Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - eff won: Christian Horner Debrief

Episode Date: November 4, 2023

Dax sits down in the attic with Red Bull Team Principal, Christian Horner. Christian is a former racer who has won six constructors championships with Red Bull Racing. He also loves Disneyland. Follow eff won with DRS over at https://spotify.link/effwon or search "eff won" wherever you listen to podcasts for new episodes every week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome, welcome, welcome to F1 with DRS. This is a bonus episode on the Armchair Expert feed. Because we got an interview with an incredible team principal, the maybe second most winningest team principal in Formula One, Christian Horner, and I wanted to share it on all the feeds. If you like it and you want to hear more F1 with DRS content, please go and follow that. Just search F1, E-F-F-W-O-N in any app you use and subscribe and we'd love to have you along. And if you're

hearing this and you're on Spotify, if you look down at your phone, you can see this. There is video for this interview and for this intro. Please enjoy. Well, you know how it is on the race weekend. First of all, everyone's busy, understandably, and everyone's got something to do. It's not like you're trying to stop and chat with a stranger for 25 minutes. It's just not ideal. Yeah. Yeah. So this is fantastic. I'm so grateful that you came. So we were just talking about Disneyland, which is important. So did you have a favorite ride? I enjoyed the, we went on the race, you know, that is in cars. Yes, yes oh my god cars is incredible yeah exactly the world and everything and then uh suddenly you end up in a race and my my kids got super excited about that so yes i got excited about it did you win or lose unfortunately we finished second yeah okay

there's only two cars so it's a euphemism to say. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I would say that one's top ride for me. All the Star Wars stuff was cool. That was pretty cool. It's incredible when you walk in and they have the actual, you feel like you're on the deck. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. You know, it's old-fashioned, but I really love it,

is Indiana Jones. Did you do that one? Yeah, we did that. That was cool. And Pirates of the Caribbean, I loved. You've got to do that. Jethro, who lives in England. He's never been on Pirates of the Caribbean. You don't understand. This is the most important ride. You haven't lived unless you've been on Pirates of the Caribbean they loved. You've got to do that. Jethro, who lives in England, he's never been on Pirates of the Caribbean.

You don't understand. This is the most important ride. You haven't lived unless you've been on Pirates. If I were a billionaire. I'd build one. You would too? Yeah, absolutely. Oh, wonderful.

This is great. Because I tell people that and they think I'm nuts. But I think Michael Jackson built one. Have you ever heard this from him? Oh, really? No, I didn't hear that. I've heard at Neverland, that ranch, he had Pirates of the Caribbean. But the person I was talking to didn't realize that the movie series had been based on the ride.

Yes. Yes. I went to Florida in 1983. Okay. I went on Pirates of the Caribbean there in Disney World. Yeah, yeah. You were what, about 10, 9, 10? I was about 10, yeah.

And so same age as my daughter now. Oh, yeah. And so I was trying to explain that this was all pre the film. This was pre the movie. Right. And there wasn't anything cool. So to see just like the people, the women chasing the pirates with the broom in a circle was like a big technological breakthrough. So, yeah.

How did your kids take it? Because there's so many great offerings now. Like they leave the Star Wars thing. That's insane. It's like driving somehow. AI's driving the fucking thing. Yeah, my six-year-old flew the Millennium Falcon. That's insane. It's like driving somehow. AI's driving the fucking thing. Yeah, my six-year-old flew the Millennium Falcon. That was his life is complete.

Yeah, and then you got to put them in a little boat and float by some bounty, some treasure. When we came face to face with like a squad of stormtroopers, that was like, Daddy, can we go now? Oh, good. He got scared. He got probably scared. When Kylo Ren came in as well it was like oh my god now we're in trouble yeah exactly and he's six he's six he has a january birthday he's a january birthday what what day 21st damn it i thought we'd be soulmates when are you i'm the

second i argue it's the worst birthday in the world because it's the day after new year's everyone's made resolutions no one wants to drink at your party or eat you know and they always combine this is christmas and uh birthday exactly it's a fucking racket your aunts and uncles tell you like oh we got you something even bigger but it's the same thing your brother i'm in november you see i'm mid-november so i get it the other side yes although this year it's in vegas for the race you'll be there on your birthday i'm gonna be there i'm to be 50 in Vegas. Oh, my God. Are you planning something spectacular?

Is your wife planning? The race has been put on in honor of my birthday. Oh, my God. That makes so much sense. I think a lot of people are scratching their head of how this came together. Yeah, it's to celebrate my 50th. That makes so much sense. So you're from the town you're from I've never heard of.

I'm embarrassed to say. Which one did you look at? Leamington Spa? Exactly. Leamington Spa? Exactly. Leamington Spa. How far out of London is that? That's about an hour and a half north. So it's about as central UK as you can get.

Think Shakespeare. That's the next town. Stratford. Okay. So you and I share this in common, which is I grew up in Detroit. My whole family's automotive industry. My mother worked at General Motors at the Proving Grounds. Dad sold cars. And your granddad worked at General Motors at the Proving Grounds. Dad sold cars.

And your granddad worked at Standard? Yeah. So he was in the motor industry. He started as an apprentice. No shit. In what year, like 50s? No, my granddad was, that would have been pre-war. Then my father, he did his apprenticeship at Standard and he was in the automotive industry, but as like an agent working between suppliers and the industry. And we used to go to Detroit because he had a couple of clients out there. Oh, no kidding. So we ended up going there to- Not as fun as your trip to Disneyland. Not as fun, but we went up to the lakes.

Oh, yeah. I went to Mackinac Island. Mackinac Island. We were at a bicycle rental. All the fudge was and everything. Yeah, yeah. That's a good memory. So we used to end up going up

going up there as kids the two claims of fame for mackinac island is it had the world's largest porch in the world at that really at the mackinac hotel uh-huh and uh and then yeah you can ride a bike around it yeah and i remember driving i hadn't got a lot in the in the uk you can't get a license till you're 17 and ended up driving a car in Detroit at 16 years of age. Oh, yeah. Do you remember what car it was? It was a Lincoln town car. Oh, baby. It was like a boat.

In what year? About 1990, yeah. That's the apex year. Other than my 67 Lincoln Continental, you fast forward, that's the town car you were driving. Okay. Yeah, yeah. That was like a boat to me. It was unbelievable.

Yeah. Five liter V8, rear wheel drive. Yeah. So what age did you start in karting? That was like a boat to be in. That was unbelievable. Yeah. Five liter V8, real drive. Yeah. So what age did you start in karting? Well, I fell in love with speed because I grew up watching, you know, things like the Fall Guy and the A-Team. Let's talk about the Fall Guy for one second. Yeah.

When's the last time you've watched videos on YouTube of the Fall Guy? Oh, crikey. It must be years and years. I really encourage you to because as you probably saw when you walked in, I'm super into off-road racing. Yeah. And you know, the average suspension travel on on that Raptor out there is like 18, 20 inches. That fucking GMC, he was driving like three inches of travel. And he launched that.

And he was flying. Oh, my God. He would jump like 12 feet in the air. Absolutely. You must go and watch it, because what you see is that when it lands, it just bounces for a for a long long time they must have gone through quite a few trucks i don't think any of the trucks made it through any of the jumps much like the general league okay so we were raised on this so i i grew up watching all that stuff and i was just obsessed with speed and i wanted a race and cannonball runs and cannibal oh my god yeah the cannibal run all that stuff's so fun. So, yeah, I was always fascinated by speed.

And it was actually my mum that we found this go-kart, this motorized go-kart in the back of a newspaper. And for my 11th birthday, I twisted her arm, twisted her arm, and we bought this old thing out the back of the newspaper. And it was to drive originally around the garden, around the yard that we had. So she bought it for me, and it was really old, but it was too low. It was an old racing go-kart. It was too low to go around the garden. And so my dad knew of a go-kart track that was, I don't know, about 10 miles from where we lived. And suddenly we took

it up there and suddenly I discovered this whole world that you could race these things. Right. But let's also say at world that you could race these things. Right. But let's also say at 11, you're already five years behind. At that stage, no. No. The earliest you could race was 12 at that point. Oh, okay. So, yeah. I guess now all of our drivers, they-

Now it's basically straight out of the womb. You're able to drive a cart. Yeah. I have a 10-year-old daughter and I told her like, hey, you're kind of four years behind. Yeah, you're behind the curve now. Yeah, you're behind the curve.. Yeah, you're behind the curve. We got to go hard now if we're going to do this. So I started racing when I was 12 years of age and it was just all I wanted to do.

I had an engine in my bedroom. You did? Yeah, absolutely. Were they two-stroke 125s at that point? No, they were two-stroke 100cc. Okay, right, right, right. And shifter or? No, centrifugal clutch and okay just accelerator and brake so and it was fantastic yes and did you immediately have an aptitude or did you feel like you had to catch up to

no i i i got into it pretty quickly and and i just like it was just suddenly my life was just obsessed with with with karting and yeah if i wasn't in a car, I was drawing it or cleaning it or, you know, the school at that point. Were you small as a kid? Yeah, I was pretty small. So I imagine you looked small out there racing. And I read this thing that the racing drivers were no higher than five for eight. Yes. And so I had a chart on the wall and I was willing myself to be short because my brother was quite tall and I was thinking, I don short. Oh, no kidding. Because my brother was quite tall and I was thinking, I don't want to grow up like him.

So I didn't want my feet to grow. I didn't, you know, I became obsessed about the age of 13 of not wanting to grow too quickly. Right, right. So, but it was a lot of fun. And as a family, you know, weekends were taken up.

We'd go into a racetrack. We'd pack the car up, the cart in the back and so on. And my dad was a mechanic. He was? He was a mechanic initially until I was in the lead of a race and he hadn't done the engine clamps up properly. Okay. And the engine fell off when I was in the lead. So after that point, I'd done well enough that a couple of teams said, why doesn't he come and drive for us? Okay. So that's when you get sponsored as a

driver. This is 91? This is before, 89 was the first year I got sponsored. Yeah. Because I did have a question if dad was pushing you into it or supportive or tolerant? Like which of those three? I would say between tolerant and supportive. Okay. So it was like, where's this going? But at the same time, you know, as parents, they always encourage us, you know, follow your dreams, go for what you want. And in racing, I had something that, you know, suddenly I had a connection with him. Yeah. He must have loved it as well, right?

Yeah, yeah. And so I raced in 1989 in the Junior Karting World Championship. And I raced against Max Verstappen's mom. No. Yeah. No way. Absolutely. She was a champion, right? She was top 10 in the world at thatstappen's mom. Yeah. No way. Absolutely. She was a champion, right?

She was top 10 in the world at that point. She was fantastic. That's so cool. And then drivers like Jan Magnussen, Kevin Magnussen's father, and Fisichella and Jano Trulli. And there was some really competitive guys, Dario Franchitti. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that you were against Max's mom.

Yeah. Did she beat you? Yes, she did. Be honest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that you were against Max's mom. Yeah. Did she beat you? Yes, she did. Be honest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How crazy that you're now working with her son. I mean, that must trip you out.

When we met when we were 13, I don't think any of us could have predicted that. No, completely unimaginable at that point. Yeah. Like, you know what? I bet in 30 years

you'll have this boy. He'll be a phenom and I'm going to be his boss. That's where all this is heading. You have two brothers. I got two brothers. I'm the middle of three. So my older one is a censor one.

He's a lawyer. Okay. He's smart. He was the golden child at school, did all the exams properly and everything. I was the one that was, school was like a social thing for me. Right. And then my one that was, you know, school was like a social thing for me. Right. And then my younger brother was completely wild.

That is always the pattern with three boys, no? Yeah. The baby brother is the scariest brother of all brothers. He is. He's just moved to LA,

so be careful. Oh, yeah. And what does he do? He runs an events business. He's got a big events thing, so they do a lot of, actually doing a lot of work with McLaren at the moment,

which he's doing all their Las Vegasgas entertainment everything so yeah okay i don't know about that but i know exactly that's exactly what i told them yeah the house divided yeah there must be a point that your parents go okay wow he's gonna go all in on this and that's obviously gonna make it impossible for him to go to uni or start a normal career yeah are they nervous at that juncture like i guess you you join the formula three first oh i went formula i want a scholarship i want a scholarship where reno said we'll take the top three british karting guys and we'll give them a scholarship to move from karting into car racing and that was when i was 18 years of age. So my mom and dad, they wanted me to go to university. So they insisted that I get a place

at university. So I just filled out the form for some completely random university somewhere in Wales that I've never heard of with no intention. Okay. Just room and board. It was just ticking the box. And then off I left school at 18 and what I wanted to be was a race car driver. And I guess they're out of the 18 and what I wanted to be was a race car driver. And I guess they're out of the picture at that point, but were they scared for you? They were, uh, yeah, they were, they, they, they had their concerns. Yeah. I mean, forget the actual physical threat. Yeah. Just the lifetime career anxiety. Well, they, they did a deal with me. They said, look, take a year out because you could do that between school and

university. So I said, take a year out and see where this goes. But you've got a place at university that you can go back to. That was the deal. They just wanted a safety net. So yeah, exactly. Exactly. I still haven't gone yet. Well, life's long. It's short and long. We don't know. Toto's sending lots of people to Harvard, it seems like. Somehow, I think if you want to exploit that, over tenuous that relationship, is maybe he could get you enrolled there. You never know.

Well, the funny thing is, both my brothers went through universities and got degrees and so on. And then I get given an honorary doctorate from Cranford University in the UK, which is to say, you never did a day. You know, we worked our asses off in university and suddenly you've got a doctorate.

Yeah. I'm one of the few actors without an honorary doctorate degree. And I've even given a commencement speech, so I don't know why I didn't. I must have shit the bed on it, and then they didn't give it to me or something. But I guess if we fast forward, you do climb the ladder of racing.

You do well your first season with Renault. You win a race. You're the number one rookie. I beat a guy pedro de la rosa that uh ended up in formula one i won my first race and and suddenly that you start to get a bit of hype around you like this is the new kid and he's yeah you know he's looking promising so i got picked up by uh by lotus at the time in the formula one team and and my mom and dad were away somewhere they put a contract in me for it was

like a five-year contract to basically sign my life away and they right they said if you don't sign this now um we're gonna give it to the next guy and but this gave me a stepping stone into formula three so i signed this contract oh and signed up for them to drive in formula three and and lotus were they were they were on the up. They had Johnny Herbert and Alex Zanardi as their race drivers. You're going to be disappointed with my knowledge on this. Just, I want to be upfront about it.

I'm one of the posers who fell in love with the sport with Drive and Survive. Okay, so you're- I'm slowly learning. Yeah, of course I knew Senna. I knew Schumacher. I knew like, you know. Okay, so I'm throwing names that you have no idea who they are.

Right, but I did know some of the car he won. So I am gathering it, but I just want to be very forthcoming. He came over. He was pretty successful. He won the Champ Car Series. Unfortunately, he lost his legs in a horrible accident at the loud switch ring. But anyway, they were the drivers at the time, and they enabled me to drive that car, that Formula One car, as a test driver.

Oh, really? So I did a little bit of testing in 1993, that was. And I finished second in the championship. And I'm still, this is my goal and dream. And when you can visualize yourself, I could see, I was just visualizing myself being a Grand Prix driver. Well, that's what I was most curious about, what your internal confidence was at that time. There's the presenting confidence. Yeah.

And then there's the home at night in bed, maybe. But you were at that stage. Yeah. You thought, I'm going to do this. I lacked the presenting confidence, but I had this. Okay. I could just visualize myself. Yeah, I'm going to do it one day.

I'm going to do it. And. I'm going to do it. And the problem is the higher you rise, the harder it, the harder it gets, the more competition and the cars get faster and suddenly danger becomes prevalent, you know, and, and suddenly racing then up in a formula two cars and having driven a formula one car, I'm like, wow, this thing is like, it's getting serious. It's serious. You could seriously mess your hair up in this yeah so and i suppose there was something in me that then started to build in a little bit of a little doubt a bit of doubt and a bit of a safety factor

particularly in some of the the high speed corners would it be fair to describe this as or this would be my guess i've only raced like i raced the super trofeo series no real down force right so i've never experienced real downforce my guess would be as you're ramping up in these cars and the downforce is getting more and more it's almost like an exponential curve of commitment yeah where it's like a lot of these turns you go well the car's not going to work unless i enter this turn at 130 but i got to get to 130 for the car to work and getting brain and foot to connect at that point i i had a damper in between and and in the slow speed corners you could be as quick as anybody because there's less risk but you know suddenly you're you're herring down a straight at over 200

miles an hour and you're coming up to the corner that everybody's telling you that's that's flat out flat and and your brain is computing this and going that doesn't look flat out to me and your heart saying no come on let's get on with it yes um but my it's a leap of faith the car will stick exactly but my brain would often overrule my heart and say come on let's build a margin in here yeah Yeah, let's live to see tomorrow. Yeah, exactly. And then you end up building up to it. And the really good guys, they've just got a natural aptitude for it, a complete inner confidence in themselves, a feeling of the car. And they don't have to build up to it.

They just go and do it. Right. And that's something I've seen from when I was driving with the good guys as well, that they just go and do it. And they don't need to build up. They don't need a they don't need to they hop in and go they just go and i had this very vivid moment where i was running in formula 3000 which is now the formula 2 equivalent and there was a driver you might have heard of this one one pablo montoya yes yes i'm glad this story is true because i was wondering if it was a popular. I know a Colombian super fast driver. And we were at Estoril before the season, a track in Portugal.

And Estoril is a long straight. And the old school track used to have two very fast right-hand corners. And there'd be a barrier that was about 20 meters from the track. And they were sort of like a sixth gear corner. So we're talking 160, 170 miles an hour. Yeah, yeah. sort of like a sixth gear corner so we're talking 160 170 mile an hour yeah yeah um and i'm coming out of the pit lane that filters onto the track and montoya comes herring past and he commits to this right hand turn and i can just see the car is moving and dancing around and the rim is

trying to pop through the sidewall of the tire and he's on opposite lock and he's got his right foot absolutely planted in the kitchen and i just knew at that point i can't do that i cannot i couldn't either have the confidence or the skill or the bravery to commit to that corner in the way he did so i knew prior to that season, I was honest with myself to say, look, I'm not even going to try and carve a career out in another category. I'm going to need to do something because I don't want to go to a university. I need to earn a living. And I've created this team. At this point, you started the team that you're driving for, Arden?

That's right. Okay. So I want to spend two seconds on that decision because you're saying it like it was obvious to you in the moment and that you were able to accept that. But there wasn't like, that's very hard, especially if you start at 12 or 11. Yeah. For 10 years now, your identity is that's where I'm going. This is what I'm going to do. Life makes sense to me because I'm in pursuit of this. This is, this is an enormous, this is like

my identity shatters. It's back to the drawing board. Who am I? Where am I going? Yeah. Was it brutal that decision? It was brutal, but it also, I had another route and having created this team because motor racing survives on sponsorship. and as a young driver coming up it's dependent uh in many cases on the sponsorship that you can generate and you have to go to a team and you buy a ride and uh i had a certain amount of money not to go to a top team i thought i don't want to go to a shitty team i may as well buy the car myself yeah employ an engineer and a couple of mechanics and at least i got the car at the end of the employ an engineer and a couple of mechanics. And at least I got the car at the end of the year rather than a set of overalls and some pictures.

And so really starting the team was a means to an end for me to go racing. You already started seeing the backup plan simultaneous to that. Well, not at that point. When I started the team, it was like, okay, this is the most cost-effective way for me to get to Formula 2.

But then having seen the Montoya effect, I was okay i need a plan b here and and the plan b would be maybe i could build this team up and i could run this team and i can stay in the sport and rather than and be honest with myself and it was like don't kid yourself if i can't play at the highest level i don't want to you know i don't want to play i'm i'm not gonna gonna do something else yeah and at this point you're in formula 3000 yeah that's right which was a league as an answer to formula 2 because formula 2 had become so expensive yeah formula 2 i don't know what happened with the name but they they renamed it formula 3000 at that point and that was like the finishing school for formula 1 it was the it was the understudy it would follow the tour round at about eight or 10 tracks. And yeah, so that was the

final step before Formula One. I mean, obviously you reflect back at this age and go, had I stayed that course, I would have never actually been a champion. And by some surrendering of this original goal, I become a champion six times over. It's kind of wild. It is. And in those early days with the team, I had to take some massive, massive risks because suddenly you're responsible for employing people. And that suddenly was like a big responsibility at 24, 25 years of age. And how about you out on the town trying to scrounge together money from sponsors? That's an entirely different skill set. So you've got to hustle and you've got to sell yourself and you've got to raise the money. And suddenly you have a responsibility to make sure every Friday,

you know, the 10 guys that were in the team were all paid and their mortgages and their livelihood, you know, depended on me. And if I crash the car, I could either afford to repair the car or pay the mechanics, but I couldn't do both. Right, right. And so suddenly, you know, that responsibility became a, you know, a real burden. How did you handle the pressure of that? I think, again, you build in another safety factor of, I cannot afford to crash. And so, and so for me, it was very clear that I was going to need to stop it as well that, you know, when you're running a team in a small business like that, it was very hand to mouth.

You know, I was living off credit cards. I was maxed out at the bank. I was depending on so many things coming, the smallest thing could have tipped me, ted out at the bank. I was depending on so many things coming. The smallest thing could have tipped me over the edge. My guess is you're good at managing stress, but even if you're good at it, does that time seem, well, obviously nostalgia helps, but does that period seem wonderful in your mind or does it seem like, oh my God, I barely lived through that. That was so stressful. I think it was a great education for me. And it was for sure it was stressful. And I was booking the hotels.

I was doing the tax returns. I'm doing the payroll. I'm washing the truck. I'm doing all the- Buying used trailers off of Helmet Marco. Yeah, exactly. And I was having to hustle to make this thing happen and get the money and so on. What was it like to be in your life at that time, if you were a girlfriend or a friend?

From a girlfriend point of view, I had a girlfriend at the time, and I remember her mother going, you need to be thinking of being with somebody else. Right. There's no room for you in this. You need a guy with a proper job that's going to be able to get a mortgage, going to buy a house. Yes. First paycheck I ever got, I went and bought a Porsche. I was showing no responsibility of that at this point in the thing.

I was thinking, do you know what? If it all goes wrong, then at least I've given it a go. I've just recently watched the Beckham documentary. Have you watched it? Yeah. Brilliant. I went to the premiere. Fantastic.

Whoa. I got to be, again, we don't know about football here. No. I don't know about Beckham. I know he's gorgeous and super popular. I don't know that beckham yeah i know he's gorgeous yeah and super popular i don't know that he's as good as he is i think maybe he's just he's so good looking that he's that's why he's so famous he's a legend oh what a fucking legend yeah also i loved how honest he was he's like i got fifty thousand dollars from adidas i went immediately and bought an m3 yeah all of the

money in a very my first place i remember i got sixty I got 60,000 pounds out of a deal when I stopped racing. And the first thing I did was go and buy a car. And that was when the girlfriend dumped me. Although I told her to dump me. But the funny thing was that when I was driving, I had a sponsor and they made cakes. They made like celebration cakes that they were selling to a supermarket. And they said that we've signed two licenses, one with a cartoon character called Dennis the Menace to make these cakes with Dennis the Menace on. And we signed one with this girl band called the Spice Girls. But we think that Dennis the Menace cake is going to-

That's the money in the bank. So put the Dennis the Menace on your car. No. So I had Dennis the Menace on your car. No. So I had Dennis the Menace on my car. And they said, if the cake sales go okay, we can pay you a little bit more money. And so anyway, they started selling the cakes. I remember getting a call and saying, look, the cake sales are going well. But wow, the gold cakes are flying.

So we can actually pay you a little bit more money. So indirectly, my wife, you know, very early age was. Impacting your ability to buy. She contributed to my career. Yeah. Another weird, like Max's mom moment. Yeah. Where you just don't know where all these threads are going to weave together.

Yeah. What skills are you picking up in that like hard scrabble scrounging for every part and in sponsorship like what what is becoming obvious to you because you guys go on to win in 2000 what three you win the championship 2002 four yeah three years in a row i won it three years in a row and you're not you cannot be the most well-funded team no we, we weren't. We were, and 2002, I was, we were properly on the limit. But I thought, do you know what? If it's shit or bust, I got to put a driver that can be capable of winning it. And of course, the good guys never have any money.

So I took this driver out of Formula One, a Czech guy. And he won the championship that year. He beat a driver, Sebastian Bordet, that came over here. And then he got excluded for being a thousand percent over the legal drug limit. Yeah, on what drug? On marijuana. Oh, really? Yeah.

Which is so ironic because that isn't going to help anybody drive a car fast. No. They should, in fact, you should get more points if you're bound to be heavily. It was the first ever drugs case in in in motorsport and so anyway i managed to i was expecting you to as soon as i read that i was like i can't wait to find out what drug he was on he must have been on speed or he was it was a guy as a guy from the czech republic i spoke to his his manager i said look we got a bit of a problem he's tested positive for a drugs test and his manager said well he must have inhaled it

you know he's been in a club something like that that. And he was kind of Bill Clinton style. And so anyway, he made three of his employees sit in a room while three others sort of blew smoke at them and, and then go and get tested. And this was like part of his, part of his defense. And other than having sore eyes, they didn't even register. So then it turned out that the guy had been taking a medication for some back spasms from a big crash that he had in Japan. And he had a Czech trainer that was just giving him these pills. And it was THC. Yeah, he'd been on it for years. Oh, wow.

And he won. Yeah, he won the championship. I think it was fucking great he'd be uninjured and sharp. And then I got him a drive with Newman Haas. Okay. And as soon as the drug thing came up, bang, they pulled everything. They did. And they gave it to the other guy.

So he should have won that year. But that put us on the map as a winning team. And I won it the next year in 2003. And then we really dominated in 2004. So in that period, what had you figured out you were great at what was the thing you were doing that you could recognize in yourself you have to explain this underdog story of three years in a row there must be something you tell yourself like okay this is what i this is my knack i think it was a few things one was having been in the

cockpit was understanding some of the emotions that a driver goes through. So being able in a small way to be able to relate to the drivers, to get the most out of them, to give an arm around the shoulder and driving like in you, that they're, you know, they're not just going through the motions. And so it was setting up, creating an environment that was fun, but the, that was serious and competitive and hungry. And we're all in it together and we're a team and we take on the rest of the world. We're the underdog, but you know, let's punch above our weight. A lot of what you do, as I was thinking about talking to you, really, really parallels directors of movies. And so often the great directors are the ones who've acted themselves. They understand the insecurity of doing a job where a hundred people look at you and you fail at the job 12 times in a row before you get it right. That's like an important experience to have. So I imagine being a driver helps enormously. Yeah. So it gave me a great education in that. And then in terms of even with a Formula 3000 team, even though there was only 20 people in that team, it was about getting the best engineers,

but also sometimes the best guys are some kind of awkward in some way. Oh, sure. Yeah. The engineers, you know, uh, most of the greats are slightly autistic in some respect. So it was learning how to get a diverse group of people to work together as, as one team. Yeah. And, and that's what we managed to do. And I felt that, you know, that was a skillset I had was in recognizing people's strengths and weaknesses and being able to, to, to, to really hopefully get the best out of them. It's such a mental experience, isn't it? Yeah, it's totally.

I'm trying to think, like, tennis always appears to me to be like maybe apex mental. You watch some of these players just, like, break down at some point or lose the momentum, and it's just tangible. Would we say driving's on that same level or a little less? Yeah, you can say it's on that. I mean, we've got exactly that going on at the moment with Checo. I know. I know. And it's such a heartbreaking thing.

Yeah. And we all want to see him do the best that he can. But I think since Miami, it's been tough for him because he started the year so well. Yeah, he won two races. Won two races. He's right there in the championship. We go to Miami. He gets an open goal because Max got a penalty. Not penalty, but red flags and different situations meant that he was outside the top 10 in qualifying.

And at that point would have been an open goal for Checo. And by the 12th lap or something, Max is ahead of him. And I think that's a demoralizing. I think that then created the questions. Yeah. And then we went to Monaco. He tried too hard. He crashed in practice.

Then you're on the back foot. And then you end up in- Well, in poker, we'd say he's just on tilt now. He's driving on tilt. And it's kind of obvious. And it's truly heartbreaking. I think if there's any driver- Well, there's two drivers everyone roots for.

He and Yuki. Yeah. People love fucking Yuki. Myself included. My kids love Yuki. I mean, unbelievable. I think he should be in movies when this is all over yeah he's so likable he came he came over to the uk to learn english and drive an

english team that was based on the outskirts of london and they are something like out of a movie from snatch or like okay like a guy rich yeah. So, you know, this little Japanese guy thought that motherfucker or the word fuck was just part of the English language, part of the English vocabulary. How could he not? So he gets in a Formula One car and his very first test, he's going, I got to understand you, motherfucker. And did he really say that? Or, you know, it was hilarious. Oh, it is wonderful. What seems obvious about you and what is appealing about you, or at least what it seems like in Drive to Survive, is you love these dudes.

You do. I mean, I think the testament to that, and the only person I'm really friends with in Formula One is Daniel. Yeah. We're buddies. And I think there's a lot of people in your position that would have not invited him back into the family that maybe would have felt that he turned his back on the family. And I think it shows your colors so much that you were first to go, let's get you back in the family. Yeah. Daniel, I mean, look, Daniel's a great guy. Very badly advised in his earlier career. And everybody fucks up at some point and i think i think he recognized that

he made a mistake yeah he had not good advice around him at the point that he that he left us and and he could see that max was growing and yeah and probably didn't realize just how good he was gonna be yeah yeah having spent a few years outside of the family suddenly realized that whoa actually what i had was really good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, it's like when you break up with a girl and you're like, fuck me, that dude's with her. Yeah. That was pretty good. So, and it was horrible to see it just get worse and worse and worse. And it was actually this time last year in Mexico that I sat down with him and in, uh, my hotel room and I said, look, you need a complete reset. Take a year out.

Come back to us. We've got a bunch of sponsors and a lot of marketing stuff. Which, by the way, he's such a win for you guys. I look at, you know, he went over to Dearborn and he was hanging out with Jim Farley. And then I know Jim Farley. And then Jim's like, oh my God, that Ricardo guy is the greatest. And I'm like, he's the dream.

Send him anywhere. He can be so useful to a team in that capacity. And he's another confidence driver. When he's got his mojo, he is one of the fastest guys on the grid. He's lethal. He has the magic thing that people have or they don't have, in my opinion, which is there are winners and there's not winners. I don't know what that is. Jordan was one.

We have a bunch of examples. And if you look at his career in totality, not great, but he has won many races. He has. People spend careers never winning a race. And he came to us. I mean, he was one of the juniors. I remember going to watch him in Formula 3 and so on. He really stood out and very smooth, very, you know, just great.

Kind of an elegant driver yeah almost like a uh a roger federer kind of style behind the wheel very very classic yeah light touch very light touch great great great skill and then he came he came through the the system we had sebastian vettel uh four-time world champion yeah beast yeah mark Webber retired. We took Daniel as the junior with no expectation on him. And he started kicking Vettel's ass. And he won three races in 2014 when we didn't have far from the best engine. Yeah. And Sebastian never won a race that year.

See, this is the thing. Or even his time at McLaren. It sucked for him. But also, he's the only one that won a race in McLaren. is the thing or even his his time at mclaren it sucked for him yeah but also he's the only one that won a race and for a long time now yeah and and reno he put in some great performances and i think he's again he's another confidence guy he's got to feel he's got to feel the love he's got to feel comfortable in the environment that he's in and some of his races for us were were absolutely outstanding it's really interesting for me to go back now and watch that first season of Drive to Survive.

Because that's at the apex of the Max Daniel stuff, right? Yeah, that's right. And it's not obvious at that moment. I don't know how you know this stuff. Yeah. It's not. At that point, if you're asked, a thousand people are asked to judge who's a faster driver. Who knows?

It's a coin flip. But Max is a fucking phenom. I mean, he's a a and it was obvious at that stage he was coming yeah and he was so young and so young and you could see just the raw talent it just needed polishing a bit yeah so we gave max a contract at the beginning of that year in in 18 to secure his future yeah and daniel i remember being upset at the time yeah he suddenly felt that hang on i don't want to be the support act here. Yeah.

Yeah. And I could tell he was starting to, you know, think of being a bigger fish in a smaller pond. Yeah. And he got a lot of noise in his ear and that this is the money is also on the table too. Also on the table. And I remember I spoke to, to our owner our owner dietrich mattershitz before the austrian grand prix and i said look he's he's looking a bit marginal with daniel will you can you just show

him some some love because you know helmet obviously very pro max but i think if you could just balance things out yeah just just let him know that you want him no problem i'll speak to him so he took him upstairs after the race in in austria and they were gone for well over an hour and then they really point where you're saying you get nervous shit whatever yeah this should have been a 15 minute exactly and then they reemerge they they reappear both with smiles on their faces and uh dietrich comes up to me i said well how did it go and he said yeah no problem it's not even a it's not even a question i said well what did you agree with him and he said i'll just give him i said well give him him whatever max is i was like wow do you know what we just

gave you know what we pay max he went no how much we pay max and so i gave him the number and he said who the fuck agreed to that and i said well you did and he's like oh that's a lot of money that's too much money and then he went he said no he's a he's a great guy let's do it oh give him give him the same deal yeah that that max has so his agent was obviously uh jumping through hoops at the time and and that was for a two-year deal for a two-year deal. And then we went off to Germany to the race and his engine blew up because the big issue was the engine at that time. Yeah, you had the Renault motors. Yeah. And the engine kept letting him down, letting him down, letting him down. And then from there, we went to Hungary and we got all the paperwork sorted out and this, that, and the other. And then his manager came to me and said,

look, Daniel's really nervous about the engine situation because we're going to change to Honda he'll do one year I thought wow okay that's not really what we talked about because in six months we're just going to be having the same conversation but right so I remember you know went back to Detroit spoke to Dietrich and said look he's put and he said look it's about relationships it's not about it's not about contracts or contracting if he wants a year give him a year so at this point he's got everything he would want everything yeah yeah um and then he was doing a test for us after the hungarian race and it was like okay daniel will sign the paperwork on uh you know monday and suddenly monday goes and he's in the car on tuesday and i'm saying i'm starting to smell a little bit of a rat here because this is an enormous deal you just thought he'd been in a rush yeah to sign this

this contract and he didn't sign it before he got in the car in the morning and then no he's going to sign it at lunchtime and all that didn't happen and then oh he's had to get out of the car and go straight to the airport because he's flying here to la he'll call you when he gets to la and i'm so i'm smelling yeah you know you're about to get broken if your call you when he gets to LA. And I'm, so I'm smelling. Yeah. You know, you're about to get broken. If your girlfriend didn't show up to lunch, then dinner. And then she, yeah, you go, I know it's a car. So he rings me and I was in the car. I had, I was, Jerry was in the car with me and he said, look, I've just got off the plane. Uh, I've arrived in LA. I I've been thinking all the

flight away here. Um, um, I'm not going to sign a contract. I'm going to take another contract. I was like, wow, okay. Have you got, have Mercedes or Ferrari come through with something? And he went, no, I'm going to sign for Renault. The manufacturers of the motor I hate. The engine that's just let him down for the last two years. And I'm like, I was convinced.

I was convinced. Because Daniel, you know, he's got a sense of humor. Yes, he's brilliantly funny. I think he's taking the piss here. He's definitely. I was like. I was convinced. Because Daniel, you know, he's got a sense of humor. Yes, he's brilliantly funny. I think he's taking the piss here. He's definitely. Because it is kind of a punchline after the season you had the notion that you would go to Renault. Exactly. It's like, come on, dude.

There's no way you're going to Renault. Stop fucking about. Just tell me you signed the contract. There's any demons not going to be running a Renault motor next year? It's Renault. And so after about 10 minutes, he finally persuaded me that he had gone to he was going to go to reno and it's like you know it was disappointing um but again i want to i want to applaud you a lot of people that go through that exact experience yeah go all right fuck you yeah

you know and there was an element good luck and i'm gonna enjoy when this doesn't work out for you and there was that's not you there was an element of that at the time thinking, you know what? Okay. Go and suck on the lemon for a bit. And then actually it was during the pandemic. I remember he called me and he said, Christian, I hate to say this to you, but you were absolutely right. And I apologize. Oh, that's nice. And so on. And yeah, we've always had a good relationship. He's a good guy. He was just badly advised at the time. that role for anyone. If I love a driver,

let's say Charles. I love Charles. I think he's brilliant. I wish he were on a different team. I have no desire to watch Charles come and get beat by Max every week

and be a second driver. Well, it's just like driving next to Terminator. I mean, it's... It's just, it's a very... It's a thankless job. He is... He is a generational talent.

And then some, right? It's crazy you've had two of those drivers because Vettel will also go down in the history some, right? It's crazy you've had two of those drivers. Because Vettel will also go down in the history books, right? Sebastian was a wonderful driver. And yeah, we're very lucky to have had two guys in that category. But I think Max even takes it to another dimension. I think so.

I think what's ahead is still going to be. It's quite stunning what he's done and is doing. And look, to be his teammate is the hardest job in the pit lane. Completely. Yes, the person that you're competing against is the fastest guy to do it for 30 years or whatever we want to say. Yeah. So even if you're driving at your apex, you're going to be 0.3 behind him.

And he's soul destroying on, he broke the young teammates that he had come in. And we talk Checo because he's got that bit of experience. He's got, he's a pretty rounded individual, but. but and is it fair to say i think like say 2021 yeah checo had such a role yeah the car wasn't as good as mercedes no and he got to help max absolutely i mean the the quality of the last race is like without stunning it's stunning yeah i've never seen someone fall on their sword in that manner like just just a hero. Yeah. So it was a thankful job at the beginning. Yeah. But now we've transitioned into the car's dominant.

Yeah. And it's just like you want to show up and finish second or even worse, you don't finish second and everyone knows you should. Yeah. It's a rough. It's a rough. It's tough. And it's such a judgmental sport that you're as good as your last race in so many respects. And I think that, you know, Checo brought a bunch of experience.

He's a tough operator. He's got mental resilience. He's the last person other than Max I want to try to pass. Yeah. He's a racer. Yes. He will die. He will fucking die.

He's not a qualifier, but he's an absolute racer. I totally agree. He's so fun to watch battle. He's fearless a qualifier, but he's an absolute racer. I totally agree. He's so fun to watch battle. He's fearless. So he has an identity that's still great. Absolutely. And I think that, you know, Checo has done a great job next to Max during the last three years. Because when you're looking at the data of what Max is doing, and you've only got a few look at a race like Japan.

The very first lap that Max does out of the pits is two seconds quicker than the rest of the field. And you're looking at that data and you're thinking, how has he done that? How has he done that? And so often, you know, that will happen. And I think the problem is for Checo, he's trying to compare himself to Max. And what he needs to do is forget about Max. Yes. And just focus on himself.

Don't even look at his data. Don't even look at, just, just focus on being the best you can be. And, you know, as we saw earlier in the years, some, sometimes that can be good enough. Absolutely. But you look at, or again, I don't know the guy, but what appeared to be how much Botas was enjoying that role. It was terrible on him. Yeah.

It was not fun for him to be racing with lewis in that car no or if you go back against you know senna his teammates or schumacher yeah it's demoralizing yeah you know you can you can see there's but there's a pattern with those guys that have just destroyed their teammates you know teammates that are all very capable drivers yes yeah the person that comes in they have to enter i think yeah wanting to retire having finished second many many years in a row you see checker was out uh you know 2020 he was done yeah and i remember we were struggling at the time with the with with alex albon because he'd come in too soon yeah and and we just needed somebody can i just say

none of my business yeah he's the guy I would want in the second seat. Yeah. He's brilliant. He's so good. He's fantastic. And he deserves to be flying. And he did a fantastic job for us when he stepped down as to be test driver. He never complained.

He never moaned. He put in the hours. And I was really happy I was able to find him a seat in Williams. Yeah. And he was. He overdrives that car every week. He's demonstrating what is, you know, he's found his form. He's got seat in Williams. Yeah. And he was. He overdrives that car every week. He's demonstrating what is, you know, he's found his form. He's got the experience now.

Yeah. He's toughened for sure. Yeah. And, you know, he's a hot property again. And, you know, Checo at the time, at the end of 20, he just won that race in Bahrain from the back of the grid. And it was like, you know, we need somebody with a chunk of experience that can bring another dimension

to being Max's teammate. And yeah, he certainly did that in 21. And he's been a big part of the success the last few years. Yeah, it wasn't obvious to me when you guys hired him, but as I watched him race and I realized,

oh, this is the ideal teammate for Max. How do you, again, you take Vettel, you've now got to be the boss of again two of the greatest drivers to ever drive i presume their personalities are different totally diametrically opposite okay great yeah in which ways well sebastian is very much uh the analytical german into every single detail yeah would be at the track until 11 o'clock at night, challenging data. His after-race debrief, it would take him half an hour just to do the formation lap

before the race even started. He was just driven by perfection and very Germanic in the way that he went about organizing his life. And he'd read the Michael Schumacher School of Motor Racing. And that was how he was going to live his life. And Max is just different. Max, huge, huge natural ability. Not really that interested in all the detail.

He will give you what he needs to go faster. And that's it. What are my limitations? Yeah. I'm in perfect concert with this thing, and I can tell you what feels wrong to me. That's what I need. Just sort that out, and I'll go quicker.

Sort that problem out, and he does go quicker. Right. And you know when you strap him in, you're going to get 110%. He's a guy that hates testing. Oh, he does. Testing for him is like a waste of a day. He's just a racer.

He just wants to race. And if he's not racing in the real world, he's racing in the virtual world. That's insane. And he'll give you 110%, but he expects 110%. Yeah. I think you guys are great partners. So, so yeah, just, but then when he takes the helmet off, he's the nicest young guy you could ever meet. Very unassuming. Doesn't want to. He's shy, right? He's shy. He's naturally shy. He doesn't want to be, fame sits uncomfortably with him. Yeah. He's not a diva or anything like that. He's just one of the boys. He's just one of the boys.

It's interesting as I've met the other drivers and I, of course, gather gossip about all of them. And every time I hear these stories, the kind of resounding unanimous feedback is like everyone loves Max. Everyone tells me Max is actually the sweetest guy off the track. Yeah. And shy and nice. He's just a good guy. And he's a fun guy. And he's old school as well. And he won the championship in Qatar and

I said okay let's let's get the whole team together we'll just have a couple of drinks it's not every day you win a world championship and it was unusual to win it on a Saturday right yeah um and we got a Grand Prix by the way in 42 degrees on Sunday so everybody needs to be in bed at a sensible time yeah yeah yeah Max is five gin and tonics in and it's like guys we need to stop everybody needs Yeah, yeah. I've been watching, I was like, Max might do better hungover. This is now another challenge he can overcome. So he, you know, he trains hard. He takes it all very, very seriously. But he's just got such huge ability, such huge. I've never met a driver with as much self-confidence or self-belief.

You know, it's infectious when you're watching him and you see him go for something. You just believe you believe as you're almost not even afraid for him. You're like, oh, it's infectious when you're watching him and you see him go for something. You just believe you believe as the, you're almost not even afraid for him. You're like, Oh, it's infectious. I, he can do any,

he's like a dog with a bone and you see his helmet in the mirror. You know, he's going to have a go. You just know he's coming. One of my other preoccupations with Max is watching all of the OCD things he does, which is very fascinating. Watch him put his gloves on the thing and he's got to adjust those three times when he takes his helmet. He's got to do that. There was the tear off strip just stuck to the front of the OCD things he does. Yeah. Which is very fascinating. Watch him put his gloves on the thing and he's got to adjust those three times.

When he takes his helmet, he's got to do that. There was the tear-off strip just stuck to the front of the car and he could not let it go. He had to fucking pull it off while he was driving. That stuff interests me so much.

But we all have those things. I mean, I've had that since I was driving. I mean, I have a lucky toilet at each track. I'll always approach the drivers from the right-hand side of the grid. I'll always stand in the garage for the start of a grand prix um you know so there's little things that i think i don't so much think they're superstitions as they're just ways of getting you into your i've heard a lot of athletes tell me you control all the things you can control before you get to the thing you

ultimately can't control that's kind of what's driving us. I'm sure there's a lot of that. Yeah, it's like I'm going to control every element until the uncontrollable starts. What have you learned over the – how long have you guys been together now? Seven years? Max, since 2016, yeah. Seven years. How have you adjusted how you communicate with him and help him? Have you figured some stuff out along the way?

Well, he's evolved so much. Because when he came to us, he was a teenager. I mean mean he's like 17 years of age insane he had a dream debut he won on his debut and fucking unreal bang you know he's arrived and he's the most intricate and a relationship is with the engineer because the engineer is the closest you're ever going to get to a to a coach he's living and breathing the data he's he's the only one with you he's the only one with you he's in the car he he can see how hard the data. He's the only one with you. He's the only one with you. He's in the car. He can see how hard you're pushing the throttle, the brakes.

He can even sense your mood by what he's seeing in the data. It's a marriage. It's a marriage. And he's totally in tune with what is going on with his driver in the car. Now, Max is a bit like a thoroughbred racehorse. You know, he's... High-strung, or what would we say? He's definitely red-blooded,

and he definitely can rev pretty quick. Yeah, yeah. And it takes a strong character... To not take any of that personally. To not take that personally, and to be able to channel it. And so the relationship that he has with Jampera, or GP, his race engine, they've been together since day one. that personally and to be able to channel it and so the relationship that he has with jampera or gp

is his race engine they've been together since day one and gp joined us to be sebastian vettel's engineer okay and then sebastian left and he ended up as danny kiviat's engineer for a year and then became max's max joined and that relationship has just developed and developed a bit like a marriage it's becoming very fun to listen to on the telecast. To the point that it's like. Because he's thrown some jabs back occasionally when he can feel it's the right time. And you'll probably only get in half of it. So this is going on constantly between the two of them where they're jabbing at each other, even in the garage and on the stuff that you can't hear that's on our closed circuit.

And there's just this banter or this total trust as well between the two of them. I remember at Silverstone this year, Max drove out of the pit lane and he clipped the pit wall and he damaged the front wing. Yeah, yeah. It was the only incident all year. And they had to pull him back in the grid. And his engineer said, Max, what happened there? And I lent to him on the pit wall.

I said, look, GP, he's just hit the pit wall. And he came back to me and he said, yeah, I know. I just want to hear him say it. I want him to admit it. I want him to admit that he's driven our car. The flawless person is flawed. So they've got that kind of banter yeah and respect is the most important thing there's a big respect between us but you personally ultimately it's all rolling downhill

from you yeah let me also say to you i thought austin was a really beautiful display of the team so often it's max you know max gets so much credit we know that car's great that's kind of adrian newey we all go fuck this guy adrian newey he's got more championships than anybody which by the way you brought him so yeah hats off to you you brought him to the team it's not always on display but i would say austin was incredible where you're watching this race and you're going everyone okay they're on a one stop they're ahead how's this gonna work and similar to that confidence you have as if you were watching max when you guys switch to two-stop or i don't know that you switch but when you commit to two

stop everyone i'm watching was like that's not going to work they're this amount of time you know everyone's trying to calculate in their head yeah and i literally go there's no way they're wrong yeah there's no way they're wrong like that's that's how confident i think that's how well the team is working where i go if i gotta bet who's right here it's them and you and you guys were i thought it was a really great moment for the team yeah austin no absolutely and i think you know as a race team we've always been an attacking race team we've always you know we've pitted from the leads to take better tires to make sure that rather than having protecting track position we're on the right tires at the right time and i think as a race team our mantra has always been, you know, no risk, no fun.

You also have maintained this underdog thing, which is crazy. Yeah, exactly. Even though we're winning a chunk of races. You know, that's the way we've always gone racing. And that's something that we've embodied throughout the team is, come on, we can take this on. We can do this. we can do this we can achieve this who should we credit for that strat who's who who deserves the credit for the impeccable strategy all season oracle wonderful

and specifically ellis i'll just say he in particular so so no we get some great software but it's as good as the numbers you put into it and and it's something that's you know hannah gets a lot of credit but she's just one of a team and and you know will courtney her boss and and the other strategists steve knows and so on you know everybody works as a team team and they'll put options in front of me. And then. Yeah. How involved are you in those? Very much involved.

I want, I'm, if you like, we have a chain of command and the strategists will, I'm working most with the strategists through the race. So they will present options to me at any point in time. If a safety car comes out now, what are we going to do? Are we going to split the cars? Are we going to pit both? Yeah. yeah yeah are we going to double stack we know what and it's and sometimes these decisions have to be made in about eight seconds yeah yeah yeah and and i'm constantly challenging them what if what if what if uh and they're constantly coming up with uh scenarios in front of me so it's very much a team effort if you had to give a percentage

to how confident you are let let's say Austin. Yeah. When you make the decision for the two-stop, are we at 60% confident? Are we at 51%? I think in terms of confidence of running our fastest race, we're at 90%. Okay. When you make those decisions, you're not like super stressed that... No. So in Austin, we're 90% confident that's our best race. What we don't know what's going to happen is how are the others going to react? What are they going to do? Well, they reacted poorly.

Exactly. And so Mercedes sort of set off on another journey and then they aborted. And then that immediately puts them in sort of no man's land. And so they ended up on a better tire at the end of the race, but they hadn't got the track position at that point in time. Listen, you're reluctant to own your own gifts, but I'm going to keep pushing. So another thing I'm curious is how you kept your optimism between you guys win four as a team. Yeah.

And then you just watched Mercedes win for eight fucking years. That was tough. How do you stay optimistic, hungry and focused in that much defeat? Well, I felt a responsibility and I had a belief that we just needed to address the elements that were causing the issue. And we went from winning, you know, 10, 11, 12, 13, four on the bounce, and then a massive regulation change to the engine and our engine supplier completely missed the target. And at that point, you know, vettel leaves because of the engine adrian came very close to leaving he was within about half an hour of signing well i've been told he

kind of just went on a soft retirement he stayed but he started working on the cars and stuff he ferrari came hard for him and he was and they promised him the world you can have a hollywood lifestyle fly into the factory for monaco every day and not pay any tax and um you can design a road car and this that and the other and i managed to persuade him to stay by saying look we'll do a road car if you want to do a road car we'll do a road car he said well how i said well i have no idea but we'll find a way we'll make it we'll make it happen and through the relationship that we had with aston martin and and and so on their ceo I went to Andy Palmer and said, look, we've got arguably the best designer of all time. You've got a great brand.

We're not going to finance the car, but it would make sense to bring these two things together. And that's literally in a pub in England. That's how it happened. Oh, wow. Similar to your relationship with Ford. Now, when I interviewed Jim, he's like, I looked around, I was like,

we need aero bad for this electric movement. Yeah. How do I get aero? Yeah, exactly. And I think we, you know, it was able to, it enabled Adrian to fulfill his ambition. It kept him in the team. And it was not losing sight of guys, you know, we just need to sort out, if we can sort the engine issue out you know we can we'll be back in a winning position and maybe it was helpful that it was so obvious what your

shortcoming was it was but it wasn't obvious the way out right the way out wasn't obvious but at least maybe you could hold on to some confidence going well that's the thing it's not a mystery what we have to solve but the problem was everybody got used to winning and suddenly not winning and nobody likes that yeah so whether it was in the team suddenly the questions we lost vettel even the owners were saying maybe we'll sell the team right we'll sell the audi you know morale is just in the toilet you know we've so so the shareholders for the first time ever dietrich was starting to say we can't do this um we need an oem yeah blah blah so then thankfully dieselgate came along and it stopped that deal um but we came that close

to being out being audi oh wow um and then honda came along and it was a bit of a risk but it was a calculated risk because we did a season with toro rosso what is out for tory first i could see the engine was getting better and better and that the honda guys they had as much invested as we did for it to work and we could see the product was was coming their heritage in the sport was fantastic yeah and we decided to go for it yeah and it and it all came good how scary is that decision well it was sort of nothing to lose really because the engine was no worse than the Renault, and they got a lot more commitment that they were prepared to make. So the safe option would have been to stay with what we knew, with the Renault guys promising us every year is going to be better.

Yeah. And they're still in the same situation now, whereas Honda, you know, they backed it up by… Investing. By investing. And they knew when they got Red Bull as a partner that the expectation was sky high. It's championships. And then suddenly, they came back into Formula 1. They never scored a podium.

First race, we were on the podium. By race nine, we're winning. We won in Austria. And we went on to win three races for them that year. And then suddenly, you find the momentum. Yeah. Is it challenging to have the role you have with, say, Max's dad so close in the scene? Well, he's not actually that close.

He's not. He's just there. He's visual. Okay. But in terms of, it was very clear from the word go that the contract was with Max. Yes. And he was welcome to be a supportive dad. And to be honest,

we've never ever had an issue. He's never advised. With him, I'm sure he advises Max behind the scenes and so on. But he's been very supportive of Max. He's been, yeah, compared to some of the motor racing dads that we've had over the years,

he's actually been very, very good to deal with and very easy to have around. Not the smiliest guy. No, he's actually been very, very good to deal with and very easy to have around. Yeah. Not the smiliest guy. No, he's a pretty scary looking guy. Especially if you're Sergio Perez and you've just won in Azerbaijan. What's the drive to survive impact on your life?

And I'm particularly interested, again, I'm in a relationship where we're both recognized. Okay. Her more than me. Yeah. She's far more famous. Right. Clearly for a while, you're more invisible than your wife yeah for sure and then the show comes along and i gotta imagine you're traveling around the world all of a sudden like normal people know

you not just race junkies it's not so yeah i i mean before drive survive anybody that followed formula one yes you're a name but you were a name in that paddock and then you leave the paddock and you go back into anonymity. Yeah, but you leave the bubble. You leave the bubble. You're big in the bubble, but outside the bubble, you're no one. It's kind of perfect. Yeah, exactly.

You can take off the cape. It was absolutely perfect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And of course, my wife, being in the biggest girl band of all time, has grown up under the media spotlight with people going through her bins and all the stuff that you're not aware of. And suddenly-

They're hacking phones in England. I mean, they're fucking brutal. All kinds of shit. Anyway, Drive to Survive comes along and things just go bananas. And it used to be we'd come into the US and they go, are you Ginger Spice? Can I have a photo with you? Yeah, yeah. Now it's like, are you the dude it used to be we'd come into the U.S. and they go, are you Ginger Spice? Can I have a photo with you? Yeah, yeah. Now it's like, are you the dude from Drive to Survive?

And I'm like, no, he's much taller than I am. And it's amazing. I mean, even going around Disneyland the other day. I'm sure. The amount of people that are – and we were unknown in the U.S. previously, but now, you know, it's unbelievable. Even in Santa Monica, down on the pier yesterday, we went down there, and the amount of people following Formula One has just gone off the charts.

It's like five X'd in the U.S. It's unbelievable. Yeah, if you think of Austin, what was it? This last race was like 420,000 fans. Five years ago, it was 90,000 or 105,000. I mean, it's enormous. I've never seen a show that's more powerful to a sport. It's transformed the sport.

It's transformed the sport. It's transformed the business. We've got so many American partners now. I mean, Ford Motor Company, without Drive to Survive, would not be in Formula 1. Fucking Ryan Reynolds buying 24 horses. Yeah. Would not be in Formula 1 without Drive to survive would not no oh fucking ryan reynolds buying oracle 24 yeah would not be in formula one without drive to survive totally do you have a good deal of gratitude for it there's some purists that i don't think love the arrival of me and all the other huge amount of gratitude for it's changed it around but also a responsibility that

we bought all this new new fan base in a young fan base a female fan base yeah they love the drivers suddenly like my 17 year old daughter is thinks you're cool it's suddenly i've gone up in bought all this new fan base in a young fan base a female fan base yeah they love the drivers so suddenly like my 17 year old daughter is thinks you're cool it's suddenly i've gone up in the cool scale yes congratulations you know so um and she's following all the drivers yuki or charles leclerc or max or you know alex or whoever um and suddenly formula one is uh you know it's cool yes um and it's brought this whole new following in. And of course, it sits uncomfortably with some. But what you've got to remember is that Drives as a Vive is a documentary.

And it's a bit like the Kardashians on wheels. You know, it's giving you a glimpse behind the scenes into some of the personalities and the struggles. And it's not just about the engineering and the sport. It's about lifestyle. And so it's just opening that lid into the world of Formula One. You know what I think they've done a great job doing is showing all the drama that happens

from third place to 20th. Yeah. But that's, to me, the thing that they've shown a light on where you're like, oh, this is heartbreaking. Yeah. The stakes to get seventh are huge. For many teams to get a tenth, that's everything. And knowing how much is going on as opposed to just who won,

I think has been really great for the story. And suddenly you meet characters like Gunther Steiner. Oh, yes. I mean, how scary is he? I mean, he used to work for us. I had to fire him. I mean, how scary was that? Sure.

Did he take it well? Not really. So it's been transformational for the sport. Did you have any judgment of your wife for how she handled the attention that now that you've had the attention, you've had to reformulate what your judgment was? Absolutely. Because she'd grown up in that spotlight. Yeah. And so she was very protective of private time and so on.

And, you know, particularly family time and so on. And suddenly, bang, you know, this thing turns up and it changes. Diametrically, it changes everything. Yeah. And you started appreciating her boundaries. Absolutely. You suddenly appreciate, okay, there's a bit of a, you know, a cape that you have to put on, a security cape to just. Protect.

Just to protect the people that you love. Yeah. Who haven't volunteered. Yeah, exactly. They didn't sign up to dad having a selfie every three yards in Disneyland. Yes, yes. Okay. Rapid fire. What is wrong with Ferrari? They have the manufacturing prowess. They have the budget. They have the drivers. Do you look at that team and think to yourself, I could go in there and fucking change something? I think the biggest problem for us is the national team. And that is its problem. It needs to get back to being a race team. What do you mean by a national team?

You know, it's an Italian institute and there's too many probably people at the top end that everybody has an input and has a say from the outside looking in. One of our strengths is that we're, you know, we move quickly. We make decisions and we stick to them. And we just, if we make the wrong decision,

we change the decision. Right. You're nimble. And I think for Ferrari, the newspapers have such an influence on what happens there. So, you know, it's a lot of pressure being at Ferrari. When you're hearing Lewis act like he will not act like state that he's never seen a car that was so dominant when we have like data that he is qualified people by two seconds. And yeah, what is, how do you take that? I feel that he's got selective memory. So, you know, some of the winning that they did in that period was just obscene.

Yes. We've had a good run for a couple of years, but the one guy that shouldn't be saying that I would think is Lewis. He's about the only person that can't be mad that some team is dominant. Absolutely. There's been this enormous interest, as we just talked about, with Drive to Survive. It's like who knows how many X it has gone up in the sport. There is concern that people get bored because Red Bull's so dominant. Yeah.

Is this something that, I can't imagine you have space to worry about, but is it something that crosses your mind? Or do you think, because I guess another solution would be like, no one wants to see a great team make themselves shitty so that the sport's more interesting. But one of the solutions would be like

putting someone with max that might win some races. At least we're seeing some battles between teammates. Is it something that concerns you at all? Or are you just, hey, I'm winning fucking Constructors Championships? Well, look, my job is to make sure we're winning. That's my job. And look, 21 was the biggest fight in the history of the sport. It was just heavyweight from the first race to the final in Abu Dhabi, where the two drivers ended up saying points.

Unreal. To a point five, right? Unbelievable. And that year aged me physically. I bet. So the last couple of years have been kind of pleasant that they've been slightly less stressful. But what you can guarantee is that the field is going to converge. And it's only a matter of time. And you can already is that the field is going to converge. And it's only a matter of time.

And you can already see that happening. Meaning like the further away from the new changes we get, people start figuring it out. So what will happen is 24, 25, you're going to see the field come much closer. Starting to see it a little bit here at the end of this season. You're starting to see it. And the cars, there's things that we see on the McLaren thing. Okay, we recognize that. That looks a lot like our solution.

Very familiar. But that's the way Formula One works. And next year, a lot of the cars will look the same, I'm sure, because there'll be that convergence. Yeah. Now, it'll spread again in 26 when the new regs come out. But for the next couple of years, it's going to converge. So, therefore, for us, sticking two alphas in the car you take a of a stappan and a hamilton that is never going to work because then you yeah you kill your own team yeah you need to

have a a dynamic in the team where the drivers are driving for the team not just themselves right and and otherwise it can become so so divis. If I was you, I would not feel compelled to bring in a Charles or someone. No, absolutely not. You're so. We want strength and depth. And we need to make sure that when those guys come and they're coming, you can see. Yeah. That we're ready to take them on.

And as a team, we're strong and we're solid. What year do you think you'll have to start thinking about the new Max? We're very far off from that right i mean we're i mean five six years out from that two weeks ago turned 26 years of age so um you know he's still he's still you know very early in his career but you know we have constantly investing in youth and talent we got some kids as young as 13 and racing and karting. How much attention do you pay to that? I pay a reasonable amount. It's mainly Helmut's domain.

He's done such a great job in scouting young talent and developing it and bringing it through that that's his main baby. But, of course, we're keeping an eye on the youngsters and how they're developing and training and coming through the ranks. Yeah. Well, this has been such a blast, Christian. I can't wait to bump into you again

at a race in the near future. You're going to be in Vegas? I will be in Vegas. You're coming to my birthday then. I am coming to you. I will present the cake to you. That's fantastic. I'm going to dig up a Dennis the Men the cake to you that's i'm gonna i'm

gonna dig up a dennis the menace cake thank you that that event is gonna be insane it will be nuts okay two seconds on that and it can go either way yeah i i'm going going i'm either gonna witness the biggest show ever put on the most expensive show ever put on yeah or i'm gonna watch the most epic thing ever yeah exactly it's either gonna be the biggest sporting event on the planet this year or or one for the record books exactly i mean we're embracing it fully with we're all in and uh we got a few surprises will you go out on the track yeah for sure you will i saw max on the simulator there the other day oh they have it built out we've built it in our sim in the factory. And seeing him drive

around there. Through Las Vegas. It's scary. And it's fast. Is it? It is so fast. What do you think they're going to hit

on Las Vegas Boulevard? Oh. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I mean, it is properly quick. I think second only to having a race in Manhattan. This is like second

only to that. It's going to be so cool, I think. But I think it's going to a race in Manhattan. This is like second only to that. It's going to be so cool, I think. But I think it's going to be a bit cold in the evening. Yes. It's a night race. It's going to be cold. I think the tires could be really tricky. It could be 50.

That could be a massive curveball for the whole weekend with the tires, with the teams. It could almost be like rain. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Oh, so exciting. Cool. Well, Christian, thank you so much. I hope I get to bump into you on that birthday weekend.

And we'll talk again soon. Thank you very much.