The FIA is the organization that writes and enforces the rules for major auto racing. When they talk about changes, it can directly affect how Formula 1 cars are built and run.
The “50-50 split” is a rule idea about how much of the car’s power should come from the traditional engine versus electric energy. The discussion suggests the balance has caused issues and may be changed later.
An internal combustion engine (ICE) is an engine that produces power by burning fuel inside the engine cylinders. In F1’s current debate, the ICE is being weighed against electrified components, with the hosts suggesting rules may favor the ICE more after 2027.
Carbon dioxide is a gas that’s released when you burn fuel. The hosts bring it up to explain why racing rules and expectations have shifted toward cleaner technology.
Disc brakes are brakes where pads squeeze a spinning metal disc to slow the vehicle down. The episode uses them as an example of racing tech that later shows up in normal cars.
Concept
hybridised branch of the motor industry
They’re basically saying racing and normal car development are related, but they don’t always match up. What works or gets developed for racing might not be practical or necessary for road cars.
Hybridisation here means the race car uses both fuel and electricity. Part of the braking energy can be stored and reused, and it’s also required by the sport’s rules.
Audi is a car manufacturer mentioned as having a big influence on where F1’s rules went. The discussion is about how manufacturer pressure can affect what F1 cars are built to do.
F1 has rules that limit how much teams can spend on the car’s main hybrid engine package. A “cost cap” is basically a budget ceiling to keep costs from getting out of control.
R&D means research and development—basically the work and spending used to build new tech. Here, it’s where Audi says its F1-related spending is counted.
In F1, teams compete in a standings table called the Constructors’ Championship. A “fifth place finish” means the team finished fifth overall in that team ranking.
A marketing budget is the money a company sets aside for promotion and brand-building. The segment compares F1’s marketing impact to R&D spending by arguing the marketing budget is much larger than the R&D budget.
An undercut is a pit-stop strategy. One driver stops earlier so they can drive faster on newer tires in clear space, then they try to come out ahead when the other driver pits later.
Energy density means how much “usable power” a battery can store compared to its size and weight. The speaker is saying today’s batteries don’t store enough energy to do what they want for racing performance.
Downforce is the “suction” effect that presses the car onto the track so the tires can grip better. More downforce usually helps cornering, but it can also create more air resistance (drag).
Drag is the air resistance that makes a car work harder to keep going. If you make the car generate more downforce, it often increases drag too, which can hurt speed unless you have enough power.
Closing speed is how quickly one car gains on another—essentially the rate at which the gap shrinks. In racing, changes to braking points, cornering behavior, or energy deployment can alter closing speeds, which affects overtaking opportunities and race strategy. The speaker mentions it as part of the broader consequences of changing how/when energy is used.
Term
one-handed
Driving “one-handed” refers to holding the steering wheel with only one hand while the other hand is off the wheel—often possible only when the car is stable and the driver’s workload is manageable. In the context of Monaco, it highlights how precise the car’s balance and the driver’s technique need to be to maintain control while still operating the car’s controls.
Term
blip it right
When you downshift, you sometimes have to quickly “rev” the engine for a split second. Doing it at the right moment helps the shift feel smooth instead of jerky or hard to get into gear.
Engine braking is the slowing effect you feel when you take your foot off the gas. The engine and transmission help slow the car, and in a race car it can be strong enough to make shifting harder if you don’t time it correctly.
This is a discussion about manufacturer involvement in Formula 1—specifically, how a brand like Cadillac would enter the sport and what arguments are used to justify it. It ties into the episode’s theme of how F1 can become constrained by manufacturer interests.
Alpine is a French brand tied to Renault’s motorsport identity, and the speaker discusses its entry into F1 as a manufacturer. The key point is that Alpine is using the F1 involvement largely as a marketing and branding platform rather than for the full technical hybrid power-unit approach. The segment also frames Alpine’s name as a nod to Renault’s popular sports-car heritage in France.
MGUH is an F1 hybrid system that helps turn waste heat from the turbo into usable electrical energy. That energy can then be used later to help the car accelerate. The point here is that removing it changes how teams can manage power.
“Turbos” are turbochargers—devices that force more air into the engine to make more power. Sometimes there’s a delay before the turbo really kicks in, and that delay is what people call turbo lag.
Renewable fuels are fuels made from sources that can be replaced over time. The idea is they can cut the climate impact versus regular gasoline or diesel.
Synthetic fuel is made in a process rather than coming straight from the ground. The goal is to use captured carbon and cleaner energy so it can reduce overall emissions.
To synthesize hydrocarbons means making fuel compounds from carbon and hydrogen. Here, they’re describing doing it using renewable energy so the fuel can be cleaner.
“Purely synthetic” implies using synthetic fuel as the only fuel source, rather than blending it with conventional fossil fuels. The argument is that if the entire energy chain is synthetic, the net emissions impact could be more predictable and potentially lower.
Electric vehicles run on electricity from a battery. They don’t burn fuel like gasoline cars, so they can produce less pollution where people live close together.
Term
pollution in city centres
City centers can have worse air because lots of people and vehicles are in a small area. The argument is that EVs help reduce the exhaust pollution people breathe most often.
Carbon monoxide is a harmful exhaust gas that can come from burning fuel. The host is saying it’s usually more of a problem in crowded cities than out on open roads.
A hybrid approach means using more than one way to power the car. The idea is to keep the benefits of electric driving, but still handle longer trips more easily.
In motorsport’s public debate, “messaging” means how the sport explains its technology and goals to the public and regulators. The hosts argue that if Formula 1’s hybrid direction is communicated poorly, people may assume the sport is abandoning its environmental stance, which could trigger backlash and reduce manufacturer involvement.
“Backlash” means people getting upset or reacting negatively. The idea here is that if F1 seems to change its story about being cleaner, fans and partners might turn against it.
Imola is a famous Formula 1 race track in Italy. They’re using it as a reference for when safety rules and changes became more urgent after a serious situation.
In Formula One, the “halo” is a protective frame around the driver’s head. It’s there to reduce the chance of serious injury if something hits the car near the cockpit.
“Pure electric” means switching away from internal-combustion power entirely and running vehicles only on electricity from batteries. In the context of the episode, it’s used to describe political pressure for the UK market to go fully electric by a legislated target date.
BYD is a car company from China. The hosts mention it as an example of a manufacturer that moved into electric cars and then also started making hybrids.
It’s about how much the car relies on electricity versus gasoline. The point here is that racing and road driving use energy differently, so the “electric share” can’t be the same in both.
As speed goes up, the air gets harder to push through—much faster than linearly. That’s why going very fast in a race car gets increasingly “expensive” in energy.
Concept
2006 spec V8s
This is a reference to an older F1 rules period where the cars used V8 engines. It’s brought up as a contrast to the idea of keeping some electric power in the future.
The sidewall is the part of the tire that flexes between the wheel and the tread. Softer sidewalls bend more, which can make the car react more noticeably over track surfaces.
A chicane is a part of the race track with a quick series of turns. It forces the cars to slow down and handle carefully instead of just going straight fast.
“Emotional tuning” means designing a car so it makes people feel something—often through sound and how it responds. It’s about the experience, not just speed.
F1 cars store energy in a battery. If that stored energy runs low, the car can’t deliver as much power in the same way, and it can change how the car sounds and accelerates.
Concept
Formula 1 as a sprint vs endurance
They’re comparing how F1 races are run like a short, intense sprint. Endurance races are longer and require more careful management of the car.
They’re talking about a time in F1 when cars could add fuel during the race. That meant teams had to plan their speed and strategy around how much fuel they carried.
They’re saying that if cars perform the same every lap, qualifying becomes more straightforward—your position lines up more with pure speed. If performance varies a lot, strategy and timing can shuffle things.
A V12 is an engine with twelve cylinders arranged in a V. They’re talking about it as a “character” engine—something chosen for the experience as well as the power.
“Tyres” are the tires on the race car. In racing, changing them can be a big deal because tire grip and wear affect speed and strategy.
Concept
pure sun power
They mean using solar energy to make the fuel. If the fuel-making process runs on sunlight, it can reduce the climate impact compared to using fossil energy.
LIVE
You're listening to The Undergaps with Damon Hill and Mark Hughes.
Well Damon, as we're coming up the Canadian Grand Prix and that gap between Miami and Canada,
we've heard a few interesting comments from the government body, the FIA.
Senior people won, the president saying, yeah, we're going to go back to VH by 2030 or 31,
but senior technical people saying, yeah, we probably listened too much to the automotive
requests, and that's what's led us to have this trying to get to this 50-50 split, which has caused
some problems and we'll really need to change that split a bit more in favour of the internal
combustion engine, particularly from 2027 on. And it's an interesting point because certainly
some of us have been saying for quite a long time Formula One is so successful in its own right
commercially. Why is it giving itself such difficulties just to accommodate the wishes
of an outside entity such as an automotive and can't it exist on its own terms without compromising
in this case the racing, just to accommodate those wishes? Where do you stand on that?
The whole subject is complicated and fascinating and I think we're going to try and unravel some
of the components of that so that we can talk, we can help people engage with this debate because
it's very easy to sit here and say, oh, they're racing cars, we just want loud engines.
And there are, those have argued that that is, that's all F1 needs is fast cars
with loud engines. And it wasn't, when I was growing up, it was always talked about,
if you haven't seen the start of an F1 race, then you haven't lived. This was the big attraction,
was the noise of the cars on the grid and the revving and all that excitement and the sounds of
them whizzing past. But those were in the days before people started to think about the planet
and the consequences of just puking out poisonous fumes with carbon dioxide in them is a long story.
So why car manufacturers in our sport? And I think it's because there's a legacy expectation and some
people, let's say Renault get a lot of attention, perhaps they also embarrass themselves at times.
So there's a risk to being involved, but currently we have, since Liberty bought F1,
they've changed the financial structure of the sport. So whereas in the past,
the car manufacturers may have been the only people with the amount of money you needed to be
competitive, they would have boosted a team's ability to produce a winning car.
That's not so necessary now. In fact, what's happened is the stability now for the teams
is and the revenue streams of F1 mean that they're franchises, successful franchises in the sport.
Therefore, in a way, it is purely marketing, isn't it? Yeah, it is. And for years, I'm nice to go for,
you know, invited to someone's house and there'd be people talking about Formula One and they
someone would be saying something to the effect of all of the developments in F1 and find their way
into our road cars. Well, I'm struggling to think of anything where this, so this is a myth a little
bit. Yes, the safety developments in F1 are incredible, but the safety belt wasn't invented for
Formula One and various other things that you could say are disc brakes. They weren't, they might have
come in on racing vehicles first. But if you look at, I mean rallying for a long time had far more
technical relevance to road cars. But anyway, racing is a hybridised branch of the motor industry
and the relevance to road, the demands, the needs, the costs of things, I can't easily be transferred.
So what are they doing, car manufacturers? What are they doing in our sport? What are they,
are they showing people that they are capable of living in this highly technical advanced
on the edge of sophistication, automotive sophistication, to prove their product to sell
to the public. And the question is, is that what Formula One needs to follow? Because we've got this
other demand, which is the fan and the drivers and maybe even the teams who are quite happy
to go down any route that doesn't necessarily need to sell road cars. Their Formula One could exist
entirely independent of them. Yeah, and it was quite a happy marriage until
we've got to this point where they want to do hybridisation. The automotives wanted to
emphasise battery power and hybrid with the internal combustion. Did they want to or was
it a political pressure for them? Well yes, there was, but their business model to have to comply
with regulations that were being imposed was they needed to produce these A and B promote them.
And that led to Formula One going down this route under pressure from particularly Audi,
but several manufacturers, Honda, Renault, several of them said we want hybrid,
much more enhanced battery power, ideally something like 50-50 split, which has turned out to be
deeply problematical with that. It was too ambitious a target and has led all sorts of
compromises that way. Formula One is right in the middle of trying to sort out. So at some point...
Is this the 50-50 thing, the end of the road and we've got to do a U-turn and come out of that?
I think so, yeah. That's how it looks. And I would argue that in if Formula One now
is taking the position, which is suggested by recent comments from some people in the FIA of
no, we took too much notice of automotive, we need to look after ourselves here.
And then I think if it goes down that route and conceives future formulas in chasing the ultimate
for Formula One in terms of the racing and the appeal whilst also taking the environmental boxes
with the sustainable fuel which it introduced this year, I don't see why a manufacturer, if it
still wanted to be involved purely for marketing reasons, wouldn't want to do so. Because just
because you are making hybrid or heavily hybridized road cars doesn't mean that there's no marketing
value. And in terms of the... We think of the budgets that are spent in Formula One as massive.
By automotive standards, they are tiny and it's incredible value for them,
the biggest global reach you could possibly have. Some back of the envelope sort of numbers on it
and just took Audi as an example of an automotive. So there's a power unit cost cap
of 96 million a year. The teams spend cost cap 160 million a year. So total gross spend
before your income from Formula One, 256. Audi channels its F1 spend through its R&D
department. That's what the books say. The budget is 400 million for that. So not that much bigger
than the Formula One budget. So a lot of the Formula One budget is accounted. A lot of the
big proportion of the total R&D spend is accounted for by the F1 project. Now that's
mitigated a bit because you then get about 100 million back if you assume a fifth place finish
in the constructors. It comes down quite a lot to be down about 40%. But its marketing budget
is 14 times its R&D budget. And if it just chose to put that F1 budget through its marketing books,
it would be 2.6%. It's nothing. It's cheap as chips. So there's nothing even close
to value for money in marketing terms for an automotive than F1. And even if the link is only,
they've got four wheels and they get you from one place to another. It doesn't matter. That would be my
take on it. So F1 is just a marketing device, really? For the automotive, I think it is. Formula
One exists for its own sake. It exists as a sport and as a technology race and all those things. But
for the automotives and how they use it, it's purely marketing. But the rules were kind of adjusted
so to allow a new manufacturer to come in without being at a massive disadvantage against those
who have been there for a long time and knew that complexity is better. So they were tempted in.
The rules were changed to suit them and take everyone. And then now we're going to change them
back, are we? So that the emphasis is not on what you're doing technically is irrelevant to us.
Yeah, I think it has to. Otherwise, it hasn't really got something which it's got something
which has got temporary appeal and has brought new people in, which is great. But it hasn't got
any authenticity. And as soon as I think we've talked about this before, as soon as those new
people that have been brought in haven't explained to them that what they're watching is what they
think they're watching. I think that that disappears quite quickly. So you need something
sustainable. You need something that is actually authentic and genuine. And this direction that
we've taken has made that not possible. Basically, there's not enough energy in a battery. It's not
dense enough to be able to use it in that way. So when you combine it with an internal combustion
engine and downforce, the drag that you get off a single seater with a loaded downforce on it,
they're going to like that. Then, yeah, obviously, the quickest way to use that over a lap is to just
use a load of it at the start of the straight, which means that in order to have that available
to you, you have to back off through some of the key corners, which is just A, that's a nonsense,
and then B, there's other implications on closing speeds, all the things that we're already very
familiar with from the season. So it's a bit embarrassing for F1, then, isn't it? If F1 is
saying that it's the cutting edge of automotive technology, that they make a mistake
with their own sports. And we've had this backlash. I mean, the drivers clearly hate it.
Yeah. But are we making sport for the drivers? No, that's a rhetorical question. I'm going to
try and add some something to that, which is that it seems to me that if for a long time,
the drivers have kept stum, they don't want to be negative. But at the same time, they're being
asked to drive these cars that they don't like. And you hear it time and time again,
it's interesting that Lewis, I think, said something, well, after the first couple of races,
he said he thought it was okay when there was criticism from drivers. But now he's saying
something opposite, which is to the effect of, you know, he wants a gear lever. I think he said,
okay, I'm not sure everyone, but he wouldn't want one if no one else had one. But yeah, I mean,
the image obviously clearly that F1 fans all know that image of Ayrton's lap around Monaco,
where he's driving one-handed most of the time. And I've driven that V12, if that was the V12.
But it's impossible to get the gear just right. If you don't blip it right, the moment you come
off the throttle, the engine braking is so great, you won't even get it out of gear if you haven't
got it right. Because anyway, so it's really tricky to drive, brutally difficult to drive. So
we can go back to that. And we can put everyone on display in, you know, very difficult to drive,
very uncomfortable cars with no power steering, we could go down that road. And what would the
fans want that? Would the drivers complain about that? I think they'd probably say,
you can keep the gear lever. I think it's probably because there'd be a lot of blown up engines for
a start. Yeah, yeah, I don't think we'd need to slavishly copy the past. I think we can just
correct the errors that have been made and take it, revert some of the key elements back
to so that the racing is more authentic. I think that's all that needs to be done.
And I think if that was done quickly and sharply, I think the automotive would still be around.
It doesn't need them to be around anyway, as you've pointed out, but it's nice to have them.
They do promote, I mean, of course they also, because they're selling, they help promote the
sport. So for example, when Cadillac wanted to come in, the argument was, well, what are they
going to bring to our sport? Well, they're going to bring all the marketing because they're going
to want to tell everyone they're in the sport. So they obviously have to up the amount of money
they needed to get a debenture in the sport team slot so that people were compensated for their
loss of share of revenue of the whole thing. But they were also asked to provide the decision
with taking the marketing basis of, well, with a name like theirs, how much does that benefit
our sport? So we've got a new manufacturer that has arrived. We've got Alpine, if you,
Audi, a bigger button, if you like, who've also been drawn in because of the, you might say that
Audi are interested in proving their technical prowess, which is always them, which is actually
the marketing message, isn't it? And you've got Alpine, who sort of Renault, but one toe in,
one toe out the whole time, you're never quite sure. But Renault wanted to call it Alpine because
they have a sports car, which is incredibly popular in France. I'm not sure globally, but anyway,
it's like they've appeased their market with some involvement in a sporting category
by calling it Alpine and it's an F1. So they're doing it, and the power unit now is no longer
used. So they're really just doing it on a marketing thing. Mercedes, I'm just going through the car
manufacturers. They're not all car manufacturers. So Mercedes is one third stake in the team that's
got the Mercedes name. Honda, the Honda is an interesting case study because it's a different
basis on which they've done it in the past. They've almost done it as a consultant, a contracted
consultant by Aston Martin. So there's all sorts of different models that the only people really
doing it purely as an automotive fully bought in, automotive other than Ferrari is Audi.
Yeah. And so you could almost blame Audi for the current problem we've got because they didn't want
the MGUH. So that's been removed and that's partly a problem because now people can't
generate enough. And also the turbos have got lag on them. And now they found themselves in a
situation where they're coming under a certain set of agreements and now we're saying we're now
going in a different direction. Even the president of the FI is saying we're responding to the demand
of the drivers because he was visited by drivers who express their dislike.
And he also has an agenda, which is to whatever that agenda is. He wants,
she's announced he's going to go back to normally aspirated, provided I'm assuming it's on renewable
fuels. Well, it is now, so there's no reason why that would change. Well, there's the only reason
is they're incredibly expensive. Yeah, sure. But with Formula One's operating costs and income,
is that significant? Incredibly expensive if you're thinking of it as a fuel for your road
cars 12 to 15 times more expensive. But for Formula One. I mean, as a direction of travel,
you'd have to say, well, if F1 was purely synthetic fuel, now I have to declare an interest
as you pointed out to me earlier, I have invested in a synthetic, purely synthetic carbon which
no sleaze on the undercut. But anyway, one of the reasons I invested in this product called
Zero Petroleum, which was set up by Paddy Lowe, who I worked with at Williams,
was because I believe in the concept of it, which is that you synthesize using renewable power
from solar and wind or wherever you can get it from, that is renewable, sustainable,
to synthesize hydrocarbons. And that seems to be a win-win. Basically, what you're doing is
you're sucking carbon out of the atmosphere, which is there in carbon dioxide, which is causing
the problem. So you're recycling it rather than releasing you. Yeah. The more you recycle,
the more that the products that use fossil fuels switch, then you're reducing the fossil fuel
demand into the atmosphere. So let's say it's aeroplanes. Let's say it's all air travel. If
they were running on synthetic fuel, then they produce enormous amounts of CO2. That would be
basically stopping the air travel aeroplane industry pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.
You'd just be recycling the same stuff. So you're not increasing because at the
moment we're increasing. So if you were to switch to purely synthetic, then you're going to be
promoting something which could be beneficial to everyone in the long run.
The other factor is going from or trying to promote pure electric, which was a path that
we've been going down for a while, has raised all sorts of issues, which is first of all,
is it overall greener? That's the question. But then there's another factor. So I'm thinking,
if you're a car manufacturer, not the sport, the car manufacturers have been under pressure
to produce electric vehicles. And one of the reasons why they went down that road was nothing
to do with carbon, with global warming. It was to do with pollution in city centres, which is
the World Health Organization was saying you have to find a way to stop pumping poisonous fumes
into population dense areas. Now that makes complete sense to me. So an argument for electric
vehicles is actually not relevant to Formula One. Because if the argument is purely health,
then of course, inner city areas, high population densities, reducing any emissions
is a good thing. When you want to travel long distances, then maybe spring
carbon monoxide along the motorway in the countryside, where it will be dispersed
thinly, isn't such a bad thing. So you move to a hybrid solution. Pure electric,
the issue is range, of course. So all the car companies now, or they were put under massive
pressure, are now starting to look at the practicalities of pure electric. Practicalities of
pure electric, I think, are that we've realised that there is a limit to this. And the right
place for them is in city centres and high population densities, where you're reduced to 20
miles an hour anyway, in some cases. So in there, I'm just zooming out of F1 because
Formula One is in that world. And it has to decide what is it promoting. And in what it's
promoting, is it relevant to what we do? Because if it's pure entertainment, it doesn't matter.
If you have a firework display, I mean, you now actually go to, I went to Disney last year with
my son. And they didn't have the fireworks. Now, the reason I'm using an example is because
if you went to see a firework display, and they said we can't do it because of the environment,
it's too much pollution, then you'd be pretty disappointed. But actually now what they're
doing is using drones. So they've responded in a way that you imagine Disney every night
blowing up loads of rockets and fireworks and every night.
Massive firework display. Somebody might have said, do you know what that is? That's
profligate and it's also damaging the environment. I don't know what these,
but anyway, drones are now being used. Not being shortchanged, it's an amazing show.
But my point, my comparison between firework displays and F1 is it's a kind of firework
display. It doesn't matter in the scheme of things whether it shoots flames out the back.
Environmentally friendly, it doesn't make any, it makes a tiny difference. A massive difference
to the show, a massive difference to the entertainment, but did least what difference
to the planet in and of itself, the show itself. So the argument that we have to be green,
the argument that we cannot be polluting is a weak one, I think, when you apply it to F1.
The trouble is, again, there is a messaging in what Formula One does.
There's been a backlash against environmental concerns and I think those that didn't want
it to be true that there's the environmental potential catastrophe coming,
have taken great solace from the backlash and I think we have to be careful not for F1 not to
be part of that backlash. It has to still stay on the morally correct route and I think with
sustainable fuels, you can do that. The problem with sustainable fuels at scale at the moment
is that, apart from the expense, is that the enormous amount of electrical energy needed
to produce it, you can't do it greenly at scale that would be required for the entire population.
Scaling of it is the big problem. But then that's a challenge.
That's something that is technically achievable. It's just we're not there yet.
The direction that investments are being channeled in is probably being, to a large extent,
controlled by the petrochemical industry. So it's not being invested in as heavily and quickly enough
as it needs to be to get over that scaling problem. But I think if you've got, obviously
in Formula One, that's not a bar that F1 needs to clear. You can easily make enough electricity
completely greenly to provide the needs for Formula One. I think if you then, if you look
forward into the future, I think you could conceivably get to a point where F1 is able to say,
look, to the automotives, we think we're greener than you. Not the other way around. We think
the problems associated with battery production and battery recycling compared to what we're doing,
once the electricity grid is green and your friend Patty points out, there's a little area of
about 50 square miles in Australia with no population in that if you made that solar,
it would create enough electricity to feed, to supply the entire planet. But that's-
We better tell the Australians that now. I think they know anyway.
But not to say that that's the solution, but just to illustrate that's how it would be done,
how it could be done. And so I think if you get to the point where you get the electricity
grid completely green or green enough that you can scale, get over that scaling problem and then
the cost comes down as well, I think the more green solution to transport would be an internal
combustion engine on synthetic fuel without having to worry about what to do with the batteries.
Yeah. I mean, there's no doubt that, I mean, any physicist will tell you that it's the energy
density of hydrocarbons, particularly gasoline, against even hydrogen. Hydrogen is, first of all,
when you synthesize, when you're trying to synthesize petrol, you have to go through the hydrogen
phase to you cleave off the oxygen and you've got hydrogen. The hydrogen is difficult to use
in packaging, transporting, and also the amount of energy you get out of it. So once you combine it
with hydrocarbons, you make your hydrocarbons, you increase that bang for your buck thing.
So there's nothing like it. I mean, if you want to transport energy around the place,
petrol's the way to do it, or diesel, a hydrocarbon, because it's relatively light and easily
transported, you just put it in a tin or whatever. So in many ways, the argument goes that the best
way to get electricity from Australia is to synthesize it into hydrocarbons and then put it
in a ship and then send it to the UK. And that actually is efficient. Not through the
Strait of Hummets? Not that way. I'm trying to think, do they need to go that way? They don't
need to go that way, but anyway. It doesn't need to be in Australia either. It can be anywhere,
there's plenty of sun. So yeah, your argument is that F1 could be shown the way by saying,
they're making a commitment. So they're ticking a box in terms of
direction of travel for everyone. The automotive people will say,
yeah, but what do we do about the pollution in a city electric vehicle thing? Well, the answer
to that is hybrid. So that's where we are now. The Formula 1 is a hybrid thing, but is it right
for racing? Yeah, and does it need to be 50-50 or does it need to be even, you know, 60-40? Can it
not just be what is required in hybrid and in road cars, especially if you're running your
road cars on clean fuel? It's whether you can explain, because messaging is a subtle thing.
If people get the wrong message, then they will say, well, then the whole project's been jeopardised
because you've sent out the wrong message. Because if F1 goes back to petrol engines,
that will be the simple understanding of what's going on. Yeah, which is what I'm saying. Then
everyone will go, oh, well, forget it. They're doing it. Yeah, that's right. I mean, the backlash
has got to be very careful in this, not to be part of the backlash, because the backlash will swing
back once it becomes obvious. So people do look up to F1 as being somehow leading the way.
Yeah, exactly. So yeah, the messaging is very important. I think there's never been that,
as we talked about before, that closer link between the technology of automotive and the
involved in something, you're seen to be part of something, which is giving off the right messages.
I don't think the message of we are aligned technically is that important. But you have
to be very careful how you message the entire sport. Otherwise, they wouldn't want to be involved in
and then nobody would, or very few would. What is the main driver of the appeal of F1 today?
Is it that we're doing something for the planet? Or is it something?
No, it's an entertainment and it's a sport. But in the process of doing that, we're not
doing any damage. That's got to be, and we're leading the way in a vacuum where we're not ignorant
of what's going on the rest of the world. And I think that would be the way forward.
So again, it is important for F1 to, I mean, the safety thing was a good example. And after Imola,
I think Max Mosley is an understanding of how to protect F1 from legislation because we were doing
something where clearly maybe we weren't responsible. So they introduced a lot of safety
things. There was a bit of a back, not back rest, but there was resistance at first. I mean,
the halo, I was one of the people who, I took the view because having raced without a halo,
I took the view that you step into a racing car and you understand the risks. And therefore,
the risks are higher or lower. You kind of make that decision. And then that's part of the
display of courage or whatever it is that makes people interested in racing drivers and
makes the sport interesting. But of course, the negative of someone being killed in a racing
car is so great, actually. And actually, the positive from Roman Grosjean's accident and
him surviving was in many ways massively positive, a positive story for Formula One and showed that
F1 is responsible. And so that was a way that F1 showed it was a grown up.
Yeah. And it incorporated the outside demands of the world while still retaining its own
special essence. And I think it could do that with this issue as well. But I think the way
not to do it is to just blindly say to the automotive, okay, what do you want us to do?
Because I don't think that has led us to this place where we're right at the moment,
which is not ideal. So because we were told quite strongly, not so long ago by politicians,
the way forward is to go pure electric. And there are people who will stay to this day
right now, because it's their policy, that we're going to make Britain, at least our market,
all electric. Now, currently, the uptake of electric vehicles is something shy of 7%
in the UK. Yeah. Of road cars. It's supposed to be 80% by, I think the original date was 2038.
And that's legislated for. So I mean, Formula One is not going to become electric. We have an
thing as a project for pushing the limits of battery, automotive technology, electricity.
And it's a branch of our sport. But the main thing, Formula One, is going to
find the best fit for what it is that it's supposed to be doing, providing entertainment,
but also saying this is the most efficient way to go around a racetrack for 200 miles
and that has to then be incorporated because the car industry now is also acknowledging.
So someone like BYD, the Chinese car manufacturer, famously came into the electric,
all electric market and started out doing Tesla. And they are now producing a hybrid,
a boxer engine, which is there, I think, as a basically a self-charging hybrid. So the petrol
thing is a generator. It's taking an energy. So is that a possible route for Formula One?
It's where we are. But I think the demands of automotive in terms of the split between
the electric and the internal combustion, you can get away with a much higher proportion of
electric on a road car because of its duty cycles and its aerodynamics. Whereas a racing car with
open wheels, massive wings for the downforce being driven at a big proportion of its time,
over 150 miles an hour and the resistance is squaring with speed. It's absolutely useless
for that because it's nowhere near dense enough. It's like a 50th as dense as petrol. So you've
got to accept that you can't have the same split in an ideal world. But it's interesting that you
mentioned BYD because they are looking at Formula One. Right. So to entice them in, are they going
to apply pressure on the governing body to say, okay, but it has to be relevant to what our road
car product or project is? Well, it already is. You can answer them quite truthfully saying,
it already is. And we are reducing a little bit the electrical contribution, but it will still
be a hybrid. I don't think we're talking about going back to zero electrics. And I don't think
we're talking about 2006 spec V8s. We're talking about a reduced contribution of the electric,
but we'll still be hybrid. I think that's what we're going to end up with. But in a way that it
doesn't compromise the racing. And yeah, then everybody's happy in an ideal world.
Well, that's, we want everyone happy. Well, we do. Well, you mean, you mean...
That's a journalist. Everyone is happy.
You talk about the challenges of happiness and you go into it with some of your philosophy.
And is there any truth where there's happiness? Is there any happiness where there's truth?
We're going to go there. I haven't got time for that today. But I think you were drawn to this
sport because you love the buzz about it. I was drawn to it because I've always been around it,
but also I loved driving the cars that they gave me to drive. And they were,
sometimes at one of Nigel's cars, it was a three and a half litre V10, normally aspirated thing with
big chunky rear tyres. And they did that thing that dragsters do. They were so, they got soft
sidewalls and they basically did that twisting thing. And so when you came out of chicane,
they would thump. It was like a rabbit or wherever it was going. So they were brint,
they were very visceral, as we say. So it's something we can all get our teeth into. And of
course, that is, that's something that my friend who produces sports cars.
He calls emotional tuning. So there's a thing that they recognize when they're producing
a car. What is it that people love about this car? And of course, sports cars are not practical.
They're mad. I mean, you know, you need, they're not good for a race track. They're not good
for traffic. But people love them. And so they buy these amazing looking cars. They're art
creations in a way, aren't they? And of course, the emotional tuning bit is
important. So the sound when they started up is lovely. So these are, these are things,
I think that we've, we've found that to be very, very important to race fans. And when they heard
cars, as we all did recently, going flat out down the straight, we expected the revs to be
increasing all the way to the point where they had to hit the brakes. And then we heard this bit
where it was like, it's like the battery was going flat where ironically, it was wasn't it was
actually, but it was, it was more like a balloon going down, wasn't it? And that's not a good sound.
No. Okay. So it's emotionally detuning our fans and racing drivers too, because a lot, I mean,
I can remember racing Hock and I, when you go up to the first chicane and you did 200 and whatever
it's 10 miles an hour and then you break as late as possible. And it's like, you're thinking it's
the most insane thing you've ever done in your life. It's so exciting. That was that balloon was
pricked wasn't it by these regulations currently. So we now know that's a massive turn on not,
not only for the drivers who then are struggling to say something positive about the sport. And
for the fans, they spotted it. There were a lot of people who thought the racing itself was good.
But that's, we need that, we need that back. And the way to get that back at the moment,
we're tickling with it, aren't we? But we can only got we're in a straight jacket,
we can't with the regulations within this year. And then maybe even for next year,
we're struggling to get out of this straight jacket. But it's put itself in that straight
jacket, hasn't it? It didn't need to. It's, you know, when I think, I think it was Tom Bass is
saying, you know, we felt that the automotives were holding us to ransom a little bit. Well,
they could have just walked away from it or not paid the ransom. So it's, yeah,
in real politic in the way the world actually works. Yes, of course, you were trying to please
everyone. But I think it was obvious to quite a lot of engineers and quite a lot of drivers who
tried them on on sim, it's not going to work. It's really going to be problematical. And those
fears were being confirmed. So I think, yeah, we've, from the one that has been very quick to
address it, which is good. And I think it's now acknowledging the problem as well, which is good
because it didn't do so initially. And I think we're on the right trajectory, but I think it
could take a while to get back to where it needs to be. And the resistance to that ironically
is going to come from the teams that feel that they've got the advantage. They feel that they've
understood the regulations, they feel that they've done all that hard work and now they've come up
the right answer. And now you're going to change the rules. Well, that's always, yeah, I mean, you
have to ignore that, haven't you, if you're a legislator, you've got to ignore the fact that
some people will take it personally, that they've been disadvantaged by the change.
Yeah, that's just how it is. So we're talking about the FIA president, basically,
Ben Soleim, who is? Yeah, F1 is also a Formula 1 management also, because they've got to come
together, haven't they, to create whatever the new regulations will be. And I think there's now
the FIA president has been more open and saying, we need to go back to this. We need to reverse
out of this a little bit. But there's now an acknowledgement, I think, generally within all
of F1 that, yeah, we do, it's, we've landed in the wrong place. Yeah. I mean, it is,
what is Formula 1 then in terms of a car, because you've got the world endurance is the right place,
it seems to me, for all this road car, relevant, in other words, you're expressing the application
of technology to solve, to go further than anyone else, faster
on less, yeah, precious resources, and finding efficiency over a long period of time, 24 hours.
Whereas Formula 1 is, it is, by definition, a sprint, in effect. It's the ultimate driving
challenge, and it's a technology race, isn't it? So the technology doesn't have to be the same
technology that the automotive's are chasing. It's a, however technology is required to get
the car around the track as fast as possible. And it's got to be the fastest car around the track
that exists. And it has to be very, very demanding to drive, not something where you have to,
you can go through some of the corners like that in order to do the fastest lap time.
Yeah. See, people who weren't watching, you just didn't impress, you didn't
impression of a driver with this, basically taking a rest, while he recharged his back,
while he went through a corner, he just took a rest. Medium speed, what sort of corner,
basically, whatever, which would have been previously a difficult corner to navigate,
is now easy because, and there would have been lap time in that by pushing as harder than the
next guy through that corner. So they don't have, now it's, it's, it's an opportunity to just put
more, just have a rest and put the juice in the battery and yeah, deploy. So on the other end
of this scale of pure performance, you had what we had when we had refuelling. So you had, people
talk about flat out from beginning to end, there is a problem with flat out from beginning to end,
which is if there's no variation in the performance of the car, little, little, you, you sort out
the order in qualifying. Yeah. And then in the race, they just repeat it. Yes. And the couple
and the margin is anyway, so nobody ever takes. So they got rid of that. So we, how do we get,
if you just think of it in sporting terms, let's say we go back to, I don't, I don't like the idea
of a V8. I thought the V8s made more noise than, than they actually produced power to me. They
sounded crazy. But anyway, I'm from a V10 era. Yeah. Bring back V10s. But
all V12s. Well, if you're going to just go for the aesthetics, the emotional tuning,
you'd go for a V12. V12, for sure. Yeah. Remember, well, a Ferrari. So we're mandating V12. Yeah.
Okay. And now how do we get the driver, how do we get the. No refuelling. No refuelling,
course. No. Can they change tyres? Yeah. It could be a tyre. How many tyres can they change?
Many as one. Okay. Okay. So now we're into the realms of fantasy, but you know, this is,
this is the get, this is sort of involved in this discussion, isn't it? Because they're responding
to an emotional reaction to the sport. But synthetic fuels. Synthetic fuels. So we're,
what we're doing is we're, we're proving that we can get from the beginning to the end of a season
on pure sun power. Yeah. Absolutely. Converted into. So instead of a 60 million year old
sun juice, we're, we're making it. Yeah. We're leaving that in the ground so it doesn't do any
more damage. That can stay there. That's good for the flowers. Yeah. Yeah.
And the, what we're doing is we're borrowing from the sun in advance of it turning into fossil fuels.
Yeah. We're going, we'll have that now and we can use it right away. Yeah. And so we're converting
it into our lovely synthetic petroleum. Yeah. And, and where am I going with this? Anyway,
yeah, we got to be able to provide enough of it. So what we're doing is we're applying pressure
on the production and the development of a, yeah, valuable technology. And yet publicizing
how this is technically possible. And so you're raising the question for everybody else. Yeah.
Oh, it's possible. What, why aren't we doing it? And so, and, and everyone will have an
opportunity to buy shares in the companies that are producing the synthesis. As long as they,
as long as they register their interest. Yes. I might have jumped the gun here, but anyway,
I got in early. But yeah, I'm all for this. This is a great idea because the value of my shares
will go up. Hopefully. They can go down though, Dan. They can, and they can go down. They can go
to zero, which we, well, zero, there's an interesting choice of words. Maybe you should have called
it. No, maybe zero. In that way is not good. But zero additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
is good. So that's where we're trying to go. Except politically, we have, I'm not going to
mention anyone's name. But if I said drill, baby drill, there is now a change in the politics.
Yeah. From when all this started. Yeah. And that, that orange guy that you're talking about, he,
his pronouncements are never based on the reality or asking the right question or
they're based on what is advantageous to him. Yeah. But because of the position of power he's in,
it is given those people with the fingers in their ears that didn't want the environmental
scene to be true. The, the, the field, it's okay to, to, to rubbish that concern.
So, yeah, yeah, that's the backlash and that Formula One needs not to be
part of. So that, yeah, I think as long as it steers that middle course. Yeah. If I understand
you correctly, what you're saying is that it's a kind of defeatist approach, which is to say,
there's nothing we can do about it. Yeah. Let's just drill, baby drill. Yeah. And not only is it
defeatist, but it's, it's, it's not correct. It's not correct. So, but it's prevailing and it's a
very powerful lobby now, isn't it? Because there is a lot of investment. And all, all the investments
are being controlled by, by that lobby, all of them. And an unhealthy proportion of investment
has been controlled by that lobby, which is delaying the switch that we need to make. And
Formula One could be part of publicizing the possibility of that switch. Yeah. We have quite
a bit of investment in our sports from petroleum companies. Yeah. And those petroleum companies
didn't want F1 to go to sustainable fuels, but it did so anyway, which is, you know, hats off to
F1 for doing that, because it realized there was the right thing to do. I think it should extend
that and say we're not automatically following the modives either. Are they the smoking companies
of the future? Yeah, I think so. I mean, we've been through a few ethically questionable
sponsors in our time in Formula One. It just takes in whatever's there from the wonders.
But, but I think the world has changed. And if we're going to, to take that
ethical progressive approach, then, then I think that's a very positive message.
I mean, I think we've concluded that that is the way to go.
The Athletic
About this episode
F1’s technical and regulatory direction is portrayed as increasingly shaped by manufacturers and their business incentives, with the FIA targeting a “50-50 split” that “has caused some problems” and a later push “in favour of the internal combustion engine, particularly from 2027 on.” Hybridisation is linked to pressure from automakers like Audi, while budgets and energy limits steer outcomes toward marketing and strategy constraints. The hosts also debate whether sustainable fuels and “pure sun power” can keep F1 credible on sustainability, despite sponsor and scale challenges.
On the latest episode of The Undercut, Damon Hill and Mark Hughes explore the complex relationship that F1 has with automotive manufacturers - a relationship that many would argue is to blame for the knot that the sport has put itself in with the 2026 regulations. With another big manufacturer - Chinese car giant BYD - exploring joining the grid, is it time for F1 to de-couple itself from the 'myth' that road relevancy was every really an important aspect of the sport? That's the question at the heart of this wide-ranging conversation...
Get bonus F1 podcasts, extra content and ad-free listening, sign-up to The Race Members' Club on Patreon today.
