Dinner with Racers Nov 25, 2025

Ep.307 – Steve Hallam

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Concept

Formula One

Formula One is a top-level car racing series where the fastest cars compete in races called Grands Prix. It's known for advanced technology and skilled drivers.

Brand

Lotus

Lotus is a car brand from Britain that makes lightweight sports cars and has a strong presence in racing, especially in Formula One.

Car

Toyota Supra

The Toyota Supra is a popular sports car made by Toyota. It's known for being fast and is often modified by car enthusiasts to make it even better.

Car

The McLaren F1 is a really special sports car that was made a long time ago but is still famous today. It’s super fast and has a unique design with three seats, which makes it stand out from other cars.

Company

Continental Tire

Continental Tire makes tires that go on cars and trucks. They are known for making high-quality tires that help vehicles perform better on the road.

Term

Drive to Survive

'Drive to Survive' is a TV show on Netflix that gives viewers a behind-the-scenes look at Formula 1 racing. It shows the teams and drivers and what happens during the races, making it exciting for fans.

Term

Formula 1

Formula 1 is a type of car racing that features very fast cars and is held on tracks around the world. It's one of the most popular and exciting forms of motorsport.

Brand

Aston Martin

Aston Martin is a famous car brand from the UK that makes luxury sports cars. They are known for being stylish and fast, and they often appear in movies like James Bond.

Car

Infiniti M45

The Infiniti M45 is a fancy car that’s big and comfortable, perfect for people who like a smooth ride. It has a strong engine, so it can go fast, but it also has nice features inside to keep you comfortable.

Term

carbon fiber

Carbon fiber is a very strong and light material used to make cars. It helps cars be faster and use less fuel because they weigh less.

Brand

Silverstone

Silverstone is a well-known race track in England where many important car races, including Formula 1 races, take place. It's famous for its speed and challenging corners.

Brand

Brazil

Brazil is a country that hosts important car races, including Formula 1. It's known for having passionate fans and great drivers.

Company

Nigel Mansell

Nigel Mansell is a famous former race car driver from Britain who won the Formula 1 championship. He is known for being very competitive and has raced in both Formula 1 and IndyCar.

Term

water injection

Water injection is when water is sprayed into the engine to keep it cool and help it run better. In this case, it was used in a way that some racers tried to cheat by making their cars lighter.

Term

radial tires

Radial tires are designed with layers that run out from the center. They are better for high-speed driving and usually keep their shape better than other types of tires.

Term

cross-ply tires

Cross-ply tires are a type of tire design where the layers of fabric cross each other. They are good for grip but can change shape when driving fast, which might not be ideal for racing.

Term

reliability

Reliability means how well a car works over time without breaking down. If a car is reliable, it won't need repairs often and will be dependable for driving.

Brand

Renault

Renault is a car company from France that makes various vehicles and has been involved in racing.

Company

Ferrari

Ferrari is a well-known Italian car company that makes very fast and expensive sports cars. They are also famous for their success in car racing, especially in Formula 1.

Part

intercooler

An intercooler helps lower the temperature of the air that goes into the engine, making it work better. It's especially important in cars with turbochargers to keep the engine running efficiently.

Concept

pole position

Pole position is the first spot on the starting line in a race. The driver who qualifies fastest gets this spot, which helps them start ahead of everyone else.

Term

Titanium skid bungs

Skid bungs are parts that protect the car's gearbox from damage. Made of titanium, they create sparks when they hit the ground, which looks cool during races.

Term

gearbox

The gearbox is a part of the car that helps it change speeds. It connects the engine to the wheels and is important for how fast or slow the car can go.

Part

ride height

Ride height is how high or low a car sits above the ground. Changing this height can help the car perform better, especially during a race.

Part

hydraulic system

A hydraulic system uses liquid to help move things in a car. It's often used to make adjustments, like changing how high the car sits.

Term

V10 engine

A V10 engine has ten cylinders arranged in a V shape. It's known for being powerful and smooth, making it popular in racing cars.

Car

Lexus LFA

The Lexus LFA is a high-end sports car that was made in small numbers and is famous for its amazing engine sound. It’s built for speed and performance, making it a dream car for many car enthusiasts.

Car

Pontiac Torrents

The Pontiac Torrent is a type of SUV that’s good for families because it has a lot of space and is comfortable to drive. It’s similar to another car called the Chevrolet Equinox, so it shares some of the same features.

LIVE

So I don't know if you made money, but I'm gonna call you professional slot car racer the man who watched me hit a porta-potty with a race car

and

The most English

Celebrator I have ever heard of

Steve Allen if you could describe this dinner. We just had in one word. What would it be?

Well the run-up to that using that one word would be truly and

The word would be enjoyable. Oh

I did not see that coming

Yarno

And now for dinner with racers presented by continental tire with your hosts Ryan Eversley and Shawn Hekman

Welcome to dinner with racers, I'm Ryan Eversley. I'm Shawn Hekman and this is our 10th year of doing the dinner with racers podcast

Can you believe that I well I can because you had to do it for 10 years

We are sitting here at a Johnny Rockets in Hollywood, California coming off a

separate podcast adventure that we're working on but we're going through our hosting notes and

We're bringing you the guests of the season which include none other than probably the most infamous guests

We've had this year Steve Hallam Steve Hallam household name

The thing about Steve is that he should be because the things he's accomplished in the sport are better than 99% of the people

We've ever met. Yeah, there's one problem with that though. He's English

Zero pride in anything you do just like my dad

He is a badass who's done everything and if you were ever to mention this to him, he'll look at you like okay

Yeah, whatever you say

It's kind of why he's such a great guest Steve is a long long time motorsport engineer done a ton of different stuff

He started actually as an engineer in street cars and literally from street cars went straight to becoming an engineer in Formula one

Work with almost every legend you could think of in the 80s and 90s and 2000s and Formula one starting with Lotus

And then moving on to McLaren working with names like Santa

Mansell right hacking in yeah

Who's who a Formula one drivers of the last you know 40 years?

It seems like Steve jump from F1 to NASCAR with Michael Wachter bracing and is now the head of TRD in the Lexus program

And we crossed paths about two years ago now when I started racing the Toyota Supra and Steve was very instrumental in helping us find

Some performance with that car as well steering us in the right direction if we didn't pull it out of them

You'd never know because he's a very reserved guy, but I'm so grateful that we were able to sit down with him and learn some of

These stories such as being unfazed about Ryan. I'm serious about this being completely unfazed about getting

Iyerton Senna's first Formula one win speaking of being unfazed being unfazed about creating a dominant era from a McLaren F1

Justifiably being unfazed about engineering Michael Andretti and Formula one and then being unfazed about working with just about every legend

You can think of in the sport

We went to a local favorite restaurant of his in Newport Beach, California

Sepuri restaurant day where I had the baked ziti. I think it sounds right

Yeah, and I had the the Italian chicken sandwich

I got to drink wine with Steve Hallam which to me was a was a really nice moment and I just really enjoyed this one so much

But another thing that I enjoy a lot is doing these new patreon episodes with you

So patreon if you're unfamiliar, so if you go to patreon.com forward slash DWR show dinner club

Is really where the stories are at so dinner club

We do monthly posts and podcasts behind the scenes stories

But it's really to engage with the fans to tell them anything and everything about us

And you know what being part of our club membership is nice, but I think having sponsors is really Ryan where it's at

Yeah, I'm a big fan of this one company called continental tire

They've been a ten-year partner of this show and the reason it still exists as well as you guys supporting them

So thank you so much for supporting continental tire

Coming up. Yeah, just use another one using at it got an adult tire. Yeah, see that works hashtag

Dinner with Conti that's right

We say dinner with Conti all the time because if you're on social media if you're using Instagram

Hashtag dinner with Conti tells continental tire that you are engaged a few if you buy a set of tires

If you buy any sort of continental product if you see something that reminds you of us by all means please tag continental tire

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And if you click on those links that tells continental tire very specifically that we sent you and that goes a long way to our

Sponsorship happening. So a lot of things make this show happen Ryan such as

Getting there. Yeah, and funny enough Steve Hallam. He worked with the driver that we had drive us everywhere this year

Shane Van Gisburg and kangaroo is a bulls**t. Kiwi's are cool though. Thanks Shane for driving

Here's some Steve Hallam

All right, we're gonna start in five four three two

Hey, sir, how are you? Great to see you. Oh

Millions of dollars. Yeah. Yeah spared no expense

So you

Work with Ryan a little bit last year when Ryan was doing a little bit of Toyota work with with precision racing

and then you and I actually met a few years ago on sort of a different project and

You know, I knew you had this extensive background and it doesn't take much to look you up and go

Oh crap. He's working on a bunch of stuff

But you really showed up on my radar a few months ago when I just randomly came across YouTube and there's this

1993 McLaren F1

behind the scenes way before Drive to Survive where the BBC just followed the McLaren F1 team and there you are

engineering Michael Andredi and Mika Hockenon on on the on that

McLaren and

It was so weird to be like I know that

With all the people we've met it was like for some reason it was like oddly

I don't want to say surprised. It was like, oh shit like I knew he worked with these people

but he actually worked with these people right and

It was like, okay now we I know we have to have you on and so I'm glad you're finally here

But welcome you've made it now that you can now call yourself successful in motorsport

So I don't know where to start with you

But we're not really we don't like to close up like a racing biography show

But in your case, it's relevant because obviously you you know

You have a very long and very diverse part of the sport. So where where does racing start in your life?

probably when I

Motorsports back in the 60s

didn't have much TV coverage and

What little there was was much sought after probably delayed and

In those days

Jim Clark was the man

Soon to be followed by Jackie Stewart, but Jim Clark was a man never ever got to meet him, but

He epitomized what a lot of I think aspiring English

racing drivers were quiet modest unassuming blood-eating fast and

Was driving a lotus and that just ticked all the boxes and

Probably more

Importantly

You when you start looking at what what these guys are doing and how they're doing it and the cars that they're driving

You if you're curious enough you say

Why is the car like that and how do they get from a blank sheet or just a thought to

Creating a car that's a world championship winning car and this guy wins everything with you start to dig a little bit deeper

and you you sometimes

Come across things like well with chalk the chassis out on the garage floor and then we welded it up

Oh, and then you see drawing boards and then you see

There's a lot more to it than and then you say start saying why do they do it like that?

And how does it happen and what's important and all the time you're getting older and

You're thinking I really want to do this sort of stuff

Don't fully know what the end game is but that's what I want to do. Where'd you go up in Liverpool? Oh, okay?

Yeah, so when you're a little kid, where's your dad or mom taking in the racetrack or that did you okay?

Which what would you go to Park? Oh cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was our closest

first memory

Seeing a guy with a Jim Clark name on one of the entry lists in a

Saloon car race and convincing myself it was the real guy

Disappointed

That was a bit of a giveaway

You know the excitement of perhaps yes, it's seeing someone

Yeah, but the the the overriding memory and I don't know whether you use this oil in

North America. I'm sure you did the smell of castella. Yeah, right. Yeah, it has a totally unique

burnt smell and

You know, it's forever associated. Well, there are some people will never have smelled it

But it's forever associated with racetracks or for me anyway. Yeah, what'd your dad do?

He was just a sales representative for what kind of business

Tablet bottles to pharmacies. It's not nothing new. Nothing. No, no, no, and then so it was slot car racing and then just

A levels at school

maths physics chemistry

Wait, I went to Loughborough University, which was the only unit there weren't many universities in the UK and they did

the only degree course in in

Automotive engineering and so it was all sort of channeling and then when you singular focus your whole

Okay, so your teenage years your yeah, but only only cars not anything else a motorcycles or no plans. Yeah

Was it always racing or do you just want to work on cars?

Cars would working on cars would have been a second I see it was it was motorsport motorsport. Sorry girls

It's gonna be cars. Yeah

and then I

Worked at that Aston Martin after I graduated. I did I

Don't know that you have them here, but it's sandwich. It's called a sandwich course

So you you do periods of it's like a working internship kind of yes. Yeah, and you you go to I went to Aston Martin and

Worked with them, which was unbelievably for sure two street cars. Yeah, yeah, and

They their engineering department was doubled

So you did everything yeah, you know, and I mean everything yeah, and you're what 23 less than that I

remember being stopped at a

Late and a very late at night at a set of traffic lights in Dunstable on the a5 on my way in an Aston Martin coming home

Yeah, to the factory by a police car. He blipped up behind me, and then he sort of swaggered up to me

Yeah, and he looked at me

Is this your car

So anyway, we got away with that but he was he was more concerned about me driving the car

Yeah, then whether you're doing anything real. Yeah, right, so um, yeah, that was

Yeah, all

Not not necessarily all but a lot of the rough edges were knocked off during that

period yeah, and

Your your responsibility

Grew exponentially because you know, I need you to go and test this

Myra you went and did it and we need someone to run a wind tunnel test. I'll do that right

We need someone to go to Italy. I'll do that. Got it. Yeah, right. Yeah, it was just like

It's very similar to most people's first job in racing, you know, you're doing just whatever they need to do

Yeah, yeah, so you the fact if what I read was correct

You had to earn your place into this position in in college

To it was like a oh, yeah, make sure I have this correct

You basically had to win a spot into the program

Yes to be able to get that internship at Aston Martin is that or to get placed at one

So so the way the way is I think it's a little bit different now because you're by your way in

but

you you had to

It starts at age 11 in or used to be yeah, so you you you came up at age 11

to an exam which is called the 11 plus okay, and

They would never subject kids to that anything like that now

We sat at a plane desk in an assembly hall

Yeah, with X number of feet between the desks and they gave you an exam paper

It's for like a career entrance exam kind of thing. Yeah, and so the the 11 plus was to determine

Streaming as you go that way or you call a white collar

Interesting you you then take another set of exams at age 16 to determine whether you carry on your education or they

flick you out

If you pass those childhood sounds like it had no pressure at all

Yeah, and then you you're your last set of exams are at 18 and you need you by then you've made your university choice and

The university have said I need

B in that subject to A in that subject and a C in that subject or whatever and you go gulp and

If you get those grades you're in if you don't get those grades

You're scrabbling around trying to find someone who take you then it's about surviving four years

Surviving four years surviving four years in the true sense of you know what four years at university is like or college

It's you've got a study as well. Well, there's a lot of engineering in physics. Yeah, there's a lot of life lessons

Yeah, correct. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and so there you go

And that spat me out into Aston Martin

Was there other directions that you could have gone instead of Aston Martin like did they have other engineering directions? I

Was very happy with you sure. Yeah, I mean, I literally knocked on the door

Yeah, Aston Martin in Newport Pagnell and said hey, I'm a

Student at the university and I'm looking for six months worth of work. Yeah, okay, and they said oh, okay

So I did six months there. I grabbed a year later by then Aston Martin had gone bust

Yeah, and

someone eventually the second time the second time

And I actually went back home for a couple of months and I painted the house and you know did things for my parents and

Then they reformed and I got a call

You know, we've got this if you're interested of course, I'm interested. It wasn't exactly what I wanted but you know

full-time employment is was pretty good in 1975 and

It went from there and I did

Stores layout that was never done and then got into the engineering department and so as an engineering role was to

Help manifest the design or there's a development engineer. Okay, so yeah, we heard here few few designers

Yeah, a draftsman as we called them when you were at Aston Martin you worked under a guy named David Morgan

Oh, yeah, and from what I what I learned is that it seemed like he I don't know if this is how we

I just don't know like man

but it seemed like he took you under his wing to help you kind of understand a lot of different job titles and how to get things done and

The little bit I know from working with you

You seem very good about taking everybody's input and then deciding what to do with it

And so I was wondering if anything from those early days is something that still helps you now

Oh, I think as you go through your career. I don't know whether it's exactly five. It's probably five or six people

That I could name. Yeah that have influenced how

Me into being the product that you see yeah like it or not in front of you and David was one day Morgan was one

Yeah, you you may not know this but

Ian Ian Morgan his son who I can remember as being down here in very short trousers and

He went on to I think be well, he worked for me for a short period of time at McLaren. He

Went on to be had a race engineering at Red Bull

He went came back to McLaren ran the GT program

Um very sadly his wife died and he's stepped back and he's just looking after the kids now, but

Dave was very very good at not being overly prescriptive

But saying this is where we need to get to

your job is to get from here to there and

go and do it and

When he understood that you could do it

And

Occasionally you'd make a mistake and occasionally he'd set you right, but he would let you do it and the the the gap between

Where you were and where you had to get to would gradually

Because you were the trust is growing and that's right. Yeah, that's right

My principle take away from that other than the fact that I learned a lot doing it was that when you find good people

good graduates

And they don't want to be told how to do every single step of the way

let them learn and

they may fail

often they don't because they're damn sight cleverer than me and

And and they they go on to good things and they develop because you give them the response

Or you allow them the responsibility to do the job Dave would be one of my influences

for for those sort of reasons and then

We may get to the others as we work through the evening

I don't know take some guesses, but sure. Okay, so you're you're down the path of Aston

You are a former engineer for these three cars. Your first love is racing just backing up a bit when when I left

University I wrote to every UK based Formula one team and race car manufacturer

I still have the file at home with all the reject letters and

Harvey Possible weight was at

Hesketh at the time and

Hesketh captured everybody's imagination. Yeah, right

And the irreverence and yeah, you know camera late. Yeah, and I got a letter back from Hesketh

No, I'm sure I'm sure how I don't know whether Harvey dictated it or what anyway, it said

It was very cryptic. It says that dear Steve. Thank you for your letter

Every member of our team is a virtuoso if you are a virtuoso too, then you'll be to path to our door

If it's meant to be kid, yeah, it's meant to be or not. Yeah, so I phoned him

Okay, and he said come on down. Okay, I'll see you. Yeah, and I spent the day with him and

he was great and

Eastern Neston was not the sort of place you build a Formula one to your right

It's a country house and you know, we're in the stables and we're looking at pretty gorgeous racing cars and

Harvey's sort of talking to the mechanics and

looking at this and that and

Something he said during that we said a lot of things but something he said when we when I was there he said, you know

Reliability is crucial if we'd had a bulletproof racing car

We'd be here in the championship and now he didn't say we would have won X racers

What he was saying? I'd have finished right these races in the points and the championship would look very different

And and that that stayed with me and it still stays with me, you know, you've got to finish

You've got to be reliable

Anyway, he eventually said and we had lunch in

Pub in toaster

He said, you know, Steve, I don't know whether I'll be here next year or not

If I am it I'll be designing motorcycles. Of course. Heska's wanted to do a motorcycle. He did

He said or I may be somewhere else. Just letting you know

however, this works out for you

that's my situation and

You know, he left to go to Walter Wolfe and

Someone else did the motorcycle Frank Derney came

And carried on the racing

But the car was they were basically developing an old car from from that point on was James had left to go to

McLaren and and that was it but the all that did was

And the other thing he said he said

With whatever you choose to do you need to make sure you've got something

To take with you that they don't have I see a unique skill set you mean skill set experience

Yeah, you you know, they can't afford to teach you. Yeah, you've got to be you've got to have one

Yeah, something that you can especially when you're young

I we've had this advice with the public the way I like to explain it is you need to have something they can exploit when you're young

Yeah, you know, yes, maybe they can completely take advantage of because no one else can yeah

That was right at the time just before the time because this would be like September

Then Aston Martin called me and I

Heeding his words

Yeah, I need a job. Yeah, I can learn something. Exactly. Yeah, and the guy your meeting isn't gonna be there when you show up

Yeah, yeah, so I'm gonna go find a unique skill set

That's right being over here for a little bit and the racing side which didn't come immediately it came a year or so later

Started to

Forement that I need I need to know what I'm talking about and I need to you know be able to take something to the party

and understand what

They're saying as well and what have you and when you look back on it now

It all seems blindingly obvious

But when you're like when you're 23 or 22 and yeah, you're gonna kill the world the the racing side

Never left me at Aston's but it was all about putting things together now. Could I have done it quicker?

probably but

I've always been a very in-the-moment

sort of person if and I

I say to told myself what my philosophy was if I'm enjoying it. I'll do it a

Lot of people followed the money

But I thought I'm only gonna be here once I do not want to regret

Not doing something that I wanted to do because that's what I wanted to do

And as a result, I mean I've been fortunate. I've

You're doing okay. You made it here. Yeah, yeah, and but

if if I'd been

More aggressive, I would have probably pushed harder earlier on but I was enjoying my own racing

Aston were letting me play with toys that you know, not everybody gets to play with I

Used to do the V max testing

Yeah, and

You'd you go or would you do that in England? Well, the answer is in those days. You did it illegally in England. Yes

It's a great answer and so you go out and you you needed to be able to

measure your speed and

the motorways in England have mile markers that are accurately placed and

we had a bank of six six stopwatches and

You would hit the mile marker and you start the first one and then

When you stopped that one you'd start that it start the next one. It was a device and you do six miles and

Then you'd pull off at the end. Look at your chart. I

Was doing what aboard 30 20 second

Miles or what have you that equates to about a hundred and lot

My brother who was a solicitor

When I told him that I'd do this from time to time. He said you do what?

And he said, do you know what they'll do to you if they catch you he said they'll throw the key away

You know, you know, this is you know, just be aware and I said, well, don't worry because the m45 where I used to do this

Was a sperm motorway from off the M. Well, you don't know what I'm talking about

Of the M1's a Coventry and there were no junctions on it. It was about eight miles long

Okay, and you could go up one way if there were no police on the other side by the time you were coming back

You know, yeah, you still knew really, you know, the cops not gonna be there. Yeah, right. So you have to check the site first

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's called the record clear the testing area

You know, we had fun like that

You know, so that's those kind of speeds here would be felony

Yeah, so yeah now it is so we can call you an unconvicted felon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, never got caught. Yeah

So I'll deny it

Okay, so but the

When you went to Hesketh the the sage advice given to you was have that unique

Thing that you can offer that makes you exploitable as a young kid

What did going away to Aston for a year do what what exploitable talent did you gain from that? Well?

When when when you looked at a 1970s

Formula one team there were probably

11 10 or 11 people a small team, you know, like like a Hesketh and

The mechanics would build the cars yes, there would be a fabricator. Yes, there would be a machinist a lot of the stuff was put out

So you needed to

Like put out for a contract to build. Yeah, you know, you know, there's a drawing of an upright. Yes, make me that right

And if it was cast and then machined and what have you so be it but or fully machined or fabricated or whatever

And it was about understanding

How the cars were built why they were built how you've got how you didn't build weight into the car because it was very hard

To hit the weight limits in those days just as it is now it wasn't until carbon fiber came in in the

very early 80s that you could actually build a car 40 kilos under the weight limit and

You know bring it up to where we want it. Yeah, and all of this so it was it was about

understanding the the fundamentals and being

not just

theoretically, that's what you do, but

Conceptually and practically and that's what you do and the the other word Harvey

used to me was

You've got to be pragmatic about what you do. It's all very well to have these great ideas

But yeah, you know, he said I'm a pragmatist

I know that

There are some things that are out of reach at the moment and I can't waste my time

Doing those because you know, we don't know how to do it yet

We've got a I've got a car to build and I've got a car to race and we've got points to score and

We've got to

Recognize what's achievable, you know, if there's more money and more people available

We can take it another step and and that that's I

Was remarkably sage advice because when I started working at Lotus, you know

At that stage, you're sort of not familiar with you know, there are budgets

But you have no idea how much money you're spending because you just I need this I need this I need this

And it's not until someone two-thirds of way through the year. So well, we're running out of money. Yeah

Why didn't you tell me earlier? Yeah, right? I could have made decisions different anymore, right? Never. Yeah, people are really good about budgets

So you do effectively six years after after University at Aston yeah on the street six seven years

Yeah, you grew up a fan of seeing Jim Clark racing these beautiful lotuses and

Somehow you end up at Lotus F1 is your first racing job, correct? Yeah, how on earth does that happen?

There in lies a story. Okay, so there I was at Aston Martin

I was racing my own car

rapidly realizing that

However good I was as a driver. I didn't have enough money to

Get me to

Where I wanted to be so and so we'll never know the

You know, how good I was sure you can still get in now

and

Yeah antique

Burnished brass and I was thinking I got I should probably think about moving on from Aston Martin

Even though I was loving it because my peers

were

Following the money more and they were

They're becoming adults. Yeah. Yeah, only more than I was right and what have you get married doing this than the other being adults

And I'm thinking maybe I should be on that band right but you get to go bitching speeds down the freeway

I do you got that car for you. Yeah, and lots of bragging rights

So I started looking around and I reached out to an agency

Volkswagen had a big project going in South Africa and

They were recruiting engineers from the UK shipping them out to Port Elizabeth in South Africa

There's a shiny life down there. I

Okay, could perhaps give that a go so I spoke to the agency and they said yep

You're a great fit you get 18 pounds an hour or whatever it is and and I started doing the

Yeah, there's a lot of money, but

I'm gonna stay doing what I'm doing. Yeah, and were you single? Yeah. Yeah, okay, so

Yeah, so

stayed with Aston Martin and then early in 1981 an advert appeared which

said

Formula one team requires vehicle dynamics engineer and

Send your CV to this box number. Yeah, so I thought

That's no name as to who it was or no clue in mysterious. Yeah, so I

put together the world's largest CV

Times were different then. Yeah, cuz I'd have parked that if I'd say now. That's too ambitious. Yeah. Yeah, it's a red flag

Yeah, and I

Send that off and you know as

With a lot of these things sadly in those days nothing happened. So I think

You know, they could have at least said sorry

And hence my you know if if you don't know what's changed say you don't know or if you've got nothing to say say it

Say there's nothing to say and

I'd given up on that

When the phone rang one night

And how much time has passed roughly? Oh six months. Oh, yeah

Yeah, so you're just working full-time at Aston. Yeah, yeah, and

The guy on the other end introduced himself and he said oh my name is David Phipps

and I immediately I knew who was and

Had huge suspicions as to who who the team would be as soon as he said his name

And he said

I'm calling in response to your reply to our advert and you know, I'd like to meet you

Would you can we arrange something and I said well, yeah, I'm working during the day

But I could see you on a Saturday or a Sunday and he said yeah, that'll be fine and he said

Would you be able to come to Newmarket another sort of now? Yeah, yeah east of England. Yeah

There's no form of one teams other than Lotus out there. Yeah, and I said sure no problem

Met David in a fifth David's like six feet seven was a professional photographer for

Lotus and many other things Phipps photographic was his company and

We sat down and he was very measured. He did not give anything away. He was very good at that

but it was frigging obvious, you know, yeah, yeah and

That was that for another couple of months. Oh, wow and so we're now

Heading it was early 81

So let's say it was February when I originally applied it was now

August, okay, so we're still a few months out from yeah previous year ending sure and

By September or end of September. I got another phone call. It was David Phipps

So we'd like you to come to I'm gonna tell you who the team is and you can you can tell me if you don't want to pursue this

Yeah, right. Yeah, Lotus F1. Yeah, tell me what you're going. I don't want to think about that

Yeah, we'd like you to come to Ketteringham Hall and

Meet the old man. Yeah, good guy and

Right when yeah, I'm taking time off work. Yeah, right. Absolutely and

Off I went and it's a it was a good healthy two and a bit our schlep from where I lived

Get to Ketteringham Hall

Walk in and it's closed by then and they knew it was gonna be after hours and

Peter war let me yeah, who's sort of the director of the team. He was team manager. Yeah, right. Yeah, and Peter said, I'm sorry

The old man's had had to leave I'm going to interview you

so Peter and I sat in in the boardroom and you know in this

unbelievable building and

we talked and

I then I

Did my level best to convince him without being starstruck that you know played it cool. Play it cool

Yeah, this is what I wanted to do. Yeah, and

That was that and then I

left

drove home and I'm thinking did I say enough today, right? Yeah

wonder if

Shake did I look him in the eye?

Did he miss and misunderstood what I said or whatever and a week later I got an offer letter Wow and

I was like yes

What was the number again? Yes, right? Yeah, and we were off. Yeah, and I

Went

He invited me back to meet Bob dance and Tim Densham who was going to be the other race engineer

This was to be an engineer for Mansell. Yes, I didn't know it at that time, but that's how it right

They've all your roles to be an engineer for Mansell right out of the gate. Yeah

from

Streetcar performance engineer club race Nigel Mansell's race engineer with no race experience

It's like you had a year of F3 or anything like that. No straight Wow. I didn't know was that yeah, Peter Peter said to me, you know

there's only one way to find out if you can do this and

You're gonna toss you in at the deep end and if you know swim, then good for you. Yeah. Yeah, okay

You're a very buttoned up guy, so I'm guessing

That you're you're you're not gonna go with me here

But we have learned that in the vast vast majority of our sit-downs

People's careers tend to start with some form of con

some sort of lie

Somebody lies about somebody lies about their age or they stretch the truth about their experience or whatever

When you're sitting in this is did Peter War ask you a question that maybe you stretched an answer on maybe you had had experience

honestly now

because

I didn't want to be that guy. Yeah, that had conned my way in there. Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna get yeah

Yeah, slung out because that's not what you said. I thought you could do this. You're right, right

I like the look of death that came with it. Yeah, you look through me when you said yeah

but

Wow, so here's so they put you in this position to Nigel Mansell's race engineer

So again club racing is your racing experience and then working for an automotive manufacturer

But not on the motorsports program at the time. Yeah to Nigel Mansell's race F1 engineer

And and and not a backmarker team

Like uh, no the midfield like decent program. It's not like yeah, we'll put you in that guy and doesn't matter. Yeah

It was good. Yeah

And Rio Rio was first race. We had a

test at Silverstone

and I went to

Silverstone test almost as soon as I'd arrived

And then we went to brazil

We tested for a week in brazil then we prepped the cars for a week and then we raced

And um, that was the that was your F1 experience

to doing a week of testing

with again Nigel Mansell

who's

Who's a name and uh, I don't know at that time, but

I don't know this reputation was one of being a lot of patients

he was

Nigel and I are similar age, so um

he was

forceful

and

but not yet ready to win

but he he was going to he was

incredibly strong as you had to be to drive those cars and physically strong and

Determination was like tattooed on his knuckles. It was just like well, that's what I'm saying. It's like now. He's given this engineer who

Has effectively zero race experience. So how how'd it go? Third in the first race

The kids okay better than poking the eye. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah

We were actually fifth on the road and two got disqualified in front of us for the water injection

deal

Water-cooled brakes because we were building light cars ballasting them up the regulations were written in a

French way so basically if I understand it correctly you could

Fill the fill the break reservoir with water to cool the brakes in theory was the idea

Yeah, and then you could dump the water out on the first lap or on the parade or whatever

So now the car weighs way less

And then by the rules you were allowed to refill it after the race

So your race weight was not what you really weighed when you went to tech after the race

And did everybody know to do this?

What we're called the foca teams. Okay, we're doing it but the

FISA teams the Renault Ferrari and yeah, yeah

So brabham got thrown out. Yeah, I think Williams got thrown out

And um, we percolated up because they hadn't checked us and

But you're doing the same thing all day only used take a few of them

Yeah, you said got the tech so you were equally illegal. You just haven't gone through tech

Listen when they fight when they signed their official results

We're on your team

It all counts. Yeah

I love that. So you were third place in your first ever

F1 engineering experience again having never experienced having never raced engineered briar

Yeah

Is there anything that stands out memory-wise of an eye-opening thing when you joined the F1 program?

The only thing I was saying is don't f*** up

And peter had said to me because I I didn't meet the old man until rio. Oh wow

And um, but just take the old man is in call and chat. Yes. Yeah, who was mr. Lotus the guy you grew up worse

Yeah, and peter said

whatever

Whatever he asked you if you know the answer tell him if you don't know the answer tell him you don't know but you'll find out

and

He said do not

Pretend you know bulls***. Yeah, you know because that's

It's their way too. Yeah, right. You're going man and I used to prepare the run sheets

and

Every morning we'd go out to the cars

And he would come up said, okay. What's what do we change what was going on? I'd give him the timing board

Yeah, and he said no no no you do it

And so I did it and he we were into comms. So we'd all plug in right so he

Nigel would stop I'd plug into Nigel the old man would plug into me. You guys had the intercoms in the 80s. Yeah

And it's some team can't do it today, right? Yeah, exactly. Okay, that's amazing. Yeah, and um

That's how we did Colin Chapman this guy you've

Spent most of your life. Yeah, I was literally like plugged into you. Yep to hear you engineer a car. Yeah

Wow, yeah, that does not sound intimidating at all

But also it sounds like kind of similar to like you said about david morgan

He was letting you run your car, you know when you try to give him the time and he's like no no you do your thing

Yeah, which has to give you some confidence. Yeah, he's being that cool. Yeah, although that didn't go through my mind

Yeah, right, right. It was like

Don't fuck up. Yeah. Yeah, don't forget to put the fuel in

Higher shoes. Yeah. Yeah, put your belt on basic stuff. Yeah, yeah

But to be honest by

So I only had a year of working with

Um, Colin Chapman. Yeah by the end of that year or and we were not best mates. No, sure. Sure, but

by the end of that year and las vegas was um

An interesting one we we were in caesar's palace car park

in a motorhome that we'd rented

and he was sat at the front

And he was doing what he used to do

um at the end of the season he was writing

a sort of

critique of the car that we were just going to finish racing

And we'd already signed to get take reno engines for the following year

So we had two cars with cars. It was the end of ground effect. Although we didn't know it

Exactly at that precise moment in time

And he'd got 50 or so items on this pad

And he said steve

You know, you've had a full year of racing now

and

You know, we've we've got a

You know, we're going into next year

You're going to start playing a bigger part of what we do and this and the other and you know

He was just sort of laying the groundwork that okay. You've got your teeth now now. You got to really step up. Yeah

and um

We got an active program going and I'd been involved with that

um, we were already talking about with peter right a um

rig to for skirt development because we were still believing that skirts were going to play a part of our

effects was still in your mind sure and uh

I'm um

We were talking about building a rig that we could

With some massive fans that we could actually look at what how the skirts were behaving

There was a big debate about good cross-plies and radial tires

Should we should we go for a radial tire that didn't grow with speed?

Because the cross-plies

Used to lift the lift the skirts

Whereas the mclarenz on the

And so what have you you know, they they would stay there. They was stayed there

and we

did a test with

at um

Rickard and this was in december and um, I briefed him on the results of that test and I I believed we needed to head in the

radial direction because the

cross-plies were coming to the end of their life

and um, we were heading that way. We're also

Going to build an active formula one car

Which we tested 82 in 82 an active car in 82. Yeah, which we tested on the day that he died

Oh, wow. That's netton. Yeah

And we would I was actually at netton with the car

And um, peter war pulled up into the car park and I didn't know peter was coming to this test

And he got out of the car and he went to see bob dance and he said told bob to get all the boys together

And he told us that the old man had died last night

and everyone goes

What's gonna happen to us? Yeah, right because you know, yeah, that's the team right there. Yeah

and

Fortunately it carried on

Six months later. Well, no probably fuck four or five months later. Gerard ducaroos joined us

who Alfa Romeo had fired

And gerard became another one of the influencers on my list

And gerard was unbelievable. I mean, I didn't

I got to know gerard much better than I knew the old man, but

Gerard was

Clever

Very dynamic

He was a great leader. The old man was a great leader as well

but he he knew

intrinsically

How to make a competitive formula one car do this this this and this and this and

It'll go. Yeah, and it did very much. So here's the fundamentals kind of great

Yeah, and over over gerard's career. He'd he

He called them his golden rules

and

there are about 15 of them and

At that period at that time in formula one if you

Did that and you didn't deviate and you didn't oh that doesn't matter or overthink yourself. Sure, you know, you you would have a competitive formula

Yeah, and he was good at that. So those first few years what I mean, you start out with a podium effectively even if it was retroactively

Was there any specific lesson taken away in those first couple years?

A lot of it was

Building a reliable car because the cars were fragile in those days and all sorts of things used to break or fall off or what have you?

um building a reliable car

And then building a car

That was going to be fast enough or peter peter and gerard were looking for

A missing link or how are you thinking we need? Yeah, sure when you get to a car at that level? Yeah

You know ken tirrell used to say the cheapest way to make a car go faster is change the driver

and um

You know nigel became the victim of that. I see and he'd he'd hung on

by virtue of

players

Uh, in john play special. They wanted a british driver. I see. Yeah, um, peter convinced them

to take airton in

85 85. Yeah, and

um, they were in love with him. Yeah, they didn't know it at the time but come esterill second race

Yeah, you know the whole thing just was going like that. Yeah, and um, that's when

Reliability became a major issue because the reno engine was fragile the cars were

Could be more robust

and

peter used to say

If he's running at the end of the race, he's going to be on the podium

So we need to make sure he's running at the end of the race. Yeah, right

We won two races that year won a lot of polls. So the speed was not an issue

The competitiveness of the car was not an issue even if you weren't

It wasn't blistering in austria. There weren't many tracks. It wasn't faster

And then that carried over to 86

Ran out of fuel

You know all's

Engines failed turbos blue. What have you we switched to honda

The mindset changed with honda honda were

An order of magnitude more rigorous in their approach to development and reliability on the engine and the engines were good

Compared to say reno or something. Yeah, and that's not to denigrate reno. That's just how it was. Yeah

And reno reno had stopped racing themselves to support us in 86

I see. Oh, wow. Yeah, and so they were just the engine supply. Sure. And uh, then peter said

Thanks, but no thanks at the end of 86

So during the the man's leaders 81 84 especially towards the end when

You know nigel's probably got to feel this tension that he's getting the blame for for the lack of results in the car

Uh, what was your strongest disagreement?

I don't think we disagreed very much at all. I mean we

We both wanted the same thing. Yeah, I mean the there were politics behind the scenes

You know and peter said some very disparaging things about nigel and i'm sure

Nigel said the same about peter

Probably in a little bit more colorful language, but um, you know, it's

Being exposed to that just reminded you

that um

It's still a sport populated by human beings and they can either like you or not like you and if you don't fit then

For whatever reason or you're not delivering or you're not delivering in the way that

Someone expects you to

To deliver now there was no denying nigel was quick

But nigel and peter didn't see eye to eye

And without coverage from the old man because the old man like nigel. Uh, yeah, sure

Nigel felt exposed nigel needed to be loved and wanted and yeah, yeah

He just yeah, didn't have that when you find out that you're gonna get senna as your driver

Was there an understanding of what was to come because you'd already had some pretty breakout performances

But you've just spent years with a guy that you've grown a rapport with so you're losing your guy

Motor sport at that level is a highly professional sport

you know

People fall in love with drivers and follow them to the end of the earth right that was never me. Yeah

Yeah, it's a cold hard

deal right you

You work with what you've got to the best of your ability

If it's your remit to change that then you can weigh in if it's not

You take what's coming next right right and um

I sense that at high level motorsport in this country having done some nascar. Yeah, the

It's not quite that cold

In in this country. Yeah, the loyalty and um, I had no problem with

Doing the change over. Yeah. Yeah, and you know love dirt and to bits

I know what he left. Yeah, and I had nelson for two years rason didn't gel. Yeah

With the team the car wasn't competitive

You know, we did our best. Yeah nelson left

Derek came. Yeah, Derek. Yeah

Uh martin donnelly had a horrendous shunt in the earth. Yeah. Yeah

Um, I left to go to mclaren

I ran gear hard for two years alongside it and yeah

Uh, gahard was a great guy. Yeah, and gahard said to me

Um, when he when he told me he was leaving

In at the end of 92 to go back to ferrari

He said I I can't beat him in the same car. I've got to have a different car right

and

He was as much telling me

That he was prepared to roll the dice on having a different car right

Knowing that he could in a same car fair fight. He couldn't win. Yeah

And that wasn't it was not because of the team. Yeah, and there's a lot of

Put out there. Sure. And it's the same with michael. Now. He just knew that senator had him. Yeah. Yeah, and

You know, michael will tell you all sorts of things, but

I promise you those cars were equal. Yeah, and one driver's better than the other. Yeah, and we knew who it was

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember your first interaction with senator?

Yeah, hockenheim 84

We were in the garage next to um

tolman and um

Don't know whether you've ever been to hockenheim

But in those days it's different now but in those days there was a sort of two inch mesh wire mesh

Divider that people used to pin up their own banners on I'm sure it's like that today

And uh, he was he was one side

And I was our car was next to his

And he was looking at uh the uh intercooler that we had because we had sticker, you know temperatures thermic stickers on it

Right. Yeah, and he said

It's a bit hot, isn't it?

And I said well, it's a two-stage intercooler. It's water water air. Sorry water

charge and then air charge

and um, yeah, it'll it'll it'll run up there, but

It's okay

and he said

On my car the engine would fail if it was that hot

And um, you know and that started the conversation. That was our first interaction to be honest. Yeah, personal interaction

But he's already paying as much attention. Oh, yeah, everybody. Yeah, he was all over it

when when

I don't think I've driven. Oh, sorry. I don't think I've worked with anybody since

that um wanted genuinely wanted to understand the car

as well as he

Ended up doing and was capable of contributing

Back to what was happening

Um, there are a lot of drivers that try

Virtua, they're not

He had an unbelievable photographic memory

and

after every race

In the motorhome

The motorhome people would record the race on a vhs thing and we'd sit and watch the race again

And he'd commentate through the race. Oh, you see that that's where the tires start to go off

You see that we see me hit that curb, you know, and it was just a litany to lap to lap. Yeah, every single lap

and then

He had a desk at the factory

had lived in Norfolk

in his former three days and

Yeah, he's he was just very

very

Integrated with us and he wanted to be and he was a sponge for knowledge

And he just saw everything that was going on as a way of him getting better

And we um

It was 86 we were on

On pole at

Detroit

and Nigel stepney was the number one mechanic on this car and

Car got to the grid and Nigel reached under the car and he was checking the two we had two

Titanium skid bungs in the bottom of the gearbox, which used to throw the sparks out

And Nigel waved at me

I went over to the back of the car

and

This sort of hand came out and he dropped a skid bong into my hand and it was f*** hot first of all

and

I said, okay. Well

Do we need a new one? Do you want a new one to screw? He said no the gearbox is

It's ripped the mag casing. So the whole thing. Fortunately, it wasn't leaking. Yeah, right

But it ripped ripped the whole thing out. You can remount it if you want to. Yeah, and both of them come out. Yeah

We sort of said, well, what are we gonna do? And he said I can't do anything, you know, there's nothing for me to screw into

Yeah, yeah

And I thought and we had a two-stage ride height system

hydraulic system on the car

where

A third of the way into the race, we'd show it in a sign from the pit box and it would drop it

This was to calculate for the weight in the fuel. Yeah. Yeah, and we'd drop the ride height and then towards the end of the race

we'd drop it again

and

So cool

And I said to Nigel

I said, you know, do you think we should tell him and he said that's up to you pal

and I elected not to tell him

and

All through that race. I was thinking yeah, right this thing is gonna scrape today. Yeah, and

We won the race

And after the race I said, you know

You won't believe this but this is what happened on the grid and he's and you calm as you like. He said, oh

That's interesting. He said next time just tell me I'll deal with it

You know, I can I'll just break in a different place or I'll just manage it

But just tell me and it'll be fine and if I'll just deal with it

And he he was capable of doing that but you know, you you go

Right on on the cusp of winning another race and

You know, some drivers would just

Yeah, right. Yeah, how are you in the back of their head? They start changing for it. Yeah

But at no point does he lose his mind in this or screams. Okay. This is just how we do it in the theater. Yeah. Yeah

That's awesome. He was brilliant. So you mentioned SRL in 85 super wet day, but this is very famously the first win for senna

Um, you know the beginning of sort of the the end of winning for lotus

Um, and this is your car

Because I mean, is there any sense of pride? I mean, this is your first win too, right?

Hmm

It was

When you're that close to it

And you've actually

Physically lived it each lap of that race

And many other races which have been classics like

Kimmy coming from the back in 2005 in japan

And you know, you were even more interactive in a race like that because you were on the radio

You know, there's a lot

That you remember and the memories that you treasure, but it stays inside, you know you

It was very very special and everybody who was there and involved in it

Is the same, but you know, yes, there is pride, but

It's more internalized than

externalized if you like

It's how we keep going

Otherwise you become a one, you know, you're

It's it's just me

That is I think it's what we I think the phrase is uh, english

Very

You will have no joy

Back to work. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that. Yeah, I did a piece for british airways in flight magazine

2005 thereabouts

I still have a copy of it at home

and it was like a five or six page piece about

um, a race a race weekend what I do over a race weekend

and um

ron

This is ron denis who ran mclaren forever. Yeah ron ron

always used to say that

if we

put the car on pole position

And win the race we've done our job. That's that's what we're here to do

Don't mind you're celebrating don't mind this but just remember that's not special. That's what we're here to do great

Yeah, if you're not doing that we failed somewhere along the line and we need to know why you need to be

Working on what we've got to do to ensure that next time

This doesn't happen and we win the race. So

That the whole culture at mclaren. Yeah, certainly whilst I was there. Yeah was

It was expect to succeed. Yeah, you know, this is enjoy nothing

Just an exaggeration. But yeah, okay, but that's what we were there to do right and um, that's what we did a lot of the time

Yeah, yeah, you had a good run there. So you spent, you know, several years at lotus f1 and then you moved to mclaren

How does that transition happen?

So neil Oakley who was um

chief designer at mclaren during that period

Whilst we were not friends at loughborough neil was a year behind me at loughborough. Okay, same school. We were

and

When nigel left us to go to williams

neil was testing for williams at

I think it was rickard and I was testing for lotus at rickard and I I wandered down and I said to neil

Oh, you know, please enjoy

He's all yours now. Yeah. Yeah little did I know that neil was about to move to

Beatrice or force or whatever it was called right so

For the 85 season neil neil had moved on

Anyway, neil and neil doesn't talk much. He's very very reserved. Yeah, and that's coming from you

and um

I got a call from neil

Or I bumped into him in the pit lane. I can't remember and he said um in

1989

He said, um, what's your what's your contract status at mclaren lotus? Yeah, I said, uh, to be honest now

I've got another year to go so

if you're

talking about anything

at mclaren

you

If you're still interested in another year's time then give me a call

and um

Knowing neil as I do now. I can imagine him going back to the trail called the motor home and going

writing in his diary, you know

Call me years time here. Yeah, because because I got a call in a year almost the day. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, and uh neil said, um, if you're

Still interested. We'd like to have a chat with you

and I went down to

Woking and saw neil and martin whitmarsh

it very quickly

morphed into

okay, if

There's a job for you here if you want to come and um lotus was on the yeah

I mean they were struggling by this point. You had a couple years of pk didn't go well. Yeah. Yeah, and

I was ready. Yeah. Yeah and mclaren at this point. That's right. Yeah, and um

There was no promise of who you're gonna run or anything like that. This ended into the 1991 season. Correct. Yeah, so

McLaren's won everything for the last three years in this world. Yeah, and so you're not gonna turn that opportunity down. No kidding, right? And uh,

I got there very late december

um, just so I could

Meet the people and on what have you and we went to a test in

esterel

in january

And we were running in previous year's car

And I ran gear hard michael actually

I think michael might even have come to that test as well. Yeah, we gave him a run out

And

Did another test with gear hard?

um, actually ran it and for a day at another test

And martin came down to see me

One evening and said um

Who would you like to run next, you know for this season?

And I said, oh, are you giving me a choice? He said, oh, I'd just like to know who you'd like to run. Yeah

I said, oh, I'll run erton, please

I'll take the greatest of our time, please. Yeah. Yeah, just that just that good. Yeah, and he said he said that's a shame

Yeah, all right, so I said I said to be honest martin. I'll run whoever you want me to run

But if you're giving me the choice

I like winning races

He said, well our austrian drivers taking, you know

Who's likes what what you've been doing with him and he'd like you to run him. I said, well, that's perfectly fine with me

You know, if that's what you want, that's what we'll do and it will not be different

You know, because I like gear hard as well. I mean, it's impossible

Not to you may not know him, but it's impossible not to like him. So

I had gear hard for two years and we went through the

gifted win at

Suzuka in end of 91 and

then we we won in canada in 92 and

gear hard

Did a great job in adelaide

92 to win the his last race at mclaren before and obviously in between that

that was when

Gowett said to me, I've got to leave here steve. I can't can't beat him in the same car

It takes something to say that though. So it's impressive. I mean we were

Got on on well, I mean it is you you have to

But I you know, I knew what he was going through. Yeah, absolutely

So 1993 bbc is gonna do a tv show with you and you're gonna you're gonna engineer the big indie car star out of america michael andretti

Uh, how how'd that go?

well

The start started the year

Micah had joined us as well from yeah lotus. Yeah, who at the time was this very big standout in in the other teams in a junior formula

yeah, yeah, mika hakenan

and michael was

Going to be one of the drivers. Micah was hoping he was going to be the other driver

Um, oh, right. I completely forgot because at this point we don't know where senna's going

Right because he's on these race to race contracts. He's so miserable and he he he um

Was not overly impressed that we'd got the cosworth engine

When he really needed a reno engine

And so you're talking about yes. Yeah. Yeah, and he he came over to silverstone to drive

the car for the first time

And he really liked what he felt and it was it was a very very good car

Um, it optimised the active system optimised the aerodynamics and that was just the start of it

We we learned a lot more

During the year

Like how to stall the diffuser and find more speed on the straights and this than the other

What what he felt at silverstone that day in february

Was enough for him to commit and we went to south africa, but we went to south africa

with with michael and

unbelievably

well, no because if you know the guy

he had

Nothing to fear from michael, but he helped michael tremendously

During that first. Well, not just the first weekend, but every weekend sending me. Yeah to try and find his feet

This is providing data or in terms of actual coaching coaching. Oh really so center really got in and helped michael. Yeah, okay

Because michael had never seen any of these tracks before yeah, of course, right

But there was a gulf between the two. Yeah, right. I know um

Drivers they have to believe that they're the best because it's hard to get into these cars

If you say well, I'm not I'm not good enough. Shouldn't be doing this. Yeah

Um, but it was tough for michael

And there was a lot of family expectation on him

He elected not to settle in europe

But concord it back and forth and I you know, I I must have been number 20 on the list to say why

Yeah, right and um, he said well, my dad did it and look what happened to him

You know 14 years ago

So it was a bit different back then

Yeah, and

He he just stuck to his guns and it was hard

and

The the press really warmed to him initially because you know, it's not often we have an american driver

Yeah, it is an injury. Yeah. Yeah, they had you know, and they wanted to talk to him

But eventually they turned and as the results continued in that. Yeah, and it was

why and what have you and

The other side of the garage

Erton was put putting in some spectacular drives. I mean one of the notoriously best drives in his life at donnington

Happens and michael doesn't make the first couple corners. Yeah. Yeah your car. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah

He's had that look like oh damn it. Thanks. Sean. Yeah, so

Ron Ron and

Giorgio Asconelli were running

Erton and myself and Dave Ryan is a very good friend of mine

Who was the team manager? We we looked after michael and

It was

For 1993 the only testing that took place was on your nominated test circuit

In your country. Oh, so the testing was regulated. Yeah, which was silverstone. Okay

For qualifying you had a maximum of 12 laps

Including outs and ins

And so we were so if you do like four

Stints so to speak you just you just got all those laps. You've got two times laps in each stand. Yeah, exactly

And we we we found with michael

Uh, and there were race tires not qualifying tires

So we found with michael that it was often best to send him out and do

A full session a full just to get this run

Right, so now you've got a heavier car and tire burn off and all these things

so and we were just trying to optimize

and give him the best chance because he was

It was struggling and we get to

Monza

And michael can see the writing on the wall. He doesn't necessarily say it but he was saying to me

I really want to do well here. I really really want to do well here. You know, my dad did well here and I

you know, I want

It was a

Passion very clear. It was a passion. Yeah, and we take off and he's

He's off at one of the UK's on the first to second lap and we go

And he fills the

I think he does the front wing. I can't remember exactly it fills the radiations with grass your car. Yeah

And he comes into the pits we clean him out sort him out and get him on his way

Yeah bloke drives like a maniac maniac is man possessed

Finish his third. Yeah, right podium podium. Yeah, he's up there loving American flag. Yeah

And that's it. That was the end of his last race was a podium in Italy. Yeah. Yeah, and

What can you say? Yeah

Well, you can't say a lot you're choosing not to there are a lot of people

That would say you should have approached that year differently. Yeah, but I to this day

I don't think he would agree with any of them. Yeah, but

What do I say?

If you could have if not that he did but if you could have

Given him two or three things you would have liked to have done differently. What would have been?

Embed in Europe. Yeah, just not just a flight away. So I told him the story of Ayrton at Lotus

You know Anton's first year first year at Lotus

That he moved right next to the shop

He did he had a desk in yeah, you know came into the shop every day went running with the boys at lunchtime went down to the pub with us

just

He whatever space

Elio thought he commanded

He ceded it during that first year to Ayrton because he was there. Yeah, he's putting in the time the boys loved him

Yeah, yeah going to the composite shop, you know

Signed this that and the other be part of the taken

You know

Every day and they they talked to him like he was

Not special, but you know one of us. Yeah

It made a huge difference

Plus he was quick as well

Idolized everything he did or as good as he was he didn't have to do that stuff and still did

Yeah, you know what I mean? He could have just relied on talent. That's the difference between so many of them

They get so full of themselves

And some of them don't have it and get full of themselves

That's my favorite. Yeah, it's my favorite talk to those guys. Yeah. Um, yeah

So if you okay, so you said in bed in embed in europe

Is there anything from the way he would approach a weekend that maybe he was an indy car style of doing things?

No, not really. It's formula one is very different to to indy. I mean

You could I could be facetious and say keep it on the track, but um, you know

But he wouldn't say that

So he he went off at um brazil at turn one and it was quite a violent accident. He actually tangled with garhard and um

His his wife

I can't remember her name sandy

It was in the garage and you know, you see the crash

You see what's going on. You go. Okay. Well, I can't do anything from here

You know, he's got out of the car and

He'd be taken care of

And she came running up to me. Why aren't you doing something? I said, what can I do?

You know, why are you talking to me? Yeah, what is she like?

That's my first thought he's like or you could just not be part of the race. Yeah catering's over there. Yeah, all right. Why are you talking? Yeah, and

you know

It's just yeah, it's it's different. It's different. That's not okay in america either

Exactly if I said yeah, and if I heard that my girlfriend was running up to anybody

Yeah, you can't come back. Yeah

Yeah

Different time. Yeah, for sure run

Ron didn't want her to have a headset

And she did she didn't she wanted one badly. Oh, wow. Yeah

Yeah, the headsets were not for guests. Yeah, not in those days. I mean everyone

Yeah, now now that you can't talk you can just listen. Yeah, you get a scanner. Yeah, right

Yeah, you were at mclaren all the way through the rest of your f1 time

Yeah, and went through the big change over from like the you know, the ground effects car or sorry the

Active arrow era into like the v10 era and things like that. Yeah, I've heard you speak very highly of mica hawkenin

Yeah, so

I ended up mclaren running three fins

Mica, kimmy and hake. Okay. Yeah

And just just to be clear by the time

I race engineered mica up to the end of 97 and then ron made me head of race engineering

Right, so you're just overall and my

Then assistant mark slate. He became race engineer on that car sure and I worked with mark for the rest of my time at

mclaren so strictly speaking

Uh, I had half of mica mark had the rest of it and mark engineered kimmy and and hake

But we were so half a quarter of the personality. Yeah

Almost one person one person. Yeah, right and we had a great relationship and um

Mica was of the three of them

Kimmy probably spoke the least

I'm so shocked to hear that weird. Yeah, mica

Came in a close second

Because he's much more valuable now. He's okay. He's he's doing tv and stuff

But yeah, he wasn't a great talker then. Okay. Um and hake was almost like a normal person. Yeah

That's why I didn't have the time the trajectory. He was a finished 12. He's talked too much

and um

I don't know. I think fins make great racing. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah

Asked to the lfa. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, he's gonna be in the lb1 car. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but he um

I I couldn't hear any anything bad said said about either of those three drivers because they were all great guys

um make a probably

His emotion with what he went through with the crash in adelaide in in 95

and um

Yeah, he had a tough year in 96

97 and you were engineering those cars. Yeah. Yeah 97 was um

Hard for him because david had joined us for 96 david guldard. Yeah, and

they were

The car was okay, but it wasn't great. But um 97 david won out of the box in melbourne

um and again

Was it monzer he won it? I can't remember

we get to um herrath and um david's ash to move over micker

Goes on wins the first race mickers in tears on the podium

because

You know, I don't think he wanted to win his first race like that and this and the other. Um

But it it it

It opened or unleashed something in micker. Yeah that

The following year's car was awesome. Yeah the mp4 13 adrian had joined us halfway through

97 and he was fully responsible for

98 98 car and

we had um

The drama in pit lane in melbourne, but the car was so frigging fast and so clever that um

You know the others couldn't as long as we were running the others were not going to win. Yeah. Yeah hate saying it like that

But it's true. Sure. And um

They they they swapped back

david was pissed micker was not happy

Anyway, and off we went next the very next race

Ferrari were screaming

Doing their normal deal. You know cars illegal cars shouldn't be allowed. Yeah, so we took all this stuff off

it and we ran it without the brakes there in

uh, brazil and gave ferrari one of those

And um, you gave them what for yeah. Yeah. Yeah

and

And the year panned out and then it was about reliability

Which um, we did struggle with from time to time

but it was a great finish to the year and um few stories probably

Um, we get to nerburgring

And it's cold. It's the

last but one race. I think it was

and um, the good

Are very strong michael and urb. I think urbine was driving with him. Um, they were up front and we were like not

Close we were a long way off them. We were still

third and fourth. Yeah, right?

How we're gonna deal with this

and on

race day

We finally managed to get some temperature into the tires and

michael was able to do the business he passed michael

and um

Gapped him significantly

And then right towards the end of the race

Um, he slowed down a lot and we were thinking of

What the hell's going on here? Right? And um, he comes around the last corner because you can see them to your left

It's a hairpin comes around the hairpin and michael's

Like too close for me coming behind. Yeah, right? And michael added under control, but

And they crossed the line michael wins michael second

and I said to michael

After the race when when I got to talk to him

So what the f*** was going on there when he said oh, that's easy. I wanted him to see me take the flag

That is yeah

Yeah, so you do it the go-kart track with your buddies, right? Yeah

at the rental car now the story had it that um

Throughout that year in any interview and I I've you may be able to prove me wrong

But michael never mentioned michael by name. Yeah. Yeah. That's like schumacher style stuff too. Yeah

He's playing the the mental stuff back. Yeah. Yeah, and michael didn't tell us he was going to do this

And it's none of our business either. You know what what they get up to but

Micah had michael. Yeah. Yeah, he was fast. Yeah, uh, and there were times

I think it goes into the following year

when um

Do you remember the zonta incident at spa? Oh when they're the past?

Well, yeah, so the previous lap michael had chopped michael

Yeah, so much so that he nearly knocked michael's front wing end plate off

Because we sent we sent the end plate with michael's tire rubber on it to ferrari. Oh, wow to ross brawn. Yeah

And um, as he did not happy with that. Yeah, the speed that it happened. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, sorry

I thought you meant with them with the sending the template. Yeah. Yeah. No the incident and and so, um

Micah won that race. Yeah, and he was another take that michael. Yeah. Well on a hell of a move. Yeah. Yeah

Yeah, um, we get we get to monza

michael wins at monza but michael's breaks down in the in the press conference and cries

because it was like

you know, what what have I got to do to beat this guy? I've just beaten him and it was like a

big deal so we have a

Club membership for the show a dinner club and so we allow some of our members to ask questions of our guests

So we have a fan michael renick

And since you're talking about mclaren and mika and david, uh, he wanted to know how was the mood within mclaren when

Schumacher and ferrari started dominating during that 2000 to 2004 period run was not happy

Yeah, and when ron's not happy

None of us were

Ferrari took the constructors in

99 and then they had a

Run

Where they were very good. We we we were on a bit of a roll

In 2000 and then we lost an engine at indianapolis and that took us out of the championship and then

mika retired

after 01

Yeah, that was not a good year

David fortunate was winning some races mika mika in 2001

something happened at monaco

and he

didn't he

Disconnected almost he just he's constructed interesting and um

He never won the british grand prix

And he turned up at silverstone

Late on thursday and um

slady and i

Said who's just walked into the garage who's just left the garage. Yeah

Because it wasn't the mika that we'd known. Yeah, and

He just blitzed that weekend won the race. Yeah, and it was

We need him back. That guy's good. Yeah, yeah, right and

He disappeared for a few more races

We get to indianapolis. He'd not won indy

Did the same thing at indy apart from a a um

We still used to have warm-up then and for some inexplicable reason

We we let the car go it was still red light at the

End of pit lane and mika just drove past everybody. I'm on the track. It's like what are you doing?

anyway

Whatever penalty we got or what have you we still he just went and won the race

it was like

Okay, and then at the end of the year he went to dtm

and ron

I think hoped he would come back. But no, he he was done

so, um

shumaka off rari did what they

Were gonna do then

Which years did alonso win alonso won four and five

and six oh five and oh five and six two five and six oh two oh four. Yeah. Yeah, so then then

Michael had a run

Then they topped out and it was between us and reno

it was

very frustrating

Not to be

competitive with ferrari because we had the drivers. Yeah, right, you know david and mika

Could could with if the car was there they could deal with it, but car wasn't there. It was a bit of a struggle

so yeah to to answer your

your um

Gentleman's question. It was it was painful. Yeah, so basically fran's unhappy

It's a bad deal. Yeah. Yeah, I mean he he you know, he doesn't walk around with the but well

He did actually walk around like a bear with a short sore head, but um, he he also knows that

His his demeanor reflects on everybody. Yeah, so when you step into the public

You you've got a you've got to be honest, but b you've also got to lead you can't show panic. Yeah, yeah

and you've got to work your way through it and

Anyone who's had anything remotely to do with racing or even formula one

Does learn very very quickly

There there are no golden rivet solutions. It's it's got to be worked at

I think the first time I heard about you was when you made the transition from formula one to nascar with michael waltrip racing

and

Probably because that's not a thing that really happens

Where an engineer from the f1 program let alone mclaren f1

Goes to a cup team and like straight to cup. Yeah, it wasn't like you had some decade off where you you know

Went and rediscovered yourself. Yeah, right to f1 to michael waltrip racing right which was at the time a fairly new team in nascar

They they'd had some problems a couple years prior and so in you come. How does this happen?

in 1993 one of the characters in the

Documentary

His name was pete spence and he worked for cosworth. He was

like head of

chief engineer of customer engines because we were using customer engines

and

Said to me at the end of 93

I I don't see formula one getting much better for me than it was this year because I got to work with

The world's best driver even though he wasn't world champion that year

I got to work with a great team. I got to work with this

You know if I

Do what i'm going to do again with you guys moving to perso

I'll be running a minardi. Yeah, right at the back of the grid and he said

Not getting paid. I'm not i'm not doing that

So I said well, what you gonna do? He said well any chance of coming to mccarran

And so I know martin

Had a lot of time for pete, but we didn't really have anything

for for an engine guy

And so pete came over here

to torrents. Yeah

And work for cosworth usa and he built the remainder of his career in north america and he he

Moved after a couple of years doing sports cars an indy car moved to trd. Okay. He's down the street. Yeah costimator

And um, we always stayed in touch. We used to have dinner in indianapolis when we started racing in indy

And then around 2006

He said have you ever given any thought to

Back up

He was struggling with the dan gurney indy car

engine

and having been at trd

it's

You know, I've I've heard the stories and the engine

wasn't the most wonderful

And um

Peter said to me would you would you be interesting coming over here?

I could probably arrange for you to meet dan and see if there's any opportunities for you. So I did

and flew into

I was staying with some friends in scottesdale

um flew into orange county

Went to met dan

Really liked what I saw and dan after lunch. She said

So what do you want and I said, well, I'm just exploring to see if there's anything I can do for you guys here

and

Didn't didn't come to anything

And I know I know pete wanted a little bit more

Formula one esk

happening in in in in the organization

fast forward

2006

they're now in

embarking on a nascar program

and uh pete says hey

me again

We we could do with someone like you

bringing a bit more discipline to

These nascar teams because he says it's chaotic. Um

The crew chief has a little black book

He guesses he doesn't they're not even in his even in the mid 2000s when nascar is already very high profile

It's still not at the level of what you would expect

so I

he said would you

give it some thought

so I came over to

phoenix

2006 which was the last but one race

Montoya was driving for chip ganassi. I knocked on montoya's um

by the home

He was friendly and said, oh, what are you doing here? He said, right, right?

I met some of the toyota people and because I knew nothing about nascar and had you ever watched it or nope. Yeah, okay, find it too boring

And I knew nothing. Yeah. Yeah, um, but once you meet some engineers that are going to open up you go

Oh, well, you know, you've got same fundamental problems. Everybody has um

you just it's just different and

Yeah, the cut you're in the corners a long time even though for me, it's one corner for them. It's two corners, but there's

It's just

Um, a challenge and you can be a second off on a mile and a half oval and say

I'm flat everywhere or something like that and you know, and you go

The the obvious thing is I know it's not me because I'm flat. Yeah, right? Well

Maybe we need to have a think about what's going on here a bit more deeply. Anyway

Pete said after after that race he said

You just you know, would it be okay if I introduce you to someone or gave you a number to someone and they could just talk to you

and see if you're interested

So I said, yeah, okay

I was

My contract with McLaren was up at the end of 2008

I was 56

We're going to be 56 at the end of 2008

and I'd always

been interested in working outside of the uk because you

Your your head's down. You're just focusing on what you're trying to do. I've done four

By the time I finished in formula one. I'd done nearly 470 races

and um

Won a lot

But that was what I did and a lot with different drivers as well

So I was pretty comfortable. I wasn't a one-trick pony in terms of formula one, you know, you're just hanging on to a driver's shirt tails

yeah, and um

I thought well, you know, if if the stars align

It'll be a big change and you're just in a place where you were excited about something different for you were doing

and um, I

We started talking

Came over to charlotte. I had to look at the place

um for michael walter for trd. Yeah, michael walter at nico

and um, they made me a very generous offer

and

We're in the middle of 2008 now came over at the end of 2008

So so nascar paid better than formula one for you at the time

Yeah, wow where'd you move to sorry you moved to charlotte. Yeah

It's a big change. Yeah, you know the culture shock. Yeah. It was everything was a culture shock in that respect. Yeah

and

Chick-fil-a

Took me a while to understand

A lot of that aspect, you know, they're not open Sundays, don't you? I do. I need this very well. Yeah

So don't wake up on sunday morning. Yeah, celebrating particularly that just came from a place

Yeah

I ended up doing probably a hundred nascar races over the three years because there's a lot of races in the nascar season. Yeah

and

Probably after not probably after three years

to be blunt

Marriage wasn't going well because I was never home. Right, right and um, but you're going to beautiful cities

Delaware. Yeah, you're going over. Yeah

Outside of Richmond. Yeah, I'm just trying to think on borough Bristol

Fontana, right

Yeah, not many spring to mind. Yeah. Anyway

Australia beckoned then. Yeah, my wife was from Australia. Okay, um melbourne to be specific. Yeah, and um

We went to australia. I was happy to go to australia. I love australia and um

To try and keep things alive

Didn't work

I did two years in melbourne then two years on the gold coast

So you came on supercars to try and save your marriage. Yeah. Yeah, and that's 12 events a year

Okay, so can we say here publicly that shane van gesberg and ruined your marriage? No, you can by then it was done

Okay, and the last two years I was in australia last turn

uh, so be

14 and 15

I was working with shane. I was running the team. It was a one car team. We had 10 11 people

Right, this was tech and it was two years of the best racing I've ever had really really

Your favorite racing wasn't yeah

With him

Okay, just the best that's done it. Yeah, I'll take

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you got the center. Basically, yeah

So uh, and we got on very well

Uh, he was at an early stage of his career

Uh, he was frigging fast and um

We had a really neat small team just one car team. Yeah, and it really

after the

three years of nascar and two years of

Melbourne it was really quite invigorating

Yeah, get back to winning. Yeah, and with a smaller program. Yeah. Yeah, and I had complete control over it

Oh, we had

You you could do that back then you could do a lot with three million australian dollars

and um

We supercars was great

I got involved with supercars on there. Um, what they call this v8 super it was called v8 supercars at the time

Commission, so you're part involved in setting rules and regulations and have the structure. Yeah, okay, and um

Then I got invited to consider the job i'm doing now, which went going back

Uh, and that was also very attractive now. Shane had moved on

At the end of fifth at the end of 15

Um to rid bull racing in australia, so he'd gone we got will davison to replace him

big difference, sorry will but there was a big difference and um

The australian racing was almost back to back to basics. Yeah, it was a lot of fun

And some of the tracks that you race on there. I remember um the gold coast race

We used to have invitational drivers had to be all right. Yeah. Yeah, you had to be

from overseas

and

Had um ryan briscoe and darin turner

Ricky taylor did one

Did he didn't go well. Oh, I don't he rolled it on the grid. I do remember

Remember that

And I remember darin saying to me because I've worked with darin at McLaren darin said, oh my god

You know you feel scared in these cars. I said

Is that a problem? He said no. No, that's good. That's good. You know, you know, you know, you're hanging it out there

And uh, when you to drive bathurst

In those cars this big and all the power in the world. Yeah and a spool diff. Yeah

But that's why those guys are so good when they go into

Anything else when you say half decent race car. Yeah a normal race car. Yeah, they are excellent

Absolutely because they've had to man handle all these things and you you almost set them up like go karts because in order to get them to rotate

You have to unload the inside. Sure. Sure. Yeah, because it's just like a go car. Yeah. Yeah, it's

They're spectacular cars. It's such a cool series

You said an interesting thing that with techno it was sort of such a small team. You got to sort of run it your way

and I I almost hear something there that

Whether it was michael walters or what I'm sure was a fairly big organization or or especially the

Second half of your f1 run where all the teams were thousands of people

Um, did it hit a point where it's tough to make an impact as a team leader because I mean with McLaren you were

Head of

Of so much as the team went on but yet you're one guy in the field now of hundreds. Yeah

I mean the work that

Even at michael walter at racing. I mean there were

A good probably 300 people. Well, that's well, that's kind of my point was so to me

You're one guy. Yes, you have this great career

And yes, that team needed help at that time

But if you're one person trying to fight a culture of 300 people that now, this is how we always do it

You know, there's a gestation period

But at a certain point if you're not being listened to and I don't know if this was the case but

You're one guy and I'm sure they hit a point where they don't want to hear about how you do it enough

One because this is how we do it in nascar and that's a culture. You're never going to stop fighting

Yeah, and and and it's not a good look to try and present it that way. Of course. Yeah, sure sure

I think you've got the management experience to know that yeah, and but I think with with the

With with the techno deal

um, it was a small team

there was

they wanted to be led

And we at the beginning of this conversation we spoke about there were a number of influences on my career

It was it was like drawing on those inspirations

and bringing them together and

you know letting people do what they were good at and

Really letting it flow because

Shane Shane was an awesome driver. He was

exceptionally fast and sure there were there were times Perth

For example where we struggled. It was a very low grip track and we just we never went really well there

but um

Every person on that team contributed in a really positive way

And they were the best guys to go out with

Over a race weekend or what have you and not that everyone's getting blind drunk because we were not

Yeah, but they were just good guys

and sure there was there was the odd

friction and what have you but

People wanted to be there because they felt

With the driver that we had and the resource that we had

They felt that they mattered. Yeah, you're part about you're part of something special too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah

And those those two years then were

We won a good few races as well. It was a lot of fun

a lot of fun

So we do a pass-along question for every episode and we had lunch today with uh,

NHRA drag racing legend Don Perdome

So Don's question for you and I think he means Toyota

Is are you going Formula 1 racing?

And we need to know tonight

So, um, it's it's common knowledge that there is a relationship between

um, our

European racing arm Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe and

A team house in Formula 1. In fact last time I checked which wasn't this weekend

They're on the rear wing. They're the back of the rear wing flap. Yeah, so there is a

A collaboration going on there, right? Um

That's all we know here. Yeah, that's all honestly

Um, and I couldn't tell you even if I knew

That's we won't say anything. Yeah

That's all all we know. Yeah, right. And the some of the guys that are involved in it. You go come on come on

Yeah, yeah, right. What are you? What are you up to? Oh, we just we're just helping them. We're doing a bit of work here

We're just talking. Yeah. Yeah, and we're just friends. Is there much crossover between TRD and and the other arms of Toyota racing?

So I would say um over the last couple of years

And it's mainly because of the people in in the the respective

Toyota racing globally is broken up into three regions

We we've got

North America. I'm pretty well north to south

tgre

Look after Europe and part of the Middle East if you like Toyota Gazoo

Yeah, and then the japan side look after basically Asia and in fact australia as well. That's looped in there

Uh, and historically they've been

almost impenetrable silos

but

of late

And it's probably due to the players involved

In each of those silos those silos are starting to sort of get a bit more permeable

now and

You know, we we speak to our colleagues in europe

and one of the things that's

Prompt of that to happen is they're racing alexis in a wilderness championship

You know, we have good relationships with our guys in japan

Who are supporting us here and them in

in europe, so

It's it's a better overall environment. You feel it's more global. Sure. Rather than yeah, it likes. Yeah

Tomorrow, we're going to have lunch with matt farrah. Who's a very well-known car journalist and reviewer and just kind of in that

Automotive scene if you could ever think of a question to ask him through us. What would that be?

as I said earlier on and you

We were probably mumbling at the time because um

With the greatest respect to matt, I didn't actually know who matt farrah was until yesterday afternoon

And as I said to you guys earlier

Oh with the research that I did yesterday and some some more this afternoon because the this this

pressure of coming up with a question

for for him

It was and made me think I'd really like to get to know this guy because he's there's a lot of

Stuff that he's talks about that without yelling. Yeah without yelling. Yeah that I subscribed to

And I was fully expecting for for my question to be why do you yell when you're driving?

Why are you an asshole?

But that's yeah, I can't ask that because he doesn't do that and and immense respect to him for for um being

The measured journalist and thoughtful journalist that he is or

I don't know whether he calls himself a journalist. I know he is referred to as

so I think

Mike my question to matt

is um along the lines of

Do you make money at what you do because it sounds like a really good job? That's not the question

How

He has a huge number of followers

He talks a lot of sense

and he's almost like

A beacon of common sense in in this mad world that we live in and

I don't know Joe Rogan either. I think that's his name. Yeah

But even when he was talking to and I watched a couple of clips of him talking to Joe Rogan

You did your research. Yeah, he was dishing it back to someone who is very opinionated. Right, right, so

How do you stick to your guns under the pressure that you're you're under to

conform when you are actually speaking great common sense about urbanization

Trafficking cities and just still be able to be a car enthusiast and I have

I'd love to meet him

You can come with us tomorrow. Yeah

If someone will listen to this episode, let's say 10 years from now

What would you hope they take away from this for your legacy? My legacy

This is really aimed at probably an engineer that's starting his career

There is always something you can learn

And there are always people that you can learn from

Not everybody

may be your

favorite person but look through that and depersonalize

your

Approach to people

and look for what what you can take away from any conversation

And any any moment that you might get to spend with someone that knows

Has the potential to know more than you

Sometimes when you read a book the book may not be about

motorsport or even cars

but

There are lessons in there. I have a

particular

fondness for military history. Oh, yeah, so do we and um

You can learn a lot about leadership. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah from that. I mean how the hell do you motivate?

People to fight for their lives. Yeah, put their lives on the line

And I'm still looking for that answer that absolute and there there isn't going to be a one center

Because everybody is different right right and and some of that came out for me when I was at techno in Australia

it's it's

The there are rewards to be had not necessarily physical rewards, but um from

you know

Making a helping a group of people overachieve, right?

So your current title with lexus what uh, if you were gonna

You know, we've been talking about race engineering if you're gonna describe your current title in a couple of senses

If you were giving us an elevator pitch, what would it be?

I used to say first to get blamed. Okay fair fair

My my official title is principal engineer vehicle support

I as as you well know

And and in in all honesty one of my I was really pleased that we were able to get you

At indianapolis last year onto the top step of the podium. I'm getting emotional

That was a big deal for me too. And um

You know, I'm just sorry it took so long. Yes

But because the the actual solution was was there in front of us and we just didn't didn't get after it soon enough

Yeah, yeah, um, but that was a particular

particularly rewarding

Moment for me. That actually means a lot that really does. Yeah

And you had two podiums up weekend one of the top step one more. Yeah. Yeah, but um,

It's things like that when you can help someone

It's just great. Yeah, just feels good. Yeah, absolutely and I appreciated the um

Um, all right. I haven't spoken to you about that. Yeah. Yeah, I got a bunch of prints done for everybody

That was part of the program. And so I saw john, uh

John mogan john john johnny morgues as I've been calling him. Yeah, john morgan and at daytona and I gave him both the years in his

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's cool on that level is the uh because you've worked with nothing

But like f1 teams top nascar teams supercars, but none of these were customer programs per se

This is sort of your first customer role. You're a very mellow guy, thankfully, but is that a hard thing to

Keep some opinions to yourself

Yes at times, um, but

The way the way I look at it

And there are exceptions, but generally the teams need help

um, and they need

guiding

Guiding is probably a better word to use than help. Um

This is the sixth

Yeah, and you know

Toyota has a reputation for customer service reliability

You know the whole list of things and justifiably so and that's on the streetcar side. That's right as a product. Yeah, right, right

and um, we we try

You know, there are a lot of japanese phrases that we we learn but we we try to apply that to what we do for

our customer teams

We like to think that we have a good reputation in the paddock for service

Um, and you know, if someone comes and say oh we've crashed our car

The last thing they need to be is berated

You know

You're about to sell them parts

Yeah, I mean

That is true, but you know, we we also want them

to get get back together

And not do it again ideally because we're not we're not in the business of you know

We're not that cynical as we just want to sell you parts

um, and

We'd we'd rather keep you for five years because you enjoy what you do

You may not be successful, but you enjoy what you do and you get good service from us and you go okay

Well, I like these guys and they they're good to us and

We we we enjoy our racing and not everybody's in it for forever

If the team is receptive

Then you've you've genuinely helped someone and they'll be better for it

You've been very measured in your wine so far

Have you ever tried to keep up with vassar?

He is a player

He makes very good wine. I love his wines. It's not my question

Can you keep up with the vassar?

So he he goes through phases there are sometimes when you know

He's

On it and there are sometimes when he says I'm not drinking so much now. Oh, yeah, and yeah, okay

But one thing I cannot do

And ever since I've been in North America

And and jimmy does it very well

And he knows his stuff better than I do

People's drink tequila

You know like straight just go straight for it and they call it a sipping tequila

Not you. No, I haven't found I haven't found the one that unlocks that

Yeah, I don't think I ever will palette. Yeah, but jimmy can jimmy will often say oh, I'll take a tequila to

You know enjoy

You know something about tequila that I don't know

How do you say his

His business partner's name

Sully you just say sully. You just say sully. All right. Okay. That's good to know

We have an obsession that the media can't say

Sully they have to say james sully sullivan

In every interview. Yes, which is not how you use a nickname. Yeah, it's either james sullivan or sully

It's not both. I think I think if you were to

Talk to sully. Yeah, he'd say I want you to call me sully. Sure, right

Not james sully sullivan. Just be sully. Just use the nickname. Yeah, that's how they work. Yeah

Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, uh, it's a couple more things. So in the uh

2000s one of the criticisms we heard with michael and ferrari was ferrari was starting to get

A little bit cognizant of that michael's name was almost getting bigger than ferrari

Uh, do you feel that way about ben barnacote?

Okay, I guess not no

Okay, okay. All right, we should go. They're literally waiting on us. So yeah, yeah

Well, I guess on that note continental's got the check

Hey

0:00

119:12

Ep.307 – Steve Hallam

Formula One

Lotus

Toyota Supra

Mclaren F1

Continental Tire

Drive to Survive

Formula 1

Aston Martin

Infiniti M45

carbon fiber

Silverstone

Brazil

Nigel Mansell

water injection

radial tires

cross-ply tires

reliability

Renault

Ferrari

intercooler

pole position

Titanium skid bungs

gearbox

ride height

hydraulic system

V10 engine

Lexus LFA

Pontiac Torrents

About this episode

Original notes