An internal combustion engine is an engine that makes power by burning fuel inside it. In F1, it’s the “burning” part of the car’s overall hybrid engine system.
A performance equalizing mechanism is a set of rules meant to make the cars more evenly matched. The goal is to reduce the advantage the fastest teams have so more teams can fight for results.
“Leveling down” means the rules try to reduce the advantage of the teams that are winning. Instead of only helping the backmarkers, it also limits the front-runners so the gap shrinks.
Cost caps are spending limits for F1 teams. They’re meant to stop the richest teams from having a huge advantage just because they can spend more money.
Concept
make equalization mechanism
The “make equalization mechanism” refers to F1’s rule tools that aim to equalize competitiveness by limiting how far ahead one team can get. Here, it’s described as making the technical-innovation side less decisive by reducing the consequences of being ahead in development.
“Peg you back” means “hold you down” a bit. The rules are trying to stop the fastest team from running away with it by limiting how big their advantage can be.
“Gaming the system” means finding loopholes in the rules. Instead of just racing normally, teams try to get an edge by working the rules in their favor.
In a hybrid F1 car, the battery stores energy that can be used to help the car accelerate. Here, they’re saying the upgrade rules don’t cover the battery side—only the engine side.
Aero upgrades are modifications to the car’s shape and wings to make it stick to the road better and go faster. Hill is saying that even if aero upgrades happened, the timing still looks questionable.
Term
leveling up
“Leveling up” means F1 rules try to make the cars closer in speed. That way, one team can’t dominate as easily.
The “battery side” is the part of the car that stores electrical energy. In hybrid F1 cars, that energy can be used to help acceleration, so teams may focus development there.
Strategy is the big plan for the race—how you’re going to approach the whole weekend or race. Tactics are the smaller decisions you make moment to moment while racing.
Here, “randomness” means making race results less predictable—so the same team doesn’t always win. The idea is to create more variety in who can take the top step.
Haas is one of the Formula One teams. They’re mentioned as an example of a team that might be able to win more often if the sport is made less predictable.
Pirelli makes the tires used in Formula One. Different tire designs and compounds can change how cars grip and wear during a race, which can make results less predictable.
An “active car” is an F1 car that uses computers to automatically adjust how it drives while you’re driving it. Instead of only the driver controlling everything, the car can change its behavior to help it go faster and stay stable.
“Hybrid technology” means the car uses two energy sources: a regular engine plus a system that captures energy and reuses it. In F1, that matters a lot because it can directly affect how fast the car is.
In Formula One, “power unit” means the whole hybrid engine package. It’s more than just the engine—there’s also energy recovery that helps the car use fuel more efficiently.
This is about getting energy back instead of wasting it. In hybrid race cars, braking and other moments can capture energy and then use it again to help the car go faster.
Nitrous oxide is a gas some race cars inject into the engine to get extra power for a short time. It helps the engine burn more fuel, so the car accelerates harder.
Team orders are when the team tells one driver to help the team’s result, even if it means not racing “normally” against a teammate. It can be controversial because it changes the outcome from what drivers might do on their own.
The McLaren 12C GT Sprint is a race car version of the McLaren 12C. It’s made to be driven in racing events rather than just on the road. People talk about it when they want to understand how well a “real racing” McLaren performs compared with what they expected.
It means making rules with the goal of getting a particular result. In racing, people worry that if rules are written to “engineer” who wins, it can feel less fair and more like manipulation.
They’re talking about how people can start assuming the worst when they don’t fully understand what’s going on. In F1, that can lead to rumors about teams or officials being unfair.
A regulation change is when the sport’s rulebook gets updated. In this case, the rules about tyres during races were changed, which can change how teams plan their strategy.
In F1, tyres aren’t just rubber—they’re the main thing that provides grip. If one tyre type lasts longer than another, teams can go faster for longer or make fewer stops, which changes who wins.
Michelin is a tyre maker that supplies tyres for F1. Here, the key detail is that Michelin tyres lasted longer than Bridgestone tyres, which influenced strategy and results.
Bridgestone is a company that makes the tyres used in F1. In this story, the Bridgestone tyres weren’t lasting as long as the Michelin tyres, which helped decide who could compete effectively.
A “level playing field” means the rules are supposed to make sure no team has an unfair advantage. The speaker is saying that if the FIA starts punishing teams just for being better, it may stop being fair in a different way.
Topic
penalise you if you do too well
This phrase refers to a sporting approach where teams that dominate are hit with penalties or restrictions. The hosts contrast it with an older idea where F1’s own remit was more about rules and competition rather than punishing success directly.
“Competitive playing field” means how fair the competition is between teams. In F1, even when rules are meant to make things more even, teams can still find different ways to gain an edge.
An energy allowance is a rule that limits how much energy a team can use during a race. Teams then have to figure out the best way to use that limited energy to go fast.
A double diffuser is an aerodynamic part under the back of an F1 car. It helps push air in a way that increases grip, and it’s the kind of design that can get into debates about whether it follows the rules.
“Levelling the playing field” means making the rules fairer so one team can’t run away with everything. The goal is to keep more teams competitive, so races are less predictable.
Formula One is the highest level of open-wheel racing. It’s where teams race cars designed for speed under strict rules, and the drama between teams/drivers is a big part of why people watch.
Refuelling means adding fuel during the race. The point being made is that when refuelling rules allow teams to stay at peak speed for too long, strategy and pacing don’t evolve much.
Qualifying is when drivers try to set the fastest lap to decide where they start the race. The discussion is saying that if everyone can keep the same maximum pace, the race doesn’t change much.
Here, “sprinklers” means an artificial way to make the track suddenly wet. The idea is that it could change how cars and drivers behave, like when real rain hits.
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.
Getting right to your first point, which is, is this in, this is, we're, we're clearly finding
it quite entertaining, but I mean, is it, is it a sport? Yeah. Well, that's, that's a sport to me,
because that's, they're competing. It's just, it's so kind of esoteric and, and a 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, we're trying to
achieve with them. They ask in the same question, okay, how can Haas win the next four races,
for example? Yeah. You know, and not because they want particularly Haas, but it's just,
we want a randomness. But I mean, do you remember when they brought in some Pirelli tires that
2012? In fact, they had five different winners in five races. I think it was eight in eight.
Eight in eight. Yeah. Different winners. Yeah. And everyone's going, this is something wrong.
This is not right. This isn't right. And it was, that deeply disturbed me, because it was just,
it's whoever 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... I don't think so. I think it's because you like to think that
it's merit-based. And okay, the cars, the difference in cars means that the, you know,
the guy in the house isn't going to win the race. But you want to think that 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's a merit-based result. And I think for a while there,
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 they have as their goal a 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 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? No. And that's the,
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 an, they destroyed a technology to bring it back to
an idea that things would be easier for others, people to compete.
Maybe, I don't know. I mean, that's, in this case, they seem that the hybrid technology is
important in that the, 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 in your butt. 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. Yeah. 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
there 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, 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, you know, presenting a story that's not authentic.
I think a lot of people, you know, 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
think that's, 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? I can remember watching
a McLaren 1-2 in Monaco once. And when I found out that they were playing team orders.
Oh, well, on Hamilton, I think it was. And I remember being really annoyed, because I thought,
are you, are you just being playing with us? You know, 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 with it. And then that, and I've been through those, and I'm sure you have,
we've all been through it. Anyone who's followed Formula One 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, 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, you know, 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, I mean, yeah, then you start thinking,
well, is that, is that a desired outcome? Well, it is, but it's not, you don't, you don't want it.
Yeah, but are you legislating for that desired outcome? And how to, so how do we convince anybody
that it's not on merit? And this is a real genuine human
if he achieves that, because it would be the most amazing story. Absolutely.
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
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 Mintsleff goes to see the FIA president apparently in Paris,
after this has come out that the Red Bull. It's got the best power unit.
It's got the best power unit. So then you start, people start thinking, whoa, what did they talk
about? Yeah. And then, you know, before we know it, there's this kind of conspiracy theory whirlwind.
And what, well, what were they talking about? Yeah, you know, and so we want to know, but
because this is the concern. It's got to keep it genuine, keep it. We can believe in it. We can
believe it. I mean, I, you know, I very much, 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, okay, well,
I can understand you thinking that because strange things always did used to happen. I mean,
why did Lewis's car suddenly stop in Sao Paulo in the year that Kimmy won?
And 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, there is a sincere, genuine sport. And it's just hard,
I think sometimes for, 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. Shumak and Ferrari. Shumak and Ferrari,
Vettel and Red Bull, Hamilton and Mercedes, Verstappen and Red Bull. But then you...
I mean, that stretched credulity. I thought that the Shumak and Ferrari constant winning thing.
Maybe it's because I just retired from racing and I raced against Michael,
but I just used to watch it go 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, yeah. Prejudiced even, you know. But anyway, that did,
but eventually they had to put a stop to it. They were going, you can't be losing viewers.
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 season, yeah, you can
do tyres now that Bridgestones had a chance to do a proper tyre and Ferrari will back again.
That's an add to a thing, isn't it? That was an upgrade opportunity, wasn't it, for a Bridgestone?
Only it was tyres. Yeah, it was. So we've got a knocker room for that.
And yeah, it doesn't matter. Yeah. So it's always been there.
It is. And I think the sport has to be careful not to jump on top of that too quickly because
it can get unbalanced. I mean, we've just had, before Lewis had that breakthrough win at Barcelona,
we had Kimi Antonelli winning five races in a row. 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.
He will be with someone else now. Yeah. He will 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. Yeah. Back in 1978. He's looking at the big picture.
Yeah. 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. Twin chassis car, yeah.
And when that got banned, he went off and a half and said, I'm off to see the space shuttle launch,
she said, at least where they appreciate, you know, technical advances and everything.
And that, but that's an unlimited technical ambition, isn't it? It requires the very best
of everything. And there's, 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, it's, they're not going to say,
there's no governing body saying, no, you've got to get 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,
Pasadenoma, El Donado won in Spain. You won, you made it to it already, yeah.
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, 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, 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, and 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
then there is a chance, I suppose, that if someone's going to come up with a much
clever idea than everyone else, or a double, a double diffuser situation,
where the, 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 wasn't not allowed. There's this, 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. ask it. Oh, good.
Let's say we've got the people listening to us who want to understand the sport or
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. Yeah. And 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 pole position
and the driver got pole position did a better job. And then they got their form right at the
exactly the right time. And I think I, maybe as a degree of naivety or a willingness to want to
believe with me, I, 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 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 get,
this, this smells a little bit of something fishy. And in other words, look out because
there will be a reaction if you carry on. I think that's expression. You're not respecting
the intelligence of the fans. Yeah, 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,
because it's so commercially successful. And because it's a relatively new phenomenon to
have this level of commercial success. I mean, it's enormous. Yeah. So I think only in competition
with SpaceX now, won't we? Yeah. So, yeah, not to be nihilistic about it and not to be accused of
being a gatekeeper of, you know, some old people that are out of touch. But I do think that
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 audio 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 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 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 just 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 race and as well. It was, yeah. It was just under the surf, it wasn't being.
Interesting, yeah. Yeah. That's what you had, especially in NASCAR for, you know, for a time.
But yeah, it's, I think the fascination is, is part of, 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 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, 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,
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 Vasseur and Toto are very good friends. So when, so he, I think Fred Vasseur 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, of what,
what F1, I think it, 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, 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, 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 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 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 Fernando Alonso, you're not going to win a race on an Aston Martin. So what is that?
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, 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 answering 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. And so we've got 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, the, 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,
wheels, wheels will show who, show us who he is and what he's made of. Yeah. And we love that.
Yeah. Tricky balance because it go off center 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
The hosts wrestle with whether F1’s “performance equalizing” rules turn racing into sport or scripted entertainment. They unpack FIA/F1 efforts to level power units and shift development toward the electrical/battery side, while questioning whether cost caps, tyre changes, and measurement/upgrade restrictions simply create new strategies and “gaming the system.” Hill and Herbert also argue that unpredictability—tire behavior, strategy, even “randomness”—is part of the appeal, but when rules feel engineered for outcomes, fans may feel results aren’t on merit.
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’…
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