Business of Speed Podcast - IndyCar’s 3.3 Million Viewers and F1’s Apple Math

Episode Date: August 26, 2026

Show NotesIn the first live edition of Business of Speed, Vincenzo Landino and Lali Michelsen follow the money behind a busy week in racing.IndyCar’s Freedom 250 averaged 3.282 million viewers on FOX, its largest audience outside the Indianapolis 500 since before the 2008 unification. The broadcast peaked at 3.482 million, while IndyCar’s season average through 15 races is up 32 percent from 2025. The result provides series-long proof that national promotion, accessible broadcast distribution, and a well-produced event can pull casual viewers into the product. INDYCAR confirmed the full audience figures.The conversation moves to Formula 1’s first season on Apple TV. Early third-party estimates show steep audience declines, though the measurement cannot capture Apple’s full strategy across Apple TV, News, Maps, Music, Fitness+, and its hardware. Apple wants subscribers, repeat usage, and a deeper relationship with F1 fans. Formula 1 must still determine whether that system can introduce the sport to Americans who would never buy a racing subscription.Vincenzo and Lali also discuss Formula E’s move to Disney+, the growing subscription burden on fans, and the role live sports play in keeping streaming customers from canceling.Elsewhere, they examine the federal investigation surrounding insurers connected to Mark Walter, TWG’s exposure across five racing properties, Graeme Lowdon’s abrupt departure from Cadillac F1, and Dan Towriss’s decision to appoint Marcin Budkowski during the team’s first season.The episode closes with the economics that keep racing accessible. Sponsors fund far more than logos. They pay for networks, emergency communications, hospitality, staffing, and the infrastructure needed to stage a modern race. The T-Mobile operation behind the Las Vegas Grand Prix shows how much sits beneath the visible product.HighlightsWhy Markham’s opening problems should not obscure the race’s strong fan access, transit links, paddock experience, and commercial potential.How city circuits turn races into tourism and hospitality products.Why the Freedom 250 gives IndyCar a repeatable marketing case study.The driver recognition problem created by changing liveries, regional sponsors, and number-first promotion.What the investigation surrounding Mark Walter could mean for Cadillac F1, Andretti Global, Spire Motorsports, Wayne Taylor Racing, and Walkinshaw TWG Racing.Why Cadillac’s midseason leadership change raises questions about authority, timing, and internal stability.Where Samba TV’s estimates fall short in measuring F1 audiences on Apple TV.How streaming services use live motorsport to reduce subscriber churn.Why sponsors subsidize the infrastructure and access fans expect at race weekends.How Stefano Domenicali’s comments risk alienating the educated fans who will remain after the current cultural cycle cools.What Formula 1’s Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities system means for Mercedes, Audi, Ferrari, Honda, and Red Bull.Timestamps00:33 Going live and meeting the LinkedIn audience04:07 What is coming on the first Business of Speed Live05:53 Lali’s report from IndyCar’s first Markham weekend10:49 What Markham can teach Formula 1’s Madring project16:34 The next market for premium race hospitality20:10 Inside The Concours Club’s Miami Grand Prix experience24:29 The Freedom 250 delivers 3.282 million viewers30:12 IndyCar’s marketing and driver-recognition problem39:15 TWG, Mark Walter, and the pressure around its racing assets50:21 What Formula 1 cafeterias say about team culture55:07 Why Cadillac replaced Graeme Lowdon midseason1:05:17 Reading F1’s early Apple TV audience data1:13:14 Formula E, Disney+, and subscription fatigue1:25:32 Who pays for the infrastructure behind a race1:34:17 Stefano Domenicali’s growing fan problem1:43:31 Attention spans, sprint races, and the quality of the product1:51:28 Milwaukee, Laguna Seca, and Monza1:53:26 Formula 1’s ADUO engine catch-up systemRelated Business of Speed Reading“I Thought It Was an F1 Event”Apple’s New F1 OSWhat the Walter Investigation Does to MotorsportsNobody Is Interested in How You Drive Your Car

Substack. I'm going to make sure we get everybody live here. Welcome to show you to watch us as we get ready for the show to start in about one minute. Just a minute. One minute, huh? One minute, a. Just en. I was going to say, say it in French because that would be interesting.

A minute. 5 minute. It sounds like I'm having a seizure. A minute. Are we live on substack? That is the important thing here. Are we live on substack? as we have promised the people.

Hola substack. A substack. We're kind of live everywhere, I think. I'm excited to talk about some stuff today. There's the news that we came out was like all over the place yesterday. The IndyCar news? IndyCar Formula One. I mean, there's like so much stuff going on now.

Are we live on? Thanks for bearing with us, people. Whoever is watching, thank you. Because, you know, technology is what technology is. We are live. All right. We are live on. there we go. We're live on

the LinkedIn. The LinkedIn folks are watching us. I have to say something. In the last few years, I think LinkedIn has become one of my favorite sort of social media platforms. I love it. I mean, I think it's where we've done. We've done the best things, right? Like, that's where we've done the best. We've done the best.

We've got all the work. But I used to be like, like, sort of like, meh, whatever. I think it's, like, actually quite good. I do kind of like it. Although I saw something interesting, fact that you may not know, that of any social media platform, the one that has the most AI produced content by far is LinkedIn. But it's not even close, like the amount of AI content. Like, there's a lot of AI slop for sure on LinkedIn.

I think people are just trying to be like, I, every, you know what it is? Everybody wants to be a thought leader or an influencer or like whatever it might be. And I think LinkedIn offers an ability for it to still feel professional. I guess, yeah. Right. So you go on there in hopes of like, all right, I'm going to get my, I'm going to start getting jobs or I'm going to start getting clients and I'm going to go talk professionally all of a sudden. Yeah. People want to get the web summit and they want to be invited to be like especially because I'm very much in sort of, I think that there's different sort of silos in LinkedIn and I'm very much in the advertising, marketing sort of that sort of silo. I'm very pigeonholed there. You have no idea how many thought leaders are putting out stuff. constantly. And I swear I feel it's because they want to get invited to be like a judge in Cann or speak at Web Summit or design director of the year awards judge. And they put out stuff. They're churning out stuff constantly, constantly. There's a lot of, there's a lot of us. Siamo de accord, as we like to say. We like to say two things, Vincento. Nizio, and we're d'auccio and we're two. We are two of us.

Thanks for everyone hanging out with us at the beginning of our little bit of pre-show banter as we make sure the tech works. This is our first live show for the business of speed. We've got a nice show plan for you. The big news, we have IndyCar, the Freedom 250,

the numbers that came out of that were tremendous. We also have some Formula One news where there is stuff going around talking about the viewership drop off, which I think a lot of us expected with the move to Apple, but it's suddenly dramatic and everyone's like,

look at these numbers. We're going to put a little bit of context behind those numbers. If you follow me, you've probably seen the stuff that I've posted. We've posted on Business of Speed clarifying a little bit,

but we're going to talk about that in the show. We had Lolly at Markham. We've got Red Bull securing Macs for Staff in through 2030. Woody Johnson, New York Jets owner, bought into Aston Martin, so we've got talk about that. He likes green apparently. I mean, who doesn't, right?

We've got some more Indy car talk about their 2027, 2027, 2008 product coming out or chassis, the car itself. Also, their fuel. Formula E added Disney. Disney's got actually quite a bit on this show because Disney and Max Rastappen have something going on. A little bit about TWG and Cadillac and the whole shenanigans happening with them.

But we've got quite a bit, quite a bit on the show. It's not going to be. linear. I just want to tell people. I'm going to be linear. This is very sort of organic. And this is basically you, you guys watching Vincenzo and I when we have a FaceTime call. So we're going to talk, we're going to go right into Lolly at Markham, because Lally was at Markham, which was two Indy Car races ago. But Lally got to go to Markham, which I didn't realize how close it was to Toronto proper. Yeah. Until Lally said, I'm jumping on the metro to go to base. Yeah. Do it. You talk to what was the experience like? Because that was the first time it was. in Markham, right? It was the first time. So I'll tell you something. I was a little bit like, I don't know, I would say like not super pleased about the change because we're so used to the past location in Toronto. It's right downtown. It's in a place called Exhibition Place in Toronto that is just

right now there's our yearly fair called the X actually. So we're just very used to it. We know it. You know the layout. Perfect. I love it. So I was very sort of, yeah, there you go. So I was very sort of, what is this going to what is this going to look like? Are people going to go? And then unfortunately, and this is sort of the unfortunate part, leading up to the race, the track isn't going to be ready. A lot of people went to the track on Friday and obviously took days off, took their kids, et cetera, to show up. And there were no tracks, no cars on track on Friday due to the track just not being finished in safety, safety situations, which of course are paramount. We don't want cars on track if there aren't tire buyers of our barriers, if it's not built.

So there was a lot of sort of negative press. And then Saturday and Sunday arrived and the The race was fantastic. It was so easy to get to. Once you got off what we call here the go train, you're basically inside the track. So it's already super couldn't be more convenient. The trains were coming every half hour was incredible. The track itself was very fast.

You'll hear all the drivers say they felt like they were at the four seasons, basically, because they've never raced on a track that was 100% fresh asphalt. It was pristine. So that was quite nice for them. And Vinch, in terms of like hanging around the pad, and the media center. Oh man, it was so, so nice. I want to shout out our friends at Honda Racing.

They were very kind to me. I got all my meals thanks to Honda. At the Honda Center. I got such well. I was well fed. Thanks to our friend Chuck Schivski and the people at Honda. That was quite nice.

Because at the media center, you get like cold pizza and some awful Danish. So this was like proper. You would have enjoyed it. Little Americanos. Let's be nice to the IndyCar media people that are putting it together, those media centers. They're lovely.

But this was like, I got like, I don't know, like meat and pasta with fungi. And it was quite the delight. I got to speak to hang out actually for a bit with our good friend Chip Ganassi. At Chip Ganassi Racing. That was great. Like, what a organization they have there. It was so nice. And just seeing, I really enjoyed seeing the fans have such access to the job.

drivers. So anywhere you are in an IndyCar paddock, you're going to see, there goes Willpower, there's Patto Award, look at Santino Ferruc. So that doesn't happen in an F1 paddock, so amazing, amazing experience for the fans to be in such close proximity to their drivers. If you have the paddock pass, I think you can be in Pit Lane at a certain time. Really incredible experience. The race is locked in there for a few years. This was just sort of year one, certain that that problem with a truck will never happen again now that they figured it out. All in all, Vien Chit, incredible experience.

As you know, IndyCar's my baby girl. And it was just really nice to see the birth of a new race for the first time. It was great. What do you think it was the most surprising thing from a view? I mean, you've been a lifelong fan. So if for you, the perspective is different, but it's in your backyard. I'll be honest. I think that the most surprising.

Yeah, I think that that fail with the hair pinned, which made for very, I don't know why nobody could have foreseen that somehow. I don't know if when they were racing it on the Sim. I have no knowledge of what happened when they were racing it on the Sim. It was just wild. But there is something about it that I think it's going to become one of the iconic turns because it's so chaotic. It's so crazy.

It's like putting, throwing some marbles at a corner or something. So I do think that was a little bit of, oh my gosh, what the heck is this? Other than that, I was surprised the track was very fast. I was surprised how much the drivers actually liked it and that everyone was quite open to the change. Nobody was like, oh, damn, now we have to be in Markham. Like, everyone was quite open and receptive to it. So that was quite nice.

You know what? I'm pumped that it went as well as it did, especially after, again, I was only watching from the outside. And it was like all that absolute like pandemonium early. People are like, how can let's not be ready? What are we doing here? I can only imagine. Now, I'm going to kind of go a different direction.

with this, but I can only imagine what will happen if Madrid is not ready. Gasp! The Formula One. I mean, it is, and this is not to pit one against the other. I think it's happening across series, right?

The tracks aren't ready. They're trying to do things, and of course it's also they're both street tracks or city circuits, right? Markham is in a city. Yeah, it's an active city. Yeah, yeah. Madrid is in a city their new races they're not ready right

things don't happen as quickly as they do do you think that and we talk to Yardinel Zafeli on our show who helped build or at least in the early stages of the Maduring and he said you know the reason why you're going to see more street

circuits pop up city circuits pop up is because of what they do for the the brand, right? The brand of Formula One, the promoters, they don't have to, they're not spending as much money

to build a purpose, or to put together a purpose-built track. You can sell something other than, you know, this really cool track in the middle of the forest, of the Arden Forest. Now, that's no shot on Spah because I think Spa is still a mecca,

but it's getting harder and harder to sell that, right? For these newer fans, and this is across the series. This is a cross series now, because everyone's fighting for the younger eyeballs. So I guess I'm curious, what do you think will happen if Madrid's not ready?

What are we going to hear? Firing squad. I cannot even imagine what would happen. I heard even with the Markham track that obviously the captain, Mr. Roger Penske, was not very pleased with Savori Green, the promoters of the race. It was chaotic.

I can't imagine under any... Vincenzo, there is not a scenario my brain that could even fathom that that track would actually not be ready and that they couldn't do the race. Like, I can't even go there because imagine the concept, the financial economic commercial repercussions of that track not being ready. And just what it costs to get the cars there, to get the teams there to set up there. The, I think it's it's too big to fail kind of thing. It's, I think we're at that point, Vinch. I don't, I can't even foresee.

Well, they also can't afford. Formula One also based, you know, we saw the Q2 results and the Q2 result. I'm accounting. It's all accounting, right? Like they only ran five races versus nine last year. So, of course, the numbers are going to look worse. Again, people reading headlines. Oh my God, Formula One's falling apart, blah, blah, blah.

And we'll go into some of the numbers in a moment as well. But I think the entire series, Liberty Media Formula One, they can't afford to have another race not happen. Absolutely not. It will happen. It's a few weeks away. There's cars on the track. Yeah, we saw kind of a science. Yeah, but also I think that what I heard,

and please take this with a green of salt, what I heard is that the track itself is ready. The safety things are in. It's more like grandstands, hospitality things, sort of the perimeter of the fan zones. It's that kind of stuff that they're polishing together in the next, they have three weeks, I think. But the actual track itself is racer.

apparently right now. So, yeah, I don't know. I have no idea. If you think about it, though, hospitality blocks that that's how they make a lot of money. So they actually really do need those to be up and running because they've probably sold millions of dollars worth of hospitality for that race. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's really exciting.

I mean, there's a lot of things I'm seeing. And I know we're switching over to the madering. and we were talking about Markham, but I think it's all very similar, right? In terms of who these series are trying to attract, who the series are trying to go after, who the series are speaking to, and newer audiences,

audiences that want to, like, do these new, cool, fun experiences, which I think, Madrid, who doesn't want to go to Madrid?

Yeah, of course, of course. Like, they just need it. Yeah. No, go ahead,

go ahead. No, no, I was just going to say that that, that's key. because what you do is you sort of compound it with a trip. You want to go to Madrid anyway. So perhaps you wait until the Grand Prix and then you go and then you spend an extra week in Madrid,

then you spend your tourism dollars, right? That's sort of the hope that these cities have. And I think that's what Yarno was implying also on our podcast was like, it's not just that, oh, we have a race in a city. It's like what that means to the city because people will inevitably stay for a few more days on the back end or on the front end and spend their money there. Yeah, for sure. No, for sure.

I think the race, too, what I'm seeing from a hospitality perspective, Formula One can't add more, like, they only have so much premium hospitality they're able to sell, right? With Paddock Club and the, what was it, Open 44, whatever the other club is called, the 44. So there's only so many of that, right? And they're sold out. Domenicole has said they're sold out through, I think, like, 2028, which is insane. Yeah, it's crazy.

So the only way to do it is to build, like, another level on these paddock clubs, like literally more square footage in these paddock clubs or create new experiences. And we're seeing more experiences be created. We saw one at spa where they quite literally put a glass box on the back of a truck and drove people around the circuit for two hours. eating food, eating dinner. It was like a $14,000 plate. Per person? Per person. And it was, you know,

Michelin-starred chef. There was a host. Oh, similar to what you would do if you were like going to a new city and you're getting on the city bus and there's a host like telling you. That's what it was. You had like David Kultard or

the double deck. Ken dock that were like leading the dinner, like hosting the dinner and talking about here's the iconic corner. Here's something that happened at this corner. I'm sure that the bus or the truck wasn't moving the whole time. I didn't I didn't look too deeply into the actual logistics of it. But still, that sounds fun. But again, trying to create new experiences is what they have to do. And I think on a

city circuit or in a city track, you have more opportunity to do things like that because there's just a lot more to talk about inherently. And, you know, it's a new track. So there's no racing history on it, but you have history of the city itself. And of course. Coming through this corner at 200 miles an hour, that corner is, you know, whatever. So. You just reminded me of something at Markham that I hadn't seen before. Certainly I never saw it at the Toronto race. Maclaren had like its own sort of, they had a hospitality zone that was removed from everybody else.

And it had on the roof like a grandstand that you could see the like the back stretch of the, it looked really awesome. And I was actually all the whole weekend I was on the lookout for Tony Kahn, who I maintained was not there because I did not see him to try to get. myself into that hospitality because it looked really, really cool and no other team had something. So they certainly had a special deal. It was like a, you know, like the hospitality guys often is sort of like a container of sorts. But this had a, this had like a grand, its own little McLaren grandstand. It was quite nice. And when you said that about Madrid, it made me think about unique

hospitality opportunities and how there's so much. Yeah. Well, we, we experienced it. Maybe we could talk about this for a bit. We, we experienced a very, very unique hospitality in Miami through the Concourse Club, which wasn't an, an one team. It was a separate entity, a private club that created the most incredible structure you guys can imagine at the racetrack with a lot of real estate on the Miami campus. So there's also that sort of opportunity for private people to buy hospitality and then. Well, I think what you just said is really, is actually key to a lot of this, right? Because that's a great segue.

Because the Concourse Club is an actual club for automotive enthusiasts. It's like a country club for people who like cars. And more than just like cars that own a lot of cars and want track time. And it's a very fascinating club. But the experience they provided was seamless because you would go to the club in the morning to the actual club, which was. in Opalaca at the airport, the executive airport, you would go there, start your day with, I mean, phenomenal breakfast, right?

Not just like Danish is. I mean, phenomenal breakfast, meats and omelets and all sort of drinks, the whole bit. Vincenzo would come up and then come back with like this omelet made from heaven, I think, right? Like, craziness. Yeah, they were whipping things together that it was like, all right, thank you. I mean, I'm not going to say no to this. And the seamless aspect of this I was, you know, bringing up was that. you left the club,

you got in a shuttle bus, like right, they had shuttle buses show up regularly. Every 15 minutes, there's two or three buses, right? So you're never really waiting. And it took you to the Hard Rock facility,

dropped you off at, you know, entrance to or whatever the entrance was. And you walked pretty much right into the club. You walked through security, one security area, and then you're pretty much right there. think we went over over some stairs and you're in.

Less than seven minute walk. Like five minute walk. No traffic. We hit no traffic because it was a separate entrance. And we were thinking to ourselves, this is the way to do it, right? This is how you really do this right. You go from an off campus facility. You get shuttled everyone in.

And then the experience inside the club, the club that was on site was almost exactly what I just came from, right? there was more food, more meat. Obviously, it was like even more elevated, but you felt like you were just going from one zone to another of the same place. Now there happens to be a racetrack in front of me and cars going around. Anyway, that is where we see experiences going.

You have to do something different and the networking that was happening in there. Yeah, incredible. I do want to be gracious to our host, heightened holding company. They brought us out. They hooked us up with this. It was like really, really an exceptional experience.

I think that Vincienzhen and I have been very lucky to have quite a few on-track experiences throughout the years and a different series. This was something of another level, really. Like you said, it was basically the same experience at the club, almost even better because now there's a Formula One race happening in front of you. Zero stress. You didn't have to park. You didn't have to worry about anything.

You knew that you could leave at any point because the shuttles were going nonstop. Pretty incredible. I want to quickly acknowledge. Yeah, our friends. Oh, go ahead. I was going to say. Our friends at turn 14 asked us about the madering and just said, Ola, I keep seeing the madring isn't ready.

Is that true? I just wanted to acknowledge the fact that we saw your comment. Yeah, I mean, it's almost there. If they got three more weeks, they're going to just work really hard at it, I think. And it'll be, we will, I think, I believe we will see Formula One action on that track. 100%. At the proper time. Friends from turn 14, it would be the shock of a light.

I'm convinced it's ready. I'll just repeat what I said before, just for them. What I hear is that sort of more the facilities, the grandstands, the hospitality suites, that's what's now the final push, that the track itself is ready to go. It's the final countdown. Q Europe. Final countdown. That was, yeah, I was interesting. All right. IndyCar. Back to Indycar. Let's go. Let's get back to our IndyCar conversation. Let's do it. I really, I think this is a story that was phenomenal. Indycar built another. City Street Circuit in Washington, D. Yep. The Freedom 250. The numbers came out yesterday, averaged 3.282 million viewers on Fox with a peak of over 3.4 million, which is the largest audience for a non-Indy 500 race since before unification between Cart and Indy. Which was in 2008, by the way, so that's like insane. So since 2008, what, 16 years, or more than that, right?

Yeah, 18 years, sorry. 18 years. For 18 years, this is the top race since, or non-Indy 500 rate. What I found extremely, extremely telling or what I find extremely telling, I think there's a bigger story here. I'm going to let you kind of take it away after I just mentioned this comment. there's IndyCar is averaging 15 races 1.875 million they are up 32% over 2025 that I have to get the exact NASCAR number I believe it's still slightly below NASCAR on the year but that is over Formula One's number for sure and now we don't even get Formula One numbers anymore so we can't even come we don't even know in real time but if we go based off of last year's number in Formula One number in Formula One number. one. It's ahead of that. What do you think or what do you see as this trend? This like what's happening

with IndyCar right now? We could talk a little bit more about the race itself too because I think it was an incredible spectacle. I have Alex Palo and Scott Dixon here. So Alex Palo and Scott Dixon are here to prove my love of IndyCar. So I don't think it's a secret that this is like like I said earlier. It's my baby girl. I love this series so much from a very, very young age. and I've always sort of called it Cinderella because it kind of lives in the shadow of the step sisters. So to see numbers like this, to me, is phenomenal. The fact that the series is growing,

it's in total growth mode. I've always maintained Vinci. I've said it on the air. I've said it, we talked about it with Chip Ganassi. We talked about it with Will Bucks, and I talked about it with James Hinchcliff. The problem is an education problem. If we can get people to watch an IndyCar race

and to understand the product and what it is we're doing, and let go of the comparison to Formula One because it's not Formula One because if not, it would be called Formula One. It would just be an additional 25 cars racing over there. It's better than that senator from Milwaukee that apparently doesn't know the difference to an Indy car in Formula One, so.

Oh, there you go. So that says it all. So the fact that we have different sort of open wheel cars, like if you look at a Formula E car, they're also open wheel, right? So we have different cars and different series. So the problem I've always maintained is an education and marketing problem. So if we can start addressing that, if we can start educating people on what IndyCar is,

that it's not some Bush League series, that it is world class that we're racing at world-class tracks with top-top drivers. I always say a lot of these drivers grew up racing with the guys that are an F-3, F-2, F-1. They're just not enough seats for everyone, guys. Not everyone can be in Formula One. There are 22 seats in Formula One. That's it globally. I maintain Formula One is the most elite job on planet Earth. Because no other job, there's only 22 people that do it full stop.

We can't compare it to that. So IndyCar really benefited in this race from the marketing push. The race was super well marketed. I sent you a photo. I have a cousin in New Jersey who quite literally does not know a NASCAR from a Moto GP bike from an indie car. Shout out Andrew. Shout out to Andrew.

He knows nothing. And doesn't he send me on Sunday a photo? He made himself some wings. He's got his celery. He's got his ranch dip. And he's like, Freedom 250, let's go.

Because it was so heavily. He was flying. Helicopter chopper in the background. Creedon's Clearwater revival. Yeah, the whole bit. The eagle going by. So it proves the thesis that if the race is well marketed, people will tune in

even out of curiosity. So it was, the time of the day was great. A lot of factors sort of fed that. If you were watching F1 on Sky, for instance, the last commercial before it ended was a plug for the Freedom 250. So there was a lot, there was a lot put into it. And guess what? The numbers prove that it was worth it.

So the proof is there that if we promote the series better, that if we educate people on the product, that eyeballs will find it. So I'm super pro just, keeping up that momentum and keeping up the marketing and education efforts. Yeah, I think it's, I think the marketing, right, we've talked about this

with, we've talked about this on a show, we've talked about this on we've written about this in the newsletter. We have talked about this with guests. We've talked about it on site at races. That is the number one challenge. It is the number one challenge.

And what Chip Ganasi said to us, Zach Brown said, also to the media was that they believed and I'm going to say I'm going to caveat this because I feel like we have to

these days. Okay. Politics aside, they believe those two gentlemen believed, and obviously Roger Penske feels the same way,

that this, he put his money behind it, literally. Quite literally, yeah. This would help raise the profile for IndyCar

and expose them to new audiences to help combat that post indie uh indie 500 like no one I don't even want to call it a lull because it's almost like you hit the indie 500 and then no one even knows anything about the rest of the season right you there's that that pre indie 500 you're like okay there's excitement there's a lot of hype yeah and then after it nothing marketing I mean Zach Brown was brought on with to IndyCar to help them market the series right that was one of his goals

was to market the series better. We saw the FIA, who we know is now involved in the officiating end as a kind of like another party. They were sharing. They were sharing IndyCar, right? So like all of these things are happening. Again, they've got to combat the Indy 500 coma, so to speak, I guess, if you want to call it that way. Yes. It's a food coma, right?

You eat, you gorge yourself on all this racing for a month of May and then you're like. But here's the thing that, and I've always, I've always, always talked about this too. Like there's a lot of people who are very loyal to that race specifically to the ND 500 and it does get a lot of global, global press and a global attention. But I think that, and I'm just creating this in my head right now, as you said that, because I think that maybe that is a big reason why there's misinformation and people aren't educated because they see that one race. So they think, oh, these guys only do ovals. Because that's the only race that really gets global recognitions. The assumption is easily, easily made that the guy's only race.

on ovals when, as we know, they're not only racing on ovals or racing on really great road courses. For instance, this year, the season ends at Laguna Seca, an iconic, iconic permanent road course. We've had how many people on our show say Laguna Seca is one of, like, the best tracks. The best tracks. Right. So we're racing on streets, Long Beach, St. Petersburg. Now we're in Markham.

Like, there's streets. We have short ovals. We have super speedways, permanent road courses, right? but I think because the Indy 500 gets so much attention, it's created this global misconception that we're only racing ovals on IndyCar. And yeah, I've just connected the thoughts, maybe that that's why.

Such a famous race. It's like literally just dawned on me. It just dawned on me that that's why. There you go. Fancy. Fancy thought. I have, you know, there's a lot that I read, whether it's online,

whether it's like people with their opinions or experts in IndyCar. And everyone just agrees, like, you got to fix your marketing. You got to fix how you market these racers. And I think Fox did a good job early on with, remember the Super Bowl commercials with New Garden and Padua Award. Those were awesome. Yeah.

But then it was like, okay, at least I haven't seen it. Like, what else? I haven't seen them either. Okay, we did a couple, we did some great commercials. And then it kind of fell flat after that. I want to see that level of intensity the whole year. Because you have to. You have to.

Like NASCAR, it's pretty much the entire year they're running. Formula One, we know runs is owning. Formula One is going to become like the NFL. The NFL wants to own every single day of the week during the season. Formula One is going to at some point have something happening, they already really do, every single month of the year. So for other motorsports, it's like you've got to do something to stay. relevant and keep people, you know, those eyeballs on your series. If they can fix the marketing

and they can, they can turn, they really need to focus on the talent, the drivers. People still know the drivers. I was going to say, they don't know them. Even my line, and I'll stop, I'll stop it here, but I was reading, I was watching a post. I was watching an IndyCar post on Instagram. and it was like the number 14 car has been blah blah blah blah blah disqual like or penalized whatever it was Santino Ferruci I believe Santino is a 14 right yeah I think he's 14 but I know that kind of and even I was a little bit like ooh I'm not 100% sure most people don't know who the number 14 is I love that you're talking about this NASCAR does the same thing oh the number 33 the number well okay cool what about the driver's name I get it it could be a different driver next year

the matter. But how do you promote, like in Formula One, you're not like, oh, the number 44 and the number 16 or, or, well, I, like, I don't, I don't know. So if when you're talking about trying to, you're bringing in an influx like a new audience, great, you've got their eyeballs and now start talking about these drivers like they're humans because if you just, if there's just a number, it doesn't make sense, right? People, people that aren't accustomed to motorsport and understand how that works, they're like the number 14. What do you mean? Especially because it's newer fans. Yes, of course. Like, you know Scott Dixon is a nine, Alex Paloza, 10.

We know that because we watch every weekend. We're trying to get in new fans. And there's two problems with that. Not only that, but because of the business model in IndyCar, it's a regional model. You'll often see cars with different liveries at different races. So you'll see this is Alex Palo in yellow. They have a big sponsor, DHS.

So that's not going to change. But a smaller team, maybe pink one weekend. And then the following weekend it's green. So now you're looking for the pink car. It's gone. Now it's green. And then they're referring to it as the number 14. It gets very confusing for the fans.

I don't know how they solve that because of the regional sponsorship. But it's a known problem that IndyCar has with the changing liveries being referred to the numbers of the drivers because people don't know. Like we all know Lewis is 44. Okay, it's Lewis Hamilton. He's a seven time Formula One world champion, right? But for people to know that? Does a new person know that? perhaps not a new person, but let's just say it's more likely than for somebody to know that Santino Ferrucci is the 14.

Like, I don't know if that many people would know that. Maybe. It's a problem for sure. They always need to attach, I think, the name of the driver to the number. So that it's the number eight and then in parentheses put the name of the dude. And then we start connecting the dots. That's whoever's driving the car. So, yeah.

And then they don't do the 100 days to In. indie show anymore, which I forced a lot of people to watch that show. And they really like the driver. They're like, okay, I like this dude. I like that. Now I'm going to cheer for this guy. And that show didn't get picked up for a third season. And that was a shame because that show really, at least, was building the personality of the drivers.

I think there's plenty of personalities they can show off. I believe there are plenty of folks, whether it's team owners, mechanics, engineers, obviously the drivers. There's a lot of personalities. You know, we were, while you were in the paddock for Indy, but like even Imsa, right? Like you walk through the paddock.

We walked through the paddock of the Daytona 24 hours. And there's so many personalities. We met so many just like genuine people. The owners, which there's a lot of crossover with Imsa and IndyCar, which is why I'm bringing it up. And you're like, okay,

why couldn't there be something? It could feel more grassroots. It could feel more bootstrapped of a content series. Anyway, we could beat this one until we're blue in the face, but I do believe that they can do a lot. There is a lot that IndyCar has to do, but this is a really good step. They need to carry the momentum now, right?

Now we're going to Milwaukee. Double header. Right? Let's hope that, let's hope that this takes off. Interesting story about Milwaukee. It's not even about Milwaukee necessarily. This is... Is it about beer?

No. I want to segue into our next story, which is about TWG. And this... So somebody brought us to my attention. I'm actually going to bring this up. Let me find the post. Someone brought this to my attention.

So we know what's going on with TWG, which we'll talk about... Yeah. In a moment, right? TWG has said that they're not selling their motorsport stake. And for those that don't know about what's going on with TWG,

TWG owned by Mark Walter. Mark Walter. is under federal investigations now because of how he's potentially moved money or he's classified money that was moved around between related companies of his. He's borrowed money from one company, perhaps. From one company to another. And this is insurance money, which, you know, is money people you and I give to an insurance company to hopefully have a policy that they can pay out on whenever we need it.

there's nothing wrong with insurance companies investing money. There's absolutely nothing wrong. They have to do that in order to grow the base of money so that they can pay out. But it is a problem when regulators are like, cool, where did you invest this money? Oh, you gave it to a related company that you're also own, but you didn't say that. Anyway, so there's all this situation. One of the things that's come about of that come light of that is, well, TWG Global is involved in almost all the motorsports, IndyCar, Supercar, Formula One, with their partnership with GM, with Cadillac.

And so last week, the statement from TWG was, we are not selling our motorsport properties. Now, Bob Hawkers had posted something. He said, TWG reiterated, it isn't looking to sell its motorsports sport assets. So slight change. And shout out to Nicole. Slate change.

Nicole on racing here. And she said, you know, not sure how much I trust DWG's statements. Somebody commented on that and said, it may be totally unrelated, but will not running the TWG livery this weekend seems weird. And again, I'll go into why I'm talking about Milwaukee. There's a video that Andretti posted, and it's like they're wearing the TWG race overalls or like a t-shirt I think he had on, has a TWG on it, which is the sponsor. And then like camera flips to them wearing their Phoenix investments outfit or race overall, a race suit.

And people are like, oh my God, does that mean that like, TWG? they're taking them off the thing. Isn't it owned by the same thing? No, Phoenix is a regional sponsor. Okay, that call. So Phoenix Investments is out of Milwaukee, a regional sponsor. It's just ironic that they took them,

that they're coming off in life of all the things that are happening. So it's timing. But it is funny because those regional sponsorships do matter and they kind of throw people for a little bit of a loop. For a loop, yeah, yeah. And sometimes you'll see like very small companies that put up a lot of marketing bucks for their one race

because they have a lot of clout in the region, right? It's just unheard of perhaps in it. I have never, in Formula One, maybe once in a while, you get like an additional sticker here or there, but it certainly doesn't change delivery of the car. Yeah, the TWG thing is interesting to me. Certainly Mr. and Mrs. Towers were loud and proud in D.C. They're not, they're certainly not shying away from the spotlight.

I'm hopeful that there's not a lot of shakeup, especially like Andretti Global, because I would say it doesn't have the same resources that the Cadillac and GM sort of have combined together. But it is sort of, there's a lot there, right? There's a lot of moving part. There's a lot of people quite upset. It's all alleged, we don't know. Apparently there's a lot of time. He has till December to figure this out.

So one sale of the LA Dodgers and it all sort of gets put in the wash and no problem. So we'll see what happens. Yeah, I mean, he sold the Lakers already, 12 billion or so, which was a very fast sale, right? There was no, like, it just happened. And then obviously more things have come out. There was a really good expose on substack or a fellow substack writer. Really went into depth about it. But yeah, it is interesting.

You know, you start to look at these ownership. Like, it's one thing that you think of. Like, you know, you think of, you only think of the bad owners, right? The, when you look at like a Force India or a rich energy or things like that, you're like, oh, man, that was a. Well, rich energy, yeah. But you never think that this, like, legit guy like Mark Walter and Guggenheim partners and all of this is, you know, you never think like anything shady is going. I mean, you don't want to believe shady things are going on. believe, but I think that I'm, maybe I'm a little bit more jaded. It's like, I think that there's, I think that there's, I think we'd be naive to not think that there's so much shadiness happening at all levels in the world right now when you get to a certain threshold of when we're talking billions, I think it's just very easy to get away with a lot of things until it's not. And I think that because people keep getting away with things, this is not about Walters, okay? This is just in general about business. I just feel that when you've gotten away with something for a very,

long time, there's no part of you that thinks that you're going to stop getting away with it, right? Look at, look at, um, that the, what's the guy's name, the big Ponzi scheme, the guy. Made off. Bernie Madoff. Like, he got away with it so long. There was no part of him that thought he wasn't going to get away with it, right? And that was sort of fake money, so to speak, that he was giving people. This is actually, and by fake money, I mean, real people lost a lot of money in their life savings.

So I want to acknowledge that. It's not fake money. he was giving people returns that showed fake money returns. Walters isn't doing nothing like that. He's actually investing money in things that are probably making money and increasing the value of the initial asset. Totally okay, yeah. It's totally okay.

He's just doing it perhaps in a way that is not compliant to whoever is investigating him, right? So it's a different beast. But I think that we'd be naive to think that when we're talking about billions of dollars, that there's not shadiness everywhere that's happening. Like, we don't want to believe it, but it's happening. It just is. I think it's very easy to get away with things. I think there is a club of self-protection, and I just don't want to be naive to think I'm surprised it's happened.

Am I super shocked? I'm not really super shocked. I think that this one hits closer to home because it affects two series that I really love, IndyCar and F1. It doesn't affect, but it's close to. It's adjacent to series that I love. love, but I don't know if I'd say surprise in general of any wrongdoing financially in this day and age. No, no.

And I think the other part of this is that motorsport is putting more eyeballs on this kind of stuff. So if you are an owner who comes in and you're just like, you're doing something, again, not saying that there was any wrongdoing, but if you are conducting kind of shady business at all, motorsports not it's not obscure anymore we're not in a day age where it's obscure investment this is this is so this has become so legitimate and so many eyeballs are on it now you're putting yourself in lacrosse hairs yeah yeah it's not investing in lacrosse like now no not at all not at all no of course of course not not and and so you have to you you have to consider that but also So the series, the series, Formula One, when they allowed, and I say allowed because they had to vote it in, when they allowed that group to come in, you can see why someone like Total Wolf was like, hmm, now, Andretti, the Andretti stuff aside, the Andretti stuff aside, you can see why the owners and the team principals are like, you know what, we don't want any shady business. I kind of do see it now, exactly. And adding more to it. Again, this is not to say that there was anyone new, anyone.

or that Walter's done anything wrong per se other than how it was filed because again, we don't know 100% what was done yet. It's all coming out slowly little by little. But it is, you know, if I'm an owner, if I'm a team owner, I'm going to say, you know what, that guy's got some shady business dealings. That's going to ruin the health of my nut when the brand or the reputation of the whole series gets, you know, thrown into that mix. I don't want to be tarnished by association.

Yeah, I don't want to be tarnished by association. We always say that, and I think you in your family used to say something similar, but it's certainly my mom used to say it to me. It's like, tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are. So I could see a very, and again, we'd be shocked if we heard otherwise, but it seems like Toto Wolf is a very, by the book, sort of straight shooting kind of guy, right? That we're not associated with any shadiness whatsoever that we know of at all.

Could you be? Yes, of course. Anybody could be, right. Anybody could be. But as of recording today, we don't know of anything, right? So I could see how you'd be weary to let people into your little club that you don't know that much about or who you perhaps have heard rumblings about. We don't know what anybody knows about anyone.

So sort of in hindsight, you're correct. I hadn't thought about it. Perhaps there's also that hesitation of like, I don't know exactly who I'm letting into the club and what they stand for and what they represent and who, who's part of their network. So that's an interesting point, actually. I like that. You are watching the Business of Speed Show live with Vincenzuela Landino and Lali

Mikhailson. This is number one. This is our first show. So if, well, I can't even say if this is your first time joining us because this is your first time joining us for everybody. Please feel free to comment.

We are also trying to mix in, you know, comments and questions from the audience. I have some lighthearted. Yeah, I have something lighthearted to bring in. So I have. I have a contact. I really hope he's or she is watching, who works at MTC, at the McLaren Technology Center. And once in a while, we chat racing. So this is very lighthearted, but I actually love this.

Apparently, by far, the best cafeteria in Formula One is McLarence. They have the absolute best breakfasts. followed by Red Bull. Alpine apparently is dog poop. And apparently, and this doesn't surprise me, Cadillac doesn't even have a restaurant. They have vending machines, which if you realize that they don't actually have a proper facility, would make sense.

The American Way. So apparently until last year. Get you sell some Doritos from the snack machine, Jim. Exactly. Until last year, if you worked at McLaren, you had to pay for your lunch. Now it's subsidized. And then like if you're a contractor that deals with

all the teams. This is why we have this very, this is why I can tell you about all the teams because it's someone that goes to a lot of the teams. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you will love to hear this. Ferrari. If you're a visitor at Maranello, you can't even afford to eat there because it's a Michelin

Star Chef. It's, you know, it's great. It's real food. And there's the beauty of not being in England, right? Like, just saying. So, so McLaren, a shout out to

McLaren, apparently their food is delicious. And you know what? It's, it's, it's meaningless, but it also meaningful because this is, this is something that Tony Kahn talked about when he was on our podcast about the new Arrow McLaren facility, right? You want people to show up at work and be like proud of where they're showing up, right? To show up at work and be like, man, I'm going to have my delicious breakfast. He actually sent me a photo of this delicious breakfast he was having, like show up and have an incredible breakfast. There's an incredible gym for you to work out. Like, You're just like happy to show up at work. If you're currently working at Cadillac, for instance,

it's like one of those commercial parks. I don't know how to explain it. So it's like different sets of buildings. You could see why they don't have a kitchen, the cafeteria, you've got to get a thing from the vending machine. Is that great for morale? Probably not. You're not like excited to show up there every day, right?

Yeah. And we talked to, we've had conversations with some folks that said, you know, it's still a very, it's such a fresh operation. right like I don't even want to go into detail because some of the things were very eye-opening for us to hear but the operation with Cadillac right now it is it is very much a bootstrapped startup like that they that is actually the words they use like we are worst yeah that's why the vending machine comment it surprised me I was like this doesn't shock me because we've heard other things yeah so you're right about morale you're right I mean listen the folks that work for these teams it's beyond the drivers and the engineers and the team principles.

Like there's more than just the seven or eight people you might see on TV for any given weekend. There's thousands, hundreds of thousands, all race teams. This is not just Formula One, right? There's IndyCar teams. There's hundreds of people behind the scenes. Even, you know, when you go down into like IMSA and whatnot, there's hundreds of, yeah, employees, of team members.

Like, you have to give them more. And like, it's cool to hear that. But listen, McLaren, it doesn't shock me. They've spent a mint on that MTC. It looks like it's been using movies. I mean, it's like, it's cool. It's like the Bond headquarters over there. Like, MI6, it's so beautiful.

By the way, there's a comment here from a celebrity. Her name is Amy. Maybe you recognize the name. And she really digs the pink you have behind you. Well, the pink behind me is actually courtesy of her two signs. So. So. Thanks, Amy.

We love the pink too. We love the pink. It's a little too pink for my liking right now. One for two vibes. Vincenzo's and we're calling basement pink. And I'm in like natural lights, Lux. Yeah, I mean, I've got, I'm in the studio here. So I decided that I wanted to give it a different vibe for the live show.

So going with the turning on the pink neon lights was just a vibe in the moment. And I don't know, maybe I'll turn it off. No, I do love it. It's like Alpine. Maybe you're giving Alpine. some good vibes. Alpine vibes. Alpine vibes for Monza coming up. I want to talk a little bit because I've talked other places, but I haven't been able to actually talk about this with you. So I really want to talk about this with you. No, no, no.

Well, we were talking about Cadillac. We're talking about Cadillac. So I want to talk about Graham Loudon getting the boot. Can we call it getting the boots? Certainly. I mean, according to Dan Towers, it was the boot. It was not a mutual decision. It was, it was my decision. I think according to everybody. Dan Tarris was really wanting us to know that, actually. I don't know if that was sort of wanting to like show that I'm the boss here, but he, quite frankly, as Vincenzo said, wanted everyone to know that it was his decision. Graham Loudon started the team. I mean, yeah, it was in the initial stages of the team. He is someone known in the business. He's very well respected. He was never meant to be the long-term team principle. This was a known fact. He was sort of brought in for, phase one to get the team up and running and started. However, no one expected him to leave mid-season. So, Marsen Bukowski, who they brought in for people less familiar with that name, very well-known proven commodity. He's an engineer by trade. He was at Ferrari during the Schumi years. He won also with Kemi, O.G. Kimi, as I like to call him, Kimi Raikkonen. He won with Lewis at McLaren. He was in

Reno when it went to Alpine. So he has a known commodity, but he's been out of the sport for a bit. a punded on Via Play Poland. So there's lots of theories of did Morrison pitch himself to GM? That is actually a story that's out there. If Morrison actually actively pitched himself to GM and sort of got buy-in to bring himself on board, who knows that's just hearsay right now. My question to you would be, it's not going to solve anything. Do you think it will, in my opinion, it's not solving anything.

The team is already pretty much punching above whatever we thought. Like it's doing the 2%. So why do you think they made, I don't know where they're putting. Yeah, but it is sort of like as a first year team, it's doing already way better than anyone expected, really. If you look at HRT and Katerham and other teams historically, how poorly they've done. Why would damp towers make this change in your opinion, obviously just opinion? And do you think it will accomplish anything in the remainder of the season? That answer is no.

The back half of what you just said, no, I don't. I don't know why he would do it. No, I will say this. there are some folks that I have spoken to, you know, engineers that work, that have worked in Formula One for, for, you know, decades that were not surprised. There were others that never thought that Graham was the guy in the first place. I don't know Graham well enough, right? To be like, oh, yeah, I definitely know. I obviously don't know him like that anyway, to even give it an opinion of Graham the man.

I thought he was going to at least be given a, like, finish the season. Yep. It's always odd when you, in football, when you fire a manager in NFL, you rarely, rarely see, rarely do you see a coach fired midseason, right? Like, shout out Urban Meyer with the Jaguars after what, like four games. Like, you don't really see it because you've put together. a project and you need to run that project for an entire season at that point, making a change with the person who's supposed to be at the top of that pyramid is destabilizing,

could be demoralizing. But on the flip side, on the flip side, could improve morale if that person wasn't liked, if that person wasn't succeeding. Now, again, success in the eyes of Cadillac is just is very different than like, we have to, you know, we have to win. races. At this point, finish a race. Like, that's good enough. But we knew that going into the season. And I think that's where my mind goes. There was never any expectation for them to do anything. Just getting a car to show up on the starting grid. Just getting a car to run a lap around a track in your first year is a big enough deal. for it to not be over the 107% time.

I think people forget that they're building every single. It's not like IndyCar where you're getting at least a spec chassis to begin with. These people in these Formula One teams are building literally like if you in your house try to build an F1 car. It's from scratch. I mean, I would hope it's a little, I hope they have a little bit more tools in their toolbox in that. It's just as scratch as scratch can be. There are these famous sort of stories in Hollywood lore about Orson Wells and other sort of famous directors that they would fire someone just to fire them on day one of the

shoot, sort of to assert authority and people would know, I mean business. When Dan Towers was so adamant that it was my decision, my decision, it gave me that kind of vibe that it was like, don't forget who's in charge here. Don't forget who's in charge here. Yeah. That's that vibe. I mean, me, yes, which leads me to think that there's something else, right? We haven't really been given.

There hasn't been enough for like time to even digest all of it, I think. And I haven't seen anything really speculated other than what they've put out. I don't know if anyone really cares either, right? Like that's also telling to me like, all right, Graham's out, new guys in. No one really cares. Again, the team's at the bottom of the pack. we know they're struggling and fighting to just finish races. So, you know, maybe no one cares.

Maybe Graham wasn't the guy. But some of the reasons that they were getting, you know, Dan gave was like, did someone, did you check with PR before you said these things? Yeah. I didn't sit well. This was a planned. This was a planned exit. And then it was, but then you said like it was only your decision.

Yeah. Okay. And Vukowski reportedly had never, never been to the facility. because he was like well God forbid he shows up to the facility then people Cloak and dagger yeah of course it just all seems really shady again and then with everything happening with TWG

at the same time it's like oh come on man here's here's something else I'll say sometimes things can be very benign and it could be done for all great reasons but timing for timing's sake and just for like optics you start to think

and you start to wonder and with the advent of the internet which I I'll agree with Dan on this with the with the internet and with other how fast information moves these days. Maybe it was best to kind of keep it under under wraps and then just do it. But yeah, it just it all feels weird. Again, I don't really have much of a comment because I just don't know. I don't know how I really feel about. I don't know what I care that much.

I'm like, if you, true. If you guys, if you guys were performing and it was like affecting something, you and I have the benefit of knowing some folks on the team too and having conversations with them and knowing how things are very scrappy startupy right now. It's like, yeah, it doesn't shock me,

so I'm not looking deeper into it. If it was shocking, if it was like, oh, my God, this is crazy. Then maybe, yeah, like, okay, we'll dig into it. But I just haven't had that interest right now because... Yeah, it's not like firing Andrea Stella for sure. Like, the team isn't like at the top. It's not top team. I just think that to something you said earlier,

I don't think it's great for like stability, morale. And maybe I'm being a little naive here, but I think there's something to be said about like gratitude. Like the guy brought you to here. Like it's kind of like dance with the one that brung you. Like really in the next 11 races, what did you think you were going to accomplish with a new guy? He certainly wouldn't cost less than Graham Loud.

And let me tell you that much. I don't think the intention is that or the thought process here is, oh, we're going to do better. Something had to have happened. Yeah. Because I don't even think they posted like a thank you Graham type thing. Not nothing. And Graham hasn't said anything.

So that's why that's why those rumblings of Marston pitching himself to GM and GM kind of buying into that into project Marson? It's possible. But how do you change a, like, how do you change a project mid-season? How do you change a project mid-project? You know, it's like you were already building, building the plane as you're trying to land it, right?

And now it's like, oh yeah, we're going to change the guy as leading the project while we're coming down and building it at the same time. That's why I just seemed like crazy. Anyway, we could well, hopefully we find out a little bit more in the weeks to come about what the plan is, what the

goals are, some metrics that they're hoping to achieve with Marston, that it would just be great to have some information overall just to satiate our curiosity, I guess. So speaking, of metrics and this is before we get into this topic because I think this might this one is interest to me and I've been defending this topic quite a bit. Oh, I wonder what it is.

This is the Business of Speed Live show. I'm Vincenzuela Landino, Laleigh Mikkelson, co-host here. This is our number one first live show that we've done. We thank you for tuning in and listening to us, talk about all things motorsport, business of motorsport, because that's what we do. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, please share. This will be a weekly show. So come back and tune in for more.

Topic at the top of the show that we had talked about was the Apple numbers, or the Formula One numbers for viewership in the United States. There was a chart that went out in the USA Today. It was based on numbers by Samba, which is a third party tracking company. It's like Nielsen. but they're not. The drop off was tremendous. I wish I,

if I knew how to show the, I don't know how to use this particular. We are learning, but we will. Yeah, I'll figure out how to show the slide another time for another show, but I made a video about it.

There's plenty of content that's out there. The chart showed a 68% drop off for the Miami race, 66% drop off for Monaco. Every race had some sort of double digit decline in this sample from Samba. Now, Samba tracks at the TV level. So from what I have gathered and the folks I've talked to, shout out to my buddy Nick Cicero, who owns Mando metrics, this is also what they do.

The Samba metrics are apparently coming from the television. So if your television is not connected to the internet and you're using an Apple TV device, I don't believe theoretically you're counted. but also you can opt out of these things as well. So it's an opt-out service. So in Canada, it's different because we don't have the Apple TV deal. So explain something to me.

The Apple isn't by definition, if your TV, if your watch, isn't it has to be connected to the internet through the Apple device. Well, so I'm actually speaking specifically of the television itself, the set itself. So now there's like, we have smart TVs. If your smart TV, like my smart TV is not connected to the internet. You bypass the internet and you only connect the Apple TV box to it. I only have my Apple TV box connected and that's the only way I use the internet. The smart TV here in my office, in my studio, I only have a Roku box connected to it.

The television itself is not connected. From what I have read about Samba metrics, they are reading at the television set level. Okay. So they're not also also in addition to all of that Apple TV is notoriously challenging and difficult for these third party tracking tools to get their code into to begin with. Because they don't want it because they don't want it. They don't want it. They don't blame them. But so there's all of that to caveat the difference.

The sample size was pretty small from what I got what I was reading. not a large sample size, but what they basically did was they just extrapolated from their small sample size, which is how these things are done. And they just said, oh, look, it's down 68%.

Now, if we do other math, there's about 20 million supposedly subscribers to Apple TV from some numbers I've seen. There's ESPN. ESPN can be accessed by something like 65 million households. So just by that number alone, those are just raw numbers. that would make up about a 68% 70%.

Okay, that makes sense, yeah. But that would just mean that like everybody was watching on ESPN and now everybody's watching on Apple. Like, I don't buy that. So anyway, Apple has come out during their half-year review and they've said that the total US hours watched is up 13. Yeah, because they say people are watching twice as long. And Samba.

Samba itself found that average minutes watched per household was up 127% for Australia, up 113% for Monaco. It also, the Samba numbers estimated if 30% of F1 viewers had not used Apple TV in the second half of 25. So if 30% of the viewers were not, didn't have Apple TV, this goes back to something I've been preaching right from day one. the Apple F1 deal was beyond viewer ratings. If you look at what Apple wants, what do they want? They want subscribers. They want you to come into their ecosystem, subscribe, and then they want to be able to feed you with content for the entire week.

They want you to go to the gym and listen to Yuki Snota's playlist or whatever, Isaac Haddard's playlist. They want you to pull up your map and interact with, you know, the Formula One track. They want you. to be in and, you know, use the sports app to track your favorite drivers. It's a very different play than just, we need more eyeballs on the TV.

What Fox doesn't have or ESPN doesn't have is this, this hardware. They have an app on here, but they don't have this hardware. This is where they have Formula One or Apple has an entire operating system. And now they're dedicating space on their operating system to Formula One. You open the app store,

you see Formula One. You open Apple TV to app, you see Formula One. You open, like I said, the music or the maps or health, the fitness.

You get workouts with, you know, whoever, you see Formula One. That's something that you can't track and you can't bank on being an immediate, like,

oh, the viewership's up or viewerships down. Yeah. I do feel like it's great for Apple. I don't know how great it is for Formula One specifically in growing its audience, right? In year one, it's definitely going to be hard, yeah, for sure.

Trust me, I see all the business upside for Apple, for sure, because the diehard fan, who is left with no other option, is going to subscribe to Apple TV, the diehard fan, maybe even the average fan. Is it great for getting, again, new eyeballs on the sport? Probably not, because if you don't already have an Apple TV subscription, will it be enough for you to subscribe, if you're just like a casual fan.

Stefano Dominicali likes to call them. I don't know. And like, for instance, again, that only applies to US, but it matters because that's where they're in growth mode, right? There are three races now. That is sort of their untapped market that they're really wanting to tap.

So it is germane to the conversation because that's where it matters. I don't know. And we can talk about this too, about the Formula E going to Disney Plus. So I have this thing that I have this thing that I wanted to talk to you about where I'm kind of hating right now the fact that we all have to have all these subscriptions to all these things if we want to watch what we enjoy watching.

So now if I want to watch Formula E, I don't have a Disney Plus subscription. So now if I want to follow Formula, you're telling me now I have to subscribe to Disney Plus. So it gets me a little bit like perhaps annoyed with the series that now you're forcing me to buy this thing just so I can watch your thing. Plus, I need the Apple TV, if I'm in the U.S. to watch Formula One. I don't love it that these series are making these deals with these companies that are forcing your audience to purchase a subscription to something that perhaps they wouldn't otherwise. And I know that like Imsa, who we love, obviously this is not feasible for every series. Like we can watch their races free on YouTube on the MSA channel, right?

Which is amazing. How long will they, will they? do that, who knows? At some point, maybe it just won't make sense financially or commercially for them, but right now you can. And I'm not saying that that is, that F1 and Formula E, which are the two that I'm using an example, have to do something like that. But with the announcement of the Formula E deal, going to Disney Plus, I was like, man, like, I don't want to buy Disney Plus. I just don't. And now you're forcing me to if I want to follow your series. So I don't know. It's kind of getting annoying. I will, I'm going to add, I'm going to add to this just for context of numbers,

because I think it is very important. There's 130 to 150 million subscribers of Disney Plus, which is a significant number. ESPN Plus, because it's also, so Formula E will also be on ESPN Plus, is another 24, let's call it 25 million. So it puts them in front of an audience that they definitely want to reach.

Now, there's plenty of packages out there that give you Disney and Hulu and ESPN. Again, they're all part. All owned by Disney anyway. So it's like, it's one big happy family. Where I think the series want to lean on, again, yes, the viewership matters. I'm not going to say it doesn't. I've been raked over the coals the last day or so because I've made comments on this.

People are like, you're just a bootlicker for Stefano Domenicole, which is not the case at all. I've been very critical of Stefano Domenicali. I've been very critical of a lot of the things, you know. Ain't nobody a business of speed, bootleg and Dominicale, let me tell you. No, no. And like, I give them a lot of credit

for the things they've done, but I also can question a lot of the things that they're doing, specifically with the product on track. But let's go back to this Disney, you know, your concern. It goes back to the viewership

versus culture conversation. Nobody knows about Formula E. No one cares about Formula E. Let's be real with that conversation. I don't talk to anybody who's like, oh my God, I can't wait to watch the formula

E race this weekend. Do you? Okay. And that's not to say that I don't think it's a good series. That's not to say that I don't... It's a great product, but I understand you're putting... I think the product is fantastic. We've had Jeff Dodds on the show. They are trying to do things. They have a very

tech-forward audience. They know who their audience is and they're very dialed into that. Jeff Dodds, the CEO, said they know their audience is skewing younger and younger. Well, Disney Plus is a great place to put it then. To me, it makes sense when you start to put all the pieces together. But also something Disney Plus gives them that they couldn't get on like a traditional deal is making it part of culture.

Streaming culture, you can't take this from streaming culture. It is shaping how we watch and view and the things that we like are taste. Streaming is doing that now in today's world. Like nobody, I don't want to say, and again, I don't want to say nobody, but the audience that these series want to reach may or may not be or still have a cable subscription. I don't have a cable subscription anymore. Like a lot of people don't. A lot of people don't. I own streaming services.

That's it. Now, can I still watch my local Fox, CBS, NBC? Yeah, so how do you do that? Explain to me how you do that in the U.S. If you only do streaming, do you have, like, peacock, like I know NBC has peacock. So I do have peacock. I do have peacock. I do have Paramount Plus because I watch CDA soccer and they carry exclusively the city out right.

So I have Paramount Plus, which gives me also CBS. I have Peacock. My wife watches shows on there. That gives me NBC. How do you get Fox, for instance, for IndyCar? I don't know how I, how do I get? Well, so Fox, I did have a YouTube TV subscription for Fox. Okay.

Which YouTube TV is like cable, but we actually dropped that off because we weren't using it enough. And it also, we just couldn't justify. spending It's not that's four subscriptions you just mentioned And I mean I have them all I've got we've got the Netflix We've got a ball

We've got them all We've got them all Like we are one of those households That has all of the subscriptions Now they're not all paid for individually some of them are included in like Well we have an Instacart Subscription and or whatever

I'm just using that as an app Yeah exactly And that covers this thing Oh our Verizon service covers Two other subscriptions Okay Our Apple One covers Hulu like there are some

that are like that. So it's like trying to be smart about which ones we're getting. Because they were all at one point like all of the services were trying to like throw you services. Like oh, if you sign up to Instacart

or if you get to Instacart Plus we'll also give you, I don't even know, Peacock, I think it was. Yeah. I was like, well, we're already using the Instacart

and paying $100 a year for that. If they're going to give me free peacock, yeah, I'll take it. Or I think it was like even Walmart did a deal. I don't have Walmart plus or whatever it's called.

But if you got Walmart plus, yeah, if you got Walmart plus they gave you another. So it's like this is where it's going. And I think the series needs to say, okay, at least for our next deal, which service gives us the most ability to tap into the culture that we want? Formula One feels very Apple-esque. Apple feels a little bit higher tier, a little bit more elevated than the other services premium. So yeah, sure. Formula One being on Apple makes total sense. Also, Apple came with the money.

Let's be real here. $750 million was more money than they were going to get anywhere else. By far, by $150 million a year just for the United States. For context, I think ESPN was paying $90 just to give people the cares. ESPN was paying $0 for the longest time. And then the last few years of the deal, yeah, it was like $80 to $90 million. So no one was beating $150 million. Apple has cash.

Apple has. Apple needed it more than that. than Formula One needed it, for sure. But the other thing, you know, that I think people kind of glaze over sometimes is that it's very hard to justify some of these streaming services if you don't have a reason to keep coming back, right? And binging has caused that because you can go on. I can binge Game of Thrones and then I'm done, right?

Like, I'm okay, chow. I'm done. I'm guilty. Sometimes I'll subscribe for the thing for the month or even for the free week. I'll binge, binge, binge, binge, binge. canceled, boom, I'm going to be honest. I've done that many a time. But there's nothing wrong with that because they're banking on that. Right. They know that you aren't going to stick around. So that's, first of all, I think that's why the prices go up. I think that's why what I'm going to say is that's why these streaming services are all trying to get live sports.

Because live sports. Keep you coming back, maybe. I have Paramount because it is the only way, again, there are other services I could. purchase or whatever. Paramount Plus allows me to watch my city A soccer games. Total. Every weekend. Yeah. Vincenzo is maybe something you guys don't know. Vincenzo is very much into Citi A.

Like very, very hardcore life on Cia. Shout out to Paolo de Bala and Roma. That was a very good start to our season. But without live sports, yes, big, big Liverpool girl over there. I should have had Arsenal just to get you mad. No, are you crazy? I know, I know.

I know. I know. Those gunners. Sorry. Please keep listening to us. But yeah. So live sports is what keeps people coming, coming in. So there's this mutually beneficial relationship between the series that need the audience

they want, which arguably more and more and more people are doing streaming, right? More and more and more and more. And then the streaming services, they need a reason for people to keep their service past that one month that they're going to sign up and then quit, just like you said. What is the reason? I'm going to keep this service in August. I was like trying to think when we're in August, but also keep it in March.

Yeah, for sure. If I have a, if Formula One is tied to this and this is the only way I can watch Formula One, well, I guess I have no choice but to sign up to Apple. Yeah, it's not worth a hassle to cancel it for two months, right? And then re-up it. It's a no-brainer, right?

And so I think it just gets, go ahead, sorry. I was just going to say, I understand the business case for sure. you explain it really, really beautifully for everyone. It's just, I think it's more like on a personal level, it just irks, even hearing you say all the subscriptions you have like that, probably in the end we're paying so much more than we ever paid for our monthly cable bill, right? Like, we've come to that.

Like, we've come to that point. So it's just like more of a human irk. But I appreciate that that's the way of the world now. That's how it's going to be. We're not going back. We've, what is it? We've opened Pandora's box in so many ways, right? So now there's no coming back.

Like cable TV is not making some like wonderful comeback, right? That's not a thing that's going to happen. So I appreciate we have to embrace it. It's just more like, oh man, another subscription. Like I don't want, you know. And for people who are, let's say families who are like are on tight budgets and things, they really have to think about now. And then I do like that you said that Disney is the one that most people have

because a lot of people with children will have Disney. And they also have many shows for adults as well. So then it does make sense for Formula E to have done the deal with them because it's already in the most household. So if you and I were going to sell our show to someone, well, wouldn't it be great to put it on the one that has the most eyeballs already or is in the most home? So that, as a business case,

I do have quickly some breaking news about Madring that I've just come across my dad. La Fia Formula 3, terminus its test in Madrid. So right now, two hours ago, Formula 3 finished their tests on the track for our friends from turn 14 who were wondering. The drivers know what the circuit is about.

They've tested it. It's perfect. It's done. We've got lift off at Mothering. No coming back now. So that answers all the questions. I was posted just two hours ago by the circuit. Well, there you go.

Yeah, I think they had something like, they had tons of, you know, red flags and issues. But I mean, it's a new track. And we're like, what do you expect? It's like, come on. And it's also like, I don't know, it's Formula 3. It's, you know, come on. This is why context mattered.

I hate when people judge something without context and I don't want to like, I still want to keep going into this conversation a little bit more about the numbers because I think it's what between the Formula One numbers, Formula E and Disney, like I think all of these things are important. But it's when you look at how the series need to function

and how much money it takes for a global series to operate, logistics alone, and then logistics for each team and then putting on these massive events these events like if if you've never been to any race not even just Formula One Indy car

Imsa races, Weck races any race that there's a lot that goes into it from a safety perspective hospitality perspective fan experience you know we know directly from working with T-Mobile at the Las Vegas Grand Prix last year you know just

just the fan experience the portion of the fan experience that they are in charge of. And you'd think like, Team Mobile, what do they have to do with the fan experience? Well, you know when you go and scan in your tickets? Because when you get there, well,

that's got to be connected somewhere. That's all on a dedicated, dedicated connection provided, or network provided by T-Mobile, Verizon, whoever it is at the Las Vegas Grand Prix is specifically T-Mobile. And that's just one aspect. Like, we saw the behind-the-scenes with T-Mobile

and the thing, Team Mobile for Business. And not only fan experience, but they're also in charge of the emergency services and the safety. So they're providing- Talk about that, VINC,

because that was really interesting to me, guys. Imagine you have hundreds of thousands of people all connected to the same network, right? And there is an emergency, and you need to call 911, or there's a crash, and we need to get a helicopter,

stat and extract the driver. So talk to that, VINCHA, how that is so important, the T-Mobile aspect, that they can connect to 911, and they can do those things. Yeah, so I got a behind the scenes look at, I actually talked to the deputy sheriff and we went to the, we saw like they've got this massive, massive command center. It's this big truck, emergency services truck. I mean, this thing like you probably couldn't, Twister couldn't take it. Like, the thing is huge. It actually has arms that like will bolt it into the ground. Like it's cool. Massive antenna. They also, they have like Starlink backup. But they're providing dedicated. connection. There's a dedicated

network just for emergency services. I love that. So emergency services, now you're thinking especially in a city like Las Vegas, it's a very large circuit, right? It's taking up a very large it's in the city. The footprint guys is gigantic, yeah. Massive.

Dedicated network. Emergency services knows they are going to have connection anywhere they are on the circuit to communicate back with anyone. You know, they've got drones in the air, they've got helicopters, they've got the on the ground patrols. That's just one, this is just one tiny aspect of the logistics that go into, you know,

why are we bringing this up? Why are we bringing up Las Vegas? What does that have to do with all the stuff we're talking about? What it has to do with is someone's got to pay for all of this. Exactly. The money has to come from somewhere. I just named one aspect of one, one aspect of one aspect. that doesn't even include the time

and the money to pay those police and emergency service people to be on standby all weekend or all week. That's just the logistics that go into the connection. And then there's a fan experience portion, right? Like that's,

they provide the connection there. Well, there's other aspects of that and fan experience. What does all this matter? When you look at that and you realize how much money it costs to run these events and then you're going to

Rake Formula One or IndyCar, whoever, over the coals for hosting an event or for partnering with a service that offered them the most bang for their buck. Do you really care about the series? Do you really care about the sport at that point? It's imperative to understand that there are dollars that have to go somewhere and these dollars need to come from somewhere. If you, the fan, doesn't want to incur all. people already complain that costs are going up.

Imagine what they would look like if it wasn't subsidized by all the sponsorship that you see. Also, It's already cost prohibitive for a lot of people. It would be cost prohibitive for 100% of people. It would be, it would only be the elite. And that would be across all race series. You know,

people are like, oh, IMSA's great because I can go down on the, I can go and I have all this access. Yeah, sure. If there was no sponsors on any of that stuff, see if you'd have the same experience. You wouldn't.

You wouldn't. It's impossible. I think that that's something that is so different in motorsport. It's so sponsor driven, right? It's so uniquely sponsored driven. And we've talked about this in the past how when I had to rent a truck once, I purposely sought out a Penske truck because I was so loyal to them because they sponsored a series that I love for so long. Like when you see companies putting money into something that you love,

you are more inclined to want to put your dollars in that. company because they're sponsoring, they're helping, they're promoting something that you love. And I think that more and more, as we have more and more choice, and prices are pretty similar, right? A lot of, a lot of big companies, whether it's in telecom or air travel, hotels, etc. They're all sort of price matching each other for the most part, right? Like unless you're going quite a tier up. So when the prices are very similar, the experience is similar, the product is very similar, what's the next thing that you use, the quantifiable metric that you use to choose a company to give your dollars to, for a lot of diehard sports people, it will be a company who sponsors a series, a team,

a driver, an athlete that you love. It becomes, like that becomes actually a decision-making metric, believe it or not, when all things are said and done. So to be involved in these series and and to help these series is not only beneficial to everyone, it ends up being also in the end, in the back end, and beneficial to them because now we associate T-Mobile with F1. That's a great connection for them. We associate American Express with Formula One.

For me, I associate American Express with concerts. I'm a huge concert goer, big, big in the concert thing. So I have an affinity to American Express for nothing else because I can buy tickets a day or two earlier than everybody else. And likely at a venue near me, there's going to be an Amex lounge that I can enter. So I'm grateful to that company for sponsoring things. So that becomes a metric that matters to people.

I mean, motorsport is so uniquely, you said sponsor-driven. It's any of the, if you just think about like the famous liveries that we, you know, you think of, you think of Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, you think of Iron Seneca, Marlborough, John Player Special. Yeah, there you go. I got, I have it right there. I haven't built it yet. It's all up there. but you know, you look at that kind of stuff

and you're just like, you know, you talk about the sponsor as if it was part of the team. Like that's how intertwined it is. So I like to encourage people to take a step back before you complain about the dollars to think about all the things that you would have to pay for if sponsorship wasn't there. That's true.

And imagine if you were subsidizing the T-Mobile network at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, which is already, you know, expensive as it is. Imagine if you also had to subsidize that cost if Timo wasn't sponsoring it. They were providing it, but not sponsoring it. Like, imagine that. Like, it just, it blows me away. Anyway, yeah, wow. Should we touch a little bit because we've said his name enough today?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Should we touch a little bit on Stefan Alomenicali and? Yeah, we should. I have very strong. Take it away. visceral opinion. I know you do, so I want to hear this.

I do want to preface this by saying that until not too long ago, like, Stefano Domenicali is a legitimate fan of racing, very knowledgeable, and also a very legitimate businessman. I'll start, I'll leave it at that.

Like, this is not some cuckoo bananas, you know, leader who, this is a legitimate person in the motorsports supremely well regarded. Listen, he ran Ferrari. He's been... Lamborghini, no, also? Like, CEO of Lamborghini.

Like, he knows... He knows what he's doing. He grew up Italian. Like, he's a lover of racing. And I think that I'll start with there. My main gripe right now with Stefano, not only the things he says and how he dismisses fans

and he thinks that we're all sort of uninformed and that perhaps it's easier to sell a product to people if they remain uninformed. I think that what bugs me the most currently is that this man, is a legitimate racing fan bean shit. This is, he knows.

He knows better than what he's peddling to us. So guess what? You put lipstick on a pig? What happens? It's still a pig, that famous American saying? So he can put lipstick on this pig. He can swing it however he wants. He can do whatever you need to do for your marketing purposes.

But that doesn't mean that you need to alienate fans, not even just the lifelong diehardt. That's what he refers is to even casual fans who want to learn about the sport and are getting more and more educated. I don't think we need to dismiss them. I don't need to, like, oh, fans don't care about. Guess what fans care?

What is it? There was something he said this week that fans think that, that clipping is a clip. I hear clip for women. This is what Pan. Yeah, he said, he said most fans wouldn't even know what clipping is. They'll think it's used for your hair,

like the exact quote with something like that. Yeah. So that to me is. It takes a shot at a certain group of people because, I mean, as a man, I don't put a clip of my hair. So. Who wears a clip? Me, because Becky with a good hair does this, so she puts a clip sometimes.

Hair's looking good to do. Thank you. You know, I try. Vincenzo coined me Becky with a good hair, and then I feel all this pressure to always have good hair because, like, I need to live up to the thing. So I think that the dumbing down of the fan that he wants to sort of dumb down is absolutely unacceptable to me. It's unacceptable. I think that the fact that they're already switching the formula for next year already speaks volumes. think they've gone far enough. In fact, I think a lot of that was the FIA stepping in, right?

At some point, pressure from the FIA, like, we got to change something here. And just like the disres, like some, I read something on, on Twitter this is like, no other leader of a sport could speak to, to the audience. Like, I can't imagine somebody in leading the Premier League thinking, oh, the fans don't care. They don't care about VAR. They don't care about. No, people care. Let me tell you, people care. And people don't want to be talked down to and people. And we want an educated fan base. So when you have drivers speaking out, when you have people, like, so my gripe with him is this sort of, and I've used this word before and I'm going to use it again, the gaslighting that is occurring is tremendous. It's absolutely tremendous.

It's quite unacceptable. And it shocks me from such an intelligent man who is such a known race fan. I think that that's what gets me the most. We had this conversation earlier off, off air. We were talking a little bit just, you know, in our pre-production show, our pre-production meeting. And when you have to, when you start, let me, this quote first, what is it about power corrupting? What the hell is the quote? You know the quote.

Absolute power corrupts, absolutely. Right. Not saying he has absolute power, but along those lines. He's got a lot of power. We had the conversation that when you get into a seat that you think you want, you don't necessarily, like when you're climbing the ladder and then you get to that the seat that you've been kind of pining for, you sometimes forget all of the responsibility that comes with it. And you forget good or bad.

Well, Liberty Media is a public company. Formula One is public. You know, like you have shareholders that you are responsible, fiduciary responsibility as a CEO. And this is not to defend, Stefano, because I do think a lot of the comments need to be, like, again, like I said about Dan Towers, where's the PR team on this? Where's the communications team?

Like, where are you guys? Because the heck. But, and I think this is the truth, really. You're responsible to the shareholders for the stock to go up and to the right. It's got to go up and to the right. There is no other direction that it needs to go in. other than up and to the right.

And now that's not to excuse the comments. That's not to excuse the things that he says. But it is to say that I acknowledge the fact that it goes beyond the on-track product. At this point of where we're at, I do believe that good racing, great racing, is great spectacle. I hold that, I hold that truth to be self-evident.

The fact that we even have these conversations is testament to how much the sport has grown and the work they're doing behind the scenes. Right? Like the fact that we even have a show that we can talk about motorsport and people will watch and listen and brands will bring us out to races.

Like the fact that there's that ecosystem is testament to how much things have grown. Yeah. And I think he, you know, he's in a position where, yeah. I need to grow the sport. He's not in a position to call the fans dumb,

which I think he has basically alluded to numerous times. But he also is playing dumb. Like there's a quote I have here. I want to read it to you. Quote, they don't understand our technology or clipping, or whatever it is because it's too technical for the wider. He knows what it is.

Don't say clipping or chipping. Like you're even playing dumb. Like, oh, it's too complicated even almost for me, right? Like they don't care. No, you know exactly what it is, Stefano. You know it's clipping. You know it's super clipping.

you know exactly what's happening. So don't try to like involve yourself in the dumbing down of it. You know, it's just not right. Yeah. It's just not correct. And he thinks that people who don't like it are a tiny minority, I would disagree. Just because we don't have numbers on that. And he says, oh, the Grand Prix are sold out.

Guess what? Those Grand Prix sell out a year in advance. So those Grand Prix were sold out based on numbers, on people. Because you plan, if you and I were going to go to spa, it's not a last minute decision, right? We have to get the tickets because tickets sell out. We have to get a hotel. You're not going to find anywhere to stay if you don't decide on this trip a long time in advance. So Grand Prix are sold out because they've sold out from last year.

It has nothing to do with what's happening this year. The Grand Prix of next year will be sold out based on this year's racing, right? Yeah. So I just think that I just think overall I don't like that we're trying to perhaps in his viewpoint speak to the lowest common denominator. so to speak. I don't think that's cool because I've always said the people who are going to stay with you

once the hype wears out, once it's in vogue, it's so, what is it? What's the thing now? Isn't it chic when or that thing you see on Instagram? Yeah, isn't it? It's so chic or whatever.

Like, right now it's so chic. Like I have a friend, I noticed who, one of, like, cousin Andrew, who doesn't know on NASCAR from a Formula One and she follows Carlos signs on Instagram. And the only reason I noticed because I came across the thing

and she had liked it. And I'm like, Okay, I'm surprised she even knows who Carlos Seines is, but okay. So when that fan fades, who's going to be left behind at 1 a.m. watching a Grand Prix? It's us. So how about you take care of us a little bit, Stefano? How about you give us, show us some love? Because we've been here before.

We're here now and we're going to be here after. He also had made the comments earlier in the season about shorter clips on YouTube and fans watching shorter clips instead, right? as to why the sprint races were going to be added because attention spans are shorter and people don't want to watch you can't watch these races and first of all

it's live sports I will watch I will sit there and watch the Pittsburgh Steelers I will watch Roma if that thing takes you know four hours I am glued for four hours there's no you're not peeling me away and time both halves penalty kicks the whole thing we're there for five hours yeah you put me in for

yeah if if the Italian national team is playing like I'll sit there for three weeks if that's how long the game took. Same. Same. Same. So to say attention spans are shorter, no, attention spans for bullshit are shorter. So if I'm watching something where the

officiating is, or the stewarding, is not consistent and it changes from week to week, or the same call that went one way for one driver this week changes the following week. There's unexplicable lapping of a, of, you know,

the safety car for, for certain drivers, like all of that stuff adds up. And it's not to say that we're stupider or that we are, our attention spans are shorter. It's to say I don't have the patience for this because I have a billion other subscriptions I'm paying for and a billion other things that I can be watching and a billion other sports that don't treat me like that, that at least publicly, at least publicly, right, that I could go spend my time doing or I've got kids to go hang out with or I've got work I could be doing or I have, you know, the beach to go to or book to, whatever it is. Whatever. We don't want to hear that from the leaders. I don't want to. I don't want to. Yeah, exactly.

We want to hear that we are, we want you to bow down to us, the fan, to the point where you realize that without us, you have nothing. And as a two-way street, I get it. But ultimately, we just want good racing. We want for Formula One, we want, you know, cars that are loud and that sound like Formula One cars. Not, I don't need another car to sound like another Formula E car because That's what formula it is for. I don't need another sprint race just because, quite frankly, the sprint race thing is because they don't, they just need more stuff to sell, right? They're not selling Friday because Friday's practice day. You're only getting the diehard. You want. I think I'm the only diehard who likes sprint races. And I think it's only because I just like racing so much that I get an extra race in a weekend.

So I don't mind it because I get more cars on track. I don't not like sprint races. I think it's a disservice to the teams because now you'll have one session to practice. You jump right into a qualifying session for this sprint. Then you go into a sprint race followed by a qualifying session for the race. You've spent really little to no time

with your car on track to develop, understand, you know, whatever it might be. So I think it's a disservice. Regardless of that, I don't hate that. And the guys and gals are, are already overworked in those teams, right? At those race weekends. So I do feel you on that.

I don't hate the races. Again, it's like if it was done a different way, maybe like it goes down differently. But with all of the, you know, if the reason is you're doing more sprint races because you think that people don't want to watch a full length race, like that's dumb to me. Yeah, I don't think it's because, yeah, yeah, I don't.

But again, also they don't think, they think that's why all. the clips, oh, we've got all these clips are doing well on YouTube because people aren't watching full race. And it's like, no, because you have people that aren't subscribing at all and paying you. Yeah, sure, they're going to go watch the free highlight 30 minute highlight. Like, it's not because also if you have a clip of if you have a clip of a hedgehog crossing the F1 track and a car almost hitting it, that's also going to get a million views because it's just fun to watch. People are interested. So I have a funny thing that happened to me completely unrelated to racing,

but you'll see why it's a little bit related. So last night, the Toronto Blue, Blue Jays were hosting the Kansas City Royals. And I'm watching this game. And I didn't think anything could trigger me in this game. Nothing could trigger me until one of the batters came up for the Kansas City Royals. And it turns out his name is Michael Massey. That was like what in the world? You know how I get just at the thought of the name.

And like, Vincenzo makes so much fun of me. He's like, get over yourself. He says get over yourself. It's been five years. I cannot get over myself. But it was such a crossing of the worlds to see this batter. Michael Massey show up for the Kansas City Royals. So shout out to him and change your name, bro.

Change your name, bro. We don't like your name. Change your name, Brooski. I did tell my friend who I was with that the Lord's song, Royals, is about the Kansas City Royals. And we'll never be Royals. That song is about the Kansas City Royals, which a lot of people don't know. Is it actually? Yes.

This is a true fact. I am spewing here. I did not know this. Were you like 147 p.m. days old on August 26th when you found out? This is amazing. Yeah, I mean, I am now a new understander of, yeah. Wow. There you go.

That's a fun fact for everyone who didn't know. The Lord's song Royals is about the Kansas City Royals. By the way, can we fall, two things. Before we go into this, did you see this crazy video of a flash flood hitting the Nepal-Tibet board? Absolutely have not, no? My God, there's like a live street cam of this massive, like, wave just, holy cow. And many feared dead after catastrophic flash flood hits Nepal-China border. Oh my God, it's insane.

Like it is, oh. Listen, there's been a lot of natural things, and I'll speak quickly of this. We had in Colombia just a few weeks ago, a very bad earthquake that was extremely devastating, extremely devastating. Venezuela had one before us, now this. Like there's a lot of sort of catastrophic natural things happening right now that are obviously way more important than racing. This looks pretty awful. So hearts goes out to these people.

Yeah, hearts go out. Wow, this. Jeez, it almost feels weird talking about. Yeah, it's like... Racing. And I think that that's part of it. Like, at the end of the day, it is a sport, right? And anyone involved in this, and particularly the drivers will tell you,

that they're so lucky that they get to do that for a job. And you hear this like footballers when they're like, I grew up playing football with my buddies on the street just for fun after school. I'm so lucky that I get to play in the Premier League or Sidiya. Like no one's solving childhood pediatric cancer here, right? So we have these strong opinions and I can get very worked up about certain things, of course. But clearly in the big picture of things, when faced upon human tragedy of this magnitude, it's nothing.

We're very lucky that we even have something like this to entertain us. So just putting that in perspective. Yeah, for sure. Let's talk about the weeks to come in racing, just going back to our shallow talk. You said Milwaukee double header this week. Yeah, Milwaukee coming up. We'll see if Palo can get back on the giddy up. We believe in Palo.

And then so just to, so guys know, this week we have two in Milwaukee. And then the following week, we go to Laguna Seca for the IndyCar finale. and then IndyCar is over until probably March or April next year whenever St. Petersburg, Florida is. And then we have a race that is near and dear to your heart in Formula One coming up in 10 days. Festival of Speed, yeah. Monza. Monza coming up. For the boys in Scarlet's. Yeah.

And also a little bit for. Go ahead. I was going to say a little bit home race for the racing bulls too. no, they're in Fianza. They're there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, if you consider that, but no one's ever going to give them that credit. No, no, no, I'm just kidding.

I think, yeah, I mean, this regulation set does not bode well for Monza. I think if the spa was bad, Monsuk is going to be horrible. You know, it's just still not there with the regulation set. I think we just have to suck it up and deal with it for this year and hope that whatever changes come in the offseason make it better, but I think this race could really just be neutered by the regulations. It's supposed to be fast. This is supposed to be the temple of speed, and it's going to be the temple of re-harvesting.

Well, you're probably happy that our friends at Ferrari are going to have an engine upgrade, so that will be. Well, speaking of engine upgrades, I was going to say, did you see the new engine, the ad duo came out? For Red Bull. Yeah, yeah, I saw that. Well, for everybody, for the whole Adi-O. For everybody, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

I saw that. Came out. Yeah. Yeah. So the FIA announced it, the results. It looks like, well, first of all, Red Ball was the top engines. They don't get anything,

which is actually quite, I'm going to read a stat to you after I say this. Mercedes gets 2 to 4%. They also get an additional upgrade in 2026 and 2027. Audi, Ferrari, Honda, they get 4%. plus two additional upgrades for 26-27, Red Bull was determined to be the best combustion engine

and gets no upgrades, which does not bode well for them at all because they were not in that. So like I said, basically what they deem is that Red Bull is the most powerful. Mercedes is somewhere within 2% to 4% behind, and then Audi, Fididati, and Honda are over 4% behind the Red Bull. This is the crazy stat I read from F1 guy Dan, Dan Valenz.

who's also in Toronto, I believe. The Mercedes power unit has been responsible for 10 of 12 wins, 83% the season, 12 of 12 polls, 23 of 36 podiums, 605 of 745 laps lead, and yet they still are not deemed the most powerful. Isn't that crazy? If that doesn't tell you how smart Total Wolf is, I don't know what else does, because you know for a fact they have it turned down purposely

now they get upgrades, they get an upgrade, Red Bull gets nothing, and you know that the Mercedes is, I think the Mercedes is the most powerful and they're going to be upgrades. So anyway, there's always that strategy going on.

There's always those games being played. Like, this is the kind of stuff that I love to, I love, but yeah, so shout out to Mercedes. I want to take a second, because I did have some notes here about this and bear with me, because I don't want to assume

that everybody knows what a duo is, So I'm just going to spend a second maybe explaining it to people. A duo ADUO is additional development and upgrade opportunities. It's an F-1, it's an engine catch-up mechanism. So I have some notes here. The FIA measures each manufacturer's internal combustion engine against the strongest engine. So in this case, it's Red Bull. If an engine is at least 2% behind, its manufacturer receives additional opportunities to develop and amalgate upgrades.

The farther behind it is, the more assistance. in a receive. It applies to the power unit manufacturer, not an individual team or overall speed of the car. So obviously this was meant because it's a whole new engine P.U. So if somebody nailed it and another team didn't, you could see how over the years that would compound. They'd be so far behind that we would have a situation where it's just not competitive. The same team would be winning and winning and winning. So it does kind of make sense. if anybody got it fundamentally wrong, it would give them the opportunity to catch up,

to make strides to improve. And then the one who's the benchmark obviously doesn't because everyone else is being benchmarked to that engine, to that power unit. Just explaining that a little bit for the people who weren't super, super sure. Because in the beginning, when that acronym first came out,

even I was like, wait, what are we talking about? So just putting it out there. And yeah, Toto Wolf is a crafty wolf. because somehow something's working over there. Hungry like the wolf. Is that how the song goes? Yeah, smart. I mean, just, you know,

these are things that go into what you do and don't see. And this is what, this is what the fans that were being, you know, that Stefan Domenicolly will say, oh, they don't care about this kind of stuff. But we do. And it matters.

And it matters for what the on-track product looks like at the end of the day, period. And it also matters to, like, I do think that Vintin-Tunson and I have something that we both really enjoy. It's like, and we spoke about this with IndyCar in general, it's like educating people.

Like when I talk to someone out on the street, friends at a dinner party or whatever, and I talk to them, I love explaining to people things. I love because then that they actually, you get more buy-in. If you're explaining things, if you're educating a fan,

you're more likely to get buy-in than just like, just watch, it's good. Like no one wants to watch because it's good. But if you're sort of educating the people on why and explaining it to them, they sort of catch on to your enthusiasm. When I was on my lovely Aussie girls from the Formation F1 podcast, I was telling them,

you have to go watch the last 20 laps of the race in Markham, the IndyCar race in Markham. There was the top five guys, anybody could have won that race. You didn't know what was going to happen with five. Like, I gave them a reason to go watch. And it felt so good to get people who've never seen anything in IndyCar, say, as soon as we're done recording,

we're going to go look up on YouTube, those laps. Get people excited about something. And I know you and I are both sort of passionate about getting fans excited, getting people to watch these series that we love because we love them. And we know that if they give it a chance, they're going to love them too. I couldn't agree more. Yeah, I think if people give motorsport a chance, it changes their, it just changes their opinion, right? Like, attending races is really important.

Don't, I would say, like, don't make Formula One necessarily the pinnacle of what you want to go watch. Like, there's so many other great motorsports out there that give you the access that you desire. and give you the sound you desire that aren't necessarily Formula One. I mean, I love Formula One. Love it. Like, it's not changing my mind. I just think that for anybody who's out there is like, ah, motorsports kind of boring, like go to a race, go check it out.

Go check out an MSA race. Like, go see that community that they've built there. It's spectacular. Go check out on MSSA race. The V-10s, the V8s that are, you know, cruising around are incredible. So we are coming up on the two-hour mark. That is going to be it for our show today. This has been the business of speed.

Live with Vincenzo Londino and... Lally Miquelson. We also have a podcast, the Business of Speed podcast, where we interview movers, shakers, team principals, media personalities in the world of motorsport. We talk about pretty much everything and anything,

legends of motorsport. We've talked to, you know, Mario Andretti, Mark Blundell, Alwyn Springer, just absolute legends. But we've also spoken to people like Will Buxton and James Hinchcliff,

who's also a driver, Connor Daly. that's our podcast, Business of Speed. You can also check us out bizofspeed.com. That's our newsletter, which goes out weekly. Actually, it goes out twice weekly. We have Capital Moves written by Lali, which is a fantastic series profiling people in motorsport that,

you know, beyond their motorsport life, what are they doing? And then we have our newsletter, which usually tackles a few different topics every week around the world of motorsport business. So if any of that intrigues you, please go sign up to the Business of Speed World. It's like our MCU. It's like our BCU,

the Business of Speed, cinematic universe. Until next time, like I said, I'm Vincenzo. That's Lali. We will see you on the next one. Ciao for now.

Ciao for now, Piscal.