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Alex Jacques
About this episode
Alex Jacques, the lead commentator for Formula One on F1 TV, shares insights into his career journey, passion for F1, and the unique challenges of calling races for different broadcasters. He reflects on memorable races like Silverstone 2021 and the Indy 500 finish, discusses the intense 2024 championship battle involving three drivers, and the preparation behind his iconic last-lap commentary. The conversation also touches on the impact of long F1 seasons, the dynamics of fan loyalty, and the excitement of a closely contested title fight.
Topics:
alex jacques career
formula one commentary
silverstone 2021 race
indy 500 finish
2024 f1 championship battle
broadcasting challenges
fan loyalty in f1
race commentary preparation
f1 season length
driver rivalries
Cars:
Buick Grand National
Hinch is in Abu Dhabi with the F1TV crew, so he took some time to chat with lead Formula One commentator for F1TV, Alex Jacques. He takes Hinch through how he got into racing, his progression in F1, and the most exciting race he's ever watched. Spoiler alert, it's an Indy 500. Check out Alex's book, Grid to Glory!
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Buick Grand National
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This is, is off track.
We'll say this officially on air.
Uh, this is a very loose format, as you could probably tell by the fact our producer is in a robe, uh, while we're on Air and drinking wine.
Evidently, that's, um, God, I wish I was drinking wine. You and
Me both. Yeah.
Us. I'm in. We're in vastly different time zones.
We are . We are, we're we're about as far
as you can get before you start going back the other Way.
We are, in fact, yes. , we are 12 hours apart.
Um, yes, it is off track with h or Rossie today.
It's off track with James and Alex. Uh, if that helps.
But in, in lieu of, uh, Alex Rossi being present, Alex Jakes of F1 TV fame joins us on the show.
What's happening, pal? Thank
You very much for having me.
We've finally managed to do this after you tried to recruit me after Austin, and I was like, ah, I'm on a plane home, .
Which, which was like, and I also just don't wanna do it.
So, and I get it. I get that . It's totally fine.
Totally fair. I, uh, I always wonder
because you are a, uh, a, a new father.
Congratulations. Um, thank you.
This is the one part of the conversation that Tim will be able to inject any, uh, experience in.
So I figure we'll get it outta the way early so that way we don't have to hear from him anymore.
Um, but smart, smart.
I always, I always wonder, you know, when you have a, when you have a young child, I, I talk to a lot of people in the business, you know, in racing that have kids, and they can't wait to go to a race because it's just like an opportunity to sleep and catch up on sleep.
Not to say that you're excited to be away from your family, but have you been able to get a little bit more sleep now that you've been on the road for a little bit?
Thank you for this hospital pass of a question to open the show, .
Uh, That is, that is glorious.
Um, and let's try and answer this answer and still have a marriage by the end of it. .
Um, sleep is incredibly important and I value it even more highly than I did at the start of the year.
Yeah, look, I mean, look, look, exhibit A, exhibit B, I've got massive bags under my eyes.
It has been the most ridiculous year of trying to like, be helpful when I'm at home and still be, uh, you know, something other than a zombie on air.
It, it's, it's, it's, I, to be honest, I wouldn't change its thing, but yeah, it is helpful to have a job where you can, uh, get more than four hours sleep in a row.
Um, and that has been helpful.
But then of course, you go through the door and you're immediately handed your child Mm.
And you're like, oh, I was, I was quite looking forward to a knack.
Yeah. . And yet my wife has been dealing with, uh,
my crying daughter for the last five days, so, no such luck.
Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, it,
it makes a mad job more mad, let's put it that way. .
Yeah. Fresh, fresh off the red eye,
and then just getting handed the kid, you're like, oh, right.
That's how that works now.
Yeah. , it gets easier.
I, I'm told, uh, it hasn't yet for me, and I'm almost 12 years in , but like I'm told they move out eventually. , like,
Yeah, I'm thinking just, I don't know, 10 or 12 more years, pal.
You'll be, you'll be good to go. Yeah. You'll be good to go.
Cool. Cool.
11 and a half years to go. Great. Yeah. Yeah. You'll be great.
Cheers. No, no, sorry, I was saying,
I was saying 12 more years to Tim.
You, you, you're in, you're, you've got a couple decades pal.
Yeah, that's, I didn't wanna undersell that one to you.
I wanna make sure this is realistic . Uh, okay.
So for anybody that doesn't know, um, first of all, you're watching Formula One incorrectly, uh, but Alex obviously is the voice, the lead commentator of Formula One on F1 tv.
So if you have been watching just in any other way, stop doing that and, and subscribe to F1 TV and listen to that.
But Alex, how, how long have you actually worked in Formula One in any capacity? So I've
Been attending, uh, grand Prix for, uh, 11 seasons now.
I started off as the commentator for what is now Formula Two and Formula Three, but what is then, uh, GP two and GP three?
Uh, yeah, our old friend Will Buxton used to do that job, gave it up and, uh, yeah, I, uh, I was the beneficiary of Mr.
Buxton, uh, deciding to focus on Formula One broadcasting.
Um, and yeah, started with the junior, uh, championships and then, uh, combination of ways like 2018 Formula One were like, we wanna develop our own channel.
So, um, we're gonna do this sort of side project called the Pit Lane Channel that got bigger in, uh, 2019 and 2020.
And then I moved to, uh, in the UK Channel four Network, um, in 2021 for a nice calm season , um, which, uh, created no, no controversy at all.
And then I was there in 2022 as well.
And then there was a sort of commentary box.
Merge is potentially the easiest way, um, to put it.
And, uh, our commentary on F1 TV also goes out on, on channel four.
I do a slightly different version for Channel four, and we do, uh, little bits at the start and the end.
Um, but yeah, uh, it's been 11 seasons of attending Grand Prix weekends, and I've been doing F1 since 2018, so yeah, not bad, not bad.
And a pretty good job of avoiding a proper job. ,
What do you change up when you're, when you're doing it slightly different for one or the other?
Um, so I will do a, I will do an intro.
I will, I will script an intro just like I would for the start of, uh, F1 tv, and I'll deliver that literally three minutes before we go on air.
Um, so Channel four has a different intro, it has a different results read, it has a different, I'll pick up to the presenter.
Um, and that was all off the back of, that was, that was my distinct, like, I want to keep that, I want to keep the link.
I don't want it to feel like they're getting, I'm really against anyone getting like, uh, a secondhand product.
I don't like that. I think that's, you know,
absolutely insane in 2025 to give someone someone else's broadcast.
I like if you consider that you've got a tailored feed that you are desk scrolling through, the idea of someone listening to another channel on a channel doesn't really work .
So yeah, different intros, different outros, and, and so Channel four feels like Channel four and F1 TV is just all live.
So you get the, you get the, you get the reaction.
Do you ever like, do one for Channel four and you feel like you kind of mess up, but you're like, it's all right, I'll fix it for the F1 tv or vice versa, where you're like, , I get another Show of this. Let's go.
Yeah, that's the, that's the fun thing.
The problem is, because I do it in advance and Channel four is a, is a feature length highlights program that runs, uh, three hours afterwards in the uk.
I will sometimes just happen upon what happens.
So I will just go, Hey, it's Orlando Norris versus Max Steppen down to turn one.
Anything could happen and if they hit each other or make contact, or, it's a really controversial moment.
It sounds like I've done it afterwards, but I, I just haven't, it's just a pure fluke.
So sometimes it sounds like you've gone all like, ooh, you know, there used to be a thing in the UK where they used to record, uh, the football commentary on the highlights afterwards, and you would get some commentators tried to go all like Mystic Meg and be like, can he beat five players to score?
He's passed one knowing full well that he just scored this wonder goal that's gone past five players.
So you try not to do that.
You try to do it all as live in sequence.
Well, that's because you're a, a professional and have integrity.
I have to admit, um, there was a time when I was doing, I was asked to do some commentary for what was then called like the Star Mazda Championship.
It's one of the rungs on the road to Indy Ladder, and they had a TV deal, but it was all, it was all recorded, uh, in post, right?
So it was, maybe if there was 10 races in the championship, I probably flew out to a studio three times and we would do, you know, three or four races in one go races.
That had already happened.
That, look, I wasn't religiously following Star Mazdas at the time, but I maybe had heard or been at the track and noticed who won.
And I'm gonna be totally, I'm gonna be totally upfront here, Alex.
There was more than one occasion where I called a shot that I knew a hundred percent was happening , just for the sake of sounding like I knew what I was talking about.
So you are a bigger and better man. I'm
Not mad at you.
I'm just disappointed. Yeah,
I know, dad.
I know, I get that. I get that a lot. And it is tough.
It is tough here.
Hearing Alex say that, because I have so much respect for this man in, in the TV world, and he's just like, well, what you never wanna do is exactly what you did.
You piece of, you know, because Your behavior was a disgrace then.
It's a disgrace now. And I'm judging you,
Mate.
Totally fair. He said it, it,
There was so much gravitas in the way that He said it.
Everything he said, it just has this incredible weight behind it.
I just love it. Yeah, just it's like, man, you really did
Let a lot of people down.
Yeah. No, a whole 14 family members of the drivers
that watched that, uh, that broadcast were very upset, .
But it's, it's funny. We were having a conversation at
dinner the other night because this is, this is where we go, uh, post work, uh, in Qatar.
We were, we, we we got into death in eulogies.
I won't go completely into the context, but a hundred percent.
I want Alex to give my eulogy like that there, at least I want some, some, some tribute.
If there's gonna be a, a video montage tribute, it's gotta be voiced over by aj.
It's gotta be, I'm Not, I'm not coming to your funeral.
I was there when you died the first time.
I'm not gonna be there for the second Rude .
Rude, uh, yeah. Alex
Jokes only close, close mates can make.
Yeah, he jokes. Any close
Facebook ?
No. Weird. A lot of people say that to me.
Is that not normal? I don't know.
, we're not coming to your funeral. I,
I'll tell you what, what's not normal?
That conversation that we were having over dinner wasn't normal.
No, but that's the risk of gonna dinner with Jolene Palmer, isn't it?
Like he, that's what happens.
He is full of great conversation starters, I gotta say.
Or he's full of conversation starters, uh, varying degrees of, uh, of greatness. But yeah,
What worries me about that is that he's constantly carrying them around in his head, though, , like, it's, it's, it's not inspiration.
He's got like too many ready to go. Yes.
He like, would you like to hear your own eulogy? Right.
Again, it comes off the back of a great episode of, uh, of Curb Your Enthusiasm, but regardless, , um, a Alex, did you, did you grow up a race fan?
Were you a, were you a motor sports guy?
Were you an F1 guy? Yeah.
Yeah. I loved it from, from when I was nine years old.
Um, and just as soon as I found it, and I found it by accident, scanning through the channels on a Sunday afternoon.
It's a Belgian Grand Prix in 1998. Oh, wow.
It had The big crash. Yeah. Yeah.
Um, it's obviously one of the all time great Grand Prix, so it's a good one to start on.
Uh, but no, I I, I basically saw it, found it, loved it was obsessive about it, always wanted to, always wanted to work in it.
It was, Ave was aware very, very early on that I didn't have the talent having been to my local go-kart track.
So I was like, right, I'm gonna have to talk about it or write about it, and I'm better at talking about it than writing about it. So here we are.
So it wasn't, uh, it wasn't like a family thing.
Dad wasn't into it. He didn't take you
to your first race, you just found it on your own.
No, he, he, he likes all sport and he was, he, you know, there were, I think he'd cheer for the British drivers, uh, like we found some old VHSs in the garage of like Nigel Mansells, uh, season contending for the title in 96.
Yeah. And winning it in 92.
So I think he was just a general sports fan, but no, he wasn't a, um, he wasn't a motor sport obsessive, and, and no one in the family really was.
But I just, it's one of those, it's one of those pure fluke things that I, I scanned through and, and found it.
And I have sometimes thought, uh, at a young age if I'd found boxing instead, or, you know, I liked that it was slightly different.
Everyone in, everyone in the UK loves football, right?
Everyone's just obsessed and that, and that's your mainstay.
And I do as well, and I, I love most sports, but, um, there was just something about Formula One that just felt elevated compared to everything else.
And that, yeah, that's always been, that's always been my favorite thing.
So to get to work in it, it's a, it's a happy fluke.
It sure is. So it, 98, I, I assume
that you defaulted to, you know, cheering for the Brits, which means, I mean, I'm trying to put this together now, which is a little bizarre.
Like, did you grow up a David Cotard family?
Like who was your guy in 98 when you first kind of fell in love with It?
Well, I, I, glory hunted, so it was Mika Hackerman. Ah,
Okay. All right. But
Band, but then obviously, obviously you did you, you know, DC was contending, which does make it weird.
'cause obviously I'm standing next to him in the, that's in the commentary box.
Yes. Um, it's very, very odd.
And yeah, you'd, you'd cheer for DC was a contender of the title, uh, in, in 19 nine, 2000, 2001.
He was runner up. So yeah, it's really, really odd.
Uh, remember sitting in the grandstand cheering for DC and my first Grand Prix in 2002.
So Yeah, it is, it is very weird when your childhood and, and, and your and your job emerge into one sort of bizarre, like, you know, and when he is having a coughing fit and rolling on the floor, and like, you've had to take him off air, you're like, I used to cheer from you from a grandstand.
Strange, strange.
So yeah, it is a, it's a, it's a very, very odd one. It's an odd one.
I completely relate to that because I kind of found Formula One in the mid nineties.
I'm Canadian, so Yeah. Who was my guy? Yeah.
Yeah. Jay Vov on the show a lot, and now
He's on the show a lot.
And it's so funny, like every once in a while you're just kind of standing there and like, I'll look over and be like, I used to pay 20 bucks a month to be part of your fan club, to get some envelope from Switzerland with a newsletter and some stickers.
And I've never told him that, I don't think, because it seems mildly embarrassing now, , but it is, it is funny. I
Feel like it should come up if, if you ever go out for dinner, it's like, well, I would pick up, but I sent you about, I did fund, you know, at least one nice dinner for you over the course of, of my fandom.
But so I, I always found that the kind of previous, uh, I don't know, there's no way to say this without it kind of being the, the annoying and sometimes controversial break in F1 fandom, but like the free and post drive to survive.
Right. I always, I always felt like free drive to survive
F1 fans were a lot more, at least a higher percentage were, were team based.
Like they would cheered for Ferrari, they cheered for McLaren, they cheered for Williams.
Yeah. And less driver base.
Now it seems a lot more fans hook onto a driver and they'll follow that driver around.
But it sounds like you weren't as much of a, of a team guy.
You kind of picked your drivers.
No, I kind of liked that it was, uh, less partisan than the other sports.
Right, right. Uh, that I was used to.
I, I like the fact that you could get variation, different people winning every week, and that it wasn't always, you know, growing up it was always our or Man United, and then it was Chelsea and Man United and I, I, I like the fact it was a greater variation.
You'd have drivers come and go's switch.
It used to be No, no, it Switch town.
My, my beloved team, you know, uh, two Good seasons every 20 years. .
It's all right lads. You,
you get it together in the second half of the year, it'll be fine.
It'll be fine. Um, yeah, the, I like
that it wasn't as part of that.
And then ob obviously the more popular a sport gets and the broader the fan base gets, as you saw in 2021, it can suddenly get very, very partisan very, very quickly.
Um, which is, which is fun. The intensity of it is fun.
But I did like that it was slightly, uh, less amplified and, you know, you didn't get all the baggage that came with it.
I mean, I'm not gonna do the math and I'm not gonna ask you to do the math, uh, on how many grown three you've called.
But is there, is there one, is there one that kind of stands out as your favorite? Yeah,
Silverstone 2021.
And not because of what happened between Hamilton and Tappin, but I'd always wanted to call the British Grand Prix on network television.
That was what I wanted to do.
That's what I wanted to do professionally.
It's a sport I love as a kid.
Um, that race, it just felt like the most intense experience that I've, I've had as a broadcaster.
Um, yeah, we'd had COVID and fans hadn't been back in the numbers that, that were there that day.
Silverstone is always one of the greatest atmospheres of any sporting event on the planet.
Um, and then for the Staffan and Hamilton to put on that opening minute of the race, which was so aggressive, two of the best to ever do it brawling.
They weren't just racing cars. They're fighting with cars.
And I wish that they got through Cops Corner.
I wish that they'd just carried on, um, because it was, it was just a battle for the ages.
But no, the crowd noise, if you want to do a race your entire life and you get to do it, and you've told everyone from when you were 10, you wanna be a four one commentator and you get to do it.
And that's your opening lap.
I mean, my heart rate must have just been, my heart rate must have been two 50.
I've, I've never known anything like it.
It, it, it was, it was so intense.
And then obviously the rest of the race was, was unbelievable.
Hamilton comes back through, I've got Mark Weber and David Hor next to me saying he should have had a stop go penalty.
He gets the time penalty and just the heightened experience of wanting to do that forever and then getting a race of that intensity and quality is, is it's, it's top by a mile.
And, uh, yeah, I, uh, it was a great day.
Is there, is there a different answer for just race that you've seen and, you know, whether as a fan or working in some other capacity, you know, is there, is there any other Grand Prix that tops that I can, I can tell you my favorite, my favorite finish of any motor race ever.
The most I've ever lost it watching any motor racing in my life is the Indie 500.
Where JR Hil, a brand crash at the final corner, and Dan Weldon won.
Yeah, I think I nearly went through, I nearly went through the patio doors.
I, uh, it, I've never seen anything like that in my life.
That it is a foregone conclusion that it's a victory lap, and then the idea that you can lose it inside of the flag, that's the most exciting finish of any sporting event I've ever seen.
Um, and genuinely, like I've always loved the 500 and to see that happen and, and that was just unbelievable.
It remains unbelievable to this day.
And that one, I, I remember that one so well because I had already crashed outta that race, and I was, uh, very begrudgingly forced to go up to my sponsor's suite at the time.
And I was, I was in a, I was in a very intense battle with Hildebrand for Rookie of the Year honors, and he's about to come second in the race that I crashed out of, or sorry, he is about to win the race that I crashed out of.
And I remember being pressed up against the glass of the, the, the pit row suites looking down at the, at turn four to watch him come off the last corner.
And then, you know, you know, when you're looking through glass, but like at that angle, everything you can't quite see clearly.
Yeah. I just see this puff of smoke
and like, you know, this mini explosion.
I was like, wait, what was that ? And it all sort of came
to be my favorite part about that whole thing though is that Hildebrand just kept his foot planted with two wheels missing and still scrape.
I mean, yeah, the stern finish line is a, it's a long way down that straight that's five eighths of a mile of a straight, and it's three quarters of the way down there.
And he just kept his foot pinned and somehow the thing was still unbelievable.
Unbelievable. But yeah, that was, that was as wild
as it gets, I think from the end of his sporting event.
That said, wild Finishes, uh, are, are kind of what we're set up for nicely, uh, this weekend in, in Abu Dhabi three three in the fight, which, I mean, did you have three drivers in contention for the championship coming into the finale at, let's say midway through this season? ?
No, I had a McLaren driver winning with about four to go.
And then, you know, I was, I was, you know, there was talk of, there was talk of paddle matches, there was, there was talk of trips out to the sand dunes and it was like, all right, well, you know, that won't have, that won't happen for Qatar.
It might happen for Abu Dhabi.
That won't happen for Abu Dhabi.
Okay, we've got a, we've got an Epic championship.
This doesn't happen very often. Mm.
And for it to happen in a 24 race season just feels even more impossible.
But it, I've been saying all year, to be honest, the very start of the year, what I thought would happen before we saw the pace of the cars, I thought McLaren would split the difference and Max Steppen would win the title.
That was my season prediction.
I thought, I thought they'd take wins off each other and for Steppen win the title that obviously should not have come to pass.
They've had enough pace to seal the deal, sort this out, and yet we come here with, uh, the score 7, 7, 7 in terms of wins.
But no, I didn't think we'd be anywhere near a title decider.
Neither did Max. Neither did Max.
You see him talking about it and he is like, yeah, well I'm here.
He, he's almost, he's almost not apologetic, but the fact that he was able to give that answer last week where he is like, well, I'm here because of their errors, not because of, not because we have done the best job or we have the best car, like we've maximized what we've got, but there's a, there's a, there's a strange air and spent last week after the result, they're just a bewildered air in the paddock wasn't there because it was like, how have we got a title decider when, when they've had this advantage at the start of the year.
But I'll take it, it's what all broadcasters wanna do is a, is a winner, takes all type of situation. It's
One of those things where, you know, let's say post summer break or post sandor, right?
If you were to, if you were to say to someone, okay, hey look, I know Oscar's, you know, got 34 over Orlando 104 over max, I need you to script out a scenario that sees all three of these guys in the, in the running in the last race.
You'd be like, no, I can't.
There's literally nothing that I could write that would be even mildly plausible on, on how this could happen.
Yeah. Like, it's, it's, it's
One of, and you wouldn't, you wouldn't do, you wouldn't do technical disqualification No.
And, and bizarro strategy, would you, you'd do, uh, you'd do them crashing into each other a couple of times. Maybe
A wet weather racing Brazil, and they've avoided that, you know, whatever they've avoided Crashing into each other or every time apart from twice all season.
The Austin one I think was just unlucky.
I didn't get that narrative that Oscar was at fault there.
Um, and the Canada one, it happens.
You're gonna hit each other if you've got a competitive car for an entire, uh, we got 30 races this year, six Sprint and, and 24 Grand Prix.
So that's gonna happen at some point.
But they've managed to avoid all of that, and still Forin has, has caught them.
So, uh, unbel literally unbelievable.
Do you, do you have a sense, uh, and this is such a stupid question, I apologize, I'm even asking again, but just based on that comment, it made me wanna ask the question, do you have a a, a deep feeling of who you think is the most deserving driver at this point?
No, I think they're all deserving.
And I think this will be a narrative, especially if, if you get, and I really don't like this, if you win the title and you do the best job, uh, like it doesn't matter if you win by a hundred points or one point, like if you're champion, you're a champion if you got the job done over and every, I do think what has been underpriced in the narrative of this is that Oscar Pry and Lando Norris are trying to win their first title.
Max Affan has been there and done that, and he was, he was shaky on the grid in Abu Dhabi 2021 and, and got the, got the poor start.
Uh, it's a very short rundown to the first turn.
They're human beings.
They've poured their entire life into this.
Literally their entire lives have been built around the moment that they're now facing.
Of course it's going to be Shakier, Philando and Oscar trying to claim that first one.
So I think whoever gets it, it is as simple as that.
Whoever gets it, everyone signs up to motor racing in Formula One, someone's gonna have a quicker car.
Alright. You know,
there's gonna be an unfair advantage baked in if the stamping gets it.
It's one of the all time great Formula one titles.
Um, it's, it's right up there.
I mean, it's right up there with the, the audacity of winning that one, um, from as far back as he has done.
But in terms of, in terms of deserving, no, Lando would deserve to have taken the hits early on, come back, weathered the storm, figured out the car, sorted out the field behind the wheel, and done it.
Oscar, to go in there to steal Orlando's star to, uh, winning your third season in a team that was geared for Orlando Norris championship would be be an unbelievable achievement.
So yeah, there is, for me, there's no most deserving or least deserving, but yeah, all, all three of them have done well to get to this point, but the fact that Max is still in the conversation is, is genuinely bonkers. And,
And I think this is actually another thing that's been a little bit undersold, right?
Because we're talking about the, the comeback, right?
If he were to complete it, it would be the greatest comeback in terms of the, the biggest margin.
And I mean, just objectively the greatest comeback.
And, and people are focusing on that and almost ignoring the historical element of the only driver in history to win five in a row. Yeah,
Well, you've got, you Michael, Michael Schumacher was able to do that with Ferrari.
Oh, sorry. That's, and then that's, then you've got, you've,
you've got, so, but then you are thinking that's, that's Dynasty stuff.
That's, that's it. It's just total domination.
It's just total domination.
But with a car that in the last two seasons has not been the front runner every week.
Right. Chuma Schumacher won his first title in 2000,
in a very close battle with M Hackerman and then 2001, he got it done very early 2002.
He basically won it by the middle of the year.
I think he won the title in July.
So that's how competitive that's season was, 2003, very, very tight.
But he got the job done effectively with two races to go, only needed a point at the end.
2004 won it, won it in sparse. That's the August time.
Um, so the dominance there was ridiculous.
And there were two close championships for Stepin had, uh, a car that really wasn't capable of winning a, a large part of the back end of last year, and a team in turmoil, which was contributing to it.
And then the first half of this year, same nonsense.
They just couldn't figure out how to get a tune out of that car.
So to win, to win two titles potentially when the car, it wasn't even the Top Red Bull driver in Budapest, that would be downright sensational to do it.
And, uh, I would say for my money, even more impressive than Schumacher's five in a row. Yeah,
No, I think that's, I think that's accurate.
You, you said earlier, you know, you kind of mentioned that it's, it's tough to, it's even more surprising to have this scenario in a 24 race season, right?
The longer the season, the higher the odds that it gets wrapped up before the last race.
Yeah. Are we, do we have too many races, in your opinion,
for that, for that exact reason, you know, if for nothing else.
Yeah. And, and I know there's,
there's sometimes we even talk about adding even more, but, and more sprint races, which again, is just putting more points on the board, which makes it that much more likely.
It gets locked up earlier. Is
that potentially directionally incorrect for the sport? I
Think the thing is, it's incredibly popular, right?
So everyone wants to watch it as much as possible.
And no one wants to go, no one wants to wander in and go, actually, I've decided that we're gonna make less money this year.
Right? Chaps, . Um, so as a tough sell, isn't it,
when the sport's in a boom time to, to, to restrict it?
I do think it's, it's running roughly close to capacity, uh, especially if you consider the off season.
If you consider that, uh, you've got three tests next year, plus 24 grand Prix plus six races, that is, that is a lot of the year, uh, and a lot of travel for everyone.
So it's a, it's a unbelievable championship to be a part of and to be able to work on, but it's, it's approaching the ceiling.
And to be fair, I think they've understood that if you were drawing it up from scratch, maybe you'd go in a slightly different direction.
But, uh, I think, I think it's, I think it's just about where it should be at the moment.
When you have a season like this, in comparison to, say, a season like 2023 where one team dominated everything, one driver won 80 something percent of the races, whatever it was, how, how good is it for the, for the, the sport to have these years?
And kind of on the, on the flip side, is it detrimental when you have a year or a couple of years of just unbridled dominance?
I, I think, I think some dominance can be quite good.
I mean, history shows us when you see all the, all the red merchandise in the grandstand that people, people love Ferrari 'cause they're the most successful team.
It doesn't matter where we go, it doesn't matter what race we go to, you're always seeing red in the grandstands.
So people love a, a, a victory story, but 2023, that's, that's too extreme.
You can't, you can't have a sporting competition where you know the winner before you start.
Um, and the joy of the last couple of years has been, uh, the outright best driver has been in a car where he is, where, which hasn't been the best car.
And, and Formula One is at it's absolute best, where you put the leading driver at the time in a car that is not quite as competitive as the others.
You know, Schumacher versus the Williams guys in the, in the nineties is, is peak Formula one.
It's, it's just utterly joyous to see can he scrap his way there?
And, and the title finales that we had in in those years were, were unbelievable.
Um, uh, formula has never been as competitive, but they're almost too close now, aren't they, in that no one can get past anyone, right?
Like the drivers almost resigned in, in Qatar to not being able to overtake.
So, uh, you definitely want a mixture of the two.
If you line 'em up, up how they qualify, some years you're just gonna get a dominant champion.
That's just the nature of motor racing and always will be.
Um, but it, you know, the, the years like we've had where it's ultra competitive, if you've got three drivers in the mix, yeah, it's, it's such a, and unexpectedly this could have been, and if a McLaren driver does not win the title, they will ru this, this could have been a 14, 15, 16 race winning season for, for one of them.
And to have that machinery available to you and, and to be stuck in a three-way title fight is a, is a, is a really tough one.
So, uh, but for us, brilliant, we're, there's always, always chat about bias broadcasting.
I'll tell you what we're biased towards, biased towards it being exciting and good.
Yeah. . Amen. Amen. Two quick things to finish off.
If, if Max does win it, is it gonna be remembered as the greatest comeback in F1, or is it gonna be remembered as the greatest fumble from McLaren?
Uh, a combination of the two has to be, absolutely, has to be a combination of the two.
Um, it would be the greatest comeback, uh, of any point system in Formula One history.
It would also just be the a the audacity of it would be unbelievable to, to come from 104 points back when McLaren have been competitive virtually everywhere.
Yeah. That would be, that would be,
we'd be talking about that forever.
That would be the definition of a, of a, yeah, that would, doing of sapin would be a by word in, in sports journalism for coming from miles back.
Um, so yeah. But, but
Equally would it be, would be a special thing to see would be, would doing a McLaren be, you know, drop, you know, a a massive fumble? A massive drop?
Yeah. I mean, I, I used
to love great sports writing growing up and, and great, uh, you know, I, I'd love reading the, the, the great sports journalists, uh, in the, in the UK papers.
And I love doing that.
And as a result of doing that, as, uh, as, as a kid and then into, into my, uh, university, uh, era, there's a reference in sport to a horse that fell in the grand national horse race in sight of winning the grand national horse race.
And the by word for throwing it away when it seemed to be impossible to lose is Devon Locke.
That's the name of the horse that was on the brink of winning the Grand National and then just slipped and fell.
And a lot of people lost a lot of money, which is why I imagine it's still in the, that's the territory they would find themselves in, right?
Right. If they win, you can chuck the
Oh, they don't deserve it.
They nearly threw it away. Yeah.
Chuck that narrative in, in the bin, if you win the title, you win the title doesn't matter if you win by one point or a hundred points, their methodology, how they've gone racing is validated or questioned by delivering the championship.
And if they get it done, who cares how they got there.
Right? They got it done right.
But if they fumble it as you know, that, that will be a, it again, it will be a byword, it will be a byword for, for throwing it away.
Um, so the stakes are quite high, mate, higher than I'd want them to be if I was a McLaren driver.
It's, it's, it's why we love it, but, uh, I, everyone in that team must be feeding it in the, in the last week. Yeah,
No doubt.
Okay, final thing, you know, this is a different scenario than, you know, max wrapping it up in spa in August, or you know, in Austin with four to go, five to go, whatever, you've got three guys that can win it.
It's gonna be an exciting finish no matter what you have, you have this unbelievable, uh, well-earned reputation for your last lap calls in significant moments, , how much thought and kind of prep goes into having something meaningful and impactful to say in those final few corners of whichever of the three drivers is gonna be taking the championship on Sunday.
A a a bit goes in for a last race decider.
A bit of thought goes in to what element of their story do you want to tell?
And then you just have bullet points, uh, in your notes like you would do normally.
Um, and so there'll be like three or four bullet points of, you know, what number World Champion they would be, I think it's 35 mm-hmm .
If we get a new one, um, the 104 points, yeah, we can remember 104 points if we're just yaking on a, on a Wednesday.
But when, you know, if some, if the world championship order has changed with a lap to go and everyone has been shouting out of excitement, and you can hear the crowd outta the window and you've got your producer talking to you, it's very important to have 104 points written down because things can fall out of your head in those key moments.
So usually a lot of the things it would be, it would be like a, it would just be a theme.
It would be a, uh, uh, one word mention this second word, mention this, and then the numbers, the numbers.
I always write down the numbers so you don't get, uh, uh, so you're not thinking, was it 103, 104?
So yeah, or I always write down the numbers that I might have to use.
Um, so Lando Norris will be the 11th British World Champion, uh, pry, Lando Norris will be the 35th world champion in sports history.
So that'll be on the page and then it's gotta fit the moment, right?
So there were lots of things that I wanted to say in 2021 about Lewis Hamilton or I had thought about, maybe I'll hit that or maybe I'll hit that element.
All goes out the window if it doesn't fit the moment right.
You can't use the bullet points.
You've just gotta, you've gotta commentate on what is happening in front of you.
Because if you are trying to shoehorn in elements of someone's career, instead of reflecting the moment, and I think I blurted out, you'll never hear the end of this, which turned out to be fairly accurate, .
So, whereas if you are trying to, whereas you are trying to, to do something about Max Tappin's entire life story that was, that did not fit what we had seen in front of us.
So it's just about being prepared in the same way that you would normally do your notes for the race.
It's about being prepared.
And I always think that those last laps, obviously the example that gets brought up all the time is the Charlotte Last lap.
The reason that I did that story on the last lap, the, but the rea, the reason that I did it is that, uh, we go out to a hugely broad audience and we have fans who know the story inside out, but we also have fans that have found us through Drive to Survive.
Or maybe they've left Channel four on after another program and they're, they're excited to watch the Monaco Grand Prix.
And I didn't want anyone to think Rich Kid from Monaco wins the Monaco Grand Prix.
Who cares? Right? And so the reason, reason behind
that is like, oh, you actually should care about this because this guy's been through a lot and this is why he's gonna lose his mind when he crosses the line.
So there, there, there's always the reasons behind if you, if you maybe tell a slightly longer story compared to a shorter story that's done with the, the audience and making a point in mind.
But no, I, I'm sure yesterday on the production call, you said something along the lines of, and I won't mention the exact scenario, but we were talking about scenarios of what could happen.
You can go, well, if that happens, that will be, that will be the last lap.
And I nearly put my head on the desk and I was like, not the la not the last lap not the last lap in Abu Dhabi.
We can't go back. We can't go back there.
I'm not sure I can physically do it.
So yeah, as long as the drama happens, you Ready?
Three quarters of the way through ?
I'm, I'm fully on board.
amazing. Amazing.
Well, mate, look, I really appreciate you coming on.
I, uh, I, I so thrilled I get to work alongside.
You've got so much respect for how you approach what you do.
I love, I love watching you work.
I love listening to your work and I'm excited for you to get the chance to call this one and, uh, and can't wait to hear it.
So thanks for coming on. Have a great time this weekend.
I will, uh, I will see what the track, looking Forward to it.
Thanks for having me.
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