An internal combustion engine is the part that burns fuel to make power. In today’s F1 cars, it works together with other hybrid systems, not by itself.
In F1, the power unit is the car’s main engine-and-energy system. It’s not just one engine—it's the whole setup that makes the car go, and F1 rules control it a lot.
A performance equalizing mechanism is basically a set of rules meant to keep teams from getting too far ahead. The goal is to make races closer so more cars can compete for position.
“Levelling the playing field” means trying to make it fairer so one team doesn’t always win. In F1, it usually comes from rule changes that limit how much teams can pull ahead.
James Hunt was a famous Formula 1 driver from the 1970s. People remember him not only for racing, but also for being a big personality off the track.
Person
Nicky Louders
This sounds like Niki Lauda, a famous Formula 1 champion. He’s brought up as part of the idea that drivers’ personalities and rivalries helped make F1 entertaining.
Cost caps are rules that limit how much F1 teams are allowed to spend. That’s meant to keep rich teams from having a huge advantage just because they can buy more resources.
Formula One is the highest level of open-wheel racing. Teams build and develop their cars under rules, so the competition isn’t only about the drivers—it’s also about engineering.
Christian Horner is a top leader in Formula 1—he runs Red Bull Racing. In this segment, he’s referenced to support the idea that if cars are equal, the drivers matter even more.
The FIA is Formula 1’s governing body. They use an official way to measure how strong certain parts of the engine are, and that measurement affects what upgrades teams can bring.
In hybrid F1 cars, batteries store energy so the car can use it later. The speaker is saying the upgrade rules in this case don’t let teams change the battery side—only the engine side.
“Gamed it” means teams use the rules in a clever way to get an advantage. The idea here is that they might not show their full speed until after the checks happen.
“Levelling up” in F1 refers to rule changes intended to reduce performance gaps between teams. The hosts argue that making cars/engines more equal can shift competition toward specific development areas, but it may also create a ceiling where teams converge and it becomes harder to find new performance gains.
The “electrical side” means the parts that store and use electrical energy in the car. In F1, that can be a big part of how teams develop speed, not just the traditional engine.
The “battery side” is the energy storage part of the F1 system. Rules that focus on it try to make teams’ energy use more similar, so one team can’t gain a huge advantage just by having a better energy setup.
Red Bull is a Formula One team/brand that competes at the front of the grid and is used in the discussion as an example of how a team might react to “levelling” rules. The hosts speculate whether Red Bull would stop developing its internal combustion engine if it believed it couldn’t be overtaken.
“Hungary” is shorthand for the Hungarian Grand Prix, one of the F1 races. People use it as a marker for when they’ll reassess how the cars are performing under the rules.
Ferrari is another major F1 team. Here it’s mentioned in a strategic context—when they’ll be measured again and how that affects who has the advantage.
Pirelli makes the tires used in Formula 1. Different tire types can change how much grip the cars have and how long the tires last, which can completely change which drivers are able to win.
“Active car” refers to an F1 car concept where the car uses electronics and actuators to adjust its behavior in real time (for example, suspension or aerodynamic settings) to improve grip and stability. The key point is that it can make performance less dependent on driver skill and more dependent on technology, which is why it becomes controversial when rules restrict it.
Hybrid technology in F1 means the car uses both a traditional engine and an energy-recovery/electric system. It helps the car use fuel more efficiently while still being fast.
This is about grabbing energy the car would normally waste and using it again. In F1 hybrids, that recovered energy helps the car move more efficiently.
This means making F1 mainly for show—prioritizing excitement over other goals. The speaker is saying F1 can’t just chase spectacle without consequences for the rules and technology.
They’re comparing the rules to a straight jacket—something that restricts what teams can do. Teams still look for loopholes or clever ways to win while staying inside the limits.
The McLaren 12C GT Sprint is a race version of the McLaren 12C. It’s made to be driven hard on a track, for shorter race events. People talk about it because it’s an example of how a regular performance car can be turned into a dedicated race car.
Team orders are when a racing team tells one driver to let another driver win or to stop fighting. Fans sometimes feel it makes the race less exciting or less fair.
Netflix is referenced as one reason more people started watching F1. The point is that some new fans may focus more on entertainment than the full details.
Lewis Hamilton is a top Formula 1 driver and a major star of the sport. The hosts mention him because his fans were especially upset during a controversial moment.
A regulation change means the sport changed the rules. In this case, it affected when teams were allowed to change tires, which can completely change race strategy.
“Can’t change tyres” means teams weren’t allowed to swap tires during the race. That makes tires last longer, so teams have to drive and plan around tire wear.
Bridgestone makes racing tires used in Formula 1. Here, the point is that their tires wore out sooner than the other brand, hurting teams when the rules stopped teams from swapping tires.
Michelin makes racing tires used in Formula 1. In this story, Michelin tires lasted longer, which mattered a lot when teams weren’t allowed to change tires during the race.
“Legislate again” just means they changed the rules again. They did it because the earlier tire rules caused problems for teams and the season didn’t go as expected.
“You can do tyres now” means teams were allowed to use tires differently again—likely including changing them. The idea is that after the rule shift, the tire maker could improve the tire and teams got back on track.
Kimi Antonelli is an F1 driver. The speaker mentions him because he’s described as winning many races in a row, and they’re debating how long that kind of dominance stays entertaining.
“Level playing field” in F1 means designing rules so no single team can dominate purely through superior resources or loopholes. The speaker argues that when the FIA both sets technical boundaries and then penalizes teams for excelling, it can undermine the natural incentive to race for performance.
They’re debating whether F1 should be run like a sport first (fair competition) or like entertainment first (keeping things unpredictable). The discussion centers on how rules and penalties affect that balance.
The speaker is talking about rules that can punish teams for being too successful. Instead of just rewarding speed within the rules, the sport may try to slow the leaders down so the racing stays closer.
This is talking about Bernie Ecclestone, who ran Formula 1’s business side for decades. The point here is that he sometimes made choices to keep the championship from becoming too one-sided.
F1 has rules that limit how much energy the car can use during a race. It’s meant to keep teams from getting an unfair advantage just by using more energy than everyone else.
A double diffuser is a shape at the back of an F1 car that helps the air flowing underneath the car. Better airflow under the car can create more grip (downforce) so the car can go faster through corners.
Car
Brabham
Brabham is an F1 racing team. Here it’s mentioned as an example of a time when the cars/teams were much closer or farther apart in speed than later.
Car
Williams
Williams is a famous Formula 1 team. The host is using it as an example to show that switching teams doesn’t instantly make you dramatically faster.
Refuelling means topping up the fuel during the race. The point here is that if everyone can just drive flat-out the whole time, the race becomes less interesting because there’s less need to change pace or strategy.
Qualifying is when drivers race to decide where they start for the main race. The host is saying that if qualifying and race conditions end up too similar, the race doesn’t change much.
Sprinklers would be a way to make the track wet on purpose. The concern is that it would give too much power to the person controlling it, rather than letting racing and strategy decide outcomes.
A rain shower is a brief burst of rain. In F1, that can quickly change how slippery the track is, which affects tires and strategy.
LIVE
So Damon, we've just had the first audio adjustment additional development upgrade
opportunities of the internal combustion engines, ICs, that's a component of the
PU, the power unit. Are you going to speak English in a minute?
Okay, I'll stop with that. So basically it's a performance equalizing mechanism that the
FIA and F1 together combined to try and bring everybody's internal combustion engines to roughly
the same level. Is that something we should be doing? Is that right? Because to me it feels
a bit like the world record 100 meter sprinters sets his time and then you say to him, okay,
you can't compete for a while, we're going to see if some other people can't beat your
time.
Do we say ultimate goal is to have a dead heat of all eight runners or whatever it is?
Yeah, so where do you stand on now? Should we do that in a sport or is it a sport?
Well, yeah, is it a sport? Is it a sport or is it entertainment? And I think we're getting
to that point now, we're getting to that threshold where those questions are pertinent. I think
it's, you know, and liberty have done amazing things with the sports. You have to say the
way it was run before with burning was very kind of like, I mean, it's slightly aimly
retentive. I'm sorry if I put people off for these next term, but it's, I mean, I think
he was, he took the view that you restrict supply and then you increase demand and liberty
of someone. We need more of access. We need more people to be able to see who these people
are and that's entertaining. And then if we can get the drivers to do a little dance as
well, you know, or put on a funny hat, then people like it. You know, that's, that's where
I think you get the kickback from some drivers where they feel they're being, they're being
put up to entertain everyone in every respect of whether they are, you know, playing silly
games in the, in the paddock just to show their character or whatever that that imagine
that being put to the, the James Hunts and the Nicky Louders. I mean, they created their
own sort of personality entertainment factor, although it may have been slightly controversial
in today's terms. But yeah, this, this equalizing was part of that. The attempt to equalize
was part of an agenda, which was we can't have how it used to be where one team gets
dominant and stays there for the entire season. Because where's the entertainment value in
that? And I think that is, I think that's a fair point. And I think they've done the
leveling up or the leveling down. Really, it's leveling down, isn't it? You've got the
opportunity with cost caps and people who don't have teams that don't have the most
points or they've got more space, but then maybe don't have the resources and the factory
and the equipment to catch up. But anyway, you've got a chance to, to equalize. Is that
then no longer a sport is a question? Because if you've denied people the opportunity, which
is part of the show in Formula One is, is sharing off the manufacturing and the design
and the intelligence of race teams, ability to be challenged technically. It's not just
about the drivers. Yeah. So that's always been the DNA of Formula One. I think while
you can say the driving competition, you could call that a sport, but the technological
competition, it's still competition, but it's, it's, it's slightly different to sport,
isn't it? And I think basically this make equalization mechanism is almost making that
element redundant. It's, it's almost saying, if you get too far ahead, we're going to peg
you back. And then it's more, is it more a sport then for the drivers because you've
equalized the machinery and that's, that goes against the DNA of Formula One, but is there
not a case to be made saying, yeah, but that's always been what's wrong with F1 and now we're
putting it right.
I can remember Christian Horner saying something to the effect of that. If you carry on down
that road, you know, the drivers value will be going through the roof because if you've
got a driver that's two tenths quicker and no one can get an advantage, then of course
the driver is the key. Ultimately, if you're talking about a totally level playing field,
but it is quite interesting that, you know, we're now getting people gaming the system,
it seems, where they're not showing, we believe that some teams may have more power than they're
showing because they know they're going to be penalized at a date with the addaway development
opportunity thing. And so they're going, well, they're not going to show you what I've got
until you've brought in the changes. And then after that, I'll, I'll take the cape off and
reveal my true identity. Yeah. So we've had Red Bull has been measured as according to the FIA's
method of measurement as having the strongest internal combustion engine. That doesn't mean
it's the strongest power unit combined, but the strongest internal combustion engine.
Mercedes second and Ferrari third and Ferrari sufficiently far off that it gets two upgrades
this season. Mercedes gets one and Red Bull doesn't get any. So these upgrades can only apply,
be applied to the ice, the internal combustion engine part, not to the batteries and all
that. That's correct. So yeah, so I think you could have had a scenario in those first few
races where the performances were being measured where, for example, Mercedes suspects Ferrari is
not showing its full hand and so it doesn't show its full hand. And so as they're both sort of
watching each other, that might be why the Red Bull has been measured as the best.
Yeah. So were Red Bull naive? Well, that's, it's possible. And I think this might be
a new element of the competition is you're not only competing driver to driver and the teams
competing with each other, but they're competing against the random interference of the, the,
the regulators and they've gamed it. So the first race at which you could see if there's any
change in performance after they'd announced, okay, this is, this is what we found.
What, what happens for Ferrari going to win the race? So it does.
That's, that's interesting observation isn't it? I mean, that's, it just so happens you feel
saying that the timing fits beautifully. It is suspicious. And they were, they never qualified
any closer than two and a half tenths to pole. And suddenly they're just about on pole, separated
by hundreds that could have gone either way and they win the race. So is, okay, you can say, yeah,
but they brought aero upgrades and blah, blah, blah, yeah, maybe could be, but it's just, it is,
it is worth bearing in mind that that might be what we're looking at.
Yeah. Is the objective because it would make sense to conclude from this restriction on,
on the leveling up the opportunity for, for other competitors to level up with the best
power unit in, sorry, the best internal combustion engine in the sport, that their objective is to
make all the internal combustion engines part of the equation equal. So why don't they just go,
why don't they just go, here's your engine? Yeah. Well, that's, that's, you know, if you take that
to its logical conclusion, I guess that's what you're looking at. The, the justification made
was that they wanted to see the competition, the development competition be on the electrical side,
on the battery side. And therefore, let's get all everybody's engines, internal combustion engines,
ICs, as close as possible, equal as quickly as possible. And that was the justification of it.
But from just from history, is that necessary? Because if you look at it, when you just let them
compete with each other, they all end up, once you've run the formula for a couple of years,
they all end up very close to each other, aren't they? Yeah, if you don't keep changing the rules
or adding in additional upgrade benefits, then, then the inevitable conclusion is it gets harder
to find a game because they've explored everything they could possibly can and they're all intelligent
enough and they will get there in the end. It's just whether or not the team, mostly it's,
mostly for ones about your speed of development, it's not lack of knowledge or lack of intelligence,
it's this basically whether or not you can run another enough scenarios in a week compared
to everyone else. But the point you're making was, does it, does this then bring in a reluctance?
So does, does Red Bull now go, okay, we're no point in developing our internal combustion engines?
We're done. That's it, it's done. Because as long as we sit there, then no one else can
overtake us, surely? But unless you're saying that now, Ferrari have kind of, the starting gun
has been fired, and when's the next time they're measured? After Hungary, so yeah, it does get
measured again. So it could be that Red Bull then get the, so this is just another strategy.
It's another strategy game of the game of Formula One. You have to, you have to include it in,
in your, in the game and what you're doing in your strategy. So those, actually it's tactics,
isn't it? I can't, one of the two. Yeah, strategy is the big picture and tactics,
the whole thing and the nitty-gritty. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I think really it's,
it's just underlining that you're on a fool's errand trying to manipulate things in this way,
because they're just, such competitive entities, they'll just say, oh, okay, and I'll use that in
a different way to compete. So is it like, so is Formula One a bit like a, the headmaster of the
school or the teacher in the classroom, where he's trying to keep control and the kids keep
on finding a way around the rules that he brings up and they keep getting out witted.
They are, it's hard to believe that, that teams with hundreds of engineers and very brilliant
people cannot outwit the limited resources of the FIA and I'm not saying that the people in the FIA
making regulations are without intelligence, but they're limited in, in ability. There's not many
of them. Yeah, I mean, mostly they are having to respond because they're not developing cars.
So they can't find out what it is they're trying to stop until it's happened.
I'm Paul Tenorio. I cover soccer for the athletic and I'm Amy Lawrence. I cover football for the
athletic. Whatever you call it, the biggest competition in the sport is happening right
now and the athletics World Cup coverage has everything you need to follow the tournament.
We've got more than 70 obsessive reporters on the ground. If you're eager to know more about the
teams, the matches, all the stories on and off the pitch, we've got you sorted.
Throughout the tournament, you have free access to all the coverage in our app.
Download the athletic app and see you there.
Get you up to your first point, which is, is this in, this is, we're, we're clearly finding it
quite entertaining. Yeah. I mean, is it, is it a sport? Yeah. Well, that's a sport to me because
that's, they're competing. It's just, it's so kind of esoteric and kind of rarefied kind of
game that only very few people are interested in. And the big game is most people sitting down and
saying, well, who's going to win? Is it going to be the guy at the back who's usually at the back?
Could he win? And that's what I think Liberty were trying to achieve. They asked him the same
question. They go, how can has win the next four races, for example? Yeah. You know, and not
because they want particularly has, but it's just, we want a randomness. But I mean, do you remember
when they brought in some Pirelli tires that 2012 intro, five different winners in five races?
I think it was eight and 88 and eight. Yeah. Different winners. Yeah. And everyone's
going, this is something wrong. It's not right. It was deeply disturbed me because it was just
it's never stumbled into the right combination. It was just like a fruit machine. And it was,
it wasn't merit based. But is that, is that because we like to know, be able to
predict? And then when something doesn't, doesn't. I don't think so. I think it's because you like
to think that it's merit based. And okay, the, the, the, the cars, the difference in cars means
that the, you know, the, the guy in a house isn't going to win a race. But you want to think that
the, the best drivers have ended up getting in the best cars and then competing with each
other in the best cars. And whoever wins is that, that's a merit based result. And it, I think for
a while there, the way that those particular tires were working and nobody understood them,
it wasn't, it was just random. And I think getting back to your point of when the regulators tweak
things like that to try and make outcomes to where, where they have as their goal,
certain outcome, that's getting into script writing rather than competition.
So I was, I always think that sport is, it is like, you know, you could say it is a,
it's a film without a script. And so it's entertainment in the sense that people are
interested in how the story is going to go. But there's not someone writing because once
someone's writing it, that's not a sport, is it? And that's the question is whether or not,
or how you find the balance of the tipping point, you know, are we satisfied? Is it, I'm not,
I think it's a sport now. I don't think, and they're doing their best to put restrictions on them.
It's always annoying as hell when you, when somebody says, no, you can't, I mean, I was with
Williams and they came up with the active car, but of course the active car was so much better
than everyone else's. It won everything. And, and they, and they said, well, it's all, they
claim, they brought up the idea that it's too expensive. Well, I mean, there wasn't a cost
cap back then. So people are always going to spend whatever on developing, but it was,
and they destroyed a technology to bring it back to
an idea that things would be easier for others people to compete.
Yeah. Maybe, I don't know. I mean, that's, in this case, they seem that the hybrid technology
is important in that the manufacturers are interested in that. And I think that hybrid has
got to be, it's going to be a very, it's going to be with us a long time on road, road vehicles.
You know, I think it is, it's shown to be efficient. It's shown to be very versatile.
It's not particularly green in the sense that you've still got a carbon petroleum
burning internal combustion, but in terms of Formula One, it's produced these incredibly
efficient power units, which can, can scavenge and recover fuel and everything. So that part of
the equation is, then if you would just say, let's just do it for pure entertainment, you'd have
dragster engines with nitrous oxide and flames coming up back all the time. Well, that's not
going to happen, is it? I think that would be much more entertaining. But so there is,
I think there is still a sobriety to this, much as you want it to be entertaining. I think that
there's a championship alive. There's a difficulty, there's a straight jacket you put the teams in
and they're trying, they're wriggling to try and get out of these straight jackets. So
it's still not clear who's going to win this championship. But you're saying that, it's
how do you communicate that to fans? Because on the one hand, you want it to be reasonably simple.
Yeah, and I think this is a conflict that Formula One has increasingly found itself in. I think
it's always to an extent being this, that you're trying to tell a nice simple story from a very
complex competition, from a very complex endeavor. And I think you have to be careful that you are not
just telling a story that's not authentic, or you're not presenting a story that's not authentic.
And I think a lot of people, maybe not the hardcore fans of the sport, but a lot of the
more recent fans, let's say, would value entertainment over knowing the full picture.
They would almost prefer, if there's a complication to this, it's going to stop me enjoying that.
I just don't want to hear. And I think that's tricky territory. And I don't think,
I've spoken about this before on previous podcasts, but I think that's a dangerous thing to be basing
your business model on. Because if there's a sudden switch off, if that group of people who are being
entertained suddenly realize that it's not really what they thought it was, is how solid is that?
That I can remember watching a McLaren 1-2 in Monaco once. And when I found out that they were
playing team orders. Oh, on Hamilton. I remember being really annoyed. Because I thought,
are you just being playing with us? I've been watching this thinking I'm watching a race,
a great race, and it turns out it's not a great race. And I felt very disillusioned. And I've been
through those. And I'm sure you have. We've all been through it. Anyone who's followed Formula
1 has had these moments where you're going to be massively disappointed with the whole thing.
And I think that what you've been alluding to just now is this, I think it's a genuine concern,
which is that with the expansion of the interest in the sport, which is a good thing. We want
everyone, more people to love the sport. It's gone across the Atlantic. And there's lots of new
fans and Netflix has played its part. And of course, that coincided with Abu Dhabi,
which was the big controversial event where you had got a lot of fans, particularly Lewis Hamilton
fans who knew to the sport, who were outraged. And then they started to see shadows everywhere
when you follow sport. Now you can go. So then you can turn it around and say, okay, well,
is the script, has the script been written and I'm not taking anything away from what Lewis
did in Spain? But wouldn't it be great if Lewis got his eighth world title back as a story?
Yeah. Yeah. Then you start thinking, well, is that a desired outcome?
Well, it is. But it's not, you don't want it. Yeah. But are you legislating for that desired
outcome? And how do we convince anybody? That it's not. just
on merit. And this is a real genuine human. If he achieves that, because it would be the most
amazing story. Absolutely. Yeah. And of course, the germ of that now is the possibility that is
out there tantalizingly hanging there. You know, you've got, you've got 19 year old, the youngest
ever guys due to breaking records. And then you've got one of the oldest guys who's trying to get
his eighth title that he just didn't cruelly denied. I mean, it's almost Homeric, isn't it?
It's ridiculous. So that's the setup. But we want it to be real. It has to be genuine.
Even if it is real, but there are doubts about it. It's the same thing. It's spoiled. And I think
that's what, you know, really, really has to be careful of when you're doing things. That's why I
think Adio, for example, was ill-considered because it lends itself to that idea that you may be
legislating for an outcome. And also, it's where the teams would have got to anyway, if you just let
them compete. So Oliver Minzler goes to see the FIA president apparently in Paris after this has
come out that the Red Bull has got the best power unit. So then you start
people start thinking, what did they talk about? And then, if we know there's this kind of conspiracy
theory whirlwind. And what were they talking about? And so we want to know. Because this is the
concern. It's got to keep it genuine, keep it. We can believe in it. I can remember
I won, or I watched a championship and I was asked to go on some chat show radio or something like
that. And the guys sort of set it up as saying, yeah, it's four on one. Well, everyone knows it's
fixed. And I remember just being really upset that this person really thought that this was all
just a show. And that's going back to when I think Jack Villeneuve won or something. And I was,
and I just said, okay, well, I can understand you're thinking that because strange things always
did use to happen. I mean, why did Lewis's car suddenly stop in Sao Paulo in the year that
Kimmy won? Do we know? We don't know. And so there's always going to be the mystery in there. But
at the bottom of it, there is a sincere genuine sport. And it's just hard, I think sometimes
it's easy for new fans to build it, to lose faith very quickly.
Yeah. And I think the more complications you put in that, the more susceptible you are to those
theories taking hold. And it's, you know, I think, yeah, nobody wants to see the same winner time
after time after time, even though if it was surely merit based, that's what you would probably get.
Because the combination of team and driver, if it's better than the others, will
keep winning until something better comes along.
Schumacher and Ferrari.
Schumacher and Ferrari, Vettel and Red Bull, Hamilton and Mercedes, Verstappen and Red Bull.
But then that stretch, credulity, I thought that the Schumacher and Ferrari constant winning
thing. I mean, maybe it's because I just retired from racing and I raced against Michael,
but I just used to watch and get on. I can't watch this. I did. I literally didn't watch,
I just, I can't do it anymore.
Yeah, but you were personally sort of...
Maybe.
I wounded.
I wounded, yeah.
Prejudiced even, you know. But anyway, that did, that did, but eventually they had to put a stop
to it. They were going, you can't be losing viewers.
Yes, yeah. So they did a regulation change. They said, right, you can't change tyres,
knowing that the Bridgestones that the Ferraris were on didn't last as long as the
Michelins that the competition was on. So they had a terrible season in 2005.
So bad that, you know, they had to legislate again. The following says,
yeah, you can do tyres now that Bridgestones had a chance to do a proper tyre and Ferrari
will back again.
So that's an add to a thing, isn't it? That was an upgrade opportunity, wasn't it,
for a Bridgestone?
Yes.
Only it was tyres.
Yeah. Yeah, it was. So we were going in that room for that.
And yeah, it doesn't matter.
Yeah.
So it's always been there.
It is. I think the spot has to be careful not to jump on top of that too quickly because
it can get unbalanced. I mean, we just had, before Lewis had that breakthrough win at
Barcelona, we had Kimi Antonelli winning five races in a row.
And everybody loves that, but it's new. And it's, you know, it's a great story.
But, you know, after he's won his third or fourth championship in a row, everybody
will be sick of that.
You'll be with someone else now.
You'll find someone younger.
Yes.
I was just thinking about, I mean, because the FIA's job is to make it a level playing
field and also to prescribe the technical boundaries. But they're in the position now
of saying, we're going to penalise you if you do too well.
Which I think that used to be more the remit of F1 itself. I mean, when Bernie pulls out
his fan car for realising he's going to destroy the championship back in 1978.
He's looking at the big picture and he's deciding that's not going to be good.
And so that was a commercially-based, he took the decision for the sake of not making it
boring. I'm not going to, I'm going to forgo the opportunity to win.
Should quite a sacrifice.
Yeah, but he had twin rolled and he was looking after Formula One as the sort of leader of that
photo as it was then. And a team owner as well. So yeah, I guess you had to balance one out
against the other. Those roles have been decoupled since then, haven't they? So I think...
Because it was Colin Chapman as well who designed the two chassis car.
And when that got banned, he went off in a huff and said, I'm off to see the space shuttle launch,
she said, at least where they appreciate technical advances and everything. But that's
an unlimited technical ambition, isn't it? It requires the very best of everything.
And you're not, okay, you're in the race with the Russians or the Chinese to get to the moon,
but you're not, you know what I mean? It's like, they're not going to say,
there's no governing body saying, no, you've got to get to the moon, but we don't want you going too
often. You can't use that much. So he was, but their point is in order to have a sport,
you can't let one person win it all the time. And then how do you make it so that it's not like
we had in, in, in what year was it when they won eight races? Well, I remember,
Pasta Noma, Altonardo won in Spain. You won in 2012. Yeah, 2012. You can't have it just so random
that everyone gets to go. Yes. Is it my race? Yes, exactly. And so, yeah. So it's, it's a difficult
job. It's what I'm saying. It's a difficult thing to, have they got it right? I mean, I think the
sport is in, it's in a good, good shape. But I think there are hazards and that's the bigger it
gets commercially, the, the more I think the temptation is going to be to manipulate. And I
think that would be exactly the wrong thing. And if there is going to be a period of dominance by
one team or one car, I think Formula One can afford to be quite relaxed about that. It's just
the transition. And credit where credit's due. If someone's done a great job. Absolutely, yeah.
Yeah. And I think that Adio is probably a step too far. I mean, the technology involved in the
internal combustion engine is very, very well known by all these organizations. Why, why mess
around with that? They will all get to the same place very quickly. So I don't think that was
really required. And I think it's, you would have got to the same place, but without all the
conspiracies and all the upsets questioning, if, if we hadn't done that. And
I just wonder what the competitive playing field would look like without that. And, and so that
touches a little bit on the other idea, which was, I think Max came up with it, which was you have a
energy allowance. And whether it was fuel or whatever, you can't, you have to produce something.
It doesn't matter. They wouldn't specify what, how many cylinders you had, how much the size of the
engine, you do whatever you like. And there was even the idea that the, within a shape or a size
of vehicle, you can do whatever you like within that as a, as a limiting factor. And then you'd
see more variety of approaches and it would be more interesting to see which teams were most
innovative. But then there is a chance, I suppose, that someone's going to come up with a much
clever idea than everyone else. Somebody gets it spectacularly right. Or a double, a double diffuser
situation where you said the rules of this and then. I thought you said that wasn't allowed.
Anyway, so you kind of, it wasn't not allowed. It So it's like the Oracle,
isn't it? It's going to see the Oracle in Delphi and you have to ask the, it's not what the Oracle
says, it's whether you ask a stupid question or not. And how you ask it. And how you ask it.
Let's say we've got people listening to us who want to understand the sport more,
they've got to understand that it's complicated. It is, there's no way around it. There is not,
you're not going to get a simplified F1. We hope not anyway. And, but what you want to be
able to do is go on the day in that competition, the guys who got a position and the driver got
a position, did a better job and then they got their form right at exactly the right time.
And I think I, maybe as a degree of naivety or a willingness to want to believe with me, I
will accept that. I mean, there's a few, a few occasions where I've gone, don't,
don't believe it. And I've, I've talked about it. I mean, and then I think it's time to express,
somehow we need a way to express our disappointment and annoyance. That's your job. You're a
journalist. You should be, you should be writing, which you do. You go, you write to me. This,
this smells a little bit of something fishy. And in other words, look out because
there will be a reaction if you'd carry on. What's the, what's the expression? You're,
you're not respecting the intelligence of the fans.
Yes, I think that's it. And I think there's the potential there to
the moment, I think to, to, to do that because it's so successful, commercially
successful. And because it's a relatively new phenomenon to have this level of commercial
success. I mean, it's enormous. So I think we're only in competition with SpaceX now, aren't we?
Yes. Yeah. So, yeah, not to be nihilistic about it and then not to be accused of being a gatekeeper
of, you know, and some old people that are out of touch. But I do think that,
you know, I do think that there, there is that potential hazard there and that it,
we need to be aware of it, but that it's in quite a good place right now. But I do think even
that little, little bit of legislation, Adio, has been gamed. I do believe that. And I do believe
that has had an impact on the season now as it happens. That should be, that should be explained.
If that's true, then we should, we should be, we should be revealing that. Because I think one of
the things that attracted people to Formula One was the, the Machiavellian cleverness was,
was another aspect, angle to the entertainment. And I often, I often thought with the difference in
American motorsport and European motorsport is that they didn't, they, I got the sense they
didn't like all the Machiavellian kind of constant, you know, there is, there is, culturally, there
is, I think, at least on the outside, it appears they like the sports, their sports to be spoken about
as being, everyone played the game fairly and the best go one. And that's the, all the story you
need. Whereas we like to know who's doing what to who. But I mean, all that stuff was going on in
American racing as well. It was, yeah. It was just under the surf. It wasn't being interesting. Yeah.
Yeah. You know, that's what you had, especially in NASCAR for, you know, for a time. But yeah,
it's, it's, I think the, the fascination is, is part of it is, I think that is part of the
fascination. And I do think that this, this little competitive element that has been
a new dimension of the competitive element has arisen through, through this little, little
bit of legislation. And I think it's, it's going to be interesting to see how the season
develops because it was looking like, oh, well, this is Mercedes dominance all the way, isn't it?
But if the main rival to the Mercedes, which looks like it was Ferrari, has been hiding its
light under a bushel until it gets the upgrades, then maybe, maybe we see a completely different
second, second part of the season. From the human drama perspective, this is, this is entertaining
in the sense that Fred Vassa and Toto are very good friends. So when, so I think Fred Vassa was
even staying with Toto when he signed Lewis or something from under his nose. I think it's
that close. So there's a little bit of friendly rivalry there, which is they, they're being
quite cheeky. And the, I think that story, so if one has outsmarted the other, or they're playing
the same game or whatever, is, is a storyline, which is, which is brilliant. I think it's,
it's part of F1, isn't it? Yeah. So where are we on this? Where, where are you on this? You're,
you're, I think, I get, I get what I don't want. I really don't want it to become a
pastiche of what, what Formula One, I think we want it always to be Formula One, which is always
going to be people at, on the edge of, I suppose, relationship breakdown in some ways, you know,
because you wanted to be edgy. Yeah. Yeah. You want it to be, I mean, teammates, you know, it's,
you don't, I don't want, I don't, I don't like to, I won't turn up to see a punch up, you know, but I
will, but I think that if there is a people are pushing the boundaries, if they're overstepping
the mark and they get caught, then, then we, we know what to do. We know we should, we should be
thinking of those people and they've blown it as far as I'm concerned, if they're just, if they're
just cheating. But if they're competing smartly and they're doing clever things to outsmart each
other and unique, insightful things, then that is, that is the game, isn't it? That is the,
the nature of Formula One. It wants to explore all of that, but you need to be able to report it.
And if it's, it's conducted behind closed doors, if there's meetings going on with
the FIA, whether they say, oh, they're onto us, you know, we need to, we need to maybe not make
that so obvious, then we are going into the realms of you're just trying to serve up
dessert for everyone and no, no main course.
So just as a sort of roundup of that, do you think Formula One's got it right in terms of
the balance between if you take a lap time, how much is car and how much is driver? So
for example, if you think back to 92, 93, when you're in the Brabham and then you're in the
Williams, you didn't suddenly become seven seconds a lap faster, did you? From 92 to 93.
I thought I did. No, I didn't. I was really trying in the Brabham. I couldn't understand why I
couldn't go seven seconds a lap faster. So it's much smaller than seven seconds now. It's, it's,
it's maybe two. Yeah. But thankfully. Yeah. But you're still not going to win, even if you're
so it's like, it's like blowing up a balloon, isn't it? It's easy to blow the first bit up.
Yeah. You know, and when you get to the very limits of the, the tension of the balloon,
then it's harder to put the extra bit in. And that's, yeah. So the, although the,
the order makes, they exactly the same, but the difference is money. And it's a bit like when they
had the problem with refuelling was that people drove at exact, at the maximum pace from qualifying
through the race, through to the end. So nothing ever changed. You literally,
we got, we got the answer in qualifying and then we had to just do a race distance.
We'd struggle a little bit for a race distance qualifying event. And no one ever took anyone.
It was, it was dreadful. But so it's giving, I mean, Bernie famously said, you know, we should
have sprinklers and in a sudden rain, rain shower, which we, but of course that's a good example,
because if that's an artificial thing at some point between the start and the finish,
I will press this button and it's going to rain. No, that's not because that puts too much control
into the person who's got the hose. And of course, when it's going to rain, they say,
we've got rain coming in the next is predicted in the next five minutes going to last 30 seconds.
Everyone's going, you really? But it would be great if it did. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so
we've got, I just, it's this letting go of things, which is not trying to control too much,
but at the same time not letting people. Right. Yeah. But if, if, if we had,
let's say Red Bull, because I give that example because Max usually is the lead driver and he's
got no threat from this team mate, and they've got the best car and we start the season and he
wins nearly all the races, which he did in 23 years. Yeah. Is that good? Do we enjoy that? I mean,
you know, Max fans, Red Bull fans did and I can't talk. I mean, I was very happy in my Williams,
which was considerably better than everyone else's car. I still had a bit of competition, but
I think that even Max thought he'd like a bit more competition. Yeah. And I think he,
he's a competitor. He likes to be in the thick of it and put him up against Kimmy or whoever it is.
He likes a bit of wheels. We'll show who, show us who he is and what he's made of. Yeah. And we love
that. Yeah. Tricky balance because it can go off centre so quickly, isn't it? Trying to balance that
equation between driver and car. I think that again, you'd have to be very careful how you're
legislated to try and change that. But yeah, so legislation not always bad. Maybe they should
have a legislation that says you should have fun and you should try stupid things and
you have where you take turns. Everyone has to do one stupid thing in a season or in a race.
Yeah. And it's your turn this weekend. Damon, we're going to make your wheels fall off with cops.
Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, I think that's what I'm saying. I think just leave that to God.
The Athletic
About this episode
F1’s attempts to “level the playing field” spark a big sport-versus-entertainment debate on The Race F1 Podcast. The hosts discuss rules meant to bring internal combustion engines “to roughly the same level,” plus cost caps and upgrade/measurement constraints that can push teams to game the system. They question whether regulation-driven unpredictability turns into “script writing,” and whether fans end up feeling outcomes are engineered—especially when strategy, controversies, or officiating shape results.
Red Bull was recently declared Formula 1's best engine under the Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities (ADUO) system, meaning rivals Mercedes and Ferrari will both get engine upgrades during the 2026 season. On the latest episode of The Undercut, Damon Hill and Mark Hughes discuss whether such a mechanism should exist at all, and whether F1 can still be considered a sport if the regulators are trying to artificially level the playing field. They also tackle the thorny topic of whether teams have been actively ‘gaming the system’…
Get bonus F1 podcasts, extra content and ad-free listening, sign-up to The Race Members' Club on Patreon today.
