Business of Speed Podcast - The One with James Hinchcliffe, Former IndyCar Driver & F1 Commentator

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

James Hinchcliffe gets brutally honest about the psychology that separates race car drivers from normal humans—and why they lack the self-preservation gene most people are born with.In this episode, Hinch reveals:Why drivers return to racing after near-death experiences (his own horrific accident included)The real reason racing legends like Zanardi and Wickens fought back into the cockpit after catastrophic injuriesWhat it's like driving a modern Formula 1 Haas car at MugelloThe one F1 rule he'd abolish immediately (and why the red flag tire change makes no sense)Why refueling needs to come back to F1 to fix boring one-stop strategiesHis journey from a 9-year-old karting in Canada to competing at the highest levelWhether blue flags belong in IndyCar racingPlus: Hinch weighs in on the tightest F1 championship battle in years and shares his broadcasting secrets for managing the insane IndyCar/F1 travel schedule.

Hola, Vincenzo. Hola, Lali. Welcome back to the podcast today. You had a nice special guest on the show that we're going to talk about, huh? I'm so excited. So, you know you're a big IndyCar fan when you have to go through all your shirts that are IndyCar merch and be like, which one should I wear for the podcast? And then I finally picked this one, but then I realized that there was another even more special shirt that I could wear. when i spoke with our guest um so why don't you tell people why i might be so excited about

today's episode well i think there's a few reasons why you're excited so this guest is hails i believe he hails from the same town the town city you you are living in currently i won't say you're from but living in certainly not from can you remind the people where i'm from please um is it uh some country in south america maybe yeah perhaps in the north columbia yes bing bing bing okay however i live in toronto you are correct and our guest is also from toronto so so there's the first clue this guest is from toronto this guest is a multiple indycar race winner correct this guest is an indy 500 pole sitter super correct this guest was a runner-up in dancing with the stars ding ding ding he's a broadcaster and pundit correct you

might know him from f1 tv you may or you might know him from the fox booth he calls indycar races as well and i think he's still an active driver in imsa right he does the endurance races in imsa yeah he was has a great voice great voice he has a great voice he's a handsome man as well you might know him as the mayor of hingetown toronto's very own james hingcliffe so before we get into the show i want to ask you a couple things about it because it was an exciting listen lolly recorded last week the beauty of the duo here is that sometimes we have to do things without the other and she had the i think her play it was her pleasure to interview james listen james didn't seem too bored so i don't know i think it was a mutual kind of thing how

many times did you tell him you were from columbia that i had to cut out it actually didn't come up until he brought up a very famous Colombian race car driver that people may know as Juan Pablo Montoya. And then how could I not mention that I'm from... You took the bait. I'm sure you took the bait and ran with that. I was like, just so you know, I am from Colombia. And then, yeah, I had to.

A couple of things I liked about the show, and obviously, listeners, you'll hear it shortly, but he talks about race car driver mindset. and I won't spoil it for anybody what he what he talks about specifically but that was one of the major topics that I thought was really really interesting how he just called it out um how race car drivers I think it was really your question about race car drivers just being different maybe missing a missing a screw or two and and he definitely gave the answer that i thought was perfect um the other thing that was was interesting you guys went down this

a tangent about the addiction to racing and what is it about racing that's the addiction and i think he said something that was i don't know just it was great it was he said i think every driver at their core is a competitor and they're addicted to winning or the feeling of winning is what they're addicted to he said specifically and he said that he loves doing things that humans are not supposed to do humans are not supposed to go 200 miles an hour is what he said and i'm thinking most people are are happy never going you know over the speed limit never mind 234 miles per hour around you know an oval um so that was really interesting and then there's a lot of there's a lot of personal chatter between the two of you as well that i think people will find interesting but

i'm curious i want to hear what your not favorite part what struck you the most because you you know a lot about hinge and you know you you know a lot about indycar what struck you the most surprising what was the most surprising thing you learned from this recording you know something that stuck with me was that he said something about how a driver can end their career as a very well-rounded person because they have to do so much they have to look for sponsors so they have they they're good at marketing themselves they do a lot of events they so they do a lot of public speaking they're in a team so they know about teamwork so he was like you know a driver can can come out of a racing career as a really well-rounded business person

yeah and I I'd never even thought about that or considered it so I thought that was really interesting. And also what I found interesting is how early on in his career, he had already started thinking about the next thing, about how to achieve financial and business longevity after racing. And he said that that started with his first paycheck. I was really surprised about that. So those were two things because other the racing stuff, I really I knew his career so well, but I was but those were two of the things that really I'd never considered. And I thought that was quite interesting actually yeah that's it's interesting you say that too because i think there's such a parallel between that aspect of what james said and our previous guest which

f1 elvis mark priestly i mean he's made an entire career of it he was a mechanic in the pit in the you know for for mclaren and he's taking what he learned from the pit lane i mean his book is literally called pit lane lessons uh his new book and he gives lessons from being on a team and how teams operate and there's so many parallels that businesses companies uh individuals can take from how a team operates specifically a race team and a pit crew how they operate because things are moving so quickly literally the business of speed that you know it is a perfect parallel to all things business. So if you're not thinking about the next thing and business

and how you can translate that into speaking or consulting or, you know, whatever it might be for you, you know, James has a different direction right now, but he can take it into so many different directions. He's still freaking young. It's just really cool. So I really enjoyed this episode. Did you have any last thoughts

before we let the listeners actually hear it? No, I'm just really excited for people to hear this interview. He's such a great human. He's a great, he's just a great asset to the world of racing. And I'm so glad that the F1 people have, you know, gotten to know him and fall in love with him. And I'm really excited for people to hear the interview. Without further ado, Lali and James Hinchcliffe in conversation. Enjoy. welcome to the business of speed podcast james kin hinchcliffe the mayor of hinchtown in the house how are you i'm very well how are you i'm doing well actually quite excited because as you see if you're watching us you can see that we're both in toronto blue jays gear because we're having a phenomenal world series we sure are it's uh it's going back home and it's going to be pretty intense. It's been intense and it's going to be more intense when I think this is our year.

So I wanted to tell you just to start that once upon a blue moon, I watched an IndyCar race in Toronto sat next to your parents in an enormous coincidence. No way. First of all, they were in the crowd, which I thought was amazing. And there's this lovely lady with this blonde hair and she says, oh, who are you rooting for? And I said, well, it'd be great if Hinchcliffe could win his home race. And she just nonchalantly says, that's my son. No, I'm like, haha. And she's like, no, no, no, that's my son. This is my husband. These are our friends. And we're just watching it here in the crowd with them. That's so funny. That's so funny. They always loved being in the thick in the action. So it was, yeah, no surprise to hear that story. I can attest to that,

that they were not in fancy hospitality. They were in the thick of the action with the fans. it was great to see. I want to dive into something right away that has always intrigued me about professional race car drivers and I've never gotten the chance to sit with one like you today so I wanted to ask you about your mindset and what I think is almost like a sociopathic mindset that race car drivers have in that you experience really enormous highs in racing but there's also tremendous lows and you've experienced some awful tragedies you've seen people that you love and admire Greg Moore, Justin Wilson, Dan Weldon, the accident of your good friend Robert Wiggins, you yourself had a horrific accident. You almost lost your life. But then somehow you come back to

the racetrack and you say, strap me in, Bob, I'm going racing. What is it that it's that you have that I don't that permits that? I think it's not something that I have that you don't. It's the other way around. I think drivers don't have the self-preservation gene that most human beings are born with. You know, your brain is wired that if you touch something hot, it burns you, you don't like it, you stay away from things that are hot, you don't have to touch them anymore. You would think that you strap into a race car, something goes wrong, you hurt yourself, your brain would say, oh, we're not going to do that anymore. We just don't have that. It allows us to, you know, have these have these moments because in any career as you as you come up through the ranks

as you experience different levels of speed and and all the rest of it there are going to be incidents there are going to be accidents it's part of being a driver Gilles Villeneuve's famous quote right is you don't know the limit until you've gone past it or me sorry that's Mario Andretti and so it's no that is Gilles Mario was if you feel like you're on the or if you feel like you're under control you're not going fast enough there that anyway that's Mario yeah Gilles was You know, if you can't find a limit, so you go past it. So accidents and incidents are inherently part of it. And obviously, cars are a lot safer now than they used to be. But you certainly hope that you're not going to get injured at any point. But if you do, I mean, I've never met a driver that didn't want to immediately get back into a race car. You know, I've never met a professional racer that led an injury. I mean, look, you said Zanardi. Look at Zanardi. He lost both his legs and nearly his life and wanted to get back into a race car. Robbie Wickens was, you know, paralyzed and designed his own hand controls to get back into a race car. It's banana.

Really, to the normal person, it's bananas. For sure. It is. We're nuts. I acknowledge that. You're nuts. Do you think it's the addiction to adrenaline? Is it the addiction to control?

It's a bit of a God complex. Like, I am controlling 700 to 1,000 horsepower, depending on the series, around a track at speed, nailing it. There are few humans on Earth who can do this. What is the addiction? Adrenaline controlled both. I do think there is an element of what makes driving race cars so appealing is that you're taking this inanimate object and essentially breathing life into it. That you and the car have this symbiotic relationship and feeling on the edge with the machine is such an incredible feeling. I imagine it's what fighter pilots feel like

when they're flying their jets, you know, same kind of thing. I think you do get addicted to that a little bit. But at the same time, I think at their core, every driver is a competitor. And I think that competitive nature in you is a big part of what fuels you to keep doing that. The feeling of winning, I think, is what people are addicted to. The driving is an awesome feeling. And if you were just told you were going to drive around by yourself all day, every day, it'd be fun. But at some point, it's the competition and it's being the best on a day, I think that really fuels drivers. Does that bravery, so to speak, does that translate for you personally off the track?

Are you would you skydive, jump off a cliff? Are you brave in risky business decisions? Like, I'm curious if it translates. I think I think that's different for every person. That one I don't think is as clear cut. You know, I never really considered myself an adrenaline junkie, but then my wife kind of listed off a few things that I enjoy doing. And so I have to admit that, yes, there's probably an element of that.

I think for me, it was always, when I look back on things and things that I enjoy, for me, it's, I love doing things that humans aren't supposed to do, right? Humans aren't supposed to go 200 miles an hour. That's not what we were built for. I love scuba diving. Humans aren't supposed to exist under the water. I am fascinated by space. I would kill to go to space. You're not supposed to be up there. So I do have a little bit of this complex of wanting to do things that you're not supposed to be able to do. I think you're in denial. You are an adrenaline junkie. I'm sorry. I'm with Rebecca on this one. You are for sure. I did go skydiving once, but I promised I would never do it again. So I want to talk a little bit about the beginning of your career. You were gifted a cart by your parents. You're nine years old and you start racing. When's the tipping point when you yourself or as a family, you're like, I'm pretty elite at this. Like I'm a standout. I should follow this path or this is something I'd like to follow. When does that start happening? So kind of between 14, 15, at 14, I had a guy kind of approach my dad and I saying, hey, you're doing well in karting in Canada. You should probably be driving on kind of the North American tour.

And up to that point, you know, being a professional driver was never really the goal because at 9, 10, 11, I knew that wasn't a real job. Like no one actually got to do that. Right. And at that point, he goes, no, this is all the kids that want to be professional drivers. and I think you could compete with them. So we started doing that for a year. And at the end of that year,

I got invited to go do my first car race. And I was 15. I was actually not legally allowed to do it, but I got some kind of special permission slash, they turned the, you know, look the other way. And, you know, I was racing against kids that were 18, 19, had been racing cars, wanted to be professional drivers. And my first weekend I won.

And that was kind of the moment where I thought, okay, so now I've done the karting thing and someone said, you should do this. And then I tried the car thing and that's gone okay, the first crack at it. So yeah, why don't we see how far we can take this? And that's kind of when my mindset switched and my mom, dad, and I sort of made the decision, yeah, we're going to go for it. And you start in most of your career, your feeder series were all in North America. Was IndyCar always the ultimate goal? Did you ever think of F1? Because you're Canadian, we have a home race, you have the Villeneuve's that you mentioned earlier what was what was the goal at that time it's it's funny the the goal was IndyCar because

even though we had the the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal we had the IndyCar race in Toronto and that's where I grew up and so I grew up chasing Mario Andretti and Michael Andretti around for their autographs and Bobby Rahal and all those guys so for me that was what I knew uh that's what I knew the best and that's what kind of what I wanted at that time I was I was a fan of Formula One. My dad was from England, so he was an F1 fan. So we watched it and I enjoyed it. But I just had more of a connection to IndyCar. And so I had one opportunity to kind of go to Europe when I was 17 or 18. And that would have been that was kind of that fork in the road moment of, you know, which career path do I really want to really want to try to pursue. And for a bunch

of different reasons, my parents and I decided that staying in North America made the most sense for us. And that was kind of it. Never really thought about going over to Europe again. Well, it's funny because life is a little bit interesting in that now you are in F1 in your own way, obviously as a presenter, commentator. And I'd like to know a little bit about that. When you first arrived in the paddock, and here's James Hinchcliffe, he's going to speak. How were you received? Did people know who you were? Did the other drivers know who you were? Was there a level of respect? because I find all the time when because I'm an enormous IndyCar fan and when I when I speak of it people are like oh it's like you know sometimes it's a little bit you've probably gotten this reaction and and people say oh it's just boring all they do is go in circles I'll allow you to correct that misinformation in a moment because it is a it's an enormous misinformation that's out there so I'd like to know after you correct why it's not just in circles tell us how you were

received in the paddock initially? Yeah. So what's cool about IndyCar is we race on all types of tracks. So we do permanent road courses, temporary street circuits, and then we do short ovals, super speedways. And it's the diversity in racetracks, I think, that really makes IndyCar, you know, so exciting and such a challenge. And so, yeah, when you get into the paddock, it's interesting because F1 is obviously a very big deal. There's a lot of people involved. And I was kind of the new guy on the block to a lot of people. But if anything, I would say it was the drivers that were kind of the most welcoming because there is still a tremendous level of respect between drivers in different series certainly from the indycar side going the f1

way but then also the f1 side coming this way because you had guys like alonzo come over and do it and then report back and say hey this is actually pretty hard and oval racing is not as easy as going flat and turning left and um i think that helps a lot of drivers you know guys like Lando grew up racing with Colton Hurta when he was over in the U.S. Or sorry, over in Europe. Conor Daly was over in Europe. And so Joseph Newgarden was over in Europe. So a lot of these guys have some connection.

They follow the sport. A lot of them love the racing in IndyCar and openly admit they're like, hey, man, I'm not going to do ovals. I'm not willing to do what you guys do. And I think that that comes with kind of a level of mutual respect, which is cool. People often ask me, so what's the difference between like an IndyCar driver and an F1 driver? And I go, in terms of ability, eliteness, they're the same. But I always say, and perhaps correct me if I'm wrong, I always say that, however, an IndyCar driver would beat an F1 driver at an arm wrestle because they don't have power

steering, so their arms are stronger. That is probably pretty accurate. That is probably pretty accurate. Yeah, the physicality of an IndyCar is a little bit different than an F1 car. So to all the people throughout the years that I've said that to, now we have proof that I was correct in saying that an IndyCar driver will beat an F1 driver in an arm wrestle. And maybe we can prove that one day, James, we'll find in the time. I'll go through the paddock and see if we can, I'll take them all on. That would be spectacular. Business of Speed will be in Las Vegas for the

Grand Prix. So maybe we'll figure something out then. Perfect. You mentioned Connor Daly. So something I'd like to ask you is, I asked Connor once upon a time, who he thought was the driver that he ever raced against that had the most natural ability so we're not talking who won the most hardware because we know that that's dependent on opportunity right if you don't get the right ride you know you're not going to get the most hardware i'm not going to tell you who he said right now i'd like to ask you the same question and then i'll tell you who who he said that's that's that is a really really difficult question to answer because obviously we've we've both been lucky enough to race against a lot of tremendous talents. You know, I look at a guy like Scott

Dixon because, you know, he's obviously incredibly fast. There's not really an area of the game he's not good at, and he's been able to be consistently good. So you talk about opportunity, fine, but he has created that opportunity time and time again. You're not a six-time champion without that. And in other forms of motorsport as well, Scott. Exactly right. You put him in any kind of car, GT cars, prototypes, he's incredibly competitive. You know, what Pillow is doing right now is unbelievable you know i i think back to my 2007 formula atlantic teammate rafa matos and he he and when you're talking about just pure talent like you give him a race car and just say all you have to do is drive it as fast as possible i don't know there was a guy that i ever certainly

was teammates with it's hard to it's hard to do those accurate judgments on people you're not you But in terms of teammates that I've had, guys that just, I could not do what he could do with that exact car on that exact moment. Rafa was unbelievable in terms of just pure natural ability. I love that. So Connor said Stoffel van Doorn. No way. He said that that's the most naturally gifted guy he'd ever raced again in his entire career. I thought that was a very interesting answer. And it goes to show you how this is a guy who made it to F1 who had, but never had the right ride. Things never quite clicked for him.

So it doesn't matter how much talent you have if the circumstances don't align for you in racing. Racing's a dumb sport in a lot of ways, for a lot of reasons. And that's one of them. I'm going to throw Montoya in the mix, too, because because we did get to race together and that guy is one of the most naturally talented drivers. Well, I'm very glad you mentioned Juan Pablo Montoya because you don't know this. I am from Colombia. OK, OK. So Juan Pablo is, you know, an idol in our country.

He's a hero. Yeah, yeah. He's a big, big hero. So I and I tend to agree with you that that is another man like a Mario Andretti. You can put him in a tractor and he'll win the tractor race. Anything. He's just incredibly competitive. I'm going to pivot a little bit here. So you're racing. You love it.

You have these opportunities. At what point in your career do you start thinking, OK, I need to start planning for my next chapter after racing. I need to create a career for myself, some financial success outside of the cockpit. Is that something always in the back of your mind? Or is it just something that just spontaneously happens when you're like, oh, I'm not getting a ride easily for next year? No, I the day I got my first paycheck, I think, is when I started worrying about the next chapter, because racing is such a fickle business, you know, and I was always kind of cognizant of the fact that it could stop tomorrow. Right. You have very little control over your future as a driver and things can happen. You know, you get injured, you know, whatever thing things happen.

And so I was always kind of terrified of how life would continue post-driving, even having no idea when that was going to happen. So I always sort of had an eye to, you know, being, first of all, just financially responsible, but then also looking for a kind of business opportunities when I was still, you know, an active IndyCar driver and things that I could do sort of passively while I was focused on racing, but could take more of a role in afterwards. And the TV thing, honestly, was something I had dipped my toe in before I even got to IndyCar and was always sort of told like, hey, man, you should just keep a finger on that and just kind of stay in touch with the TV world because that could be something good for you, you know, when you decide to stop. And sure enough, when I sort of made that decision to step back from IndyCar, I made one phone call and an offer was there and it kind of made that transition very easy. I was very lucky in that sense. It's amazing. Have you ever considered, you know, Mark Webber manages Oscar Piastri, Fernando manages Bortoletto. Have you ever considered being a driver's manager? I have. Yeah, I actually I do have a I'm a partner in a small management company and we kind of help young drivers in North America navigate the, you know, some of the stresses and some of the challenges of getting up into top level motorsports. But yeah, more recently, there's been some interesting conversations about maybe being involved in drivers careers that are kind of already at the high level. It's something I could see myself getting into in the future for sure.

I think so too not only because you you I think you bring like this calming presence about you and you could you could talk sense into someone but also you know it so well and now you know the other side on the other side of the pond so you could really help someone that be great you're a supremely supremely busy man so for just to remind people he's calling races for IndyCar in the booth for Fox you're on F1 TV you're part of that team and I don't want to clarify this you are not retired from race You just raced all the IMSA endurance races with Faf in the Lambo. So it's kind of banana. So maybe talk to us a little bit of what life hacks, routines can you share that are like pivotal to your success? Because not only are you changing time zones regularly, you're changing job descriptions regularly. That is not so common. So tell us how you manage that. Wow.

Well, look, I think, you know, I think being a professional racing driver, you know, in IndyCar, in F1, in NASCAR, in these high levels of the sport, you learn to be a little bit of a chameleon, right? Your main job is to be a driver, but you're also a spokesperson. Sometimes you have to act in commercials. Sometimes you have to give speeches to rooms of sponsor guests and things like that. You have an interesting sort of world. You're not just solely focused on the one thing. It's your primary focus, but you do kind of have to be at least competent in the other areas. Right. Exactly. You learn a lot about the marketing side of motorsports because to get to the top,

you probably had to raise sponsorship and you understand then how businesses work. And I think drivers can kind of come out of a career in racing fairly well-rounded in a lot of different areas. And so, yeah, for me, it's preparation, honestly. Whatever job I'm going into that week, I spent all that week preparing for that job. And, you know, during the IndyCar schedule, it's fairly easy because it's mostly IndyCar all in a row. And then the F1 stuff, it's a little different because I sort of bounce around to different roles on the F1 side with those guys, whether it's pundit, sometimes commentator, sometimes lead presenter now. So that's an ever-evolving sort of thing. And then obviously when I'm racing back in IMSA, it's full on to the racing thing.

But I plan my sleep very, very precisely. And that's a very important part of it. Yeah. You plan the time zone where you're headed in and you start sort of planning that way. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's something I learned the hard way kind of after my first year or two of doing this. But, you know, for Vegas, for example, you know, you said you're going there. I'll be going there the Monday before I start kind of staying up an hour later every night and going and trying to wake up an hour later. And, you know, my my wife's great about it. Like she'll go to bed at a normal time and I'll stay up till two or three o'clock in the morning because I know

that's what my workday is going to be in a week's time. And if you don't get your body there and prepare to do it, it can be tough. One of the biggest ones I just did was coming back from Singapore, which is a 12 hour time difference to the eastern U.S. And I had to go straight to Petit Le Mans race and I needed to be rested. And as you know, so the minute the checkered flag fell in Singapore, I start working on getting my body back to to the right time zone. And it's it's a huge part of it for sure that's so nice that you can do that because not everybody can do that you know it's very complicated but i guess i guess your hack of starting early the week you're doing something focus on that week start getting into the time zone so i'm rubbing down here i want to

ask you a few final questions so i have very strong opinions about certain rules in f1 um one that i'll tangentially mention and i can't speak of it too much because i might get worked up here is for instance changing tires during a red flag oh it's the worst which has led to a horrible debacle that may have happened at some point in the end of 2021 um so i'd like to ask you what one rule in f1 would you like to change and bring in an indycar rule and vice versa what rule what f1 rule would you bring over to indycar honestly like without you saying that the rule i hate the most in F1 is the red flag tire roll. That is probably the first thing that I would change. It doesn't happen that often, but it just makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. So

I would get rid of that in a second. And man, what rules would I bring over? That's... Do you like, for instance, blue flags? Do you think IndyCar is fine without blue flags or would you like blue flags in IndyCar? I think there's a place for blue flags in IndyCar. I really do i get the argument for not doing it you know the racing's a little bit different so full course cautions can you know help you out but at the end of the day if you've gone a lap down you've gone a lap down for a reason and sometimes it's your day sometimes it's you're not and it's not and so what i think indycar does well is it used to be that once you were lapped down to the leader then you would get the blue flag and everyone else would kind of get a free pass to

go buy a lap car and they changed it to now you have to be a lap down to the entire field because it used to be essentially a disadvantage to be the leader and come across a lap car first. So I think just kind of pivoting to a more standard blue flag setup would make the racing at the front a little bit better and not compromise races quite the same way. So that could be interesting. If it was something I could bring from IndyCar to F1, it'd be refueling. I'd bring refueling back because I think, you know, we've spent the last, we've talked about it a lot the last two years, but we've really spent the last five years plus trying to figure out how to make sure these races aren't one stoppers, right? And it's all gone on Pirelli. It's all gone on the

tire manufacturer. You look at the Mexico City race. It was brilliant because it was a multiple strategy race. Most races aren't. If you have fuel stops, that becomes a moot point. I mean, there are going to be a plethora of strategies that you can employ. And so it's never going to happen for all the money saving and net zero carbon saving issues but that's the one i that's one thing one area where i think f1 sort of pivoted the wrong direction remember those days when michael and rubens and you never knew how much fuel a car started with so you never it's such a great dynamic because you is he heavy is he light like it really does add a lot of dynamicism to the racing so i tend to agree with you but unfortunately we know that it won't happen you

have raced everywhere on earth. You recently got to race the Haas car, which is probably a life treat for you. So tell us about that quickly, the experience about the Haas and was it everything you ever hoped for? Yeah, incredible opportunity to get to do some laps in a modern Formula One car and can't thank the team enough for it. And it was at an amazing track, Mugello in Italy, which is one of the coolest places to go drive an open wheel car. And yes, it met and exceeded all expectations you know that it is such an incredible machine and uh it's really impressive you know and gives you a whole new perspective a whole new appreciation even for someone that had a high level of appreciation for what formula one drivers do it it raised it up even another

level for sure it was amazing what's your favorite track on earth to race at so to race at is probably uh road america that one road america yeah it's just a classic old school road course it's got high speed, low speed, long straights, big brake zones, technical sections. It's got it all. I love that place. Amazing. And then final question, who's going to win the Drivers' Championship? It's an easy one. Oh, it's so difficult. It's so, I've got a great, I've got a great argument for all three of them. I really do. Man, it's just, it changes every, it changes every week. You know, two months ago, you would have said it was a slam dunk for Oscar. And then Max started turning it up and you thought oh my god is this is max really going to do this then you look at a weekend like

mexico city and the fact that lando's been oscar for five straight weekends now it's like oh is momentum back on lando's side i can't answer that question i honestly can't i have a reminiscent of james when lewis and fernando 2007 yeah and there comes kimi yeah exactly we did a whole piece on that before the race in mexico i missed it actually sorry no it's fine uh i arrived at this conclusion by myself as i say yeah it's so interesting that it's repeating itself and there comes max just to do max we're stopping i'm i'm with you i can't quite pick i know who maybe i'm not going to say here but who i would prefer to win but it's very very hard to to tell you where i'd put my money yeah i this is why i don't gamble on sports because anything can happen

it's a losing proposition thank you so much james hinchcliffe for joining us today on the business of Speed podcast. Let's hope that the next time we meet, we can celebrate a World Series victory. Yes. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. Thank you so much. Have a lovely day. Okay. Thank you so much for having me on.