F1 Miami Grand Prix President Katharina Nowak

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. I'm Hannah Elliott and

I'm Matt Miller.

This is Hot Pursuit.

Coming up on today's podcast. We have the new head

of Miami Formula One, Katerina Novack, with us, and I'm very curious to hear hear what she has to say.

This is the fifth fifth year for the race, so it's kind of a big deal. First race on American soil,

and Matt Scott issues So think we can ask Skatterina about that.

Yeah, I have issues with that one. But I'm excited

to go down to Miami. You're gonna go to Miami.

I'm going to bring my entire television production crew to Miami because we're doing my live show from Miami as well as you and I are recording our podcast from Miami.

So it's it's kind of like a big deal, like New York goes out. Yeah, so I'm looking forward to that. Plus, Hannah,

I gotta say, I have driven a slew of cars that have given me really interesting back to back comparisons.

So is this about EV's.

So it kind of is about EV's in a sense.

On the one hand, I drove the key of EV nine again, which you know is a fantastic appliance. But

right after that the Subaru BRZ with a stick and I felt like, you know, they couldn't be on more opposite ends of the spectrum for two vehicles. Then I

drove the Lucid Air, as you know, and right after that I got into the BMW I seven, so an electric seven series, and the comparisons between like those two pairs, I think we're we're really incredible. So we can talk

a little bit about that.

Oh, we got to talk about that. And we have

been promising a nail bag session for a few weeks, so I think we should get to some mail from our readers, because we really do appreciate hearing from you guys.

Yeah, we absolutely do have to go through. I'm behind

on so many of my emails and it'll be great to catch up on that, and hopefully we can get people to write in more and give us some ideas for things to do on the podcast, people to interview on the podcast, cars to drive for the podcast, and you know, we can complain about the fact that there aren't enough stick shift automobiles.

Yeah, always constantly.

So the thing is, so we're going to talk to the head of F one Miami, right and I need to, I think, temper myself because I realized I was on a prep call with Matia Bnoto's team from Audi. He's

the AUTI team principle used to be with Ferrari obviously forever, and I started complaining about F one to his team and I thought, I'm way too emotionally invested in this.

I don't know why, but it just makes me so him happy that they have this d system.

Yeah, Andrew, the one who says you're not a you're not a fan of.

F one, I know, but I was thinking, like, literally last.

Week you said he didn't like it, you only like Moto GP. But then when you get on the call,

you actually do care.

Well, I care because so I was. So I was

going through Benodo's resume, and this guy is fascinating because he's an Italian guy that I think grew up in Switzerland and then he went to school in Bologna and he right away went to work for Ferrari in like ninety five.

So he was there for the Genus.

He was there for the Schumacher years also, so he was there for when F one was awesome. For when

it was like all you could think about all week and you'd wake up like to watch qualifying and like it.

It just mattered so much, and it was like Moto GP.

It was gripping and the racing was ten tenths all the time. They were giving everything they had in every corner.

And to compare that with today when they like slow down to recharge the batteries, it just gets my blood boiling.

I don't know why.

For someone who says that he does he's not into it, you're very into it. I think he's not a bad thing.

I think I'm just Also, it's my age, right, I'm like one of those old guys that throws his shoe at the TV because I don't understand this generation. And

I'm sure the kids today, the kids are like, oh, it's it's so much more interesting because you've got many different strategies, not just the tires and the pit strategies, but also you know, the battery strategy just adds to the like three D Chess kind of scenario. But for me,

it's like I want these guys to drive as fast as they can, as hard as they can the whole time and never have to worry if they're gonna like be able to find a charging station. Like, it doesn't

make any sense to me at all, but maybe because because of my age.

Well you should really ask Katerina about this when we get on with her, because I know that she grew up watching Shoemacher Race, so she was watching around the same era that you're describing in I know she's a real race fan as well, So I will be very interested to hear her take on it, because I'm sure she has one you know a lot of people do, of course, and she's Austrian. She's also Austrian too, so

she you know, she's coming from this long, long standing European sensibility that you're describing.

Yeah, I can't wait to get her take on it.

But of course, as the head of F one Miami, like, she's obviously gonna be drinking the cool way. Yeah, she

has to be on the team, even if, even if she really secretly hates the new rules and the new setup, she can't publicly say that.

Well, how did mister Bonodo's team respond to your ranting?

They were like offended and everybody on the whole call.

They were like five people from his team on the call, and we had four people from Bloomberg on the call, and it was like everybody everybody was and everybody was like thirty or less right, So they were all thinking like, oh man, yes, guy gasket exactly exactly.

Well, I mean, what can you do. You're entitled to

your opinion. But I'm actually very curious to see a

race because I haven't really you know it, live in real life this year and see if you can really talk.

So you know, I'm going to leave before the race.

I'm going down to Miami on Wednesday, and.

Then you're doing a hardcore thing. You're doing a turn

and burn exactly.

So I'm gonna do with you. I'm going to do

a bunch of work and then I'm getting on a late flight Thursday night to come back to anchor my show from New York on Friday. But I was talking

to I was talking to some people from Citadel. We're

gonna interview Scott Rubner. He's kind of a big deal,

went from Goldman Sachs City. Yeah, but I was I

was telling him like, it doesn't matter that I missed the race, because even if I were going to the race, I would I would love to be there, and I would love to get you know, walk down Pitt Lane and and you know, rub elbows with the people that are in F one race. But when it starts, like

when the flag drops, I want to be in a quiet room in front of a TV anyway, like I don't want to be Yeah.

Well, yeah, I agree. And we've talked about this before.

A lot of the media, myself included, who do watch the races, who had the chance to attend races. Half

the time you are in the media room watching on TV screens because it's quiet and you can focus and you can see what happens. I mean, that's just the

truth of it. So yeah, I don't think that's wrong.

I don't think that's wrong. It's like baseball, you hear,

you kind of get a lot more out of it sometimes when you're watching on the screen.

It's different in different sports, right because in basketball, basketball and TV I'm not really interested in at all. But

when I get to go on the rare occasion that I can afford Knicks tickets or someone generously gives them to me, it's the best. Like watching those guys. Yeah,

it's amazing.

I know, I agree, But I think Basketball is way better live way, but I love it. And tennis. What

do you think about tennis? Better live or better on TV?

Both are fine. Like tennis, I love to watch either way.

On on TV, you get the benefit of you know whoever it is, Billy Jean King or John McEnroe, Chris Evert Lloyd, like giving you the play by play, which is awesome in person. Obviously you have the emotions of

the crowd that can move you as well as the people on the On the like, the US Open is so much fun to go.

To so much. That's a that's a bucket list thing.

I really I'm not even I'm a casual tennis fan, but I have been to the Open and it was awesome.

And yeah, I think either way tennis.

I mean a lot of sports, like even if you're not a huge fan. I'm not I'm not a big

golf fan, but I've gone to the Master. I've been

lucky to have to go to the Masters on a future coot. Yeah, and it's it's never been so fun.

I mean, like you get totally you get totally immersed in it and you'll find yourself like checking the scores on the way to and from the course and you can walk the course at the Masters with your favorite golfer, like it's not over so overcrowded that you're stuck behind the lines all the time. So that's like, that's like

one of those bucket list sporting events too. I really

want to go to the t T Race on the Isle of Man. I've heard that's that's my ultimate book

at list.

Yeah, we should. We should get that on our schedule.

We should podcast from the Island Man.

We should do that. By the way, I was talking

with Dan Barbosa a little bit earlier today and he said, you're down to go to the Raptor Rally in October, And I'm down to go to the Raptor Rally in October and do it. Yeah, apparently like there will be

other people there, Danny Riccardo might might be there, and we could do our podcast from there.

Oh, let's do it. This could be our Lament for

the year instead of Lamon, we do the Raptor Rally.

True, but well, I don't think we should skip Lamar though.

No. Well, I mean, if we have to, sir, we

want Lamon to We want everything.

I was talking. I'm down a couple weeks ago. Jose Munos,

the CEO of Hyundai, came into the studio in New York, and you know they're going into World Endurance Class racing, so he invited us to Lament already. You know, if

we if we need a team with which to tag along.

We've had a couple people ask if we're going to Lamon and I always say, I don't know, maybe we should.

All right, those are my f one concerns. When we

come back, we'll talk with Katerina Novak from Formula one in Miami.

ILLOK, a little bit about your background. We know the

Austrey a bit a little bit and sounds like you were growing up right during a great era for people who are listening, who know this is your first year now at the Helm the Big Boss. How did you

arrive at this position and did you always think you'd be involved in motorsport?

Definitely did not think I was always going to be motorsport.

I in high school realized my passion for working in events, and it was really just from all the internships I had done in high school and so that I knew I wanted to do events. And then after college, the

Super Bowl was heading to South Florida and to Miami, and I, you know, grew up in South Florida. So

the fact that super Bowl was coming to hard Rock Stadium, which is, you know, the stadium I grew up with, you know, it was like one of those moments where I was like, I have to work for the super Bowl.

It was I remember being like such a passion of mine that it was like, I'm going to no matter what, I'm working the super Bowl. And so I actually passed

up two full time offers to stay in Chicago and moved back to Miami and just made it my passion and my mission to work for the super Bowl. Ended

up getting an internship on the events team to work for the Super Bowl, and in that first year, my first project was the super Bowl Owners Party. So it

was like literally dream dream come true. First job out

of college, like working for the super Bowl and you know, helping support the execution of the super Bowl Owners Party.

I mean, could not have gone better. And then just

continued to work at the Dolphins organization until Formula one came on the calendar, and at that point I knew I wanted to work for this global sport. I didn't

know too much about motorsport at the time, you know, I was I was just mentioning. But I spent a

lot of my summers in Austria, and so every summer I spent in Austria, I had, you know, spent time with my cousins and my uncle and they were massive F one fans. And my uncle is actually the person

who introduced me to Formula one, always running around for our gear, always sitting on the couch watching the races over the weekend, and so I knew what it was.

And so when we announced the fact that the Mimmi Grand Prix was coming to hard Rock Stadium, I was like that, I'm super interested and I want to learn more.

And of course it was also at the time We're Drive to Survive was just absolutely exploding, and so I jumped on that bandwagon and started understanding the sport more so.

As I was growing up, I was familiar with it, but really didn't have the understanding to be able to appreciate it. And now, of course all I do every

day is is Formula one in motorsports, So it's it's come kind of full for me.

That's unbelievable. I mean, your rise to the top is

pretty incredible, which I think is really a tribute to you must have a lot of besides the hard work natural ability to to lead this. This is a huge job,

you know, it's it is.

So kind I can ask it. I can't think of

anything that is this big, like in terms of the sprawl and the amount of fires that you must have to put out until you get to the Olympics, right, because it goes across the entire town. It's so much

more than just a Dolphins game or even the super Bowl must have been.

Yeah. Look, I think the super Bowl in its own

right is absolutely massive and takes over an entire city, much like much like we do to a certain extent.

I think, you know, the hardest part we talk about obstacles and fires that we put out. I think the

most challenging piece of this is that you know we are Our venue is hard Rock Stadium, and hard Rock Stadium in its own right, it's also a massive global entertainment destination that hosts major events around the year. And

so we're actually celebrating the fortieth anniversary this year for Hardrock Stadium, and it we have more events this year than we've ever had in last forty years. Well, so

our obstacles and our challenges and the fires we put out is how do we build the you know, temporary city that we build up for three days across this campus.

Uh and do that in a way that doesn't disrupt everything else that we do here at hard Rock Stadium.

So it's a it's a balancing act really of like balancing priorities between you know, what's coming up next at hard Rock Stadium and how do we make sure we can make it all happen. But all credit goes to

the incredible operations team that we have here at hard Rock Stadium. I really couldn't imagine doing it without them.

How many people are on that team on.

The event operations team alone, Yes, we've got We've got five full time bodies just on event operations for South Florida Motorsports. So that's our hard k Like that's the

Mimy GP side of the business. There's an entire state

operations team on top of that, then then runs the entire stadium and they kind of come together to join team.

We've got about seventy plus people that just work on the Miami GP full time year round, and then we span to the rest of the enterprise and are lucky enough to pull on that resource throughout the year. But

really after you know, the last two weeks of March we actually host Miami Open ATPWTA tournament here, So once that is over, you really start to feel like April first comes around and I just feel the entire support of the entire organization coming to support the GP and everyone's got a role for the race and we're all leaning in at one hundred percent to make sure that we execute a world class event.

Yeah, I can't imagine you get any sleep because you have to deal with logistics, hospitality, ticketing, obviously, race direction, you know, safety, fan experience, on site execution. You're dealing

with Formula one management, FIA, team sponsors, local authorities, VIP Like, I guess the list just doesn't end. How do you

how do you organize all of that?

You know, there are there are lists, a long list of key stakeholders that we that we manage. You know,

I think the the in the most you know, simplistic way, we try to make sure that there is one human being accountable for one task. And that sounds silly, but

higherarchy in this type of format when you're running this type of event doesn't work well, or at least that's what we've learned, and so it's not about hierarchy. Everybody

is on the same page and on the same team, and our goal is to make sure that we have individualized each task and roll into a certain department. So

I've got a total of eighteen departments under me that help execute a function of the race. So I don't

have a bunch of layers in between that. It's just

I have a sporting department that they take care of all sporting elements. I've got a guest experience element and

they take all care of all of that. I've got

a partnership. You know, you function out every single accountability

for the race, and that way, when I when you need something, you know exactly who's accountable for that type of for that type of role, you pick up the phone and you solve your problems rather than having to go through a bunch of layers of communication. I think

simplifying the communication and simplifying the accountability is really is really the easiest way to execute that because you don't need a bunch of layers that complicate the message, and you just honestly want to get to execution mode as quickly as possible.

That makes so much sense. Are you, you know, your

first year in are you thinking in terms of how do we want to make the Miami race very distinct from the race in Austin, the race in Vegas? Are

you thinking in those terms or are you thinking in terms of you leave in your own mark on the race?

Tell us a little bit about like the vision or your vision.

Yeah, you know, I've seen I've been a part of the Miami GPE since the beginning, and so it's been interesting to see from you know, the different roles I've had within the organization, how the race has established itself.

And so in the last eight months in this seat, I've started to look at that in a different way to say, Okay, how how do we want to display ourselves to the audience that we have, not only like on site on race weekend, but also globally when it's broadcasted to all the all the territories. I think for us,

it's about showing up authentically as possible for Miami. I

think that's what people expect of us, and it's something that we've stayed true and year in, year out, like since year one, we've highlighted Miami in its own way.

And so you know, year one, we I think, you know, got a lot of comments about our fake marina that we added into the campus with the real yachts and the fake water, and it's just awesome to see, how, you know, something that we would have just just dreamed about, you know in year one, about bringing that in to highlight Miami the different way and to experience a race, like an event in a different way, especially motorsports events.

So I think for us, like the way that I think about us as the Miami GP now and also going forward is in a couple of ways, like our priority number one is to deliver a world class motorsports racing event, right like that is at it's pinnacle. That

is what we're doing.

What about the track? How about the track? Has that

changed since you took over and how much input do you have on you know, what the track looks like, you know, the runoff the design versus what F one and FIA put into it.

Yeah, so the track hasn't changed. We we were very

very satisfied with the track that we have and of course work together with Formula one and the FIA on any changes that they may see fit for us, and we work together with them in partnership on track design.

We absolutely do control that. So the aqua runoffs that

you guys see on TV with the Miami script and uh, you know the palm fronds, that's that's absolutely our doing and we've done that since year one. Honestly, in terms

of changing that, we've thought about it, but it's so true to our brand colors and who we are. And

you know, it's actually funny that you asked that because I went around, you know, at a couple of races in the fall and sort of started asking people like, when you think of the Miami gram Prix, what do you think of? And the answers I kept coming get

kept that I kept getting was they think of palm fronts.

They think of aqua, pink and white, which is incredible because there's exactly our colors, and they think of sun, they think of the beach, and they think of boats, yachts and water. So it's just it's it was really

fun to see how that kind of all transpired and the feedback I was getting. But you know, to answer

your question two about you know, the things how we're thinking about positioning ourselves it's world class racing. Number two

is becoming and staying true and authentic to Miami and showcasing that and everything that we do. And then the

last is showcasing a touch of luxury and everything that we do right, Like, it doesn't matter where you're sitting in, what product you're in across the weekend, you will have a luxury experience in one shape or one shape or another in terms of how you experience a motorsports event.

So those are kind of the three things that we've really honed in on this year that is a bit different than how we've done in the past. And now

when we think about how we execute anything, it's like, Okay, what three pillars does it fit into? Like are we

focusing on the racing element, the luxury part, or the Miami part. And then ideally we're always trying to make

sure that it fits into all three categories.

What's the balance between making this truly a high end luxury experience and also making it accessible like to quote unquote normal race fans. Obviously there is some balance to

be had, and maybe luxury looks different in different ways.

Talk a little bit about that.

Yeah, look, I think for us, most importantly, it's the it's listening to the consumer and what the consumer wants, right, And so you're absolutely right that there is a balance, because there is a consumer that wants to literally never walk through a ga path and just come in, walk into their hospitality experience is see the race and leave and never be seen by a single person, right, So me, it's me, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that would be me too.

But you cater to that type of client, and then of course you have you have the other complete opposite at scale that just you know, wants to come and experience everything, roam around on our entire campus and enjoy it at that for a price you're talking about. So

one of the things we did about last year was we started single day tickets, which was general just listening to feedback from our fans about the fact that they might not want to come all three days and a one day ticket at a much affordable price might be something that they're really interested in. And so we have

seventy five dollars tickets for Friday for you to come and experience the race, and then of course we scale that up all the way and we have a ticket price for everything in between that. So it's a fine balance.

But then even for that seventy five dollars ticket, you know, you're sitting in a grand stand on our campus, You've got you get to experience the entirety of our campus.

You know, at other grand prix, it's very it's very common that you're actually only sectioned into a zone within the racetrack, And it was very important for us from the beginning that you've got an experience where you can It's almost like Disney World. You can walk around everywhere,

and every type of zone you walk into gives you a new identity, a new experience, new entertainment, new programming, new food and beverage, all that kind of stuff. So

from our perspective, it was all about kind of balancing that but also touching adding luxury touch points through through it all.

I want to come and for the I mean, I'm happy to watch the race on TV. Hannah and I

always talk about the fact that when we do races, we just want to see from the flag drop until the flag at the end. I just want to see

the best view. But I want to come to see

I want to try all the food, I want to see all the concerts you put on. I want to

see the celebrities there. I want to see the art installations.

I want to like go shopping at the brands that are active, like I would want to do. Three days

wouldn't be enough for me. I would want to come

for a week. Do you guys leave some of that

stuff in place? Like I can't get to every restaurant

in just a few days. So does it does it longer?

Does it start early and linger later?

You know, I really wish that that was the case, because you know, I drive around as we're building up now on a nightly basis, and I'm seeing the like magnitude of this build and I, you know, I think to myself, like there's a there's another level of crazy going on here that we build this all up for three days and we take it all down. So while

I wish that we could goes back to Hardrock Stadium and the venue that we have, and you know, four weeks after this Grand Prix will be completely loaded out and we will transform this campus back to a FIFA venue for World Club World Cup Games this summer. So

while while I wish we could leave it up, unfortunately that's not quite the case here at hard Rock Stadium.

It's brutal, brutal the time, brutalized online the circus moving is brutal.

Yeah, but you know what, I think a little bit of that is also just programmed into the form of the world of Formula one, Right you think about that that that's really the case everywhere at twenty four races around the world. You know, some of them obviously have

permanent facilities, but a lot of them don't. And you know,

the teams pack up all their kits in their garages and their cars and their team hospitality and they you know, transfer to the next So it's a it's really the just the logistical operation that Formula one is. It's it's

it's it's an impressive beast.

Do you feel like this year there are extra eyes on the race at all because it's the first race in the US on the calendar, and also we have like an Americ quote unquote an American team. Obviously we

had team has but Cadillac joining is like, you know, for to some extent, although Cadillac would argue with that because we have out out you know too. I mean,

are there is there extra hype this year? Because of

these new entrants or or not necessarily is.

This we we definitely felt an uptick in demand and hype this year than we have seen compared to last year.

I think it's your credit goes to Formula one and how they've continued to you know, boost the sport in the United States. We see, you know, the success that

the Apple movie had, and uh, you know, we see it in our attendance numbers that you know, more and more of our attendees are not only like from the US, but also from the state of Florida. So while and

all these things like, they're all adding to generate more excitement around the race. So we're very excited to be

the first American race on the calendar and to welcome everyone back from a four from a four week break of course adds to that level of excitement from everyone that wants to like just get back to racing, right.

So I think from that perspective, we're expecting a really big weekend, But it doesn't really change our plans in anything that we're doing, because ultimately we start planning right after the GPS over for the entire year. We've been

executing our plans now for the last couple of months. So,

you know, I think all of the additional levels Cadillac, the you know, Apple coming on board, their activations, and how they're investing in this sport, all of those pieces all add up to just like an increased level of excitement and demand in the US for Formula one.

Yeah.

We actually we were going through our mail bag here and one of the people who rode in, Bill C.

I'll just call him, says that this is the first year that he's interested because Cadillac and Audi are involved, and he's watched Drive to Survive and he previously was into IndyCar and he said that they are doing great with Fox. But you remind me, and Bill reminds me

that Apple is making this more accessible to any everyone than it ever has been in America at least. Do

you work closely with them? I mean, are they also

going to be working around the clock for these three days to broadcast as much as they can from Miami.

Yeah, So we've got a great relationship with them. They've

jumped in since that, you know, the news broke that they were going to take over the broadcast rights in the United States, and it's been really fun to see how they're leaning in on more than just you know, Apple TV. I think I'm not sure if you've you've

checked Apple Maps lately, but they've started updating track maps for every track and so ours super cool. Ours just

went live a couple of days ago, and you can actually see an updated, like up like overlay and track like track map of everything that we're doing this year, which is just incredible. So it's been really fun to

see how they're continuing to bring in more of their entities and more of their business platforms to continue to help amplify their their partnership and investment in Formula One.

That's so cool. Can you give us any insight into

how ticket sales are doing compared to last year?

Yeah, I mean we are expected to be sold out here in the next couple of days, so we are tracking and pacing above where we were last year, which is really exciting. But again, it just continues to speak

to that level of demand and excitement we're seeing for Formula one racing in the United States this year, so it's all been really encouraging. I think part of that

also has to do with the fact that I think we're heading into now our fifth year of hosting this Grand Prix, and there's a level of establishment that we've now kind of hit in not only the F one calendar, but also within the industry and also within just the local self florid of community. So it's you know, we're

we're now a major staple on the calendar, but also within all the other events that happened to Miami. You know,

everyone's aware that the Miami Grand Prix is back first week in May. So it feels it feels good. We're

a week, i think almost six days out now from opening gates, and it feels it feels good.

I have to say, this is the first time I've ever gotten goosebumps looking at Apple Maps. I just opened

it up, Catherine, and it is so cool to like, you zoom into the hard Rocks Stadium and there's the track and it shows you. It illustrates every turn, it

shows you where your arena is, the F one fan zone.

Yeah, that is awesome. It's super cool. It's it's it's honestly,

it's just been interesting to see how they, you know, can app actually amplify what they're doing with all the other business platforms. I mean, it's it's there's more coming.

I'm sure that we don't even know about yet. So

it's just exciting to see how they're going to continue to lean in.

It's for a fan, so sorry, but this is so helpful because like if I'm in the lofts and I want to go to like the hard Rock Beach Club, or if i want to go to like the audi uh.

Fantasy, like you're seeing, you're seeing all the all the bits and pieces of the campus. Now you know exactly

what's what's going on.

Yeah, that's so cool. Sorry, Annah, Yeah, that's fine.

I I I know we have the letter letter run loose.

But my last question for you, Katerina was where are you going to watch the race? Are you going to

be up at a tower somewhere or like down walking around putting out fires?

You know, hopefully there are no fires for me to put out on race weekend. That means everything's going smoothly

and we're able to enjoy and watch the race. My

my mom will be here and my uncle will be here who actually introduced many years ago. So I plan

to watch the start of the race with them and then probably have to get back to some meetings with with all the you know, key stakeholders we have here at the race, but I plan to watch the start of the race with them.

We can't let you go without asking you who you're rooting for. I mean, obviously uncle is part of the

t so I'm guessing you're still a.

Fer fan now, you know what, I root for everybody. Honestly,

I think I think as the you know, as a promoter, you just want to see all of the teams just like love what we're doing here. And you know, every

single team has given us so many compliment and has just been like embraced what we do here. So it's

just been it's been really fun to see how they enjoy what we execute for them and welcomed us into into their kind of crazy circus. So all around, all around,

big fans of all of them.

Well that's a very diplomatic answer. Thank you so much

for joining us, Katerina Novak ahead of F one Miami Grand Prix. We'll see you in a week.

Thank you.

Excited to see you guys soon.

That was Katerina Novac, the head of Mimy F one.

Let's go to break and when we come back, we'll hear about Matt's latest trials and tribulations of driving a very random assortment of ours. Welcome back to Hot Pursuit.

Now we want to dive into some listener emails. Thanks

for emailing us, for writing in. Let's get to it.

We Well, I just say we have a ton of emails, and I first want to say that we appreciate every single email that we get, like I read all of them, and I try and respond to Yeah. Well no, I

read everyone. Obviously, I try and respond to as many

as I can. I have to catch up a little

bit here, and that's why I think it would be cool.

That's why I thought it would be cool for us to do this mail bag vision, so I can catch up live, you know, on the podcast, so to speak.

One of the coolest, or to me, most interesting emails that we've gotten recently is from a guy I don't know if I should say his whole name, I'll say Thomas W.

Yeah.

Tom W wrote in from Buffalo and he says, you know, he drives a lot for work and he's been listening to our podcast on these drives. He also has two

kids who are the same age as mine. So he

has two boys, five and two. I have two girls,

five and two. Maybe they can someday get together. But

he's looking for an SUV, high performance SUV that will work for like his job and his life at home.

He's going to have to put car seats I imagine rear facing, because he loves his kids just as much as I do. And so that's the first big issue,

right putting Well well wait.

Wait, wait, just a second, wait, just a second. You

skipped over the best part because he also said, like Hannah, I'm a millennial. I enjoy running, and I appreciate the

finer things in life. So having real wooden, real leather,

and frameless windows are also important things. Okay, go ahead, right, Well,

that's get skipped over. These are very important. No, you're

right man.

But and also that he's tall like both of us. Right,

he's six foot two, which is about the same height as me, and so he's going to have the same problems I imagine that I have. He has a list

of SUVs that he's looking at, and they're all great, right, the Aston Martin DBX, the Bentley ben Tega as ugly as it is, still is cool. The Porsche Khai en GTS.

I think that's probably the bench mark for high performance SUVs.

He's also gotten out.

I disagree with that. I really disagree with that. You

driven every one, every one of these. Yes, of course

I wouldn't put the Cayenne.

All right, let me just finish the list here and I'll say so, Yeah, Audi R s Q eight, which is what I mean. I think it's the most stylish

one on the list. The Mercedes Benz g L E

sixty three MG, and the BMW X six M. Now

let me ask you, of that list, which one do you think should be the standard Hannah for me?

I'm here, I'm here. I'm taking this in very very soon. Now,

I think the Lamborghini is the benchmark. And I've said

that twice the price of all these, say, just for the rec I'm just saying for the record, now, I actually would strongly consider the dB X or the X six M, maybe leaning toward the X six M. Actually,

all things considered, drive law, feel, price value, residual value, I would probably give the edge to the xix M.

I think I would not. So we should also say

he wants to spend about one hundred grand on a used vehicle, right, which I think is a sensible amount, and he could probably grab any of these for that.

To me, the ky Enne or the Audi rs Q eight make the most sense. And in terms of style,

I love the Audi. I love the interior.

I was just gonna say the Audi is the probably the least stylish.

Oh, I like I really, I really like the way it looks. I think it's to me it's the either

that or the Aston Martin are the best looking vehicles on here. But the difference between those is that the

Audi has an interior you can actually use all the time and like the enfotainment system will work, and it's the Audi. The powertrain is amazing on the Audi as well.

Yeah, I mean the Audi and the Cayenne aren't really that different. No, the thing about the Audi is it

is so calmon. They are really forgettable. And to me,

the BMW is actually a little bit more distinctive, a little more interesting. It's got an edge, it's got a

point of view. That is what I would And I

think I need to check this because I'm just seeing this for the first time, but I think the residual values on the X six M are probably stronger then for well, for sure the Acid Martin and the Bentley.

Yeah, loses a lot of money. Well, I don't know

about the DBX. I know that the sports cars and

the GT cars lose a lot of money as soon as you buy them. But I think you're also bound

to have niggles like issues with the DBX that you don't want to have you if this is your work vehicle as well. The BMW, to me, I'm just not

I love BMW cars across the range. Every time I

get in one, and I'm in one right now, I saiventh for the week, and it's it's really rewarding, but I just don't think that they stand out to me beyond the kienne Is. I mean, it's gonna tick pretty

much every single box. It's gonna work perfectly all the time,

and I don't think you could possibly regret it. The Audi,

I just love the way the infotainment, the dash comes down into the console. But what I was going to

point out earlier is that if you want to put rear facing car seats in the seat behind you tom and then put your seat all the way back, You're never gonna be able to do that. There's just not

enough room in these, So you have to either make the choice between front facing car seats, which I wouldn't recommend for your two year old or a stylish two row high performance suv because there just isn't enough room in the second row in any of these.

Now, Matt, this is interesting because don't you own a g L E.

I have a GLS and that's why.

We have a GLS and we exactly want we Yeah, we haven't even touched this Mercedes bins and in the past three minutes of talking about this question, it's I think I think that's interesting.

Well, to be so, from from my perspective, I just don't know because I haven't driven a g L E sixty three. I'm sure that they're amazing vehicles, but my

experience with Mercedes has been they will like take an arm and a leg and you're first born as soon as you show up at the dealership. Like you know,

I think a lot of these high end vehicles, I don't want to single out Mercedes Benz, but they tend to have a planned obsolescence so that they work perfectly for the for the first leaseholder. And then you've got

an air suspension that's thousands to fix. If you need

to change the brakes, that's going to be thousands of dollars.

In mind, the climate control is unfixable by the people at the Mercedes Manhattan dealership, which is, you know, a company owned store. So to me, they're just so complicated

that it's just it's too much of a headache. Whereas

I don't know about the Cayenne, but with my nine to eleven, I had it for ten years and never had one single mechanical issue like it worked or electrical.

It worked perfectly the entire time. And I think Portia

has that reputation for reliability that is worth the premium.

And then.

Yeah, I don't have an experience Audi for many years, but I'm sure I feel like they also are going to be pretty expensive when you take them the dealership.

That's why I think the Porsche really wins out for me.

Yeah, I understand that I'm not going to quibble with you on your statements about the Kyene being reliable and you know, well made and fast and drives great, et cetera, et cetera. I think for me, why I give the

BMW the edges again, just because it looks a little bit more distinctive, it has a point of view the Cayenne, and I get that I'm very, very biased because of where I live. I live, and I drive through Hollywood

and West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, and it's it's a lot of Cayennes and they really all blend together. To me,

the BMW is a little more distinctive. But also it's

got a little bit of a chip on its shoulder.

And maybe you don't want that. Maybe you don't want

that edge. You know, people people have things to say

about beam or drivers. Maybe you don't want that. But

I think it's cool.

Yeah, Well, I mean I haven't. I don't think i've

driven the X six either, so but you know, obviously I think the X the X five. You could make

the argument that a BMW X five is also the benchmark in you know, xury SUV's. It's good, but there's

just not a lot of room in the second row.

I mean, even a range rover doesn't have enough room in the second row. If it's not the long model

to put a rear facing car seat behind a driver's seat and move your driver's seat all the way back.

It's just tough to find that in a two row suv.

All right, let's move on to another email, because yeah, so we've got a ton of emails, and one of them, a few of them are making fun of my love for the Nissan Armada. By the way, Tom w check

out the Nissan Armada.

Thank you, thank you readers for taking my side on this, he says.

He says, Matt, isn't it interesting that you're willing to overlook the styling of this car but you won't buy a car with Frieda Egg headlights, which Tooche Toche. Somehow

I find the Friday Egg headlights on a nine to nine to six even uglier than any aspect of the Nissan Armada. I don't know why.

Well, okay, now I have to also just touch on this email we got from Dean, who has written a novel in which Lincoln's Cadillacs and Rolls Royce's all play parts, but foremost among them is a Mercedes been six hundred pullman.

Did you see this email, Matt?

Is it from Dean Oh, Dean C. You're talking about

Dean C?

Because yes, yes, it's The book is called Right of Your Life, and it's published under our pen name. I

think we can say the pen name, which is Portico Darwin. Yes,

so anybody looking to read a car related book about actually all five New York crime families.

Which you can get on Amazon and Apple.

Yes, I mean I'm interested. I'm interested in cars become characters.

I'm into it as well. I definitely got to check

out and and we've had the emails from Dean before, So Dean, thank you so much for listening, thank you for writing in. Dean C. That is, Dean B. Writes

in to talk about, you know, size creep, which is something that you know, people have been noticing it for a couple of decades now. But he sent a picture

of don't I guess this is his garage.

And he's got Oh my goodness, I'm seeing it.

He's got what looks like a nine to six four or or maybe it's a Carera three point two parked next to a Portia Panamera and the nine to eleven is i mean just dwarfed by the pan America.

It looks like an suv parked by a normal car.

That's what it looks like.

It wild, by the way, you know, the size creep thing.

Sometimes I'll see a classic like pony car, like a Mustang on the street. I mean, they really were small.

I have to mention one other.

J k.

Okay, not the dude from Jamiroquai, but somebody else. He said,

he and his wife joy our show, and they love it when we talk about EV's and F one. And

he was talking about something I said the other day, like, if you're a free market capitalist, which Americans were, you know previously before this current administration, before we became socialists versus protectionists, then what you want the market to choose?

And right now the market is saying, wow, and EV is a pretty good idea. And rather than using my

taxpayer dollars to subsidize your Tesla purchase, and he's saying, hang on a second, your taxpayer dollars have been sensitizing the oil industry for like our entire history. And I

think that's a fair that's a fair point. Obviously, fossil

fuel subsidies are and have been a big cost for this country. But you have to understand what we get

from that as well. And I mean you could say

the same thing about EV's, but we get the dollar as the world reserve currency. I mean, this is all

part of the UH Petro dollar agreement. Maybe maybe we

don't need.

To talk about this is an amazing email. No, it's

a did you did you email JK back?

No, see, I got to catch up on these things, so I'm gonna I'm going to email him back.

Yeah, this is a great email.

I agree, Yeah, I agree, it's an interesting discussion.

Maybe a shout out. Yeah, I mean thanks thanks JK

for this amazing email where it takes us a minute to digest it, but we are digesting it. I would

say that I'm.

Going to go this weekend as I sit and uh and watch Moto GP is in head f there in herez Spain this weekend. So as I watch, starting with

the free practice and heading through to the final race on Sundale, I'll answer all the emails.

All right, well, I'll be in the UK where I'm currently at and I've just had a wonder, Wait, what are you driving?

Their hands Castle? What are you guys driving around?

N MG A rental MG from six cars and it's yeah, yeah, it's it's great. It's actually it was cheaper to rent

a car. We planned to take the train because we

flew into London and it was actually cheaper to rent a car, cheaper and faster, so we did that. But

today we were on a coach tour with Andrew's Coach Tours, which was amazing. It was totally stress free because you know,

driving in the UK with all of their cameras and speed limits is.

Not wrong side of the road and everything.

It's honestly not fine.

Yeah but wait coach. So a coach tour is a bus, right,

it's a yeah.

It's a bus. And we were definitely the youngest ones

on the bus by probably fifteen, fifteen or twenty years and it was awesome. We went with Magnus's mom and

her friend Hillary and saw this old fourteenth century castle.

It was wonderful. On the way back we hit they

were pouring gin and on the bus nice. It was

very British. Yeah, it was kind of great.

That's excellent.

Highly recommend, do you guys.

I mean, I don't know if there's any kind of Turo there, but we've been focused on rental car stocks on the show because Avis has gone through the sun up and down. But and I was thinking, like, I

don't I don't use rental car companies anymore. I used

Turo everywhere I go in America, right, Oh, I've.

I've only used Turo once and that was to rent the cyber truck for a review, and that was a good experience. But yes, yeah, but I've never done it since.

Oh I use it all the time. I just when

I was down in Austin. I you know, every time

I see a range Rover on bring a trailer, I'm tempted.

Even though everyone in the world has bought a used range Rover for cheap and then lost way more money.

On the main, it seems like a nightmare.

It does seem like an but so I so I rented one in Austin. I think it was like a

twenty nineteen full blood range Rover, and now I don't really want one anymore.

You know. Good, So this was a success.

Yeah. Actually I had a fine I had a fine

time with it.

You know.

It had the Supercharge five leader motor, which was okay, but it just it doesn't compare to to my niece on Armada, my nizmo.