guy out in the center to drive it.

And I mean, it was a revolutionary revolution.

Why did you sign him?

Just because he'd been so good in Formula 3, was it?

Oh well.

Yeah, Alex certainly saw something in him

because yes, he had been very good in Formula 3.

He'd been very good in Formula 4 and 4, 2000.

We know in Formula 3,

he actually had a really tough battle with Martin Brondle.

Yes, I remember watching it.

Yeah.

Which, you know, Martin is driver of a hell of a lot of time for.

He was definitely one of the best guys we had in RT.

But I think Alex saw something in that.

He tested the 183, you know, 183 at Silverstone

and he was incredibly quick in it.

And so we signed him.

And I think I think there was with the other teams,

they could see the same as us,

but they were probably less risk of us.

You know, since we started in Formula 1,

which we weren't risk of us.

For the poor, you were really crazy things.

So we signed in.

Originally he was driving the 183.

A difficult car, heavy car to drive.

You know, these huge front underwings,

which were the steering very heavy didn't have past steering in those days.

And Edson's one failing at that time as he wasn't fit.

So he found it very difficult to drive the car.

And certainly his performance would drop off during a race as he got tired.

In fact, first race he finished in Kailami

who had to lift him out of the car.

Of course Kailami, it's difficult because it's high altitude

and your breathing suffers and things like that.

But nevertheless, it was difficult for him.

But again, what we were doing then was we were producing designing the 184.

Now these days everyone brings out their cars at the beginning of the season.

But that wasn't the norm in those days.

We used to do things differently.

So we were introducing the 184 during the season.

And I guess this time our secret weapon was Michelin tyres.

We'd been on parliés, parliés had struggled in Formula One.

There's no doubt about it.

The 184 was designed to run on the Michelins.

And it was a good car.

I mean, it still had the heart turbo, which is now a monoblock engine,

which had solved a lot of our reliability problems.

And I hadn't just reveled in that car.

It was a great car.

Of course, I guess the sort of famous race for him was Monaco,

where one more lap and we would have on it.

And before it was red flagged in the wet,

an absolute superb display of driving.

And it really brought us to the fore, I think.

Now the interesting thing was we've done a deal on the Michelin tyres.

But actually, Ron Dennis at McLaren had a veto on it.

And in the end he didn't veto us having the tyres.

But what he said to Michelin was they can't ever have the latest tyres.

They've always got to be one step behind.

Now of course in Monaco, we're on wet.

And there wasn't a one step behind.

So in Monaco, we were on the same tyres as everyone else.

And yeah, it was a great result.

I think people still watched the video, did they?

I've got a painting on my wall at home of it.

It's definitely one of the highlights of my career.

Interesting.

At the end of it, I really didn't know what to think.

I didn't know whether to be elated that we'd finished second

or thoroughly disappointed that we didn't win.

And I think the elation lasted for an hour or so.

And then the disappointment set.

Yeah.

Because I really feel we should have won that race.

But you know, it's a good season.

We were on the podium in Brands Hatch and in Esterole.

Good car.

We were now a proper racing team.

And that led us to then actually one of my favourite cars ever,

which was the TG185.

And this is the point where we transitioned from Tolman to Benetton.

So the 185 was still a Tolman.

A little Benetton had now bought into the team.

And Michelin had pulled out at the end of 84.

And unfortunately, we'd upset Parallel by changing tyres mid-season.

And going back to the Formula 2 days,

Alex Hawker had upset Goodia by moving to Parallel.

So we had this car.

We had their tyres to run it on.

And John Watson was going to drive it along with Stephanie Henson.

And we built three of these cars and we got some even tyres.

And we took them up to Donington.

And John even to this day says it's one of the best handling cars he's ever driven.

Wow.

And it was a lovely car.

It was the...

As an engineer, it was the easiest car I've ever had to work on.

It had the widest sweet spot you can think of.

We got a pole position at Novergring with it on the A1.

No.

By this time, we Parallel had relented.

Well, see.

So early in the season, we were going to all these races.

We were taking the truck there.

Parking the truck somewhere near the circuit.

And myself and Rory and Alex were going into the circuit.

And we were trying to negotiate with Parallel to get tyres.

And it's...

No, you can't have them this week.

It's OK, send the truck home.

But then eventually they relented and we were allowed to run.

I can't remember when we started that season.

But yeah, pole at Novergring was quite something.

Absolutely.

Actually, I don't think we scored any points that season.

We had some reliability problems, very high fuel consumption on the engine.

But nevertheless, lovely car.

Loved working with it.

And it was actually TFRP in the end who had the pole at Novergring.

So yeah, we were on our way then.

And, you know, we can go on year by year by year.

But then sort of moved on, you know, with the BMW years.

Fantastic four-cylinder 1300 horsepower engine.

Where we ran it.

Just the boost that we ran was whatever the turbocharger was capable of.

You know, there was no wastegate on it.

And we used to select them.

So if you had one that was built with really fine tip clearances,

you could get out to sort of five and a half bar boost.

Because it's a 1300 horsepower engine.

What were the drivers ever intimidated by these cars?

I can remember talking to Jonathan Palmer about turbocars one time.

And he said, he told me this story about how you would come back

after a few weeks off or the season end of the season.

And you'd get in the car for the first time and accelerate down a big straight.

And the poke was so enormous that you would be disorientated for a moment.

You'd just kind of forget the way you were.

It was so, the loads were so huge.

I don't think they were intimidated.

I think they were scared stiff.

Yeah, these were animals, you know.

And the vehicle dynamics of that time, the aerodynamics, very little grip.

Huge power.

Yeah.

Real manly car to drive, I think.

Yeah.

It's quite a nice era.

So what happened to you in the...

Through the Benetan era, you were there all the way?

I was there all the way until actually a little bit of a falling out.

John Barnard joined the team.

And Rory and myself and 11 other people decided that actually we went too keen on working with John.

It's a very clever guy, but quite a difficult character.

And at the time Adrian Raynard wanted to get into...

That's right.

There was a...

So we went off to a place...

About half a mile from where we're sitting now in Besta.

And we started working on a Formula One car.

And it was a really enjoyable time actually, because when you take away this sort of relentless work that you have to do to go racing

and you can stop and concentrate, it's actually very interesting.

We were able to do a lot of things that we'd wanted to do for a long while.

We certainly improved our wind tunnel model.

We did a lot of work on Active Suspension at that time.

That was the fashion as it were.

It was, yeah.

So this is sort of late 80s and 90, probably.

And yeah, it was a good time, but...

Real brain strain time, though, isn't it?

It was, and it was still difficult.

You know, Adrian supported us fantastically, again,

but like the sort of Formula 4 2000 days,

we nearly broke his company again.

It's great, we still remain good friends, but...

What were you at this stage? Were you the designer or the team operative team...

I was so chief engineer, I guess.

So I really wasn't doing much true design at this time.

I was doing things like getting wind tunnel programs,

working Active Suspension.

There was very much my project, all those sort of things.

What was the objective of Active Suspension?

Was it, it was body control to eliminate any suggestion of body roll?

That sort of thing, was it all?

It was to keep a constant ride height more than anything.

You know, all racing cars, whether they're flat bottom,

whether they're ground effect or whatever,

they will have a sweet spot of ride heights,

and the idea was to try and keep it there.

Now you can do that by having a very stiff suspension,

which is the way the current cars are running.

Or you can do it with a very clever suspension,

and the idea was to have the clever suspension.

But that sort of platform, there was so many things you could do.

You could dial in the understeer and oversteer

that you wanted at different speeds and different places

on the track and things like that.

It was a wonderful system.

It was a system, I was quite proud of the fact

that having developed this system,

and by this time, you know,

well we're going on now till back to Bennet,

we were working before it this time,

using the Ford engine.

Ford had produced an active suspension car,

which wasn't terribly successful,

and they asked us about ours.

We had Ford people working with us at the time,

and they built a car with our system on it,

and went over to Dearborn,

and they were running these two cars.

Actually, Jackie Stewart was driving them,

and it was very obvious that our system

not only could be made cheaper than the system that they'd done,

but it was actually better.

So it was quite nice sort of...

Yeah, still too expensive to go into.

Heavy?

No, not really.

No, I wouldn't say it's heavy.

A little bit of power sapping, obviously.

You know, you've got to drive the hydraulics,

that's overall real performance advantage.

Very interesting.

I remember being driven around by Nigel Manswell

in a Lotus prototype,

based on an Esprit,

and it was an extraordinary experience.

You couldn't tell what the ride was like,

because it was so variable that you couldn't say

it was the hardest off, it was weird.

Well, I recently drove a Cadillac Celesteak,

which has got active suspension on it,

and I drove on Test Track in Detroit,

just outside Detroit,

and I've driven a lot to...

Basically, we had all the Cadillacs to drive,

and one of the corners had a washboard in it,

you know, to test the cars,

and every single car that I drove

step sideways on that,

is so listing.

It was sort of like,

oh, have I gone the wrong way?

You know, it's just like the bumps weren't there,

and that's what active can do to you,

and it's fantastic.

And of course,

tribute to Peter Wright,

who's just recently passed away,

a really good friend,

and a guy I could talk to about active suspension

for hours on end.

Yeah.

Cadillac, of course,

is the name on the team

that you're now working for.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, so...

But let's sort of fill in too,

because tell us about the transition to Renault,

the Bennett and to Renault.

Well, I think, you know,

before we leave...

Benneton, of course,

we had the Michael Schumacher.

Of course we did.

And, you know,

we need to know that...

Couple of world championships with Michael.

So, I started off really working

as Michael's race engineer.

Absolutely.

He just...

He did...

Didn't he do a race or something

with Eddie Jordan?

He did a...

He did a sparer with Eddie Jordan.

Yeah.

And then Flavio Breatori

managed to sort of coach him away

from one's or onwards.

And this was the...

that Rorin,

I were actually at...

at Renault.

Right, right.

So, we then went back to Benneton

when Michael was already there.

Michael was already there.

So, to start off with...

I acted as his race engineer.

And we were actually in those first few races

we were running the John Barnard design car.

Which we had to do a fair bit of work

on to get it competitive.

Well, no, that's not true

because it won a race here before...

with PK.

But, yeah, to get it reliable, et cetera.

While we worked on the next car.

And...

Going so well with Michael,

I really, you know,

to this day,

I regard him as...

probably that...

my favourite driver that I've worked with, you know.

And that glutes out.

And it includes Fernando,

people like that.

Because...

Michael's work ethic was just

something I'd only ever seen in engineers.

I'd never seen it in the racing driver.

Yeah.

His intelligence.

And his personality.

You know, just a really lovely guy.

He...

not only knew everyone in the team.

He knew their families.

He knew all about them.

You know, he'd come into the garage on Thursday.

Go up to any mechanic.

Any sort of subassembly guy

and talk to them.

And, you know, he'd sort of remember,

oh, yeah, you know,

your kids...

That's really interesting.

At the moment.

Now, they're getting on and things like that.

I'm so glad to hear you say this

because he...

I've got...

I had a few...

connections with Michael over the years myself

here and there.

And...

I've got the same opinion.

I think he is remarkably nice man.

He is.

I mean, you know, as Brits, of course,

this was the time when

Michael was fighting Damon Hellen.

Damon, yeah.

And therefore, you know,

the British media probably saw

Michael as the villain.

But he wasn't the villain.

He was a lovely guy.

Yeah.

Really, really nice guy.

Thoroughly enjoyed it.

And of course, two world championships.

Was he...

And four, nine, five...

Was...

You'd worked with a lot of drivers already by then.

Was it clear that he was

a talent, you know, a superior talent?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I guess, you know,

the best driver I'd worked with up until that time

and this is not denigrating any of the others,

but the best one was clearly at.

And...

Very, very different character to it.

And much more involved, much more human.

But, you know, it's interesting.

If I choose the three drivers who've been most successful

where I've worked with,

which is Erton, Michael,

and Fernando Alonso,

I worked with them a decade apart,

you know, mid-90s, mid-2000s,

mid-80s, mid-90s, mid-2000s.

And a decade in motorsport

is like a century in real life, you know.

Everything changes so much.

So you can't really compare the drivers

because what we asked of them was different.

You know, with Erton,

we had no data acquisition.

Our data acquisition was the driver.

If you wanted to know what ribs the car was pulling on the straight,

you had to ask the driver

to know what the oil temperature was.

You had to look at an old-fashioned gauge on the dashboard.

Until you get to the point, you know,

moving forward to 20 years to Fernando's time,

where we knew more about the car than he did.

But the one thing that they all had in common

was this incredible self-esteem.

You know, each one of them absolutely knew

they were the best in the world.

They would not accept that they were anything other than that.

Which occasionally when they get beaten,

they're very, very grumpy.

You know, that's the common characteristic.

I don't think it just applies to racing drivers.

I think any professional sportsman

has this amazing self-esteem.

But yeah, the Michael years were great fun.

Really developing the active suspension,

full wheel steer.

We had all sorts of really great things on the car then.

And it was a bit of a blow when he left to go to Ferrari.

Followed by Ross, followed by Rory.

I could have gone to Ferrari,

but I was going to say,

you didn't think about it.

I did think about it.

But I would really go to Ferrari,

doing exactly the same as I'd done at Benetton.

And that wasn't that attractive.

Whereas Ross was really keen

that I took over his technical director at Benetton.

And fairly initially, I didn't want to do that.

I figured as chief engineer,

I had the best job in the world.

So why would I want all that sort of...

all the peripheral stuff that comes with being a technical director

where you become much more of a manager than an engineer?

But Ross persuaded me to do it.

Flavio persuaded me to do it.

And I'm really glad I did,

because it opened up a whole new dimension to my career.

So in the late 90s,

I took over a technical director at Benetton.

And I think my main thing there was I could see

what was happening in Formula One.

And I could see that independent teams like Benetton

were not going to survive.

We had to be aligned with the manufacturer.

And we didn't have a very big budget at that time.

The years after the championships, 94.95,

been quite good.

We had done well on sponsorship

and on prize money.

We built the wind tunnel.

You could now pay the mortgage.

I could pay the mortgage.

But yeah, we went a wealthy team.

And I could see the writing was on the wall.

So my main thing at that time was trying to take this

what was a relatively small team,

certainly compared to the McLaren's and Ferrari's

and Williams at the time.

And try and make it appear as a big team

and therefore have someone buy it.

Which ultimately was just successful,

because Renault bought Benetton.

And then we moved into the Renault years

and this huge expansion.

We moved from Whitney to Endstone with about 200 people.

By the time Renault had really got their feet under the table,

we were up at the 750 or something like that.

So this enormous expansion,

which in itself was quite difficult to manage.

But again, with success,

with Fernando and other couple of world championships.

And yeah.

A good time with Renault.

We enjoyed it.

Were you there when they devolved the engine manufacture

to France?

It had always been in France.

Yeah, even going back to the 70s.

Oh, I see it first.

I'm rusty.

Quite difficult actually.

There was a time, some friction between Endstone and Viery,

which is in France.

And then a guy called Rob White came along

and just transformed Viery.

An Englishman going into a French company.

Rob's a super guy who actually,

I work with a Cadillac now.

I'm very pleased to work with him.

Excellent, perfect French got everyone on side

and really transformed into,

we had a pretty good engine by the time we got to the V8 era.

And during that time,

we won the last championship with the V10

and the first championship with the V8.

Good effort to get the engine side

was working pretty well by then.

So on you went through the Renault era

and then you reappeared as a legislator, as a...

A little bit in between.

I went to Marussia for a while.

What are the new teams?

Working with Graham Loudon, who again...

Oh, you're working with your record analyst?

Exactly, yeah.

Great guy.

Really, really like working with him.

What held Marussia up?

Was there nothing?

That's why it didn't survive.

I mean, you know, going really to an extreme

working for a team that was underfinanced.

In an era when you really needed money?

You did.

That whole thing when Marussia and Katrium

and people came along,

it was all under false pretenses.

This was Max Mosley saying,

well, we're going to have a budget cap.

I think it was set at something like 30 million.

It was a stupid amount.

Everyone was going to run Cosworth engines.

So these new teams joined in.

And of course, it wasn't like that at all.

All that disappeared by the time they come.

But I really...

I actually really enjoyed working there.

It was difficult.

And where was...

It was in Bambury.

Okay.

Well, initially, actually, the team was up in Yorkshire.

And I joined the team as a consultant.

The team was partially owned by LDC,

which is a finance branch of Lloyd's Bank.

And they'd asked me to look at the team

and see whether it was a good investment, and what have you.

And one of the first things I did,

as I said,

when we got moved from Yorkshire,

and we got moved down to Oxfordshire

because you're not going to get any staff working up there.

So that was sort of one of the first tasks

was moving to Bambury.

And then just trying to generally increase

the professionalism of the team.

And, you know, the results weren't there.

It was a remarkably good team.

Really, really enjoyable doing that.

And very much played into my mind,

going to Cadillac many years later.

The ability...

Well, firstly, working with Graham,

who I respect enormously.

Where did he come from?

Graham had been involved in junior formula.

So with John Booth, successful manner together.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, they'd run Lewis Hamilton in Formula 3

and things like that.

But quite a step up to Formula 1,

even under those sort of pretence of this cost cap.

Sure.

Yeah. And, you know,

difficult times.

First meeting in the morning was,

well, how much money we got in the bank,

and who are we going to pay today?

Who do we need to carry on?

Yes.

Of course, that couldn't last.

And I got an offer to go to Williams.

Went to Williams.

Good years, weren't they?

They were.

Yeah, I mean, when I went there,

the team was ninth in the championship.

Frank said to me, right,

you've got to turn that nine upside down.

I went sixth, and I said, Frank,

we've got to have higher ambitions than that.

And of course, we were third in the championship

the next year.

He must have been delighted.

Yeah, he was.

I think the whole team was.

It was an interesting team,

because, you know, there's some really good people there.

There was some people who probably had been there a bit too long,

and, you know, thought this was the Williams way of doing things.

You know, we had the advantage of having the Mercedes engine.

This is 2014 when it was the dominant engine.

But McLaren had it as well.

And, you know, we were way ahead of them.

And in fact, we were challenging Mercedes for wins

from time to time.

Yeah.

Was the engine equal spec?

No, it wasn't.

These days, it has to be.

And that's a very good new rule that's come in since then.

But no, we were, we were always a bit behind the workscars.

Which on occasions actually helped us,

because, I think it was in Canada,

where they had problems with the NG recovery,

which we didn't, because we were a step behind.

But, yeah, generally, we were a bit behind.

But, yeah, it was a good successful years.

And I think it turned the team round.

Because, yeah, I can remember this quite well,

because you, you're a rival.

There was a bit of a feeling that,

that Williams was going down for the last time.

And then you turned up and the thing turned around, didn't it?

It really did.

It did, yeah, yeah.

It had three very successful years there.

But at the end of 2016,

Liberty took over from Bernie, from CVC,

to take the commercial rights formula one.

And I was asked to set up a technical team.

The idea was that the commercial rights holder

should have an input into what the future technical regulations were.

And this is 2017.

Right?

Yeah, yes.

Yes.

Actually, under 16, left Williams and joined,

yeah, beginning of 2017.

I've been sorry to see you go.

I don't know about that.

They have Paddy Low coming and, you know,

I wanted things moved.

This new challenge.

Yeah, of course.

And it was a chance to work with Ross again.

And I had enjoyed working with him.

Ross was already installed in this job.

He was, yes, he was, by months.

Yeah, okay.

So, yeah, we...

And what was...

I've got this in my notes here.

What was the mission?

What was that?

This was Liberty saying,

what is formula one going to be liked in the future?

Exactly.

So, Ross and I sat down,

actually, before we really started.

We sat down one evening at his house

and we said, okay, what do we want?

It must be a great fun to start with such an essential question.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

And actually, a really difficult question to answer.

There's...

It's a fast-moving sport in the fast-moving society.

And some of it we got right, some of it we didn't anticipate.

But I think that there were many things on our list,

not all of which we got through.

But near the top of them was Budget Cap.

You know, I'd left Williams.

Williams was in dire straits, financially,

racing point or force in near or whatever they were at the time.

You know, we're going broke.

Teams were going broke on a regular basis.

So, to us, the Budget Cap was essential.

The difference between spending formula two or indie car

and formula one is hard to understand.

It's not hard to understand really how it's spent.

My job's always been to spend money.

But you've gone from the potatoes.

It's all there's a magnitude.

And so we knew that that wasn't sustainable.

We also knew that we had to do something

to allow the cars to race closer together.

There were many things on that list,

needed to increase fan engagement,

all these sort of things.

Stop making it quite so exclusive,

which Bernie was very keen on being exclusive.

I guess, you know, my particular thing at that early stage

was the close following.

So I set up an aerodynamic team

and we produced...

What should have been 21 car,

but because of COVID, it became 22 car.

Which significantly improved the ability to follow close.

It got eroded over time, as it always will.

But it was a very interesting exercise.

And what I quite enjoyed was I was really back

to some fundamental engineering again.

At Renault, at Williams,

very much managing.

In fact, at Williams, I used to...

At six o'clock, I'd close the door of my office

and I'd turn from a manager into an engineer

and sort of go through all the reports and things

and start thinking about engineering.

But I'd probably spend most of my day just hurting cats.

It was that sort of thing.

So it was a great fun.

I did enjoy it.

Then got into a sustainable fuel project,

which was I initiated.

I said, look, you know,

we're going to have an environmental sustainability program.

And I think what we need to do is have a sustainable fuel,

which at the time I was thinking of,

is not many people even knew what I was talking about.

I'm not sure I did.

I actually had to go and buy a lot of chemistry books

and teach myself a bit of chemistry.

But I was very proud of that project.

But I mean, the principle is pretty understandable, isn't it?

That you don't put back any more rubbish than you take out.

Exactly. Yeah.

What you do is you produce some carbon atoms.

You produce some hydrogen atoms.

You do it in a sustainable manner.

You bring them together and you make a fuel.

And I was very determined that if we did that,

we were going to do it properly.

There were people talking about sustainable fuels,

but they weren't in my mind fully sustainable.

So we went through this incredible process of certification,

where pretty well every molecule that goes into that fuel

has to be certified as being sustainable.

All the processes have to be as sustainable

as it possibly can be.

So it is rigorous these days.

Very, very rigorous.

And this is the fuel that's coming in in 26, of course, I see.

And I also wanted to ensure it was what's called an EN228 fuel,

which means it's a fuel that's certified for road use anywhere in Europe.

And that was really important that we were producing a sustainable fuel

with an enormous reduction in carbon footprint.

But something like Fiona Racing car or Cougar and your road car.

So I'm very proud of that project actually.

It's a very good one.

Is that going to be...

I've just bought a car to do sprinting.

Pursuit certified.

Would I be able to run my car on that?

Absolutely.

That's very interesting.

It's a high performance fuel.

It's a reasonably high octane.

Probably higher than you need, you know, for road cars,

but it's absolutely compatible with all the European regulation.

I'm going to do that.

Yeah.

So you...

You propelled that and it's been...

It was adopted or is going to be adopted?

Adopted in 2026.

Right.

And it's, you know, even today it's quite difficult to get the molecules.

You know, I started a project quite a while ago.

And I realised if we wanted to do it with this very rigorous checking of everything that I wanted to do,

I realised we couldn't do it immediately.

So we decided to leave it till 26 and introduce it with the new engines.

And even now it's still quite hard to get everything, but...

Is there one supplier or a number of suppliers?

No, there are numbers.

So every fuel supplier currently informing the one is producing their own sustainable fuel.

This is something I was very keen on.

You know, in a way the simple answer would be to have a standard fuel,

but of course there's a lot of money comes into forming the one from the fuel company.

So the teams wouldn't want that.

And what I was very keen on was...

If I look at what's happened with road transport,

I think it's very wrong that governments have said in order to cut carbon,

you have to have an electric vehicle.

What they should have done is they should have just said you got to cut carbon.

Now you clever guys go away and decide how to do it.

And without a doubt, electric vehicles would have been a major part of that,

but not the only part of it.

I learnt from that, and what I wanted to do was say,

this is the fuel I want at the end of the process.

I want the knee and two to eight fuel.

I want at least 85% reduction in the carbon footprint.

But how do you do it? It's up to you.

Because I thought if we've got five fuel companies, if they're all doing it a different way,

then we will find the best way to do it.

And that's essentially what they've tried to open up.

And it's happened.

It has happened, yeah.

We see whether everyone gravitates towards one process.

I know some people want to look at direct air capture.

Some people want to make it from waste.

You can use algae.

There are all sorts of different ways of making these fuels.

But very rigorous in that, you know, we can't...

Nothing can compete with food crops or anything like that.

So one of my little strap lines was,

you can make the fuel from potato peelings, but you can't use the potato.

Because that's got to go and feed someone.

Yes, that's it.

Great project.

Really, yeah.

And serious implications for the decades to come.

Well, I hope so.

I mean, I think a lot of technology will go into aviation fuel first.

But I do see it coming into road fuels.

I would say as a blend, you know, in the same way that we blended 5% of ethanol

and 10% of ethanol into the E10s.

I can see a time when we might have 10% ethanol, 10% sustainable fuel

and the remainder being fossil fuel.

And then that sustainable fraction increases over the years as we did with ethanol.

Talking about the gamut of the totality of the 26 rigs,

is it fair to say that what is going to happen in 26 is the complete result

of the years that you spent working on this for the FIA?

Not entirely.

And it was from no management.

Not entirely.

Because I have to say that the power unit itself is probably not what I would have liked it to be.

The power unit ended up.

When we did the 2022 car,

we listened to what the teams were saying,

but we ruled them with a firm hand and we said,

we're listening to you, but we're actually going to do this.

Some of them.

Sorry to interrupt it.

So it's fair to say you went there in 2017,

the 22 car was the first step.

It was.

Right.

I understand.

Yes, so we listened to what they had to say, but we tempered it.

You know, we knew that each one of them had an agenda.

Having been there yourself.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I mean, this is the advantage of spending 70 years as a competitor.

So we were, we were quite rigid in what we wanted.

Now with the 26 power unit,

the FIA said we want to,

we want to involve the manufacturers more.

And unfortunately, I think, you know,

it's like when you get a committee to design a racehorse,

you end up with a camel.

And I think that's happened a little bit because one of the briefs

for the 26 engine was to remove the MGUH,

because that was something that was.

It certainly improved the efficiency of the engines massively,

but it was quite complex.

What's an MGUH?

Sorry.

Yeah, I hate acronyms, not just used them.

The MGUH is a motor generator unit heat.

So what it is is attached to the turbocharger is an electric motor,

which is capable of spinning the turbocharger up to get rid of lag.

But more importantly, it's capable of acting as a generator.

So the turbocharger can drive the motor,

produce electricity, which goes into the battery.

I see.

Very efficient way of recovering all that waste heat that's in the exhaust.

It was decided to remove that,

really to try and encourage new manufacturers into the sport,

which in some way was successful.

And we've got Ford come in, we've got Audi come in,

we've got Cadillac come in,

Porsche almost came in,

sort of faulted it last minute.

But once you remove that energy source,

if you keep everything else similar,

that we've increased the power of the motors and things,

the idea was to replace it with recovering energy from the front axle.

And if you did that, everything balanced out quite nicely.

You weren't short of energy.

You could have a lot more electrification on the car.

But unfortunately, because of the committee approach to things,

one team was very much against front axle recovery.

I think the president of the FIA at times on Todd thought

we were talking about four-wheel drive, which we weren't.

We were talking about energy recovery.

Just the region.

Maybe drive once you're on the straight, but certainly not in the corner.

Not a four-wheel drive, classic car.

And so because of this sort of very democratic approach,

one of the times in democracy is not good,

we ended up with this camel.

We've ended up with a power unit that's sparse on energy.

And okay, there are ways around it, but they're not good ways around it.

So I wouldn't say that 26 power units ended up the way I wanted it.

The chassis, the aerodynamics, yeah, I think they're pretty good.

The active arrow is a good step forward.

What are they going to deliver? I'm the bloke on the sofa.

That's a million-dollar question, isn't it?

I don't think you'll see much difference.

They will be a little bit slower, because they have a little bit less downforce.

I have slightly smaller tires.

Does that mean that more clever car control required in the corners?

I think so, but I think more than anything,

you will get into this sort of energy management.

There's no DRS anymore, because the active aerodynamics means

everyone's low-drag on the straight.

So the overtaking aid now is the push to pass, the increased power.

And I think that would be quite interesting how people manage that.

So I think the racing will become a bit more tactical.

Personally, I'd like to say a limit on the number of times it can use the push to pass,

because then it would become very tactical.

But I haven't done that.

But we'll still get tactical racing.

Do I use my energy now to defend?

Do I use it to pass the guy in front?

How do I use it?

That'll be quite an interesting question.

I just hope it's not too complicated for the casual fans to understand.

Because even now, when you watch a race on television,

you'll see someone creeping up on the car in front and then suddenly they drop away.

I think a lot of people don't realise that that is a lot to do with energy recovery.

Using that energy and then having to recover it again.

So we don't want things to get too complicated.

I suppose graphics on the TV will help.

Exactly.

I think this is really important.

You do need to see what state of charge people have gotten their batteries and things like that.

So was there a logical moment?

You've now joined Cadillac.

You did that a year ago?

I had a January 1st this year.

Was there just a decision you made because you thought you'd done your job?

Tell me a little bit of frustration.

I think that Formula 1 management was getting less and less involved in the regulations.

Very much so FIA and things like the 26 power unit was not what I wanted it to be.

It was, you know, it's a very funny thing actually.

When, in 2017, my first year working with FOM, I remember walking into the panic in Australia

and I had this really strange sensation which hadn't occurred to me before that I didn't care who won the race.

And that was really weird.

And I think as the years went on, I started to miss that competitive spirit.

So it was nice to get back to competition.

Now strangely enough, as part of my work at FOM,

I've been asked to assess technically the worth of the new teams.

And when I looked at the proposal that what became the Cadillac team had put forward,

I thought, wow, you know, this is actually really, really impressive.

Actually, you know, it's very ambitious, it's very well funded, it's very sensible.

And when later I realised Graham Laden was involved in it,

I thought, actually, this is something I really like to be involved with.

I spoke to Graham, he was wanted to get me on board.

So yeah, long gardening leave from FOM.

Lovely garden now.

I'm not finished, you said.

Not finished yet.

But yeah, I left FOM around this time.

I think it was in 24.

I'm joined Cadillac, beginning in 25.

And it's a great team.

It really is.

We have necessity of building it out of the UK.

It's where you know, a lot of the sort of skill bases and a lot of these.

So where's the centre of gravity?

Centre of gravity at the moment is Silverstone.

Right.

Certainly for Shassin for racing.

Centre of gravity for the power unit because we're doing our own power unit for 2029

is in Charlotte in North Carolina.

So we're building a new factory there at the moment working out of GM facilities.

We also have assistants from GM in Charlotte who are doing, for example, of our software.

Our simulator is based there.

Tire science and things like that are based there.

And then we're building an enormous factory just outside Indianapolis.

420,000 square feet.

Huge.

You know, that number sounds big.

But when you actually go and look at it, you realise how big it is.

The first time I went over there, I just couldn't believe the size of it.

So this is going to be, when it's up and running, you know, it might be at the end of the decade.

This will be an honest to God attempt by Americans to build an American, to have an American built racing car running in F1.

Yeah, it will be more than an attempt to, it will be a reality.

Sorry, I don't know.

It will be a reality.

The idea is to transition everything to the state.

So, for example, a new simulator is going into the Indianapolis building.

Indianapolis will be doing most of the production that at the moment is in the,

so the European supply chain that will all move over to America relatively soon.

It's an exciting, it's difficult.

It's a challenge.

Has it ever been done before?

Doing Dan Gurnian is, remember, all American racists, where was that?

Was that still in Europe?

I've forgotten.

I believe it was, but I'm sure someone will correct it.

Someone will leave.

It's just a, you can imagine things being enabled and financed and facilitated very well in America, can't you?

Yeah, well, I mean, there's a big difference now, you know.

Formula One in America is big.

And it wasn't.

And our idea is to make fishes, which is the place just outside Indianapolis,

where we're building the big factory.

We want to make it a destination, so it'll be more than just a factory.

It'll be somewhere for F1 fans in North America to go to.

We've got a huge amount of land there.

We bought the hotel next to the factory and things like that, so it sounds really good.

You're all very welcome.

But yeah, what we will leave in Silverstone is the idea is the sort of concept design will remain in the UK for a fair while.

What we have termed our rapid response manufacturing,

so things like front wings and flaws that you're changing race to race,

we'll probably leave that in the UK.

Manufacturing, we will move to America reasonably soon.

Always keeping a capability in the UK.

And then over a period of time, we'll start transitioning other parts.

So I guess our next big decision is the wind tunnel.

And to me, it only makes sense to build a wind tunnel in America.

Now at the moment, we're using a wind tunnel in Germany.

So to me, the difference between going to Germany, going to America,

wind tunnel testing is not actually a big deal.

You need to run a, if you're running a remote wind tunnel,

you have to have like a mission control just like we do for races.

So it doesn't matter whether it's in Germany, whether it's in America.

And actually the manufacturing will be in America, so in some ways it's easier.

Electricity, these things use a lot of electricity.

Electricity is about the third of a price in the USA.

So under a cost cap, yeah.

And that would go under, that stuff goes under the cost cap.

Yeah, absolutely.

Gosh, you, this must have been, when it, I mean, perhaps there wasn't just a moment

when the scale of this thing dawned on you, but it's just like it's just dawned on me.

But must have been the next hell of an exciting prospect.

I mean, this is years of work, isn't it?

It is.

Actually, if I think it's still dawning on me, I'll give you an example.

This week, where we're heading third week in November, what have you?

Our first two sets of sea freight leave.

One to Bahrain for the testing and one to Australia for the first race.

And I guess it was so in the first quarter of this year,

we realized we needed another building at Silverstone to handle the logistics and stuff like that.

So we took on another unit, and I remember at the time saying,

do we really need something that big?

And you go in there now, and you can't move in there,

because it's got all the sea freight in there, six sets of sea freight being built.

And just the size of everything you need to do.

And building a Formula One car isn't easy, but I've done a few of them now.

And you get to know the gates that you have to get through.

The various times when you have to do things.

But everything else, all the infrastructure around it, you just, you never do it all together.

You know, you might say, okay, well this year, let's refresh our pit wall stand.

Or, you know, let's do a new garage layout or something like that.

You do them one at a time.

We're doing everything together.

And it's such an enormous project.

Yeah.

Presumably you're hiring, Marylie.

Are you hiring people?

Yeah, we are.

Lots of Americans, imagine.

We have quite a few Americans in team in the UK, which is quite nice to see.

In fact, we've got all nationalities, as most of our fun teams.

Yeah, yeah.

We haven't hit our recruitment targets yet, because in Europe, well, in the UK,

it's really difficult with these long notice periods that everyone is on.

Funnily enough, America is really different.

They're a very short notice period.

So, we're hiring commercial and stuff like that in America quite rapidly.

But in the UK, yeah, we're building up.

We won't hit our target, our end-of-year target.

We won't be far short of it.

Is the place for F1 team personnel is still in the F1 arena?

You couldn't find a load of people from NASCAR or from IMPSA or whatever I mean.

Yeah, I think you can.

I actually think that Formula One is sometimes a little bit insular.

And I do try and get people to go out and look at the big wide world.

There's lots of things going on.

I must say, I find that the concept exciting, the fact that, you know,

we've always thought of Ferrari as this place that you try and visit

if you can swing it, and it's a whole hub.

And there's going to be another hub, isn't there, in theapolis?

Yeah, there's going to be another hub, but it's going to be a much more open hub.

We want to be fan-centric.

We want to demystify F1.

Formula One can be very secretive.

And particularly engineers, even though I am one myself,

tend to think that they're keeping a big secret when actually...

Yeah, they're the teams.

This one of the things I was going to kind of compliment you on,

because you and I have run across one another before.

And you're much better at...

it seems to me that realizing that it is the punter that holds this thing up.

Absolutely.

And not everybody gets that, do they?

That mortgage that we've been talking about is paid for by fans.

It's not paid for by anyone else.

If they weren't the fans, we wouldn't have the races, we wouldn't have the sponsors,

we wouldn't have the big companies involved.

Everything is down to fans.

What have you actually got now?

Have you got a car running...

I understand you're going to use a Ferrari power unit for the time being.

Yeah, that's correct.

29 did I hear?

Yeah.

A little bit depends on what happens, of course, with this transition

to normally aspirated engine, which is being talked about.

But at the moment, we've got V6s running,

but they're not race ready yet by a long way.

So it'll be 29 before we could introduce V6.

So where are we now?

We've started off with making a prototype chassis.

So even before we knew what the Ferrari engine looked like,

probably even before we'd actually done the deal with Ferrari,

because you've got to remember, we didn't get our entry until March 7th this year.

So it was a struggle.

It was a struggle.

And a lot of people, myself included, joined the team,

really on that sort of willingness to get the entry.

Now, if we haven't got the entry, we'd all be now to work.

In fact, we like.

So going back to where we are now,

we've built a prototype chassis,

because as well as, you know,

there's a lot to talk about, the new aerodynamics,

the new engine for 26,

but there's also a lot of new safety regulations.

And they're very, very tough this year, you know,

that it's really quite difficult to get through them.

Now, if you produce the chassis,

and you passed all your tests for the first time,

the only thing you'd know is that that chassis is too heavy.

You wouldn't know anything else.

So we did a lot of test pieces.

We produced a prototype chassis.

We went through things.

And then, when we produced our first race intent chassis,

actually, all this emolligation tests have gone quite well.

So right now, we've only got two more to do.

One we failed, which was to push up through the battery

and the battery failed.

So that's a Ferrari part that they're modifying.

And the other one is some nose tests,

which we wanted to leave until early December

to get maximum time developing the aerodynamics.

But all, you know, the crash tests,

rear impact tests, the side impact tests,

all those we've passed.

Shassy, the first car,

if you like, has been built at the moment

in workshop at Silverstone.

Checo has been in for his seat fit.

The factory is actually in the factory today

having his seat fit.

Wow.

So it's moving along.

It's moving along.

We hope to fire up the engine in a few weeks.

And then we're actually taking it to Maronello

to put on four-wheel dyno.

So before Christmas,

so we can make sure everything's working.

Shake down the Silverstone in January.

And then off the Barcelona for the first.

So the only way you're allowed to test this thing

is an official test, is it?

Correct.

You're allowed to,

well, they call filming days,

promotional days.

Yeah.

We'll use one of those

to sort of shake the car down at Silverstone

during January.

They're a great time to run a racing car at Silverstone.

Yeah.

And then off to Barcelona with everyone else.

Because over the last few years,

of course, there's only been one pre-season test.

But just like in 2022,

I think it was last time we did this.

Because we have a lot of new rules.

We've got three pre-season tests.

So one in Barcelona,

which is a closed test,

not open to the public.

And then,

but all the teams are.

And then two tests in Bahrain,

prior to moving on to Australia for the first race.

But it's not as dire as it sounds

to somebody who earns a sort of,

you know, just some sort of a racing car in their garage.

You can do a hell of a lot with simulation countries.

Oh, a huge amount.

Huge amount.

One of the things I've really enjoyed is we do,

we've called them rehearsals, actually.

So while the race is on in real life,

we are pretending we're in it.

So we didn't actually do Las Vegas.

We did Brazil.

So the way we approach that is we approach it.

So pretending we're going to Brazil.

So all our pre-race preparation has to be done.

Yeah, we've decided on our strategy.

We've decided on our tire usage.

We've decided on our run programs.

We have all our pre-event meetings and reports done.

And then,

all the paperwork has to be done.

We do, you know.

So on Thursday,

you have to self-declare your,

the mitigation and stuff like that.

You do all that.

And then on Friday,

when practice starts,

we have everyone in the control room at Silverstone and at Charlotte.

We start the simulator up.

We go out when the lights go green on the television.

We go out and they'll simulate it.

And we do the program.

The driver comes back.

So one of your drivers has to drive this simulator.

It's a simulator driver, right?

Okay.

But, yeah, he sort of tells us what the car is doing

and then we work on that.

We introduce faults randomly.

So, for example, in the sprint race in Brazil,

we had a fuel pump failure.

That's a virtual fuel pump.

You know, there's nothing there.

It's not real.

But what we can do is in the simulator,

we can type in that...

So somebody who likes you says,

we are now going to have...

I'm not telling anybody

but we're going to have a fuel pump failure.

Exactly.

Someone decides to do that.

Don't tell anyone.

And then you have to see how the engineers reacted to it.

They see it on telemetry.

Do they know what to do?

They have to instruct the driver what to do.

The driver has to do it.

In the race in Brazil, we did an amusing one.

We damaged the nose.

So we get the simulator guy to type in 30 points

of downforce, lost at the front.

And the driver goes, whoa, what's happened here?

Oh, you...

The damage of the nose have to come into the pits.

And doing all these things,

so when it happens in real life,

people aren't meeting it for the first time.

It'll happen, won't it?

Yeah.

So it's really good.

And then, of course, you know,

we have all our meetings,

just as we would at the track,

do all our post event reports.

We even...

So we've run the simulator during practice.

But then, of course, in real life,

that would be the car,

but then the simulator would run at night

to look at solutions for the next day.

So we're back in the simulator

at night looking at solutions for the next day.

So it really is just...

The reason we call it a rehearsal,

is it really is mimicking everything

that we have to do, including...

Yeah, all the reports have to get sent to the FIA

and to Parelli and all these sort of things,

just to make sure all our systems are working.

Do you find that, given your experience,

you were saying that a decade in formula lines

like it's entropy and all that?

Do you find that your experience

from days of your is...

remains useful at times like this?

Yeah, it does.

One of the things I love about what I do,

is you have to keep learning.

You know, things change so much.

I started in days before best stock computers

and certainly electronics on the cars and stuff like that.

So you have to keep learning.

But at the same time,

you're perfectly capable of making the same mistakes

over and over again.

An experience is just trying to minimize

making those mistakes over and over again.

So yeah, I think I can help by looking at it.

And Cadillac, I have a very broad remit.

It is to try and just look at everything that's going on

and try and help wherever I can to get the car on the grid.

But at the same time, trying to look into the future

because everyone has their head down.

Everyone is working so hard at the moment

to get those cars on the grid in Australia.

It's sometimes difficult to look forward five years.

And I'm trying to do that as well.

It must be interesting also to see...

because of your experience at seeing how teams work.

You know, you can sort of...

they're all human.

You know, can kind of predict

where things are going to go wrong

where the organization of the place is going to be a bit funny.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I think Graham Laban's

put together a very good structure for the team and how it's run.

But there are lots of lessons you learned.

When you talk about experience,

if I go back to my time at Endstone,

we moved in there,

big factory, few people.

It was soon the small factory with big people.

And we, as we sort of outgrew the factory,

we built the wind tunnel.

So we moved the aerodynamics guys into the wind tunnel.

And that was a mistake.

You know, the communication...

The wind tunnel's next to the factory.

But the communication started to break down.

It got worse because we then built a CFD centre.

We moved the CFD aerodynamicist into that.

And we now have three groups.

It was really, really poor communication.

And I'm talking about, you know,

50 metres, 100 metres between the buildings.

Yeah.

I think we've been absorbed, aren't they?

They do.

I mean, you can read papers where you look at the propensity

to directly communicate against distance.

And it's an asymptotic graph.

You know, it's the minute people are just a few metres away.

They'll send emails and things.

Which frustrates me.

I've sat in my office and I've got an email from someone.

I can look through the glass door and see them.

So I went and answered that email.

I walked out and talked to them.

Yeah.

So what we're doing at Cadillac is trying to learn from that.

And very open plan offices.

Not everyone likes open plan.

So we've got little work areas as well.

But we've even employed neuroscientists

to look at how we work together.

We have sent a very good questionnaire

to every single employee who'll be in the engineering centre

to say, not how do you want to work.

It's a very carefully designed psychometric thing.

And from that, you know, it's helped inform us

how we lay out the engineering office

because we really, really want Cadillac

to be the place people want to come and work.

Yeah.

And that's something that's really important, I think.

But they go back to that experience of,

well, got that wrong here at Endstone.

Let's make sure we don't do it again.

Yeah.

How interesting.

What is the...

Sorry, we've had a lot of your time here.

But it's so interesting.

Just a couple more.

What's the input of the GM hierarchy in this?

I mean, and the implication of that is that

your efforts are going to sell cars.

You know, they're going to do something with the GM brands.

Are you aware of that?

Do they go on at you about that?

Do you hear from Mary Barra saying,

yeah, absolutely.

Michael Royce and Mary Barra are very supportive.

I think that...

I mean, I'm not fully aware of their entire strategy,

but I think, you know, they Cadillac are producing some

really interesting vehicles at the moment, as you said.

And, you know, I think that they want to position the brand again.

You can look back at Mercedes some years ago

and they were very much the sort of old man's luxury car.

Now they have a very sporting image.

And I presume that Cadillac are doing something very similar.

But we have really good sport from GM.

GM have a motorsport engineering place in Charlotte.

And we get support from that.

As I said earlier, you know, they're running the simulator there,

doing a lot of the software there.

Even a little bit of design is happening there.

Power steering, for example, is entirely designed within that.

Oh, yeah.

The thing we understand is that GM is never going to launch a voxel

or an Opel kind of car.

But they do have intentions in Europe of having a pretty...

being reasonably prominent with the likes of Corvette and Cadillac.

Yeah.

And I presume that can be part of this, can't it?

Yeah, very much so.

It's exciting.

Gosh.

Just talk about your drivers.

People of different temperaments.

Why then?

What do you make...

Were you involved in hiring them?

Yeah, absolutely.

We went...

We produced a big matrix of...

Everyone is available.

Yeah.

Yeah, which is the time even included George Russell

because George hadn't signed the contract at that time.

So everyone was in that matrix.

And, of course, some of them...

George Russell very optimistic, higher, of course.

You know, down to the sort of...

I won't name names, the people who...

Yes, they had to be on the list,

but they probably had a little chance of achieving the drive with us.

And as we sort of went through all the pros and cons

and sort of writing and everything,

it became reasonably obvious that there were two or three

that could be in there.

And then, gradually, you know,

check on Valtteri rose to the top.

Now, Valtteri...

When is, of course.

Yeah, I mean, you know,

16 race wins between them.

Not many teams on the grid at the moment

have two drivers who are 16 race wins between them.

Valtteri I've worked with before at Williams, known well.

Really like Valtteri.

He's...

Amazing sense of humour.

I've seen some stuff online from Australia.

He's...

He's loved out there, isn't he?

He's hilarious.

You know, Finns have this reputation of being dower,

but no one told Valtteri that.

No, so he's a very funny guy,

but very, very focused, incredibly quick over one lap.

You know, really good qualifier.

Yeah, really, really good.

I know him well.

I know how to work with him.

Checko was a little bit...

We had to think a little bit more with Checko

because, you know, he had that very poor time

with Red Bull.

But, of course, when he was replaced,

you saw that so did many other people.

Yes.

And that really helped, I think,

re-evaluate Checko.

And I have to say,

not having known him before,

other than, say, hello in the palette, maybe.

I have to say, you know, his application

and his attention to detail

and his willingness to engage in everything is really, really good.

So, we've got two drivers,

so I'm really happy with...

And, you know, as a new team,

you're trying to build everything up.

The last thing you want is drivers

who throw at the wall trying to prove

that they're going to be the next...

Louis Hamilton.

Yes, sure.

We don't need that.

So, I'm really happy with what we've got there.

That's what...

They do look like a great team.

And you can see...

You can see it.

But, I particularly take it as a valetary,

just because, as I say,

it's a sense of humor,

because I'm totally unexpected, you see.

Yes.

And, you know, at the moment,

they go, very well.

That might not last.

I suppose you've seen a few aspects over the years.

Just to...

Let me conclude with a few really

shockingly simple hacks questions.

What's the best car you ever had a hand in?

You know, the one you're proudest of?

I guess if I go right back

to my sort of formula four days,

the Royal RP27,

the one that didn't lose until sort of late summer,

halfway through the next season.

Yeah, amazing.

The TG185, the one John Watson said

was the best handling car he'd ever driven.

You asked for one, but I can't give you one.

No, that's all right.

I think the Bennerton,

the active car with four wheel steer

and power brakes and all this sort of stuff, you know,

as an engineer.

That was a lovely car.

You'd expect me to ask you this.

Who's the best driver you ever worked with?

All round Michael Schumacher.

Great driver, as we said earlier,

lovely guy.

Good friend.

Yeah, really.

I can see that.

Real highlight, I'd say.

Do you have a connection with road cars?

Do you care about them very much?

Yeah, I mean, I enjoy driving.

I love driving.

I enjoy my road cars.

I love driving anything.

It's difficult.

I did London to Brighton in the 1903 Cadillac this year,

which was really, really difficult to drive.

I've got a good friend who's a farmer

and he lets me drive combines and tractors

and all sorts of things.

I like to say I'm helping him,

but I probably hinder him more than anything.

And yeah, road cars.

You know, I've got things from a...

Do you have a collection?

Not a collection.

I've got a 67 Mustang, which you know,

it just makes you realise how bad cars were in those days,

but it makes a great sound.

I've just ordered the 911 GTS,

which I think is the opposite end of the spectrum.

It is.

Yeah.

Nice cars.

And I mean, here we are.

Mr. Heritage, you were saying that you...

You come over here from time to time just to look at the cars, I guess.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

The business crumbles are definitely an event.

I like to come over.

Last one brought the grandchildren over,

because I love cars as well.

And yeah.

And very last question.

I mean, this is...

This is a bit...

It may seem a bit ridiculous,

because somebody like you are a hero to a lot of other people,

but do you have...

Do you have...

in this whole seating business?

Do you have anyone that you particularly admire above anyone,

above the rest?

A lot of people I would aspire to be like, you know,

going back to your sort of Colin Chapman's,

we mentioned Peter right earlier, you know.

Peter, I was a fantastic guy.

Adrian Newey's just his sheer record, you know.

I aspire to be like that.

Are they heroes?

I don't know.

I'm not sure I have heroes, but I certainly...

Yeah.

I aspire to be as good as they were.

Great.

Pat, thanks so much for giving us all this time.

It's wonderful to talk to you.

Of course, we wish you the absolute best next season.

Thank you very much.

Steve, thanks very much, mate.

That was something.

Yeah, as I say, we really ran off at the mouth,

but honestly, I loved it.

If I could go and interview him again tomorrow, I'd do it.

Excellent.

It only falls to me, listen, to wish you a very Merry Christmas.

Steve, we've got new plans for Christmas.

Yeah.

Yeah, probably driving around.

It's my hobby.

And probably in the big orange Ford that you have some knowledge of.

Oh, good.

Excellent.

But not going away, but I'm looking forward to driving really

and just getting up a bit later.

This time next week, Steve and I will be back to talk again

with his grace, the Duke of Richmond,

who runs everything goodwood.

Really interesting as well.

Yeah.

And there's a packed goodwood calendar to look forward to

in the upcoming year because there's the horse racing plus.

There's the three big motor sport events plus

there's everything else that they do.

Yeah, we asked him to fire it up, I think.

Whether he was aware that he's kind of created a problem

for everybody's motor in year because I have to fit everything else.

Around the three goodwoods.

I mean, I think he smiled broadly and said, I hope so.

Yes.

Quite.

Yeah.

Somebody was talking to him.

I think Ed Foster was talking to him over the PA system

at the Festival of Speed last year, which I heard.

And he said, look, some people write to me after they've been.

And they say, he said it's almost a complaint.

They write and they say, I couldn't see everything.

There's too much.

I couldn't get around it all.

And he writes back and says, yes, that's the idea.

That's the point of the Festival of Speed.

So, but anyway, that interview is to come this time next week.

And then Steven, I will be back first week of January

with a more regular guest-free my weekend cars.

But until then, I have a great rest of your Christmas.

And there is still time between now and the new year to contact Anderson.

If you're thinking about having an electric car charger installed,

they will do their British design engineer

and built designer charges.

And until December 31st, they have an offer on

where you can claim 5,000 free miles

with intelligent Octopus Go.

Go to Anderson-eb.com for more.

And if you are probably just about missed by, well,

I don't know, if your loved one hasn't quite got you a present yet

or if you haven't quite got one for a loved one yet,

do visit the magazineshop.com.

It's okay to overshoot.

Very last, yeah, very last minute.

So go into the service station at 6 o'clock tonight.

You could go to the magazineshop.com

and still pick up a subscription for somebody.

And there's some pretty decent deals on issues of water.

Yeah, very.

Plus access to the entire 130-year water car archive.

And the thing we should say is how grateful we are for the support.

Oh, massively. Yeah, massively.

We couldn't do this without.

No.

The people who will hear it.

And we are deeply grateful.

All we really want to do is keep doing it.

So thanks a lot.

Yeah.

And much appreciated.

And we'll do our best.

We'll do better than our best next year.

Indeed, yeah.

So yeah, have a wonderful Christmas.

And Steve, see you next week.

See you again, mate.

Nijo, ¿me asustaste? ¿Qué se te quedó?

Nada, bolita.

Ya volví con las compras.

¿Cómo conseguiste todo tan rápido?

Fasil.

Fui a Fred Meyer.

Tiene nuestros productos de siempre.

Y a muy buen precio.

Incluso el queso cotija.

Sí.

Y la harina masa.

Yes.

Clavos, tomatillos verdes, platanos maduros.

Check, check, y check.

And Fred Meyer.

Consigue sus productos de calidad para las recetas familiares de estas fiestas

aprecios bajos en cada pasillo.

Fred Meyer.

Fred, para todos.

AI agents are everywhere.

Automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed.

But agents make mistakes.

Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice.

Rubric Agent Cloud is the only platform

that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails and rewind mistakes.

So you can unleash agents.

Not risk.

Accelerate your AI transformation at rubric.com.

That's r-u-b-r-i-k dot com.

Para le tu français.

Para le italiano.

If you've used Babel, you would.

Babel's conversation based technique teaches you useful words and phrases

to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world.

With lessons handcrafted by the 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers,

Babel is like having a private tutor in your pocket.

Start speaking with Babel today.

Get up to 55% of your Babel subscription right now.

At Babel.com slash Acast.

Spelled B-A-B-B-E-O.com slash Acast.

Rules and restrictions may apply.

About this episode

Pat Symonds, the technical consultant for Cadillac's new Formula One team, shares insights from his extensive career in motorsport, including his time with legendary drivers like Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso. The conversation dives into the challenges of establishing an American F1 team, the innovative technologies being developed, and the importance of fan engagement. Symonds also discusses the evolution of F1 regulations and the future of sustainable fuels in racing. With a mix of nostalgia and forward-thinking, this episode highlights the exciting journey ahead for Cadillac in the world of Formula One.

Anderson EV automotive engineering Cadillac component engineering Dunlop engine forward Formula 1 Formula 2 car Formula Ford Formula One

Ford GT40 Ford Transit Custom

Original notes

In this week's episode of My Week In Cars, Steve Cropley chats to Pat Symonds, the executive engineering consultant at the new Cadillac F1 team. Symonds, a veteran motorsports engineer who has been involved with seven F1 world championship titles, talks to Cropley about racing cars past, present and future, and road cars, too. It's a long one, so we hope you enjoy it during a bit of down time.

We'll be back next week with another festive special, talking to the Duke of Richmond about all things Goodwood.

And we'd also love it if you'd subscribe, review and share.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My week in cars: the Autocar podcast

Autocar

View classic page →

0:00

105:19