Road To Success with Benedict Fowler Nov 27, 2025

Misha Charoudin: “Max Verstappens Impact On the Nurburgring is going to be huge!”

Annotations will appear as you listen

0:00

110:04

Concept

NLS race

The NLS is a racing series that takes place at the Nürburgring, a famous racetrack in Germany. It involves long-distance races where different types of cars compete against each other.

Concept

Nürburgring

The Nürburgring is a well-known racetrack in Germany that is famous for its difficult turns and long layout. Many car companies test their vehicles there to see how they perform.

Term

Top Gear

Top Gear is a famous TV show from the UK that talks about cars. It features car reviews, challenges, and fun segments, making it very popular among car enthusiasts.

Company

Volkan Alpha

Volkan Alpha is a company that works on improving cars, especially by making them more aerodynamic, which helps them move through the air more efficiently.

Concept

aerodynamic mods

Aerodynamic mods are changes made to cars to help them move through the air better. This can make them faster and more efficient by reducing wind resistance.

Car

BMW M4

The BMW M4 GT4 is a special version of the M4 sports car made for racing. It's built to be faster and safer on the racetrack.

Concept

GT4

GT4 is a type of car racing that uses sports cars that are modified from regular cars. It's a bit easier to drive than the faster GT3 cars.

Concept

GT3

GT3 is another type of car racing that uses very fast and powerful sports cars. These cars are built for professional drivers and are harder to control because they go so fast.

Term

downforce

Downforce is what keeps a car pressed down on the road when it goes fast, helping it grip better and turn more safely. More downforce means better handling during races.

Concept

24-hour race

A 24-hour race is a long car race that lasts for a full day. Teams of drivers take turns driving the same car to see who can go the farthest in that time.

Term

P2

P2 means second place in a race. It shows that the driver almost won but finished just behind the first place driver.

Company

The VW Crafter is a big van made by Volkswagen. It's often used for businesses because it has a lot of space and can be used for different purposes, like transporting goods or setting up a mobile studio.

Term

OBD11

OBD11 is a device that helps you check your car's health by reading error codes. It tells you if there are any problems with the car's systems, which is useful for fixing issues.

Term

OBD port

The OBD port is a special plug in your car where you can connect devices to check how well your car is running and find out if there are any problems.

Brand

Lexus

Lexus is a brand of luxury cars made by Toyota, known for being very comfortable and reliable.

Brand

VW

VW stands for Volkswagen, a car company from Germany that makes many popular cars like the Golf and the Beetle.

Brand

Toyota

Toyota is a car company from Japan that makes reliable and fuel-efficient cars, like the Camry and Corolla.

Concept

Spa

Spa is a famous racetrack in Belgium where many car races take place. It's known for being fast and having some tricky parts, similar to the Nürburgring.

Brand

Aston Martin

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

Term

meister brief

A 'meister brief' is a special certificate that shows a mechanic is really well-trained and can work on cars properly. It's important in Germany for making sure cars are fixed safely and correctly.

Car

Honda Civic

The Honda Civic is a small car that many people like because it's dependable and doesn't use a lot of gas. It's a good choice for anyone looking for an affordable and practical vehicle.

Car

Ford Mustang

The Ford Mustang is a famous sports car that people love for its speed and style. It's been around for many years and is known for being fun to drive.

Term

DRS

DRS is a system used in racing that helps cars go faster by changing the position of the wing. This makes the car more aerodynamic, especially on straight parts of the track.

Company

Vulcan Alpha

Vulcan Alpha is a company that makes parts for cars. They focus on improving how cars perform and look.

Concept

aerodynamic enhancements

Aerodynamic enhancements are changes made to cars to help them move through the air more easily. This can make them faster and more efficient.

Part

canards

Canards are small wings on the front of a car that help it stay on the ground better when driving fast. They make the car more stable and help it turn better.

Part

splitters

A splitter is a piece added to the front of a car to help it stick to the road better by pushing it down as it goes fast. It helps the car handle better, especially when driving quickly.

Car

Lamborghini Huracan

The Lamborghini Huracan is a super fancy sports car that looks amazing and goes super fast. It's one of the top cars you can buy if you want something really powerful.

Car

Bmw Cs

The BMW CS models are special versions of BMW cars that are made to be lighter and faster. They have some cool features that make them stand out from regular models.

Car

Porsche Taycan

The Porsche Taycan is a fancy electric car that goes really fast and has a lot of modern tech features. It's part of Porsche's move to make more electric cars.

Car

BMW M5

The BMW M5 is a fancy car that goes really fast and feels great to drive. It's a mix of luxury and sportiness, making it popular among car enthusiasts.

Car

Lucid Air

The Lucid Air is a new electric car that's really nice and has a lot of cool technology. It's designed to be very comfortable and can go a long way on a single charge.

Car

BMW M2

The BMW M2 is a small sports car that's really fun to drive and has a lot of power. It's a great option for people who want a sporty car without going for the biggest models.

Car

BMW E36

The BMW 3 Series is a small luxury car that's fun to drive and has a lot of nice features. It's popular because it combines style with practicality.

Car

Porsche Cayman

The Porsche Cayman is a sporty car that's designed to be really fun to drive. It's known for being quick and handling well on the road.

Car

Ferrari F8 Tributo

The Ferrari F8 Tributo is a really fast sports car with a powerful engine and a beautiful design. It's known for being one of the best cars Ferrari makes right now.

Car

Ford Mustang GTD

The Ford Mustang GTD is a special version of the classic Mustang that's made to be really fast and perform well on the racetrack. It keeps the Mustang's cool style while adding more power.

Car

Ferrari 360

LIVE

The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in more places that could expose you more to identity theft.

But Lifelock monitors millions of data points per second.

If your identity is stolen, our US-based restoration specialists will fix it, guarantee it, or your money back.

Don't face drained accounts, fraudulent loans, or financial losses alone.

Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with Lifelock.

Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com slash podcast. Terms apply.

You've been fortunate enough to actually share some experiences on the track with Max.

Do you really think that in 2026 this place is just going to be crazy?

One billion percent.

Misha!

In October, you and your team came first in the NLS race.

We have a curse that we're just like getting P2.

It became a meme. We need to assume that everyone else is an idiot because someone might crash into me or I might crash myself.

Max's performance in the Nürburgring has already made it extremely popular.

Is there still stuff that you're learning every year about the track, every lap?

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.

I wrote down a quote that you put when talking about the Stappens GZ3 debut,

which is Sabine Schmitz did with a Top Gear transit lap on the Nürburgring.

Misha, I'm so pleased to say that this is now our fifth episode together in the back of this van.

Can you believe in two years we've done all of that talking?

Wow, that's actually quite insane.

I am the most recurring guest on your channel.

But I think that's a good thing because unlike a lot of other guests and like myself,

the rate at which you have experiences and produce content is so far beyond most

that I think there's actually a reason to come around more often to do it.

And as an example, before we recorded today, I got Toby to look up a little stat.

And I've recorded 36 podcasts since the last time I was here.

Sometimes that's two a week. I've been to America.

You've recorded 168 videos you've put out since then just on the main channel,

excluding Mark 2 and other stuff.

So I think I'm right by saying that the pace of your life moves a lot faster.

Yeah, partially you are correct if we speak about content,

but there is a lot more than content alone what I'm doing.

Some things you do see on the channel or on my socials,

the businesses that I have founded, co-founded, you name it,

and the other ventures that I'm doing.

Most importantly, of course, also my family that you almost do not see on social media,

occasionally you post here and there, so there's a lot of things happening,

of course, in my life, yes.

So that's why I'm actually going to come all the way back to our first episode,

because so much has happened in that two years between then and now,

and ask the infamous question to you again of, in your own words,

who are you and what do you do?

Oh, wow, okay. That's actually a nice one.

I like that you asked because the answer now is going to be completely different

than when we started, because back at the time, my answer was probably I'm a content creator,

I drive laps at the Nürburgring, and it still is.

I'm a content creator, which is my main job, quote-unquote.

Most people know me from living and working at the Nürburgring,

which of course comes with the fact that I drive the truck either as a hobby,

either professionally, semi-professionally, I race professionally,

and I drive mostly other people's cars, and also my own, of course.

But since two years ago, there's also a lot more to it.

So two years ago, I co-founded a company called Volkan Alpha,

where we are sitting right now, actually, where the van is sitting in,

that is focused on engineering for the automotive,

with focus on aerodynamic mods.

So wings, splitters, everything in between,

and we're now even venturing out into complete car builds,

something you have actually seen off camera,

and we will show you maybe later in the future to the public.

So there's Volkan Alpha, where we build cars, our own cars, customer cars,

we maintain cars.

In addition, I've also raised Treto, which is a coffee bar at the Nürburgring.

So we do coffee, I have an event agency, I have a car giveaway company,

I have a steak in a merchandising company that I'm wearing right now.

What else do I have? I think I'm missing something out.

Well, that brings us nicely, that bit right there,

to say that this was going to be our Christmas special,

but we couldn't link up close enough to Christmas

to put the episode out even closer towards Christmas.

So this is the pre-Christmas special that's pre.

And because it's that, I think we've actually got a little gift for one another.

Am I right in saying so? Yes.

I've got for you, the kind people here are a wonderful hoodie to don around the track.

It's like 60 GSM.

I've probably got that wrong, but it's absolutely insane if you can get into the bag.

Go on, go on.

That's it.

And that will keep you warm because it's actually,

there's literal frost on the ground outside.

And it's extremely cold at the minute.

It's very nice.

And I believe in the festive spirit, you have something over there too,

which I'm pretty sure the kind people here are from one episode won't mind me donning.

Yeah, absolutely. I got, well, since I'm wearing a Christmas sweater.

It's the Christmas special.

I think the kind guys at here won't mind me popping on a Christmas special.

I'm giving you a very special one.

It's a limited edition, one of the 300 Marina Wall Nürburgring Sweaters.

I don't think the camera angle would have been on me for that.

If the editors still want their jobs.

Well, there we go. Now we're wrapped up.

I actually want to properly begin with a success story that's come from this year

because Road to Success is all about success stories.

And in October, you made a rather cool post after you and your team came first

in the NLS race with Jimmy Broadben, who's been on the podcast and the other guys.

What was that like for you?

Because you wrote in your own post that it was the breaking of a curse

that's kind of been over you for some time.

Yeah, exactly.

As some may or may not know, I, as mentioned already at the intro,

I'm racing professionally this year and for the last three years

we've been racing for Bilstein, managed by Team Black Falcon.

In the last two years, we've been running BMW M4 GT4 on the Nürburgring

and the Endurance series on Nürburgring NLS and the 24 hours of Nürburgring.

So this year started actually phenomenal because our first race, we immediately got P1.

So we won our class. We were like, okay, we set the pace. It's great.

Second race, P2. Third race, P2. Fourth race, P2.

Again, P2, P2. So the rest of the season was P2 and always because something silly,

we would either have a code 60 ahead of us or would be slowed down

or we had also this advantage that we are with four drivers,

whereas the other teams are with three drivers, so we're missing out on the pit stop time.

So we would literally like the gap between us and the winner would always be like,

literally just maybe like three seconds or exactly 30 seconds,

which we'll be wasting on the pit stop. So it became a meme.

It became a meme of a fact like, hey, we have a curse that we're just getting P2.

Although we won beginning of the year, we won already like last year's multiple times.

And then, well, luckily, finally, the last year, just like we started great,

we finished on a positive note, we have won the Nürburgring Endurance race, which was quite good.

I saw the postcard and it was also really nice for Jimmy because I've had him on the podcast

for the first time this year and going from his beginnings and where he started some racing

to also being, I know he's done lots of other races, but just seeing him celebrate with you guys was so nice.

I know he's just done his race for mental health on YouTube as well,

which I checked this morning was on like 90 something thousand pound and went ahead of the target.

But if any of you guys want to go and check out that,

I'll leave a link in the description to donate towards Jimmy's cause.

But the emotions that we're going through at that point,

because that's a big deal for the Nürburgring that race, isn't it?

Yeah, of course.

I mean, at the end of the day, Nürburgring is the most challenging track in the world to drive.

So driving here by itself is already quite an achievement.

Making to the finish line is already something to be proud of.

Being in a top three and then let alone winning in the GT4,

which is one of the highest classes together with GT3,

maybe even more difficult ones because the cars are a bit harder to drive

because you don't have as much downforce than a GT3.

Now before people are going to start bashing me like,

are you saying GT3 drivers are less professional than him?

No, the car is more challenging.

The level of competitiveness is also higher.

Anyway, hard to drive.

So, yeah, to win that is quite a big deal.

It's something to be proud of.

So I've got to ask because it's something that I don't necessarily understand or knew,

which I think will be the same for a lot of the audience.

So you're competing with a team of four, but you don't have to compete with a team of four.

Some people drive it on their own.

They drive a four-hour race all by themselves.

That's also possible, for sure.

So obviously the disadvantage of having four of you is pit stops.

But do you gain sharpness because of the level of the race?

No, not really.

In our case, it's really like because the project started by a project

that called our team of drivers to going from influencer to the professional driver

or from a sim racer to a professional driver or from who knows what into who knows what.

It was Steve, Jimmy, and myself.

Them two sim racers, me, just a local regular guy who has some racing experience

and they put us in a race car.

And then they put number four with us, which is Manuel Metzger.

He has won the 24-hour race overall in the GT3 and back in 2016.

He was a P2 in 17 or 18, I believe.

So someone with a lot of experience to actually bring us up to the real pro level,

like to give us all the inside-outs and do all the data analysis.

And also to function as a team for the main event, which is the 24 hours of never cream.

So for us, it was more like we're a team, we're going to be driving,

we're going to be having fun, we'll be driving as is, and we stuck to that.

The only thing what we've actually done differently in the very last race,

we realized if the first driver drives only, I believe it was four laps or something,

so less than a full stint because the less you drive,

the less of a mandatory pit stop time you have.

So if someone is willing to take the sacrifice to drive less,

we are going most likely to win if everything goes well.

And this is what we've done.

Did you have to have that conversation prior to the race?

We've done it and you know what's the funny thing?

I said, I'm doing it.

And you know what's the funny thing is?

I've never done a start of a race in my life on the Nurburgring before.

Like I've done multiple other races, also on the Nurburgring like a short sprint races,

but not the endurance because I was kind of whatever, you know?

And it was extremely tricky one because it was drizzling, it was raining,

but not raining enough to put the car on wet slicks, so everyone was on dry slicks

and the conditions were horrible.

It was proper mixed, wasn't it?

Yeah, it was lots of crashes.

Like the first lap, it was I think one third of the field in the make

towards the end of the race, it was quite tricky, but it was a good decision

because I made two fastest laps of the overall class,

so the pace was really good, all the wet laps have paid off.

And yeah, I handed over the car to...

might have been Jimmy or something back at the time.

I don't remember, so yeah, and yeah, it was a very good race.

I want to pick apart a little thing that you said in there,

which was you brought in the fourth member of the team, is it Manuel?

Yeah, Manuel.

So you brought him in because he was a Nurburgring 24-hour winner,

and you just described him as on that other level of ability and talent.

When everybody see you daily uploading,

they can take in all of those laps that you're doing,

all those mixed conditions in all of these different cars,

and the fact that you have the engineering expertise behind them,

what is the bit that makes him...

you describe him as that level maybe versus yourself?

Well, first of all, the experience,

and if we speak about me as a driver or as a content creator,

we can actually immediately say, and I'm open about saying it,

that all of those laps in racing world are useless.

They even hold me back in a certain way because I drive on street cars,

on street tires, not having the downforce levels,

not having the full slicks, not with the car that I should not crash,

also not a race car, of course,

but I'm always having a bit of extra holding back.

Whereas in the race, you need to push to the limit,

and you can push and you should push.

And more importantly, races one are quite often not by minutes,

not by seconds.

Even in 24-hour races, after 24 hours,

sometimes the gap is just 10 or 15 seconds.

Over the course of how big the nerve is as well.

Over the course of 24 hours.

So after 24 hours, the gap could be still like 10 or 15 seconds between P1 to 3.

So you need, you're looking for literally milliseconds per corner

to see like, okay, I could go faster there because I lift only 10% of the throttle,

or I should be like 10 centimeters more to the right.

There are like these kind of things that you would figure out.

And especially when you're just new in the car,

when you have more opinions about the car setup,

what could be done differently, you can test a lot of things.

And one person can show that it's actually working.

Whereas the other person might say like, oh, no, this is bad.

But like, no, you see, this is actually working.

So let's keep it that way.

And this is how you should drive that part of the track.

So there's a lot of things to it.

To film this podcast with Misha,

myself and Toby set off on the nine hour each way journey to the Nurburgring.

So it's important for us that we can diagnose any issues

with our VW Crafter podcast studio at any time.

This is why we keep an OBD11 on board at all times.

And the new third generation device can even stay plugged into the vehicles OBD port

without draining the battery.

This little device is a user friendly car diagnostics and customization tool

designed for every driver.

It's licensed by leading car manufacturers like VW, BMW, Lexus, Toyota and Ford.

And it's the easiest way to diagnose, customize and improve your vehicle's performance,

which will save you time and money in the long run.

All you have to do is plug the device into the vehicle's OBD port,

fire up the app and find out what's wrong with it.

We've used an OBD11 before when we've had an engine warning light

appear on our dash on a trip to Europe.

And the device was able to diagnose it was nothing serious, just a sensor.

But if it was serious, we'd have known that we had to call for help.

The pocket size device is great to take with you if you're buying a car

because you're able to do a pre-sale check, scans of the vehicle

to make sure there's nothing wrong with it, as well as completing a hybrid battery check.

The OBD11 Black Friday sale is now on and you can get one of these devices

and the ultimate plan for up to 40% off.

And you can get another 5% off by using my code RTS.

This is the biggest discount you can get on OBD11.

So make sure that you check them out using the pinned comment of this video

and the link in the description and making sure you use my code

for that extra 5% off of RTS.

Well, when you look at how big the Nürburgring is

and you said it at the start, there's nothing quite like it on Earth.

I think you almost have to go to tracks that aren't tarmac necessarily.

That doesn't mean like Pike's Peak is what I'm getting at.

Yeah.

To get to the level of how different of an experience it is driving on the Nürburgring.

So what are like a couple of challenges during that race

that you would only come across on the Nürburgring versus maybe doing it as Spa?

Well, actually Spa is very similar to the Nürburgring

when it comes to the biggest challenge

and that is being geographically located in the mountains of Eiffel.

So the weather can be, I mean Spa is slightly smaller.

It's seven kilometers versus 21 or 25

depends how many, what configuration you're counting.

Therefore here we can have four seasons of the year in one lap.

In Spa you might have just two or three basically.

So that's the biggest challenge.

Have every lap having different conditions that of course.

Then again you have also bumps, jumps, elevation changes, the grip levels

because here over the years they change the tarmac

because they resurface certain area

because it's cracking or it's being not that good.

So one part of the track is becoming more grippy.

The other one is becoming less grippy.

So if you're a regular here you can get a lot and a lot, a lot of win

by knowing simply the grip levels, not even the bumps.

So for example like every year like I said

they resurface the part of the track

and the major difference is wet and dry line

because in the wet, when the track is covered in wet

the Nürburgring Nordschleife is the most occupied piece of tarmac in the world

because you have here industry pool, you have here prototypes testing, racing etc etc

every day there's non-stop pretty much traffic going on

and they leave a layer of rubber on the track.

So when it becomes wet it becomes like ice.

So in the wet you need to be completely on the opposite side of the track

and avoid that in braking zones and turning points and etc

but when they resurface the part of the track

for about two and a half to three years it has optimal grip

so you can actually take the ideal line on those surfaces

but you need to know where you can do it.

So you can actually full send it pretty much there

and you can gain between five to ten seconds a lap maybe.

There are so many things.

That's the difference, right?

There are one of the differences between what makes the Nürburgring, the Nürburgring

I know on lots of tracks there ends up being a line that's more rubbered in

and when I've driven the Nürburgring in the wet on cup twos

and in a four wheel drive R8

you realise just how slippy and dangerous it can be

but is it sometimes hard out there to almost drive a line

that you know isn't the optimal racing line

versus where the grip is?

I'll make that calculation.

For sure, for the beginner driver that would be always the case.

You would always incline to drive the normal line

and then just think like, no, I need to be because that's how it goes

but that's indeed what separates someone who knows what to do and what not to do.

Is that a lot harder for the Sim racers?

Because even though the software they're racing on, the iRacing etc.

so advanced, but is it advanced to that level?

You say you spend that much time out there

getting to learn where that grip is and where it isn't.

Would you say on iRacing for example

that's anywhere close?

Yes and no.

When you put the funny enough, like now that you mentioned iRacing

or even a set of quarter competition

when you put the wetness level of the track and the Sim to the highest

the grip levels of the tarmac might be equal

but the amount of puddles on the ideal line will be higher

so in the Sim you would still have to avoid the ideal line

but essentially, I mean, of course you would need to learn

that the small things that the Sim does not have always

and that comes also to the wet and dry line.

I think also the bit I'm leading on to

which we'll get on to later in the podcast

is drivers like Max who haven't had a huge amount of experience on the circuit

it's only when you understand these like little additional details

and facts and the thing that the casual Nürburgring visitor

might not kind of get down to the nitty-gritty of

that you realise and people like Jimmy who's raced so much on the Sim

that you realise what a jump they've essentially taken to get it right

and not make those mistakes and they'll be putting in the lap times that they're doing

but stick into the time on track for a minute.

With everything else going on this year

Vulcan Alfa, Race Threto, the events company, giveaways

have you spent as much time in the cars doing laps?

I think by my Excel sheet from this year

Oh, you can tell he's got the German in him, can't you?

German, hold on, let's behave.

No, I think I've done this year maybe like 30 cars less than last year

which is still towards 400 cars and towards or over a thousand laps

So a similar amount, I would say still

A thousand laps, 8-10 minutes a lap on average

Something like that, a lot of hours in the car out there

A lot of hours in the car

When you are doing that year after year after year

for that many laps, for that many hours

that I'm not even mathematically capable of calculating

so I'm a bit stupid in that sense

Is there still stuff that you're learning every year about the track, every lap?

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely

Does it surprise you sometimes?

Yeah, actually one of the things that I hate doing

but I love doing is going out as a passenger with other people

that are more experienced, I hate because I'm like

the better driver you become, the more you want to be in control

and the more scared you are of not being in control

So part of me is like

but the other part is like, oh, that's an interesting line

I could maybe try it myself and like, oh, it's actually working

maybe not with this car, but maybe with the other car

or maybe in any other weather conditions

So what you're telling me is in one of our previous podcasts

you told me that you were going to stop allowing so many passengers

in the car with you and kind of go out on your own

to reduce the risk

and what you've decided to do is flip that completely on the head

lose all control and go in the passenger seat of their cars

No, not correctly true

I mean, I'm still avoiding as much as I can

and also in the past to going out with people that I don't know

the people I know that have like a ring record

not a lap record, but a proven X amount of laps

that they show that they actually know what they're doing

I'm happy to go out with in like a proper circumstances

of course if I know the car and the driver and etc

Because you've been out with, excuse me, I don't know her name

but I know she's like growing in terms of popularity

of the laps that she's doing at the Nürburgring

Yeah, I think so

Yeah, you've been out with her recently, I saw and did a lap

Yeah, a few times, yeah

Actually, like especially when I went out with her last year

in her car, that's pretty much really

rocket launched her influencer career

because that video got like over a million views

people all of a sudden like hold on a second girl

at the Nürburgring, what's happening?

This hasn't happened since Shabin Smith

Yeah, and a lot of people

actually called her like the next Shabin

because it's unique, there are more girls out there

but she has the same kind of

and I don't want to say it in a disrespectful manner

but like this really farmer humor

like very like, Shabin was also like that

because essentially Shabin, why everybody loved her

is because she was just like a local village girl

was doing laps and but she was like

although she made it to winning 24 hour race

to top gear and everything

here around she would still be at the pub

and like some

like she would be tapping beer straight into

the some guy's mouth

from the bar, like you know this kind of things

and because she was still the local village girl

and that's what Vika is essentially

also she gives that kind of vibe, you know

and of course driving skills and etc.

I think you need to make sure you get some kegs

in race, race tractor in the evening

and we can turn it into a bar from a coffee shop

every now and then.

Dude, I would have had so much more not only with race tractor

but also with any other business

if we were in some other country

where you would not have regulation after regulation

after regulation after regulation.

We spoke about this before and it's only

I never knew anything about this

until I spoke to you

in one of our previous podcasts

but to do anything in Germany

relating to any form

of business at all

is like in the UK

for every one hoop you'd have to jump through

there's kind of three over here

together it's insane, right?

This is horrible, I mean

the last two years

I mean like

this place and myself included

we went probably bankrupt like nearly

like you know these stories that you hear from

like top businessmen like

Tesla, NVIDIA and stuff where they had

okay we have just one week left

to pay our people and then we're screwed

we had this like

five, six times where I'm thinking

like alright we'll find now but

if this is not gonna solve

we're in big trouble like you know

and some of it was literally caused by

the fact that we could not

have a business

like I'll give you, it started already from the start

I might as well give you like this

fun story so

we decided to start Volkan Alpha

on the first of

January 2024

basically beginning of last year

so we've done that

we signed our rental

contract with

our previous first workshop for the first

of February and then we would start

moving so January was still

spending time with our family and friends

on the holidays and etc etc we come back

we start moving in in February

and then by March

we kind of want to start doing business

we set up the workshop, we set everything

and we're like still waiting for a text

number to operate

you know like what the hell is happening

like why and we're waiting

simply from the beginning we were thinking

like okay maybe it's holidays

because so we decided

to go to the

tax office because no one is picking up

the phone when you call them so we

arrived there at the tax office like half

an hour away from here from the

the German tax authorities

and it says yeah we're closed

we're only open like Tuesday and Thursday from

11 till 1 we're like

you alright?

sure no comment we went there then the

following day on a Thursday and we're like

yo so

kind of would like to have a tax number

so we can operate business

like who are you like

you're this and this company okay

yeah we thought this

might be money laundering

like you thought what

yeah well because you know

motorsport it's very known for

money laundering and you're at the

Nürburgring and the biggest also issue

is that you are a team

of seven people

with four shareholders

so me, Diana

Lapo

back at the time also making my wife and Marta

actually five because we founded two different companies

Walk on Alpha and

the 3MD event management

company which we're overlapping with

type of people

and we're like

yeah so you are like five shareholders

but none of you are German either

so it's like we're thinking

like maybe this is not legit oh

thank you for thinking

could you not like ask us

or like maybe yeah okay

we're gonna send an expert

see to be fair

to the UK and I think it's very rare that

I think everybody from England

and Scotland and Wales would ever

they

would all agree with me here

it's very rare to say to be fair to the UK

but it does cost 12 quid

and a couple of clicks to set a company up in the UK

I have also like

business in the Netherlands

I have had businesses in also

other countries I was involved in

like the stuff in creation etc

so I know how stuff goes there same thing

you have one mouse click you do everything

Germany was

up until certain point

and maybe still is to a certain extent

the leading country in the EU

was the worst country

when it comes to the communication

like all the digitalization

just simply does not exist

if you need to do to government officials

you still need to send a fax

and at one point I needed something from the government

I sent them a freaking fax

I had to find a fax machine

I called them up like hey

could I please get an answer because I sent you this

which was a deadline for me to send to you

you know what the reply was

oh yeah the app that we use to read the fax

is not working I was like

are you what

the app you use to access your fax files

is not working why don't you use a freaking email

oh yeah

anyway the expert comes

he checks at Vulcan Alpha

because we're like kind of workshop is set up

and etc it's like yeah okay this

looks good he goes to the other office

of 3MD of the other company and because we decided to

operate from one company to the other

it's like yeah but here like the chairs are missing

I'm like yeah well guess what

I need to have a freaking tax number

so I can buy stuff

hmm yeah makes sense but

yeah this this doesn't look like

a functional business I'm like yeah because you need

a tax number so you can actually function

yeah okay we'll do that but

I'm gonna come back after to check it

so there were so many things

that I'm like guys really

like also like

the fast forward to now

for example I might be getting sidetracked

but let me like vent like you know

we moved into this new location here at the

industry park

it's fantastic

literally got Manti next door

Aston Martin's literally there

good year I've got the biggest

half tire everybody is here

the biggest names are here

so what would you need

since we're already brought up this topic

what would you need in UK to start a workshop

a couple of clicks on

companies house maybe

a HSE report

a health and safety report

make sure that somebody in there is qualified

to fix somebody up if they

fall down in the middle of the day

yeah you can pretty much get it all together

about the building can it be just like

building it depends

what class the unit is

so we do have classes of units

and I'm not an expert in it but

most of the time if it's an industrial

building

and they expect those types

of businesses to be on the part

they'll be that class I think Jim struggled the most

in the UK to get the right

kind of class to trade

well basically here to start

a workshop and

my goal was to have a workshop running

for the season

well we had it everything finalized when the season was

already pretty much over because

of course first of all to work on the cars

you need to have not just a qualified technician

but so called like a mechanic that owns

a meister brief that is really qualified

to work on other people's cars

that of course only applies to working

on the German street registered cars

that in case like a wheel falls off

you know you're still insured

fair play should be should be like that

sure but then

you need it to have everything

the purpose of

the building needs to be

actual purpose to be workshop

so the beginning the purpose of this

building Nutzung

Nutzungsänderung it was

a warehouse

so we had to have a team

of architects come here

to check everything to make a report

to tell us

what we need to change to qualified

from a warehouse to like

an actual workshop

and to see if that is okay

well guess what

we changed a bit

of wiring but this mostly

even for the lifts we

installed a few fire extinguishers

it took us I think

four months to get everything approved

and a few tens of thousands of euros

and you're having

at that point to pump in extra money

from your other earnings

to Vulcan Alfa

because you're not able to fully operate

to the point that you need to

and the reason why we started also like for example

the workshop is because I saw it as a necessity

to put more money in the company

because our main business

which what we found it on

to actually engineer design

and manufacture aerodynamic

components or other components

was also not really going well

because we were reliant on

suppliers

CNC and carbon fiber etc

who were promising a lot

but were either not delivering at all

or delivering faulty products

so the first

one and a half year of the business

basically R&D

yeah it was R&D

and the problem is you're naive

to a certain extent, you're trusting people

you're trusting first certain individuals

who tell you like I'm gonna make you the best product

and he delivers the first product

that looks

on par with the top of the line there

but then the next time he delivers

a wing that is literally

narrower than the spec you ordered

for the car for a customer

or doesn't deliver anything at all

and then goes MIA for two weeks

and then when he delivers something

after that when you start already pressing him

with legal manners

the wing that he delivered like splits open

in half or something at a high speed

there were so many things

that we had to go through from the first

and then we went to another supplier

which also promised a lot

and we put a down payment in December

and then it would not happen for months

so it was quite challenging

before we move on, if you're enjoying this podcast

make sure to hit that subscribe button

because the first time I came onto the show

it had just 4,000 subs

now it has over 100,000

and you do not want to miss out the sick

content that's going to come when the show

is going to be a million so you can say in the comments

I was there from the very start

so subscribe and see you at the next time

I will be on this show

many others

so when you're going through that

or when you remember going through those initial

kind of growing pains

the deep growing gashes by the sound of it

did you ever think that

you would be at the point where you see

the 190 and the Civic

exactly the Civic, the 190

but stuff like the Mustang

that's like one of your main projects

at the minute up there

and what you were telling me you're going to do with the wing on that car

is literally crazy

I don't know if you want to give anybody a little secret with that

no, on the Civic that's going to be the other wing

is that going on the Civic

not the Mustang, is it?

the Mustang already has its wing, it's a DRS

but the other thing

we have some plans too

because of course we're always evolving

and we need to bring out new and exciting products

on the market so Civic is going to get something

more extreme what I want to say

but to answer your question

was I ever thinking of that?

yes, 100%

because

I did not start

this as

a small thing

or with the intention of remaining

just a workshop

behind another workshop

that is changing brake pads

and making occasionally a fast car

for the Nürburgring

if you want

not if you want to pony-esque for a unicorn

well actually, essentially also that

but

if you want to go to the moon

shoot for the stars or something like that

that's what we're doing

and over the years more importantly

I have witnessed

and in part of

very inspirational stories

that also started from

either absolutely nothing

or have been also gone broke

and now are leading car manufacturers

of the world for example

a bit like Matteo Remac for example

exactly, he's a good inspiration

and

sort of a friend of mine

I spent every Christmas with him together

so there's a lot of things we do together

we're very close and I know

he's been also through the same things

and even worse

like literally back in

2016-17

electricity was switched off

like two or three times a year

like the company had no electricity

because he chose to pay the salary

so the people, not electricity

you know, there were things like that

he had to sell his own cars and his own assets

to make the company running and now he is

quite okay I would say

he still has other problems of course

that are very luxury to have

but you know, sometimes I would

go to him with advice and say like

dude, we have this issue with

product or supply or this

dude, this is

be ready, this is nothing

like it's gonna get worse

that quote you said there is one of my favorites

in starting Road to Success

which is if you wanna go to the moonshoot for the stars

when you apply

that quote to what you're doing in Vulcan Alpha

and I wanna try and make this visual

for people because they can start to build

a picture in their heads because I always think of the audience

you guys listening as kind of

a core audience that know absolutely

everything but the vast majority

will be the casual audience

of dip in and dip out and when I think you're saying

things like workshop versus

the work that we're doing at Vulcan Alpha

I think that people might just mould that into

the workshop part of

this building was you allowing

people to come to the Nurburgring

and basically use the facility to work on their cars

Vulcan Alpha

was actually making the parts to go

on cars. Yeah no I mean

it goes hand in hand, I mean there's a lot of things we're doing

like I said in essence we're engineering

company with focus on

aerodynamic enhancements so it's

manufacturing or designing

and also well partially

manufacturing of

wings, splitters, canards

flat floors you name it, bespoke

and

more bolt on direct plug and play

kits so we have kits for BMWs

for G-series, for F-series

for 9 and 2 GT3 for Porsche

that consists out of wingsplitter and suspension

upgrades

but we also doing completely

bespoke things so for example

someone has built I don't know

2000 horsepower twin

turbo Huracan we had actually a client like that

and he said I'm doing drag racing

I need a wing that has more stability

at acceleration but it can go open

on the fastest rates

can you make me DRS wings but DRS wing

that is really specific for drag racing

application that is actually opening up

more than the traditional DRS wing, we can do

that. We can tailor

tailor made like really to a car

with all the CFD analysis etc

How would you do that without a wind tunnel?

Nowadays I can tell you that

a very good and a very

expensive

CFD

software

can get you already

results close to 95%

the actual result.

The last 5% are intended

for two Formula 1 teams

that need to get that one millisecond

per lap

or manufacturers that need to get

one gram of CO2 reduction

on resistance

for people like us a majority of people

this is enough

and I'm going to say that majority

of aftermarket

aerodynamic enhancement mods

companies

you do not see any wind tunnel data

from them either even like car manufacturers

quite often do not show the data

do they have access to it? Yes

but sometimes like the gains are even so

little that it's not even worth bragging

about

but going back to the fact that 95%

is already accurate enough to do design

and if you know what you're doing

the rest is up to the

final tuning on the track

and luckily we have a track in our backyard

where we can do all the testing

that we need to do to see if stuff works.

Well everybody on this estate

has a track in their backyard

because there are so many people as we said here

and I've got to bring up the people that are

actually directly next to you

which is Mantai, there's literally a Mantai 992

GT3 RS there

I'm really lucky that I've got a 991.2

GT3 RS with a Mantai kit on it

and I kind of understand that

because when I look at the Mantai kit

I think okay I can see the bigger end plates

I can see the bigger wing, I can see the canards

I can see how that's different

I know how the suspension is different, I get it

I get the kit, it's very visual

and it's just like a bolt on one thing

Is what you guys are doing

closer to that or is it closer to like

almost custom development of cars

and in your kind of long term future

do you think you'll be a very different thing

to Mantai?

Well first of all

what Mantai have achieved

is absolutely mind blowing

to go towards that direction

would be like

definitely a dream and a goal

to a certain extent

because what they're doing

they're doing more than just like kits alone

they're doing racing, they have their own subdivisions

for racing, customer racing

now they launch the brand that does

like actual racing equipment

with all the sensors and pit equipment

and etc

so yes

I mean in the future

we are definitely going to expand and be offering more

because right now also we

making things like carbon cup holders

for BMW, CS, CSL

and also aero kits etc

the big difference

what we are doing now

opposite of what Mantai is doing

Mantai is still

they have

most of their kits

that you know that you mentioned

they are really bounded by the street regulations

so they are

they're optimizing the maximum

what you can have within the street regulations

that

the German market

is allowing you to

and for Porsche

so what we also need to say

is because Mantai is 51% owned by Porsche

it needs to be

still not too crazy

for various reasons

because if it gets too crazy

you're going to cannibalize

your customers from racing

so it needs to still be

streetable to a certain extent

and needs to be also within the rules

now this is something that we tried actually from the start

when we started the company our very first wing products

were

to have approved

so for the German market and European market

with all the tvv certification

that it would be street legal

for the German market

but

the blessing and the curse that I have

I have a big reach all over the world

so that reach came to Hogan Alpha

that reach from US

from Asia from Emirates

would be asking why is your wing so small

can you make something bigger

well yeah we can make you something custom sure

and then to the next guy something custom

then we realized that makes for us more sense

actually you know what to step out of this

like boundaries

of tvv regulations

and make something that would

really work much much better

by utilizing

more out of the box

thinking so more aggressive

splitters more aggressive wings that would go

out of the silhouette

for the German street legality because

well you can tell me

what does

a car need to have in UK to be street legal

number plates to be honest

and I think the one that's baffled me the most

would be the listeners from America

right now is every time

I land in the US

and like go down the main

freeway in LA

the first thing that I notice is

like a civic

with the front bumper hanging off

literal bars coming out and I think

it depends on country to country

what you're allowed and what you aren't

yeah so basically in essence

to kind of cut down

again to the question whether are we the same

as Manthai no definitely not

in this stage because we need

to offer something else what

other people already don't

offer we are also not

bound by certain regulations we try

to like cater to the niche

of people who are car owners car

enthusiasts who live all over

the world they either do not have the regulations

of having

the necessity of having narrow

splitter or a wing on their car

they want the maximum performance and that's

what we cater to

and

that is going to lead in the future

I don't know but that's what I was going to ask

where is it going to lead in the future because this

goes towards basically making

custom cars which does lead

towards you making your own car

so do you think that what started

out when we both sat in this van

two years ago as content creating on the

Nurburgring this being your home could lead

to the place that you say

you get to the moon by shooting for the stars

to the point that you could have your very own car

maybe

maybe possibly

I mean to answer the question

I mean right now I'm building something for myself

already

with the goal of having it

running

like I know give you some teasers

and insiders like it's

we're planning to have the rolling

chassis by end or mid of

2027 and then to have

it actually running in competitive

style maybe 28 29

so we are already working

like four years from now

that's how long it takes

yeah because we're drawing everything

from the scratch basically

to answer again

the question is not going to be a road legal car

it's going to be like a pure racing

like and built for myself

only in the sense

of it's not going to be bomb by regulations

it's just something I want to have for myself

to show what our company can do

and I want to have fun on track days

or somewhere else well it sounds like

the cars going into the future

are only going to get more and more

and more and more and more extreme

yet the chats

that we've had over the last couple of years

is also not only finding the

tents on track but finding the

tents off track and that's with a bit

of safety as well because you've now

got a wonderful son that somehow

knows how to steer left and right

who would have thought after

just four months and

the pressures of definitely

starting to make sure that

you're not finding every single tent

on every single public session out on the ring

is that fair to say?

yeah for sure a lot of things have changed

if we speak about that

I mean this year I made a decision to

actually as I mentioned already here

to not to take passengers anymore

with me on the laps

on public sessions

with their own cars that I do not know

do not trust cannot be 100% sure

it was a massive decision for you

because I mean you took

me out the first time I came here

and granted it was only a 200 horsepower

car but I definitely had enough

reactions during that drive and I think

the reaction to most of your viewers

is like a huge part of it

seeing how the person reacts

so was that a big fear when you did

that versus what the actual results been?

yes

I mean yes and no I mean for me

personally it was about

the safety aspect

and I might actually

buy now which month are we in

like where like almost December

November yeah I can

actually speak about it really

so there is

a safety aspect of

genuinely

being afraid that if something happens

I mean I can buy someone else

a new car that's legit my quote

I can build them or buy a new car

but if they lose their eye or an arm

I cannot buy that

the technology is not there today yet

to replace a limb or

or worse or worse

alive

so that was legit my concern

but what made it even on top of

that is that there is also

mental health concern

so someone might say

I got so scared

I have to take the bus for the rest

of my life please Misha

well I'm gonna sue you and you need to

pay me for my public transport for the rest

of the life or my mental health treatment

it can go this far

it did not but at

certain point you start thinking like I just need to

have one guy or a girl

or whatever that is going to do

that is going to did you think

then were you scared by a circumstance

that had happened kind of make you think

that way

no it was like a certain

thing so basically to wrap

it all up what I'm doing

like with all my content

I'm driving most of it on public session

during public session

etc. I have a

special media license from the Nürburgring

that allows me to do these things

but I'm not operating

as a business an official business

compared to for example ring taxi

where they have a license

to take people out on track

and because they're a business they also

have terms and conditions where

customers come and sign and they're not liable

for like if something happens

your own fault like etc etc

I cannot do that

during public sessions

I can have I had

legal team look into all the certain

things I can have them sign that I'm not liable

for their car but if they sign

in this there needs to be a clausio that says

I'm still responsible for their physical and mental health

I'm like you know what

nah

but have the videos

that you've put out of just you

still been performing if not

better than you anticipated

yes yeah yeah so

before going into that

I'm still taking

people out I'm doing

taxi laps on track days because their people come

and sign and there I'm driving

the car that I know that I have built

I know it's 100% sure and it's okay and etc etc

because some of the

greatest videos I've done is that like some

super random thing happens on the car

that not owned by me and I'm like what the hell is this

oh yeah it's occasional he does that

the brakes do like up by themselves

what

you can't put it into sex

get back into fifth

things like that you know it's like

the most insane things I have experienced

probably on track so

I do not take people out in their own cars

on public sessions on track days

I still might do it because there is a liability

waiver and I definitely take people out

on taxi laps on track days

and I definitely take out my family

members and very close friends from

childhood and my own employees I would still

drive on public sessions in my own car

so the laps are still

going to be there with passengers while we're in that

now to answer your question whether

I was scared back at the time

100% like I mean I was thinking

hmm yeah you know who knows what's gonna happen

and more importantly

my wife

my business partners people close to

me said Misha this is suicide

in terms of your channel

this is the only reason why people

watch it and it's going

to be like done I'm like you know what

well then I'll have to step it up I'll need

to like be more entertaining myself

I just

have to make it work

now long story short is ever since

I've done this I had

three

by now probably four

consecutive best months

on YouTube since

my peak which was like in

2023 probably or something

and the reason for that

is because I am actually talking pretty much

either the whole of the lap or I'm more engaging

with the audience on camera I'm talking what is

happening right now because in the past I would be

like focused on this he okay

or she okay person next to me

they're gonna be sick are they gonna be sick

are they scared you've run anybody sick

in the car yeah yeah

a few times

are they concerned

what I'm doing to their car I'm always thinking

like that and I'm also like

kind of do not want to offend them with

one certain thing or the other whereas now

I do not have anyone next to me I do not

be like afraid of what they think

and I'm actually talking to the camera and

long story short the retention

value is so much more higher now

on YouTube because people actually

stay and watch what I have to say

about the car and they

actually genuine they're caring about the car and

at the end of the day

the reason why

my channel is

was so successful

on many different ways and growth

and is the variety of content

and with the variety of content comes also the

variety of audience because people might

watch me because they're looking

to buy a certain car and they simply

end up looking for it and they end up

seeing it on an evergreen hold on a second

why is there like an old Peugeot

like 105 or whatever super random

car on an evergreen let's watch this

or like let's watch a performance car

and see how it performs etc etc

some people watch really

about the content for

about the car about technicalities how to set up

the car they just want to

watch me they want to watch what's

how is the nevergreen doing you just took a

limo round right yeah exactly

and some people indeed watch just

for passenger reactions so

if you take out one equation

out of the 10 you just need

to replace it by something else

or be better on all the other fronts

and that's what I've been doing and

has been doing great so what

have been a couple of the scarier

moments this year on track

I know you heard one with the golf

was that this year yeah the

golf was a scary bit when it just

decided to fly and

yeah fly for 30 meters and take

off basically yeah because that

wasn't that some weird air

effect that's very very rare

that only happens the car yeah

yeah and the car was

too fast for its chassis

it had no arrow

it was quite fast and then when it went over

bump it lifted up

the back completely because the air was

getting under the bumper it lifted the

bumper up and the car flew for like about

30 meters forward and then when it landed

it bounced and bounced

into the barrier basically so

that one's probably in first place

yeah no for sure this

this is in the first place I mean

other than that you had

like a random close calls where

you you drive

and you see there's a coolant spill like in front

of you there's a trail because the other

advantage of being here for over

10,000 laps you see

every micro difference

you see every new piece of

graffiti a random mushroom

growing literally next

to the track these kind of things

and you see like some trails of

coolant or like

that is not there before so

lots of mess crashes

avoided or single crashes

avoided because someone either moved

in the front of me or whatever

what freaks you out

other drivers or the stuff

of other people's cars like coolant

liquids etc

no I think both I think both at the end

of the day you always need to be

just like on public roads

I think someone quoted it once

to survive on public roads

you need to assume that everyone else is an idiot

be prepared for the most unexpected

thing for someone else to do

and I mean I always drive

with my left foot above the brake pedal

so in case something happens I have instant

reaction of actually like really go immediately

I'm also looking

for escape route

like every time I'm approaching the car

I'm looking for an escape route that could be

either be prepared to go immediately on the brakes

or be prepared to go

on the grass or on the curb

if I know that

the person might go already on the ideal line

to the left on a track limit

and I might not be able to go to the left

then I will probably avoid certain overtake

I will slow down extra considerably

because I need to have

XYZ like a backup plan

what if then

so you start thinking about those things

do you ever get anybody that is

deliberately annoying to you

and this is probably going back to the band

Misha Saga when we

sat in this band last time

which was the petition to have you

banned from the Nervigring this year

that I believe

the last podcast we did

that the level of support for that not

to happen was so unbelievable

that it pretty much squashes the opinion

of anybody that considered that in the first place

but

do you ever get those people

that are deliberately irritating out on track 2

because they know it's you all deliberately trying to stay in front

no I don't think so because people don't really know

that it's me because I

this year I was in something different

no indeed I'm always in something different

it's gonna be

probably different like next year

maybe like you know

you do see occasionally okay when I pass

someone and we exchange

like eye contact

and they see that as me then they might

try to keep up a bit more than

they were doing before

but I wouldn't say anyone would be

deliberately blocking me on track

definitely not we spoke about

the guys that you did the NLS

race with and a lot of them

have come from sim racing me etc

and then you had them

I was from the 24 hours race

you've been out quite a lot this year with Ben Collins

on track someone else that's frequented

this van before do you ever see

you and him doing a race around here

at some point I have nothing against it

I mean like

is it the goal that we're working towards

no if there is

to come opportunity that someone decides

to put us in the car together I wouldn't

say no like

I'm all up for new experiences in life I mean

the fact we actually done a sim

race together last

what would the sim racing expo

almost a month ago by now where we

actually race against each other so we have

quite a good chemistry what people have been

also seeing in the comments on the content

that we've been putting out so

like I said I wouldn't be against it

just like to

I watched the video where you were both

in was it your lucid I think it was the electric car

and earlier on today

we saw a new

super duper Taycan turbo GT

with extra base

with even more than month a racing it could

have been a GT RS Taycan

or something like an even more extreme one

getting loaded off the back of a lorry just

up there have you found

yet the

or even come close to finding an electric

experience on the Nürburgring

that rivals the excitement of anything with an engine

I mean the answer is

literally right there

for people who are listening they should look on

YouTube because

out of the van

you can see my Civic Park there it's pointing at

Honda yes at the Honda Civic

we're gonna need some clarification

we need some clarification so

I do believe everything

has

place and time and the purpose

and

electric cars can be also definitely fast on

track and they can be also exciting to a

certain extent if you can hear the noise

of the electric motors and the gears

and etc etc

but for me after having driven

like literally three or four thousand

cars by now over the last

so many years

my own project car

is an old 90s Honda Civic

that revs up very high

it's maybe not the fastest it's up to the

driver to make it fast and emotional

so electric cars

but

that my daily is

electric actually I have

two dailies one is M5 touring

and which is a hybrid

it's also very quiet and also can

drive full electric and the other one is Lucid

air which is also

electric car and before that I had

Polestar which was also electric

car so I love

electric in a daily environment

because I wanted to be quiet I need to

be able to either

have my ADHD brain

work over hours and thinking about project

and problem solutions or to listen to the

music or be able to be on the

phone by calling people in business

contacts to conduct meetings and not have

go into

there but this is something I do miss on the track

and I believe everyone

in the world is actually wanting that extra

piece of emotion because my favorite

ever video you've done and I doubt

it will be beaten for a very long

time is the black

K20 that you took out

on the ring because it was it was a black

K20 the EK probably

EK4 where we like

chasing M2 and overtaking it at the end

best video ever and it's just watching

your feet on the three pedals as it was

like I think the sun was coming down

and it was just the excitement of

every kind of minute you were thinking

I'm enjoying this even more than I thought

I was the previous minute the previous minute

so I can see why you've chosen

one as a project car so what exactly

are you going to be doing to that and when is it going to be ready

it got very out of hand because

I bought this car

because I love Civics

they

embody everything

you would want from a proper track car

this means they're lightweight

they have quite a good suspension

technology double wishbone on the front

they have multi-link on the rear so with a bit of tweaks

you can make it very nice compliant

again weight

very low you can get them very

easily sub 1000 sub 900 kilos

the engines are very ref happy

when you have a K swap K20 K24

you can go 9000 plus RPM

manual gearbox

you can put sequential of course

something to top you doing as well

they embody everything

and at the time

you finish the lap and you've done a good lap

it's really also a lot to the driver

you need to do it

you need to really work you have no traction control

no ABS

no power steering in this case as well

everything is really up to the driver

but it's not

going stupid speeds you do not have

500 or 700 horsepower

a massive arrow

so it's

it's really the whole package

it's epic

and still relatable and affordable

but I'm going to take it to a bit

more extreme level

beyond affordability

and relatability

but yeah basically

what's going to happen now

the car will be full carbon fiber

with exception of course

of ABC pillars

but the roof carbon the back pillars

every body component will be carbon

you can expect

also lots of arrow mods on the car

active arrow

the engine is being built right now

which will be K24

fully built with every

single component change

not only just pistons and a crank with also dry sump

the head will be ported

it will run ITBs, standalone ECU

eventually

there are already plans

to run a sequential transmission

but I have just spent a lot of money

on an age pattern and I love an age pattern

gearbox so I want to run at least

half a year with that

to really work it properly like a man

yeah

lots of light weight, lots of weight reduction

lots of crazy technology including

even active suspension

it will be very

crazy and silly

it brings me to ask would you ever build a car

just for your channel

because you know it's what the algorithm would want

or are you only still

building cars because it's what you want

I mean this one goes hand in hand

because this is definitely what I want

because this is what I genuinely like

this is luckily also something that

the algorithm

slash audience wants because all the civic videos

they use

they go mental and this is because

again this embodies

indeed what a perfect track car needs to be

loud, fast, engaging

exciting and somewhat

relatable because

going back to the racing

I mean we are racing top of the line

we're GT4

at some point we might be doing GT3

maybe luckily

hopefully enough we'll see but

we are already on the top of the food chain

so to say with

with our racing

and

this is unique

special for many people it's their dream

to just being able to drive on

under a crane let alone to

race there

but in content perspective it's

actually nobody cares

and

or like in relatability to the other content

because it's not relatable

and this goes to not just us

it goes to everyone the best thing to

ever happen to Formula 1 is

drive to survive series and it's

not about racing it's about the drama

around it

and this is what we also need to do

we need to a bit of dramatize and tell the story

what is interesting you say that because it brings

me on nicely to talk about Franz Herman

nice

it is important for the Nürburgring

and important for the 2025

Nürburgring roundup

I feel we cannot talk

about the stuff that's happened this year

without kicking it off with

when Franz showed up

and the internet lost its mind

the fact that he put a different name

on the car to just try and go under the radar

a bit and I think it had the

complete opposite effect I think it had gone

less viral

if it had just said Max then it would have

that however you've been fortunate enough

to actually share some experiences on the track

this year with Max as well

I've seen some moments of Jimmy reacting

when he's been out there as well

but I wrote down

a quote that you put

in one of your Instagram posts when talking about

Verstappen's GZ3 debut

which is let's take a look at the bigger picture

this is huge for the

Nürburgring racing and the region in general

this will have the same effect

increasing popularity as

what Sabine Schmitz did

with a top gear transit lap

on the Nürburgring all those years ago

do you really think that in

2026 because of the stuff that's

happened with Max here this year that this place

is just going to be crazy

one billion percent

I mean

having like simply

the data that I know now because

I'm very well connected in the region either having

my own businesses or hearing what other people

are saying you can already see

that

first of all like the live streams

like you know that were when Max

did his racing

I think the increase

it was like

30 fold

30 times more audience

and that was not even

like publicized a lot in advance

it was just like yeah people knew it was going to come

and raise and kind of that's

kind of it but if he would

go compete really and people would be

actually actively following it because

every time he would come to the Nürburgring

the amount of people watching

in real life or

online would be increasing because

more people were aware of the fact that he is coming

and more of these people

were all of a sudden aware that

a place like Nürburgring exists that it still

exists that you can watch Max

stop and drive you need to come there

book a hotel to watch him and guess what

after that after he has raised

you can go and drive yourself

with your own car during public session

and

this is happening already now this

has happened this year this is happening

for next year because the amount of bookings

from rental car companies from hotels

from the race teams that

run lounges at

NLS or like 24 hour

race is it

has skyrocket

compared to previously because people all

sudden know that there is such a place available

and possible and guess what they might be able

to see Max first happen is it a good

thing for the Nürburgring because

we know that from our previous discussions

how busy the ring has got over the

years just from your influence on it for

example we will talk about some millions

and millions of years

and then to say that when the stop and comes

it can have that increase of say 30

fold is absolutely insane

but can the ring actually cope

with that in terms of people

on track getting time

well I mean yes and no I mean

the only

problem that you

have when it comes to

having too many people is then

during the public session because

that is not regulated by the amounts

of people that you can have on track

because on a busy like

Sunday you see

numbers because you have a counter

at the track that shows how many cars there are on track at the same time

I've seen as high

as 500 plus cars at the same time

on track now when

you divide 21 kilometer

or 21,000 meters by

500 you still have a couple

of hundred meters between every car

so it's technically maybe

not that bad. The world's biggest

DRS train. Yeah but not

everyone is running the same pace of course

so you are having lots of traffic

and traffic jam and etc etc

but when you have sanctioned

events like track days

they only allow

maximum 140 registrations

so at the same time on

track you might have 20-30

cars and you have one car

each kilometer and then you still need to

catch up with them with the difference of pace

so that's the only

I would say the problem

you might have is that the public session gets too crowded

what about the pros

what is from that quote

what is it going to bring?

What's it going to bring? It's going to bring the popularity

it's going to bring

by popularity this means

all the

other businesses here

around the track hotels

workshops any kind of

companies

can profit from it

people

who have a dream to do something at the Nürburgring

because two years ago

I was working for other people mostly

now I'm starting my own company

and many of other companies in the last 5 years

and definitely

10 years are actually brand new

from someone who had a dream

and decided to come here to the Nürburgring

ended up cleaning toilets for the first year

and then started his own guest house

and then his first rental car

which was an old rusty E36

and now has a fleet of 10 cars

or 20 or even more

so if this is something that will allow

people to realize their dreams

at the same time

a lot of people

are heavily either invested

on a business level into this

region to the Nürburgring

because they have a business running here

but also

a lot of people are simply invested from a

passion level because they're simply car owners

they love to come here and drive the track and etc

just like Max really

even though he's so competitive

he wouldn't be here without the passion

whoever it is

and we need to protect this place

because it might also

vanish and disappear one day because

it's maybe either not profitable enough

or maybe it is

no one

is going to notice if someone deliberately

will shut this down

speaking about political parties

about whatever

the green people

the extreme left, extreme right

all the extremes who just want to have

populist opinion and shut this place down

because you see we've done something

great for whichever reason

what else

but if the tradeoff

to shut this place down

is much higher than the actual

gain then it's going to be more difficult

so yeah the popularization of this place

and car industry

and car scene in general

much better definitely

and also realizing

the dreams of drivers

like you know potential drivers who are now

who do not have the huge budget

to go and race

but they can see that

just by being a sim racer

you can progress into pro driving

like we have shown

and they can make the dream come true

so overall

I think it's a great thing when something

becomes

bigger

and if the region

can capitalize on that great

if the track can capitalize on that even

better

now whether they can actually do it because the government

might be restricting them from

making an extra entrance

or expanding the roundabout

that's a different story

and this can actually lead us

into the next point

is that this year we had also

quite a big increase of

bad behavior

on the streets

someone bind it the other day

not only the other day

we had actually

I might as well say it

we had actually a lethal accident

this year actually a number of lethal accidents

one of them was actually

two locals

so it's not that someone was driving

like a maniac, there was like an unfortunate overtake

and there was a head on collision

which could still be avoided

like every other thing

but one of them was actually

a result of

speeding and going too fast

and actually killing someone in the process

so things like that happen

people do

deliberately gather

at the boulevard, do burnouts, do street races

there have been like really crazy and stupid things here

but this is the result of

yes, the popularity

of places because

the bigger place gets

the bigger percentage or like the percentage

of bad behavior

I do not want to say any kind of bad words

on this podcast

but if percentage of bad behavior

is 0.5

or 1%

over a thousand people

you're going to have maybe just one or two persons

but if all of a sudden

you have a million people

it's going to be a couple of them more

you're going to notice that

and that's the same what is happening now

and the same goes also back

to the crashes on the Nurburgring

it's not that everyone crashes here all the time

because they like to crash or because

of course it's a more demanding place

but you have here non-stop 500 cars

at the same time

so even just 1% of crashes

is here going to be more noticeable

than any other track on the world

could you talk us through

if it's going to get that popular

back to why a minute which was because

of what Max has brought to it

especially in 2025

can you give some context to Max's journey

at the ring in 2025

because at the beginning of the year

although he'd driven on track

I believe he'd done only three laps

is that right before the proper laps

before actually getting in that car

and sang an unbelievable pace

it's been too many laps ago

for me to remember exactly the amount of laps

he's done but it was something between

three and five

and he unofficially has set the lap record

by then already

actually with his Ferrari GT3

now then he always

he never made it the secret

of saying that he wants to race here eventually

and to be able to race here

unlike most of the tracks next to your racing license

you need to have a Nordschleife permit

it's something that they have introduced

back in 2015

it's a course you need to do

then you start with you need to drive

with a slow car

I think now as of today

the regulations are to do

18 laps with a slow car

and then finish top like

30% of the first race

you need to finish I think top 60% of your class

and then top 40 or 30

every year they change the regulations but

regardless

so you need to start with a slow car

and so he had to do it

the first time he came here

he had to drive with a slow Cayman

I remember this and this was between the F1 weekends

wasn't it because it was almost laughable

that he was finishing the Formula 1 weekend

and then coming straight here

then having to race a Cayman

but he didn't mental in that

right he didn't like win

but for the power of the car

compared to other stuff he did finish up there

yeah he did finish there

I don't even remember if he won

but yeah he did set

the fastest time there

or the fastest time it was very good

and regardless of the result

the coolest thing what I find about it

is that he didn't make a big deal

out of it saying like do you know who I am

who I don't need to drive a slow car

he actually

openly said I think rules are rules

and everyone needs to do it

and it is important that he does that

because

he gets to experience

the speed differences

between a slow Cayman

or a slow Dacia and a GT3 car

when he is being overtaken

so when he is driving GT3 car next time

he will know that the car ahead of him

probably is not seeing him

because simply when he looked in the mirror

it was not there

and then he went for the corner

and then the car was there

so that just shows him like hey

this is how it feels to be

in a slower traffic basically

when you are going to be the faster one

that is just like my opinion

but I think that is important

but it is cool that he said rules are rules and I need to do it

and the racing he then went to do in GT3

was in that car

that he did his first laps in

which was the Ferrari 296 GT3

but we were talking

off camera earlier

that is basically the closest thing

Ferrari has done to a car

that could be as iconic as the GT3 RS

around the Nürburgring in future years

to come like it is a very good Ferrari

on the Nürburgring

It is amazing and funny enough

we are getting sidetracked here maybe in a bit

but 296

surprisingly I have driven this car this year

and I fell in love with it that I am now

actually actively looking at

buying one

for a reason that the amount that the car is delivering

for the price that people

are asking for it

and because

maybe I should not say it because now the value is going to go up again

but

the value of 296, 7

I absolutely dropped

and I do not know whether it is because it is a hybrid

and people want to have naturally aspirated

458

or just a turbocharged 488

or a F8 Tributo

but the value

compared for what they were going for

a year ago or so or two years ago

you have absolutely dropped and you get quite a lot of car

for the value that they are asking for it

so it is a fantastic car

the 296

and in GT3 spec it is pretty phenomenal too

because that is what you choose to race

we have to understand here

that GT3 cars have nothing to do

with street cars

absolutely nothing

it is essentially just the body work

the outside shape

in terms of headlights

and the ABC pillars of the roof line

are the same but all the body components

it is different

the engine is completely different

for example when you speak of GT3 car

aside from the aero facts and the brakes and suspensions

etc

the GT3 car of Ferrari does not even have

a hybrid system because it is not allowed

you are not allowed to have a hybrid system

in the GT3 class so it is running just

the normal V6

for example in the AMG

cases even

when you have something very loud

just start it outside it sounds like

what?

no I am going to say it is a high revving

5.2 liter V8

because

the Capricorn

hypercar

was being set up on the

4 post rig or 7 post rig

of Bilstein across the street today

so I think it is the Capricorn car

which is essentially a very tuned

American

Shelby motor

or something derived from that

anyway

to not get psyched

go back to Max and his GT3 car

no I wanted to say about the AMG

the AMG version of the GT3

you have the AMG GTR

that you had yourself

it has a V8 twin turbo

but the

AMG GT3 that has the appearance

of that one is using still the

6.2 naturally aspirated V8

from the previous SLS generation

basically

because NA engines are

more manageable on the track

basically

faster responsiveness

no turbo lag

not even that

but like heat management less complexity

it can be

better if you then

just need to have much more displacement

to compensate for the lack of force induction

but yeah most of the cars have completed

different engines

so yeah to summarize

the GT3 in Max drove

is a bespoke race car to compete

up to the regulations with the GT3s

but the way he drove it

oh yeah no of course this wasn't saying

did not manage

to set the lap record

because in qualifying

when the track was fully empty

it was

it was wet

so it was wet and damp

and after that when the track dried up

there were some yellow flags

and code 60s so you could not set

the faster time than it was

than he could

for the actual lap record of the track

later of course he was

extremely fast and faster than anyone else

out there and it was actually quite interesting to see

definitely because it's not just him

like you guys doing your team

for the NLS race it was him and another driver

and that other driver had come from SimRacing as well

exactly it was Christopher Lalem

a British driver

that also started

in SimRacing and then was noticed

by Max Verstappen because

he was racing together with him in the four team red line

their official SimRacing team

and yeah he has

put him actually I think

last year under

VerstappenRacing.com

SRO championship I think

so the guy is quick

the guy is very quick I think this year

he actually won the championship

in the other

sprint or endurance series

I'm not at up to date I was up to date

when I was like focusing on that particular content

but I know he's highly successful

how big was

Max's win? Max's

I saw someone talking about it that

previously won that race

and was saying that he just was like

this guy is in a different league

because I love

talking about natural talent

because it's so

it's road to success right natural talent

is a blend of mixture

a recipe that can't always

be replicated for years and years and years

and if you look at Snooker you have somebody

like Ronny O'Sullivan come along

that like barely anybody you get the Mark

Selby's that are good and others but barely anyone

can recreate what

Ronny O'Sullivan can do and what he's like

and in Darts you know Luke Littler

he's probably going to captivate all of us

for years to come because he's just

the way he is he's so good and in

racing I look at Verstappen

in my era as that

person that holds that halo

and do you think that is

do you think it's as good as what people make

it out to be online is what I'm saying the gaps

the performances the deliverables

it's not a simple yes or no question

I mean is it that good

yes 100%

is it pure talent

in the baseline

of everyone

out there of course someone is more talented for

one way or the other

but in racing there is

so much more than talent alone

and Max like many other

F1 drivers was fortunate enough

A to have budget

and also have someone behind him which was

and still is his father

there are

even like some stories online

that show

a complete extreme

version of how his father

have pushed him towards

being a driver

by being extremely aggressive

there are stories out there that

for example where Max

didn't perform well in the race

and then after the race he wouldn't take his helmet

off for three hours because

he was crying because his father

lost his shit basically

is that a good thing do I want the same

for my son

I don't know

but was he talented yes

did he got institutionalized

up to a point that

he has a simulator on his flying jet

which is I think

actually not true but the stories are there

and that he is so

crazy that he is

a drug addict in a way

of he needs to race

like him doing an alas between two F1 races

that's

a joke compared to what he done last year

when he was racing 24 hours of eye racing

on the Nürburgring

while racing at the same time F1 race

he got told off for that

he got told off but he won both

and I think that's the problem

they say in videos you're only as good as your last video

it's very easy to forget those

things because suddenly

comes along in the GT3

that did happen

but basically what I'm getting at

he has so many years

of experience

and the pro drivers and the pro F1 drivers

are so good

because they started when they were 4 years old

maybe 5

some of them go as crazy as 3.5

maybe Jos

his father was one of them

you can walk now and get in the car

and actually Max's sister posted

an instagram reel

maybe a month ago or something

where her kids that are now

3 or something are already in the go kart

and you have

his dad or assistant

or something running behind

with a leash behind the go kart

to pull the kill switch if the kid goes too fast

that's how crazy it is

but what I'm getting at

when you have then

for you and me

a young person or a kid

of 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 years old

come to the racetrack

and beat other guys

I'm sorry but

at that time they already have 14 years

of high pressure

experience behind them

where they need to perform

because there are a lot of steak

there is a lot of emotional pressure for kids

because they

they

fuck sponsorship money

you do not want to upset your sponsors

you do not want to upset your parents

you know you think like

I do not want to upset my dad

or even worse he might beat me up

and they are to that point

winning for them is more than just like

p123 it's about that

and they have this kind of killer instinct

that they go out there to win

and they have 14 years behind them

I am right now

last week I turned 36

I started

driving for fun on track

when I was 21

I started racing more or less professionally

when it was 2019

so I was 29, 30 years old

so you could say I have 5 years

of professional racing experience

I am competing up top there

but the kid who is like 18 years old

and comes and kicks my ass

it's not impressive because he has

10 years more experience than I have

at this point in a much more

stressful environment

so to summarize all of that

F1 drivers are definitely a completely different league

because they were

really prepped to do that

and if they have everything

to make it happen

by that I mean the budget

of course to get there because

like even in go karting

when you start your first years

if you want to race professionally

it's already a quarter of a million euro plus

well not every parent can afford that

let's be honest

most of them cannot

so yeah

it's a completely different league

out there and if you happen to like it

and actually not just doing it

because you ended up doing it

you can go completely

a different mile and

yeah do extremely great things

I remember one of the first F1 drivers

that you ever did a video with

was Robert Kubica right and I think

it could be still your most viewed video

on the channel it is yes

so you've already

had F1 drivers, previous F1 drivers

come out and do videos with you

at the ring and we've seen people like

Liam Lawson out on the track before having fun

and like all these guys love to come here

and now Max do you see

a future for like your content

as it evolves with the businesses alongside it

that someone like Max you could eventually

get in one of the videos or another driver

or do you see that going that way

with the popularity of the Nürburgring

and how much they love racing here

I mean I don't know because over the years

of course I had like cool

collabs, guests, opportunities

you name it

could it happen yeah 100%

do I want it to happen I can straight up

say for me like doing a lap with Max

on a passenger seat or whatever even in a

slow car that would be the one

thing that I would want to do like in terms

of content because

like I have so much respect for the guy

and he even in his love

for the Nürburgring that would be very well

resonate for my channel

basically and even

like simply for the vibes

honestly I would even do it off camera

I think one of my favorite

videos all year and I actually

first said this to Jay Leno because

like in the background of our shot

today just out of

shot when I did the podcast with Jay Leno

a couple of months ago was his

new Mustang GT

had delivered that was the same

one that Chris Harris and Max

went out and did the video on and

as much as I've tried to get Chris Harris on this

podcast many times and he's not quite ready

for it we're going to keep trying

I'm happy to say that that probably

was up there with one of the best videos I've

ever watched that video of him and Max

in that car I'd love to see

Max comes to the ring and create something

of similar ilk because it was

special and I think

going back to the fact that

Max's performance

his achievements

or his racing experience at the Nürburgring

has already made it extremely popular

and will make it even more

popular and I said it

also in my video when I've done the analysis

when Max does a lap

of TF

game over

it's going to be then so popular

because then people realize

just to explain what that is

for the people that don't know about us

public session Nürburgring

where you can come when people realize

like oh I could be out with Max

I can be out with Max

oh Max has went

there this amount of kilometers

per hour I'm going to try to beat that

which is of course already happening

like you know people try to

say that they are faster

or compare them with the world's greatest

etc etc but

yeah to show that people

can do something simple like that

do you think he'll do that

do you think he'll head out on some public sessions

if he's spending more time here

I don't know

honestly I don't know

I don't know what his

contractual

obligations and limitations are

when it comes to F1

oh yeah F1

the fact that he has to go and do his day job

yeah exactly no

related to that it's an honest concern

like you know he may or may not

be allowed to do it and if he is allowed

then great

he might not want to do it because

it's also when you get to this level of popularity

you cannot just go

over the street or over the track by yourself

so he might just go and do a lap

in a private car

but do it either at least on a very private

track day or

a track day of his own that he just runs the track

for himself and does that so

probability the possibility is there

probability I don't know I'm just over thinking

does it describe

though when we talk about him

a completely different character

to most of the other drivers on the grid

and previous drivers that you kind of know as well

because can you think back and tell me that

because I'm a fairly new fan

formula only like six seven years

I started properly watching from kind of

2018 onwards

but I can't think of

many examples of drivers

that have wanted to do it all in such

a way of like

doing a lot. I remember

when Lewis started going out and driving some cars

in the desert. Fransmen say cup slopes

that's completely

the wrong words to

use to describe what he was doing because there's

a lot more to it than that but

have you come across drivers that love the

variants of racing

as much as what Max does?

No for sure I mean you have

drivers that are known to drive

simply everything and anything out there

on track

different kind of racing levels

even bikes

like for example

now the first one comes up to my like

John I think no Certiz

yeah Certiz in Gurney

I think Certiz was doing both bikes and

F1 cars

but even now like

Valentino Rossi the greatest

MotoGP is now racing

GT3 cars basically

so there are people out there or

you mentioned Robert Kubica

the reason why he is

didn't make it this far into F1

due to his accident that he

sustained to injury in rally

because he was enjoying rally

as much if not more than

F1 and he wanted to do everything

at the same time and now he is

one Le Mans

which is also a very

insane achievement maybe even higher than certain

F1 races of course because it's 24 hours

on the top of the level

would you ever have a go at rallying

like in the summer I remember bumping into

Holly McCrae

at Goodwood Festival of Speed

it then made me go back

and watch a load of videos of Colin McCrae

and it just makes you realise

how superhuman

some of those moments is that you know

the barriers are the trees

like the surface is changing like it is

on the ring with oil and coolant

from sand to gravel

like there is so many different changes

in that environment was that something that you'd ever do

oh yeah for sure

I would do that I know I would not be like

because it's completely different discipline

also there you need to start

from the young age so

I would love to try it

and I am actually working on something

to do something similar like the coming year

I have like an open invite

to do something that I would like to make it happen

so yeah in short

yes would I dedicate my life

to it

but with things like this

which is your wonderful coffee

from Ray Stretto

and all the other bits that come with it

the chocolate and building the businesses

by the way my son chews on this packaging

and building the businesses

away from the circuit

do you still have

those ambitions

to go and race

at the next level the next level

the next level

uh no

are those ambitions shifting towards this

they're shifting absolutely because also like

um like this car here

this Civic that I bought

uh I

my goal was to build it to race the

25 hours of nevergreen with this car

to build it to actually race the N24

and be successful

in class of course yes

but after having had

quite interesting

two other

N24 races over the last

two years and also some other races

I realized I do not want

to spend a lot of time

and budget and dedication to

persuade one

particular event that might

go completely tits up because of

the weather because someone might crash into me

or I might crash myself

or who knows what's gonna happen you know

and then everything is done for nothing

I really want to enjoy life

as it is and have

as much fun as I can

in a responsible manner of course

as much as I can

yeah so there is no like

real goal chasing you know

also

when we go to

like to the basics of my

like I don't know journey or success

when it comes to youtube channel

content creation I never started

it with the goal or even I could not

imagine that one day I'm going

to have

100 plus million views a month

and 5 million followers

who watch me simply for doing laps

on the never cream or I don't know like you know

or being able to turn my passion into a job

I never thought this was possible

and therefore sorry for bumping in your mic

I never thought it was possible in general

um and neither was my

goal because I was just doing something

what I liked and I wanted to share that with people

and uh

interact with people either ask them

for advice for certain things with cars

or share the passion for the never cream

for cars etc etc

and this is something that I still

like to do in

every way shape or form

whether it is in the laps

or racing

I'm there for the experience I want to

drive cars I want to

build fast cars

and if we gonna achieve a certain goal

then great and sure and the same goes

for the business

I do not have

a goal to have like

I don't know 10 million a month

turn over and have

100 people working for me and being like

like Monty for example

partially owned

by another big car manufacturer

or being something something I just

want to

do the best

in what I'm doing

without losing myself

and the fun in doing

of the certain thing

and the same goes also like towards being a family

man like you know everyone like

not everyone but majority of comments

for obvious reasons whenever I post something

with my son like you know us being

in the car or him watching me spectate

from the sidelines people say like oh yeah

this is the next project for stopping

something like you know this is the next

N24 and just to give context

to that literally two hours ago

Misha was taking a photo of his son

in a race seat

that just turned up

so I think the plan very much

is that in the back of your head a long way off

but we'll see a bit about it

it's not the plan it's just something like you know

I'm sharing the fun that I

was not able to have as a kid myself

that I want him

if he has access to these experiences

great am I going to put him in the

go-karts when he's four years old

absolutely

if he says no I don't like it I want

to dance ballet

well let's go to ballet school

the thing is

I want him to have all the support

he can possibly have

without crying in the helmet for three hours

yes definitely

again two sides of the story

if he says that I want to

I want to race F1 one day

I'm like okay but it comes with a sacrifice

and we need to do it so of course there's going to be

discipline in certain things but

am I going to have it in me too

like you know

to push him to these extremes

I don't know maybe

I think that's actually a really nice way

because I wanted to at some point in this conversation

bring up the thing that we started

our first ever conversation with

which was your roots and without going

too deep and off on tangents

of anything we're sat here

two years after our original conversation

talking about your coffee brand

which people can go and visit

your coffee shop in Nurburgring Boulevard

and we're sat inside

the unit at Vulcan Alpha

there is literal 3D printers

992 GT3 RS's

tire walls upstairs

outside there are cars

that you've been loaned from BMW

and Lucid because they want to work with you

there's tens of millions of views

there's probably been thousands

if not tens of thousands of views on your platform

since we just started this podcast

coming in

how insane is that

to hear those stats

kind of read back to you

when you think where you were

10 years ago

100%

no it is insane

on one way that thinking back

because if

if I were 10 years ago

like I said before I did not start YouTube

because I wanted to

to reach a certain number or earn some

amount of money or be able to drive a car

or something as a matter of fact

my progress

as a content creator

as a business owner or so

as a business owner last 2 years it's been a bit more

faster

but when it comes to

the content creation journey was very very long

because up until like I would say

3 years ago

I was never

self confident enough of seeing

this is possible

this is what I can do because of course

you read success stories of

matrimats, Elon Musk you name it

like you know who came from humble beginnings

or from nothing or maybe of course

they had access to have like 30,000 euro

of the starting fund

from their daddy and they could make it

into something big

but still you think like okay this is just

one of success story

it's not gonna happen today

today is a different environment

it's not gonna happen but

over the years I have been like inspired

a lot by

people that I know personally

not just from hearsay

from their story

and that I've seen coming from nothing

and build something great and I'm looking at them

either like thinking fair play to them

or great or like

I'm thinking like how the hell could he do that

not because I think like

Elon Musk is someone that's like you know

crazy or something but I know a person

XYZ

in person

for 5 or 10 years

and I know that they're an absolute mess of a person

I'm thinking if he can do it then why can I not do it

well that's

that's often the case and I often find it

in these conversations that

you don't quite tick right after these people

behind the scenes in one way or another

but to sit down and truly

appreciate that and not only that

the value that I want to give back to the audience

in these conversations you know we spend

two hours talking

I want to make sure that people

have taken in just one sentence away

and like sometimes I find

with these conversations the viewers might agree

with me is that you can take one

sentence away for the rest of your life

like you shoot for the stars but you'll end up

at the moon like there's something that you

you'll remember for the rest of time but I really

do think it's important with the amount

of people that kind of casually

consume your content or come in from time

to time but still appreciate it because

there is so much going out

you know I think the biggest audience is probably

the casual viewer

necessarily you've got a huge core audience

there's a lot of casual at the same time

I think it's important if they've joined this

story this journey over the last two years

to understand that

when you look at racing most of the

time there is a background there is some level

of privilege to how we get into it but your

story to get to what you've done today

and the people looking and thinking that amazing

that really has been off your own back

from making your own dreams come true

so I think it's just really cool to kind

of reflect on that for a minute.

No for sure and I hope like you know

again I never thought I would be in this position

that I could be an inspiration to many others

but people do come to me

in person and say like hey

either great job or you have inspired

me to pursue my

dreams as well and I actually am

now doing something that I like and etc etc

and yes I do want to

like weirdly enough

underlined that I came here

in 2015

with what being broke

and actually in depth because I had a job

offer because I needed a job to survive

and I was you can actually

go back to those videos

in my content when I was

like helping to run a hotel

and I was cleaning rooms bringing dirty laundry

cleaning the

toilets essentially like you know

and here I am today

like you know having

Nürburgring's

biggest media

outlet because again

over 100 million views a month

over a billion views a year

and multiple

businesses and etc and it's

yeah I think it's

quite good that

I managed to achieve that in 10 years

and if I can

do it again just like my

ADHD silly friend

of mine who I never thought how

lucky he can do it everyone can do it

with the right mindset again

shoot for the stars and you might end up on the moon

if you want to go to the moon

you want a pony ask for a unicorn

it's harder to survive success than a failure

is this the happiest you've

ever been

oof

hmm

that's a very nice question

to ask

I think so

I mean

happiest in the essence of

realizing that I have

everything in life that I can wish for

because I have loving wife and son

who are healthy I'm healthy

knock knock everyone and everything

I have a roof above my head

which was not always the case over the past

I was not always in a happy

relationship I was not always

like you know

I was unhappy as a kid I was always

dreaming to have a family of my own so this

for me is already like

I've made it in life

I never thought I could

have a truck car let alone

building a quarter of a million euro

on the Civic

or like

when I came here to the nerve

crane like I

was not doing any laps and then

I thought okay maybe one day I could do

a lap maybe one day I could have

a truck car and now I'm racing in the

top of the level and we are

the most watched race team around

the world after f1

when you combine all our numbers together

so yeah I think

this is so what is

the biggest risk

you've taken to achieve

that is it financial

or is it putting your life on the

line out on that track

well I mean when you put it like that

and definitely putting my life out on there on track

but when you're doing that you're just

having you need to have a certain mindset

of like either I'm going

to be as careful as I can be

or having this stupid mindset is not going

to happen to me or if it's going

to happen to me don't cry for me because

like you know the Paul Walker saying

so do you have the latter

oh no well not anymore

after

becoming a family person

and not even that and having

just a responsibility over the businesses

and employees and etc etc

so but in the past

I mean it's not that you are actually

you might be saying that

but it's not that you actually thinking

that but you just like you're

not thinking about the bad things

that are going to happen

and this is also what

separates a business

founder, businessman

business owner because you're not focusing

on the limitations you're focusing

on the goal, you're not thinking like

okay I cannot

do something because

the TUV regulation

does not allow me so my business is not going to

succeed because I'm based at the Nürburgring

or in Germany where my wings

or splitters need to be street legal

well guess what there's the whole world out there

why don't we focus on the whole world

you know let's do that so like do not

see limitations and like if something

yeah

the bigger the risk the bigger the reward for sure

well I think this

has given people an insight into

everything that's gone on this year

a lot of different things from the past

and some bits from let's be honest

the greatest Nürburgring expert

currently on the market

you've gone to piss off so many people but it's good for

the comment section

Misha thank you so much for coming on

not only talking about Vulcan Alpha

talking about your friends like Jimmy

that you spent so much time racing with

as I point over to his Ferrari 360 by the way

which is what we were building

talking about all the laps

all the videos all the content and the people

in between thank you for spending another

bit of time in the van for this

slightly pre Christmas Christmas special

it's like the kind of Christmas party that

companies get booked in a bit earlier because it's a bit cheaper

but you're going away

so that's what we'll put it down to so thank

you so much yet again for having

a chat with us on Road to Success

thank you so much for having me I'm looking forward to

coming back again I hope

chat number 62

why not

who knows I mean as you pointed out

the changes are quite

massive from the very first time

that we have met

and who knows where we're going to be in

it's a nice reference

point actually for people because it's a little

bit like when people get the chance to go

on the start on a reasonably priced car all did in the

past and they get the reference point of the

times and they know where they sit versus

somewhere else but this is different

because it gives people a chance to come

back on and even pitch themselves

against themselves in a period

of time so I hope we do get to episode

62 one day

it'll be nice and maybe then we talk about how

my son or daughter maybe

at the time it was actually a fun thing

well ADHD brain kicking in again

my wife saying there's a very high chance

she thinks that my son Marco is not going to be

into cars but

if and when we get

a daughter that she's going to be a crazy one

that she's going to be into racing

don't know why but you have to trust

woman's intuition so let's see

you said it now so in the future this could

be clipped up and we'll put it together

somewhere

About this episode

Misha Charoudin discusses the significant impact Max Verstappen is having on the Nürburgring, predicting a surge in popularity by 2026. He reflects on his recent racing successes, including breaking a 'P2 curse' and winning an NLS race, while also sharing insights into his evolving career as a content creator and business owner. The conversation touches on the challenges of racing, the importance of safety, and the influence of social media on motorsport. Misha also shares personal anecdotes about his family and ambitions, making for an engaging and insightful episode.

24 hour race aerodynamic enhancements aerodynamic mods Aston Martin canards downforce DRS GT3 GT4 Lexus

BMW 3 Series BMW CS BMW M2 BMW M4 BMW M5 Ferrari 360 Ferrari F8 Tributo Ford Mustang Ford Mustang GTD Honda Civic Lamborghini Huracan Lucid Air Porsche Cayman Porsche Taycan

Original notes

Make sure to use code RTS at https://go.obdeleven.com/success for an extra 5% off your order, on top of their amazing Black Friday Deals of up to 40% off!This is Misha's fifth time joining the podcast, and a lot has changed! In this "pre-Christmas special", we dive into how much Misha's life has accelerated, from his racing career to his booming businessesDon’t forget to subscribe to our channel for more exciting content about your favourite shows and celebrities. Hit the bell icon to stay updated on all our latest episodes👍 Like, Comment, and Share this episode. Join our discussion in the comments sectionCheck out Tweak: https://www.tweakuk.com/🔗 Follow Us:Instagram: @Roadtosuccessofficialpodcast@benedictfowlerContact: [email protected]

Road To Success with Benedict Fowler

Tweak Marketing

View classic page →

0:00

110:04