Lemonade Stand - Guenther Steiner from Formula 1 | Ep. 080 Lemonade Stand 🍋

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

On this week's show... Aidan trail-brakes into the corner, DougDoug hits the apex, and Atrioc counter-steers out of the exit. With special guest, Guenther Steiner, Co-Owner of the Tech3 MotoGP team and former Haas F1 Team Principal. Red Flags Podcast Live Show - Austin Grand Prix on October 24th https://www.axs.com/events/1588622/grand-prixview-live-with-guenther-steiner-the-red-flags-podcast-tickets The Red Flags Podcast https://youtube.com/@theredflagspod?si=9Xpg1qwdTxl6Ww3K We launched a Patreon! - https://www.patreon.com/lemonadestand for bonus episodes, discord access, a book club, and many more ways to interact with the show! Episode: 080 Recorded on: September 15th, 2026 Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCurXaZAZPKtl8EgH1ymuZgg Follow us TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@thelemonadecast Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thelemonadecast/ Twitter - https://x.com/LemonadeCast The C-suite Aiden - https://x.com/aidencalvin Atrioc - https://x.com/Atrioc DougDoug - https://x.com/DougDougFood Edited by Aedish - https://x.com/aedishedits Thumbnail by Cheyenne DeWolf - https://x.com/cheyedewolf Produced by Perry - https://x.com/perry_jh Segments 0:00 Intro 1:49 Drive to Survive Effect 14:13 Dealing with Smaller Budgets 17:10 Buying Parts from Your Competition 19:31 Engineering and Balancing Competition 26:05 Priority for a Mid-field Team 29:41 Shopify Ad 30:57 How Important is the Driver? 35:10 Getting Sponsors 39:31 Capital Groups in Sports46:15 MotoGP52:11 Sport Vs Money 55:23 Differences in Motorsports 58:00 Why Motorsport? 59:45 Guenther’s Start in Motorsports 1:05:13 Do You Plan On Slowing down? 1:08:15 The Logistics of F1 1:13:30 Managing when people fail 1:19:30 Dealing with Low Points 1:22:20 What's Next? New takes on Business, Tech, and Politics. Squeezed fresh every Wednesday. #lemonadestand #dougdoug #atrioc #aiden Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at ID Private Wealth.com. Welcome back to Lemonade Stand, everybody. This week we have a very exciting guest, Gunther Steiner. Thank you for joining us. You are the current CEO and owner of a Moto GP team and also the former team principle of Haas F1.

And we're really excited to talk to you this week. We want to ask you a bunch of questions, I think mainly about Drive to Survive to start us off. Just I think a lot of people watching this episode will recognize you from that. But then just understand the landscape and business behind F1 racing in general and

your impressive tenure of starting the Hoss F1 team owning your own businesses like throughout this process. I feel like there's so many even before we started recording there was like five things you wanted to ask you about.

Tell our guests to shut up because he was telling us things that were too good for the show. It would save it for the pause. I want to say early on, I of this three are probably the least experience in knowledgeable on racing. And I just think your life story, from what I've learned, is very fascinating. And I want to kind of dive into that. And also just negotiating with billionaires and the weird lifestyle that this sport creates. So thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me. I just want to collect one of the motor GP team, you know? Is he? No, no. You're too much. I don't want to claim something, which is, which it isn't. You know, so no, thanks for having me. and, you know, we're excited to be here, you know.

And hopefully I can give you some answers, some explanations. I don't know what we can do, but let's try. Okay, so I thought it was really funny when you came in. We have this little entryway in our studio. And when me and Doug were sitting here, and we heard your voice from the other room, Doug was like, that's the voice. And I was so iconic. I was so excited because you're a very iconic figure in,

and for those who don't understand, drive to survive was this Netflix series that came out in 2019. and I would say had an immense effect on the popularity of F1, the sport, especially in the U.S. And I think it combined with COVID at a time that's sort of supercharged F1, the revenue explodes over the following years. And you're one of the faces, especially of the initial season of the show. So I think I want to start, since most people, if they're not familiar with the sport, would recognize you from that.

How did your, how did Haas change? how did the sport change, how did your life change when those things took off? Well, it's a lot of questions here. Let's start with how the sport changed. The sport changed, I mean, I'm in Formula One quite a long time. I was there a few times and then I went out, got back into it. But the big change was when Liberty Media bought F1.

F1 was always very good. I mean, Bernie Acklestone, the former owner, and then he sold it to an investment fund and then investment fund sold it to Liberty Media. But Bernie was always running it until Liberty came. And Bernie was doing a good job. But I think, you know, at some stage in life, I always think

we get to a place where we feel very comfortable and we actually stop pushing forward, you know. And I think when you are yourself, it's very difficult to notice that moment. And for Bernie, life was perfect. He got to be a billionaire, you know. Everybody

wanted to buy the TV rights of Formula One. Everybody was queuing up at his place. And he couldn't see that actually what he had in his hand could be a lot more than what it was already. It was big. And he did a fantastic job to make it the sport, what it is now. And then Liberty came in. And Liberty media obviously doesn't go and spend

the billions of dollars to buy this business if they don't see that they can make it bigger. They had a plan. I mean, they are not going to buy it. And now we continue to do the same. but they knew what the new generation wanted or what is possible to do, how to grab more of the audience,

how to open the F1 market in the United States, because Bernie always was hesitant with the United States. Because, you know, the United States, I live here 20 years, so I know how it works here. It just works if everybody makes money. If somebody's losing money, it's not going to work. But in the end, it works.

In business, that's what it has to be. I mean, you cannot have somebody, you know, just a government paying because they want to pay. No, that doesn't work forever. There needs to be, at the bottom end, there needs to be a black figure, not a red one, you know? And I think Bernie never got that one across how to make this happen in the States. Liberty Media, obviously, knowing the American market, knowing sports marketing, had an idea how to do it. And social media and all the things he said before, Drive to Survive, I think that was a plan there. But if we would

ask them now, Sean Bratges and Chase Kerry, the CEO and the CMO at the time, did you really think this show will have the effect it had? I think they would say, we hoped, but did we expect this one?

Maybe not. Because, and as you rightly said, COVID was a big element to make the sport bigger in the States. Because we were all sitting at home. I always say, we all watched Tiger King. We remember all Oh, that's stupid show. And then all of a sudden,

drive-to-surve comes along, you know? Yeah. And we all had nothing to do at home because it was unfortunate. And then Formula One, under the leadership of Chase Carey, did a fantastic thing. And the FAA,

Jean-taught the president of the FAA at the time, got all the teams together and said, guys, we need to go back on the road here with this show because otherwise, we run out of money. Because if F1 doesn't race, there's no income. Wait, when did they say this?

After the show or before the show? No, the show was already running. The show had nothing to do with that. That was in 2020 when we had to stop racing because COVID came along. COVID came along. And then because F1 was, I think, it was the first global sport to go live again.

People remembered that from the show and now this racecast go again. We were all sitting at home. We had watched Tiger King. We had watched drive to survive, you know. And now the racing is coming back. The first, actually something new because there was nothing new.

We all forget in 2020 because we couldn't work. Nobody could make a new show. Nobody could make a movie or nothing because we couldn't work. No show, no sport was life. F1 come in and goes live. Guess what? Everybody, even if they were not interested in, they watched F1 because there was nothing else to you. Exactly. They just needed something for the plane.

So if COVID was this huge element in the success, plus Liberty Media, do you feel like, so to the American perspective, probably a ton of American fans of FAA, know it because of that show entirely. Do you feel like from the inside that show didn't really change it that much? It was these other factors?

Or from your perspective, was it like, this has suddenly changed what we're doing? No, no, the show for sure helped because it showed what F1 actually is. You know, it is more than racing cars because there's a lot of racing cars in the world, you know? But why is F1 the biggest motorsport?

Because technology, the politics, I would say the bullshit which goes with it, you know, People like that stuff, you know, the glamour, all that stuff, and people liked it. But before, it was always just seen from outside in because, like, the former, the people before Liberty which owned it, they never gave access to the other stuff. That was all behind closed doors. This is what we do at home. We don't show this to people.

Because nobody thought anybody would be interested in or this much interested in. everybody was worried, it would attract criticism, you know, if it was shown what's going behind the scene. Well, I do kind of wonder there's aspects of narrative television like this that, like, a version of you is displayed through that show by the nature of like how it's cut, right? And also by the nature of that, there are things that are excluded. So I was wondering if you had anything to say about the way that you or the team was like portrayed in that show versus what what what things didn't get shown that you wish people had seen because I think that's a pain point in sort of the

influencer world as well is like narratives online about people get very warped yeah so I'm curious how you dealt with that I never watched the show I never watched the show and I'm not going to watch it and I can tell you also the story when I came up with not watching it. There is two things in that one. First of all, the other one,

you know, I hate to watch myself on TV or listen to myself. It's something I don't like. You know, it gives me the, you know. The egg. Yeah, exactly. I don't like it. Because I think if you're an actor,

and I was told, even some actors don't, watch themselves because if you watch yourself and you see something you don't like, what I would try to do is next time to actually act, you know, to make that go away. And then it becomes actually a job to be filmed. And I didn't want any job to be filmed because I'm not an actor. You know, I don't have to do this. This was not my job.

So that was one element. And the second one, why I didn't watch it was when it came out the first series, they had a private screening of obviously not the whole show for all. before an F1 commission meeting on an evening in London and the next day was the F1 commission meeting. I didn't go to the screening because I just flew in from the States

and went straight in the morning to the F1 commission meeting. That was at the time the show was not public at the time. That was a private screening. I walked into this room there is the 10th team principles at the time.

It was 10 now. It's 11, obviously. The FIA president and the CEO of F1, Liberty Media. I walk in there and everybody was like, have you seen what you're doing? And, you know, and I felt not, you know, it's like, I don't want to be here, you know,

because everybody talks about you. You were the center of attention. Center of attention. Everybody, and at the time, nobody was sure this show was actually going to be good. You know how people is. They rather think, you have got normally more naysayers than yeasayers, you know.

So that was in there. And they said, have you seen this? Have you seen that in the show? And for me, it was like, I don't know what they're talking. about because I haven't seen it. Were you worried, though? That this is going to come out to a million people? Because the thing is like, I knew what they were talking about because I was there when they

filmed it. I said some things. I'm dumb, but not this dumb, you know, but I could play ignorant, you know, I haven't seen it. I don't know what you're talking about. Because I didn't, everybody wanted to say, do you think this is right or this is wrong, you know, because obviously they showed me in full action when I'm, you know, at 10,000 RPM, you know, so I was like, whoa.

And everybody was, I think everybody was just worried that the show will be not good, you know, will not, the reception will be good. And I didn't want to discuss with people or do you think it's good, it's bad. I don't really care. And I was in the opinion, it's too late anyway now. Yeah, it's come out. It's a film. I'm a loser.

I'm a loser or winner. I'm nothing in between. You're not finding your way to the Netflix editing room. It's always, it was done. And the other thing was like, I was thinking, wow, did they really? because I had no idea what was in there but when they told me the things I was like wow

did they really that was thinking of my wife if she sees that she will go or listen anyway Wait has she? Has she seen it? No, we never discussed it

Wow She watched it but we don't speak about it at home you know it's just something we don't not talk about I feel like anyone listening to the show that had listening to our show right now that hasn't seen the show

is imagining you doing terrible things it's not that crazy No, no, it's not that bad. But at the time, because you guys, you're young, and you started maybe watch F1 with this show, but before this, with the whole government, this was a no, no, you know. You couldn't do this, you know?

And that was the biggest thing. The guys which saw it, everybody was like, you know, should we support it or should we go against it? Because nobody knew what the public will think of it. Right. So I imagine the opinion changed pretty quickly when the success was evident. Like after COVID, the first few seasons are out. It's clear that this has a huge impact.

I imagine the support changes dramatically. And it's worth giving context to our viewers. The show is massively successful. And Guantra, you were not to spoil it for you, but I think one of the main characters, really, like the main people who are featured and brought all this attention to teams that otherwise might not have been. And so I think that was like a fascinating element. Yeah. No, no, yeah, and we have also said the first, the first year, the first year,

Mercedes and Ferrari didn't participate. They said, no, guess what, the second year, they couldn't wait to be in the show. Oh, show us, show us, you know, because they didn't want to take the risk the first year that the show is a flop, you know, and which again, shows that sometimes in life, you have to take a risk, and they asked me, did you agree? I said, yeah, we had nothing to lose. I didn't even, because we were the smallest team. Right.

We were, I mean, we were not second last, but we were second last, basically, you know. And it's like, what can we lose? If they don't show us, we don't lose out about it, you know? So we just gave access. So I actually want to follow that point. You guys being the smallest team, having this staff of like 200 to 300-ish people at a time when the biggest teams have staffs exceeding 1,000 people. And notably having a smaller budget than like the older, more tenured teams in the sport,

how do you manage to compete in a sport that is so unbalanced? Like how do you approach that as the principle? Yeah, you're right. At the time, it was very unbalanced because there was no budget cup. The budget cup came in 2023 and it got more balanced. Not that it made it any easier, but at least there was some balance. But at the time, when I started the team, for me, it was like, I need to go back a little bit.

In 2009 financial crisis, we all know, you know. big manufacturers left F1 and new teams started up there was four new teams starting up one didn't make it to the start USF1 the other stream started but they were dead last they were laps away on a race

you know they and I just looked at them and I was like if I just do more of the same or try to do the same as them guess what I will fail like they the same result exactly because I'm not more we I'm not and my I'm not more intelligent than this people because they were good people.

And for sure, we have no money because we had less money. So you need to find a way or at least try to find a way to do it differently. And I know a lot of people. I've got a lot of friends in F1. And I had the idea to, I mean, I knew the regulation pretty well. I know every gray area for regulation. And at the time, you actually could buy a lot of stuff from an existing team. And that was my idea.

I and Stefan Dominicali, now the CEO of Formula One, he's a good friend of my since 25 years. Here at the time was the team principal at Ferrari. So I went to see Stefan and said, hey, Stefan, if I find investment money from somebody, would you help me to put this team together by if I buy not only the engine from you, but as much as the regulations allow, you know, which is suspension, electronics, hydraulic, except the chassis and the aerodynamics.

You have to do yourself. Okay. Because that saves you a lot of money, a lot of time. and you have got some aspect of safety because if you develop something yourself, even a suspension F1, you see like Cadillac in the moment, they have suspension failures,

they have break failures, because they try to do it themselves. And I wouldn't say that doing a bad job, but F1 is so sophisticated and so difficult technology-wise that if you try to do something like this yourself, you spend a lot of money just to be as good as the worst team.

Right. So you spend millions in money and years of development just to have the same not even be better. It's like, so why would I do that? And you need to find your way around and that was the idea behind not to fail.

And that is also, I think, the reason why Haasupone is still around because if we would have done it like all the other ones, we would have gone away after three years because what happens if you are not successful these people which invest in it, either they run out of money

or they're an out of enthusiasm to finish last. Right. So, and you know already a prediction. So you need to do something different. And that was the different. So how do you, if, I mean, first off, I'm curious, if you're going to Ferrari and saying, let us buy a whole bunch of your parts

so that we can build up this team and be more efficient, what is the value to Ferrari? Why are they going to agree to basically, you know, send parts and experience to a competitor? First of all, it's money. They make it. I don't think they make a lot of money. But also, like running their engine,

they get more data, they can do something with it. Secondly, it's good for the league, you know, if you have got another good team. Because the league, if it has got only three good teams and the rest. Bad story. That's not good, you know. So that helps the league. If it helps the league, it helps Ferrari.

Obviously, Ferrari keeps you under check that you don't beat them, you know. So, I mean, they've got you under control as well. Is it ever, like, are they giving you slightly worse parts? Is there any kind of, like, threat on their side of making sure you never get the very, very best? No, no, not anymore. That was in the old days. But our...

That's happened. Oh, yeah, it happened. Yeah. But our first business plan was to have the one-year-old Ferrari stuff. But that we changed pretty quickly because this was actually a very good question because we changed that pretty quick because in the end, it wouldn't make sense. You'd go into a race knowing that you will be a second to one and a half slower and you can never catch up.

And it also doesn't make sense for Ferrari because... They need to make parts because all these composite parts, you know, they are very difficult. So they need to keep two different set of molds and processes and everything. So it's not even a money saving. It just makes it more complicated for everyone with no real gain for anybody. And it's not even cheaper because making F1 parts old and new, they're still stupidly expensive, you know. So it's weirdly expensive for Ferrari to try to keep you guys behind them. They may as well just save money and give you guys the money.

Exactly. and give you guys the most recent version. Correct. I get a follow-up question from that because, so as not an expert, people that watch the sport more tell me that engineering is more than half of the ratio that makes up victory. Like, the driver is part of it, the team is part of it, but the engineering is a huge part of it. So if you are only buying parts, what parts are you controlling to make your team different or stand out? Like, what is on your mind then?

Is it driver selection? Is it what? Aerodynamics. Aerodynamics, because you have to do your own one. You cannot buy them from Ferrari or from another team. Erdynamics, that you have to develop yourself. And, I mean, you know, the chassis you have to make yourself, which is you have to make sure that you're on the minimum weight of the car.

But absolutely you're right. The element in F1 is the engineering, but the biggest element is aerodynamic development. Okay. I think in the sport there's still, so you mentioned the, the, cap that was put in place in 2021. And other sports, you know, whether it be the NFL or the NBA, they have restrictions

on the way teams can spend money in order to kind of keep the sport more equitable, right? But in F1, if you look at the results over the last however many years, it's pretty much still Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari, like at the top of these standings, and McLaren, I guess. I'm wondering since that is the case still, and since there's still seemingly a disparity in like results, performance, do you think the sport needs to do something in order to make the playing field more even? I do not think, and this is also explainable,

why these four teams, which you rightly said, are ahead of their ones. They did a better job. First of all, you know, longevity in the sport counts a lot. You've got your processes are better, you get better people, you know what the people want, you know, how to attract good people. You've got a lot of experience in it, doing it.

But what these teams did, they always invested in the team and to be more efficient. Because in the budget cap, what it comes out to, how do I do more with less? It's more like it's more like running a very efficient company and making profit, you know. If you do that one well, you have success. Why not everybody can make iPhones? Because Apple and Samsung know how to do it pretty well. you know, try to get there, you know. So, and it's the same in F1.

These teams, they invested over years and years in their facility, in their infrastructure. They've got the best wind tunnel. And under a budget cap, you can just invest every year a certain amount, obviously. The big ones, they started off a little bit in advantage. Sure. Yeah. But nobody, nobody of the smaller teams try to catch up because sometimes you need to take a step back to make two forward, you know.

But in sport, you never do that because you want to have the success tomorrow. You know, it's very difficult to achieve all that and therefore it always will be there. But coming to your question, do the league need to do something about it? I don't think so. And even if they do something about it,

it will be very difficult to achieve. Why? Why? Because the smaller teams? Because you couldn't say the bigger teams now need to spend less. Less. There is already something in it because if you are the number one, you've got less wind tunnel time than the last one.

You know, there is a percentage. I think I don't remember the number, but as the leading F1 team, you've got at least 20% less wind tunnel time than the last, who is last. So they've got an advantage to catch up, but they never can do it. But what you would need to do,

if you say to the last team, you can spend more money to catch up, they won't do it. No, they cannot get the money. It's simpler than that. They cannot get the money because they're last. So who will give the money? Who would sponsor them to get up there?

So what you would need to do? You would need to allow the big teams to spend less. But that would be so awkward to do. It's like, and I'm a big believer. I mean, balance of performance, you know, about that one in motorsport, like in World Endurance Championship, they have balance of performance, weight and horsepower.

you don't want to bring that into F1 because then you kill the sport and that would be a little bit of a balance of performance not on the car side but on the infrastructure side and I don't think this Formula 1 it would be good for Formula 1 to do that so from your answer

because I know that the constructor standings of F1 pay out prize money proportional to placement right and then you have things like payments made to the older teams like Ferrari as sort of a a tenure payment for being in the sport for so long. But are you kind of saying like this disparity in like earnings, even if the lower teams were like supported more financially,

it just wouldn't make up this gap. Or it would fracture the competitive integrity of the sport. You can give you a good answer there. That would incentivize some people. If you would say the last one gets more than the first one, then it's not a meritocracy anymore. You know what would happen? You want to lose.

Yeah, exactly. You want to come last. Then you're a start and park. If I come last, I get more money. So I keep on coming last. And I guess I would probably say like, I mean, this isn't my actual suggestion. But I would say like, oh, what if all of that, like the constructor didn't have an effect on like payouts?

And it was just the same amount of money was dispersed to every team. Equally. Equally. Yeah. Yeah. They did you say equal payouts. I don't think that could completely fix the discrepancy. What, what, what, what the income is.

because the big teams have got anyway more income because of the sponsorship because they're winning, you know. So it's very difficult to do. And I would say the governance in F1 is very good, you know, the system, you know, majority, super majority, how is something is voted. And you would never have the big teams because, you know, never ask Dirk is to vote for Christmas, you know. The big teams would never vote for that.

Yeah. So why would they, how could you convince them? even if you give them a contract. And I don't think, to be honest, I think part of F1, the story of F1 is because it is like it is, you know. And look at McLaren, three, four years ago, they were nowhere, you know,

and then they came back and all of a sudden they won two world championships in constructors and this year they will not win the constructor, but they win races. So it is possible. So I think if you're good, you can still do it. What to you, so you know, you're no longer running a Formula One team, but if you came in right now, first off, would that be interesting at all? I've heard that you've turned out offers to go back into Formula One, so curious about why.

But if you were, if you had another, you know, eight hours a day to do this, what would be the key priorities you would put out on one of these teams to say this is how we will do what McLaren did and get up? Coming in to run one or to set a new one up? coming into round one. Either. I mean, coming into, let's say, one of the lower teams. Okay. Or let's just say, yeah, a lower team. Like, what do you feel like

this is a potential strategy to actually raise? First, me coming back in the moment, I mean, I need to sort my motor GP team out first before I go back to Formula One, you know? So I've got some work to be done there. There's a whole other thing we'll get to with the motor GP. You know, otherwise, if I'm working at fun,

I cannot come here. And this is the most important job in the world. This is the real hard. Absolutely. Absolutely. You can't skip this. No, if there would be a project, I would be open to come in, but just to go in and run a team, I'm done with that.

You know, I'm over 60 years old, you know, got my t-shirt, you know, was there, got my T-shirt, and moved on, you know. But I would be interested if there is a project. And the project would be that you explain somebody how you would do it. And not because always people say, talk about time, and some people find time just as, do this for three years, make good money, and then I'm gone anyway. No, really making a plan to say, I need three, five years and to put proper milestones

in what you want to achieve and work on it. But say, be patient because a lot in F1 is this expectation. And expectation, they all think, oh, I'm smarter than anybody else. I come in and do it. I mean, we see it now again with Cadillac. They came in. Obviously, they were very humble, but they didn't expect to be that last. this badly, you know.

I mean, this is bad. They got some big zeros on the scoreboard right now. Exactly. They thought they were a little more confident. They were confident. Yeah, exactly.

They were a little bit, okay, we know all the challenges. We keep our, but when they got thin, they're like, wow, we are three, four seconds behind the leader. I mean, you cannot make that up.

You cannot catch up when you are this far behind. You need to come in very humble, very strategic, how you do things, not have the expectation, no fixed quickest. One of the things,

just as an example, how to fix things is Austin Martin. They came in and they were, I mean, embarrassing. But they took one good decision, you know. I mean, I think I take my hat off of them. They didn't try to fix it with small, or we put a new front wing on. If you are four seconds behind in Formula One,

it's not going to cut it, you know. I mean, you need to be, I mean, and, you know, oh, we have an upgrade. Yeah, that will not do. They went back and said, we do nothing for six months, and then we make a new car, which is at the weight limit and all that stuff.

Are they good yet? but I think, obviously, we have not to underestimate the engine they got in. It's not good. But I think that was the right strategy for them to catch up. Take a step back to make two forward. And that's what you sometimes need to do. Another team, which I think is doing it. Their approach is good is Audi.

I mean, they got a big, I mean, they obviously bowed Saobo, which was struggling the last years before they bolted. But they bolted up to speed. And then this year they were, I would say, unfortunate to have their own engine, which is a big challenge as well, if you do it the first year. If they would have a Ferrari engine this year, they would be, I think they could run fifth easily, you know?

So, yeah, and I think they do it very in the right way. We have a target, we want to get there, and we need to do it step by step. And that's what I would do, just was a long answer to answer your question. Yeah, that was good. Support for this show comes from Shopify. Now, a lot of the time in these ads, one of us is the dumb guy, but this time nobody's dumb. We're all super hyper efficient.

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Many now more likely to identify as independent. So what is going on with the kids? I think the biggest misconception about Gen Z's politics right now is that all of a sudden they're all socialist. That is just not the case. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They are embracing candidates who are offering new, bold ideas in the absence of those ideas from establishment Democrats.

This week on America, actually, Gen Z researcher Rachel Jamfaza joins us to separate generate Gen Z fact versus fiction. It's not rocket science. And this is, you know, I keep saying like, Young voters aren't that complicated after all. It's pretty simple. Catch us every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. Can I ask a question from the question I said earlier about percentage of engineering versus, like, say, driver?

What percentage of the victory do you, or success comes down to the driver? This is I would want to know from an expert. And then, actually, I want to have to answer that first. I would love to know. I always put it like this. And how much is the team principle specifically? 99%. The team principle, either he's right or he's wrong,

there's nothing in between. All him or all nothing in, you know? So if you're bad, you get sucked anyway, you know. But I always say like this, a driver, the worst driver, and there's no real bad driver in the F1 in the moment, the worst driver in a good car can win. He will not win the championship, but he can win races. The best driver in the worst car cannot win

anything. Just to say how much the driver has to, how much the car is important. It's, I always say it. I think the car and, you know, you say the team like changing, the tire is changing. It's 80%. And the driver, the driver, if you're in the top car, makes a difference. But, you know, that for the best drivers are always in the top four teams because there you make the difference.

But if they go below the top four teams, if you put Max Verstappen in a, I don't know, and asked Martin. You just can't. You can't do it. I mean, look at Alonso. He's one of the best drivers. He cannot do anything. I asked because when I was doing some research on you,

there was this thread that you had taken risks on some drivers. You'd picked some drivers for your teams that had not as much proven experience. And I wanted to know what you look for in a driver. What is your intuition on that? My intuition, I mean, I always must talk where we were. We're a new team. Yeah. And I didn't want to be the driver to be the weakest element.

So I wanted experienced drivers because the team was inexperienced, to make up for that one. And the driver can help you to make, because he has got experience, he was in different places, and the driver can motivate the team members. You know, therefore I always wanted experienced drivers if you're a young team. And, you know, when I took rookies, I had no other choice because I had no money. one of these days where I had no money

it was not the only day I think a criticism of drivers in F1 sometimes is this like nepotistic aspect in the sport where there's people or picks for drivers that feel like they haven't necessarily earned the position so I was wondering how common you feel like that is like how often are drivers

getting picked on something other than merit I think in the moment there is only one in there. And, you know, we're talking about Lance Stroll. Yeah. I wasn't even going to say it. I wasn't even going to say it. No, but you can say it. I mean, but I don't think Lance Stroll is as bad as he's made out to be. I think his attitude doesn't help him, you know, because he portrays if, you know, he almost portrays, I don't want to be here, you know, and therefore he get a lot of negative criticism. If he would be upbeat and things, because as a driver, he's not bad, you know.

I said before, there is no bad driver in the moment in Formula One. You know, like in the old days sometimes somebody was in which brought big money and, you know, you know, the guy is not at the level he should be. But in the moment, Lance Stroll, I mean, he's not a bad driver. It's just like the attitude of him, you know, it gives the wrong impression. But, you know, that's only him to sort that one out. Okay, so you don't feel like it's that common of a problem, really. No, I don't think, but you're right that to go into car racing,

you need to start at a certain level of money. It helps to have wealthy parents. Yeah, it helps. If you want to become an F1 driver. Exactly, yeah. I don't, and wealthy, it's, you know, it's relative. You know, it's one of these things you cannot, but it costs quite a lot of money.

But talent, I mean, there is people like Esteban O'Con, he doesn't come from a wealthy background, but he had talent and he was spotted and he got away into F1. And I think Franco Colour Pint, is not rich from parents-wise and he got in there. You know, there are some guys which got in there. But for sure, if you have got money, it helps you to get in better

because I think a lot of talents don't make it there because they don't have enough financial support to get there. And they are not spotted because of the talent, of the personality from a scout of one of the manufacturers. And therefore, they never make it close to F3 or F2. I feel it's kind of the nature of the sport and the equipment required too, right? Because your kids don't grow up racing go-carts in the favelas of Brazil. Like, it's, you need to have somebody buy the fucking go-kart when you're a kid.

Like, you know, it needs to happen somehow. Yeah, absolutely. It needs to happen somehow. And I would say some kids go into go-karting because if you have a father, which likes to work as a mechanic, you can afford a go-kart. But as soon as you want to drive a car, you know, a Formula Regional or a Formula 4, whatever, you need to have money. The cost is astronomical. Exactly.

Yeah. This gets to a theme that you've brought up a lot and I think was a recurring theme with Hoss the team, where you were trying to be extremely efficient with money. Can you just break down? If you're the team principal running a Formula One team, how much of your time and mental energy and maybe even the company's resources is just spent on how do we get the money to fund this? thing versus how do we win races? Because it seems like a huge amount of the work is just

keep this thing financially alive. Yeah, and it's very difficult because you cannot just focus on getting the money because you have to bring results, especially you have got a private owner, you know, which want to see short-term success. And he has got the money to finance it. So you must make him happy that he gives you more money. So it is very difficult to do. But in the end, at some stage, for example, a task, I focused on getting money because I could see that the owner was getting tired of putting money in. And with all due respect, he should get tired of it because it needs to be run like a business. You know, it needs to be a business to be sustainable because you cannot have a business

which every year needs millions of millions of money invested in it. So was there ever a stage at which the F1 team was profitable? making a return? Not when I was there. No. I mean, the big teams are there profitable, pretty good now, you know? And these numbers are not secret, you know, because they're public, because they're all, I mean, Mercedes, they all make good money.

I mean, Ferrari, you never know because it's in a big company, but Mercedes, McLaren. I mean, McLaren, Zach Brown is doing a great job to find money, you know, for the team. With the success, came the money at McLaren, you know. So, but no, I would say half of the teams are profitable, some more than the other. How do you make that pitch to Gene Haas at the time? Because you were in a way the architect of that team coming into existence, even though Gene was the owner and decided to get involved, right? You have to convince this guy who has the money to invest in the sport that this is a good idea.

What did that look like? That's a difficult pitch because I never pitched at being a profitable business. I more pitched it if you want to do other people, because I went to more than him to people to pitch this business plan and I wrote the business plan and the business plan for sure the first five years was not profitable you know and it was what the pitch was

I'm not telling you this as a business if you want to do an F1 team this is the way how to do it like we discussed in the beginning at the time yeah exactly this is and obviously I got a lot of thanks but no thanks but Gene has yeah because of that you know because after five years it's not like hey

if everything goes right we maybe make money but we need to invest shitloads of money beforehand. And at the time, when I started task, the teams were worth as much as somebody wanted to pay for. At the time, Marusha was sold for one pound, English pound, you know. Yeah, because it was worth nothing. And now they are worth billions.

So at the time, you couldn't even say, hey, if you invest in this, you build equity and you can sell it in 10 years and you get your money back. But that just happened. So I don't feel bad about it to have convinced Gene to invest. because in the end, if he sells the team now, yeah, exactly, he makes real money. It's a very good investment. But at the time when I pitched it, that was not, I mean, if I would have known that,

I would have done it a different way. Yeah. So what did he say? When you go to him, you say, here's my five-year plan. Maybe if we're lucky, we become profitable in five years. He says, yeah, what does he say? How does that conversation go? That conversation, it took him more and a half year to decide to do it or not to do it.

You know, first of all, I think he wanted to see if what I, what, what I told him is actually true, you know, to see if actually I'm deep enough to make this happen. And then for him, the interest was his main business, has automation, to give that business credibility and publicity. You know, that was, he didn't do it for charity, you know, towards the people. It's marketing, yeah. For him it was a marketing tool, that for it worked. It's the same for Red Bull.

Red Bull, I don't know for how many years, the team lost money, but it was. very good for the can. This came up recently. I don't know if you know this. The Lakers just sold for like this enormous price. I think it was like $12 billion. And with the news of this happening and the private equity group that backed that purchase, there's this sort of renewed scrutiny of sports teams being sold for larger and larger amounts of money to these groups rather than individuals, like passionate individuals

that care about the sport that they're investing in, right? And how private equities incentives of like extracting the profit out of a team aren't necessarily aligned with winning and this larger conversation of like how money transforms sports. So was there any, is there kind of a worry of that in racing or if one at all as these teams become more and more valuable?

Like the integrity of the sport being sacrificed for these larger and larger entities that are going to be buying teams? I think you cannot avoid this because the money is just too big for individuals to buy it. I mean, as you said, the Lakers 12 billion, you know, one individual, 12 billion. You know, there is people who have, I mean,

there's a couple people. There's a couple of people. The small and small rest of them. You're actually not many people to pick from, but in the end, I think it's, I don't think the integrity will go away. I mean, they will be still run as sports teams and they will put the show on and people will watch it, you know.

And I think the league, especially in F1, the league is not owned by the teams. So they will not have control over the league. The league is owned by a promoter by Liberty Media. The authority which regulates the sport is the FIA, the federation, the international of the cars, you know. They regulate the sport. So I don't think that the owners or,

or even this big entities can, you know, manipulate the sport. I mean, they want to be part of the sport, this entity's because the profit, which can be made. And we all know that the sports teams, the prices are rising. And I don't think, and I think the biggest element there, element there, why the price goes up is scarcity. Well, so with you, like, you own this MotoGP team now, and you're a co-owner with a capital group, right? Yeah. Do you feel like the, like, you're obviously interested in racing because it's your passion. Like, this is your life's work from, like, when you used to work as a mechanic all the way to, like, what you do now.

So do you feel like that capital group's incentives are like aligned with your personal passion as an owner? I imagine, yeah. Yeah, they are interested in racing. Obviously, they want to see results, you know. And obviously, they are also interested in making it. work more. You know, that is what they do for. And I think if you work together and you achieve it,

and I think it gets better. And I always say, if you want to improve something, it's not only that whoever invest individual or a group of people or an entity, the life will be better for all the people working in the sport. Because, you know, if there is more money, I mean, if you look back at Formula 1, 40 years ago, you know, how people

they had to drive to races and all that stuff. Now they fly. So most of the people fly in business class. You elevate everybody's lifestyle and you support a lot of people which have got a lot. There are, as you said, thousand people in an F1 team, 800 now,

between 800 and 1,000. There's a lot of family which eat from this. And if you can give work to them, it's nothing else than another business. But it's a business which entertains people. So there is nothing wrong with it. whoever owns the team to make money, as long as, you know, everybody gets something of it.

I mean, when you start a business, for me, starting a business always was very important, not only to make money, to give something to society. You know, you do something, and you employ people, you make life better. We make the world a better place. Do you, that's interesting. So you feel like across the growth of the,

let's take F1 specifically, the growth of this sport over the past 10 years, you feel like that growth is like pretty tangible to the average employee of these teams. Like they've seen their pay or quality of life go up during that same time period? Absolutely, absolutely. You know, you could debate quality of life

because now it's 24 races. Sure, but again, before, nobody cared about mental health of people. Let's go racing. You know, if somebody was left on the side that was said, now people actually invest in mental health because it's so intense what you have to do. You know, not all the same people go to all the races.

You rotate them because you've got the money to do that. A very simplistic example, 10 years ago, mechanics shared a room in the hotel. Now, can you imagine to share a room when you're, you know, 40, 50 years old and you've got a family and you share a room for 200 days with somebody else, you never have privacy. It's crazy, yeah.

And all the teams now give single rooms because it was not sustainable anymore. And that's just possible because the sport has grown. Obviously, everything comes at the price, you know. I mean, the sport has grown and everything comes at the price, but you always try to give back. You look after your people. Well, I want to talk about the change in your position

from going from F1, which went through this giant period of growth, to now MotoGP, where you're owning a team, which is a smaller league, that you're now trying to grow. And from an owner's POV, how are you thinking about that with, with like, the other owners? How are people talking in that league

about how you change people's minds on... And I will say, because I didn't know this. MotoGP is insane. It's people riding motorcycles that go up to 220 miles per hour to like a 65 degree angle turn. It is crazy. Just a side note, wild.

Yeah, it's pretty wide. You know, I mean, I was in Mugello, and the indie 500 was on at the same time. And these guys were going down the street. I think it was about 10 miles per hour less on a bike, you know. It was just like no windshield. It's just direct to the chest. It's so insanely dangerous.

It's crazy. And there is a bump on that straight. And the bike gets light. And you can see the front wheel lifting. This is like a shin consent in Japan, but you just have no windshield and you're on a bike. You're going that fast. And you're going that fast.

A couple centimeters from the pavement. Yeah, but now you own a team in this, in this league. And I'm wondering, especially because your own money is invested in it now. How, yeah, how do you plan on like elevating the team or elevating the sport? I was there when Liberty Bowl had won, and that was, that's a good experience. You know, can it be replicated? I don't think so, because F1 will always be this massive sport, what it is. You know, but Motor GP, the sport itself is so, I.

always loved it. I never had a time to really follow it. I mean, I followed it a little bit, you know, when Valentino Rossi was there and all that stuff, because I know him. But it's one of these things. I just love it. And when, I just had the idea, I went in 24, I left house and in March, no, May 24, in Austin there was the race. And he said, I go to the race. I know a lot of people in Motor GP. I haven't been at the race 15 years. Go there. On the way back, I was like, would be cool to own on the team. him here. So I came, I started to work, you know, how can I get their license? I wanted a free license like with the F1 team. I was told, you know, two words. They were not Merry Christmas, basically,

you know. And so I had to find a way to buy a team and I didn't have enough money. So I had to find people with the money and I did it all. But I think because I've seen it, what happened in F1, something similar can be done because as you said, the sport is amazing. We just need to grab the audience to watch it more, you know, that they get in. interested. A little bit, we need an effect like F1 had with drive to survive. All of a sudden, everybody looks at that because, as you rightly said, if you look at these guys what they do on a bike, it's insane.

I mean, when they go out, these guys, you look in their eyes, you can see something is not on there. Something is going on here. They're different in some way. They are different. I mean, I can do this. And for me, the most amazing thing is, because in MotorGP, you've got two bikes. if you crush,

you can go back and take the second bike. Oh, what? In the same race? In the same race? In the race, you lose too much time. But in the race, if it starts to rain, you come in the pits and you jump on the bike with the rain tires on.

You swap bikes. Wow. But they pull off the bike, you know. The first thing, they want to go back on the bike. So they are not like, you would think so, you know, like, oh, I wait a moment, let's get my things together. Of course.

No, no, it doesn't. It doesn't. It's all okay. Yeah, sure. Where's the bike? You know? And for me, it was amazing because they fall off the bike. They stand up, you know, in their overall, they walk a little bit strange because it's, you know. And they look, they look, they look, where the scooter is to take them back to the garage so they can get on the bike.

Get back on a bike. That's after falling off at 300 kilometers an hour. Exactly. Yeah. What's wrong with that one? You're going to have something in your brain missing for sure. Exactly. So that, I mean, it's, it's.

quite amazing when you watch it. But no. Well, you were saying off camera, you were saying that there's some challenges with trying to get some of the other owners to understand the importance of things like social media or getting the consumer audience interested in the sport. And I was wondering if that's something that you're dealing with. How does that work? Yeah, no, because we pass completely your question. I mean, about how you get the other owners involved in. I mean, that is the challenge because the sport is so good. And these people in Motor GP, they are very good at what they're doing, going racing. I think where

a lot of things can be done better is by getting the sport to the people. How you get something to the people it's social media. I mean at this time that is where we have to get to. But some of the people, they don't really have that interest to do that. They just have the interest to go racing. So you need to change the mindset. The mindset needs to be changed.

It needs to be, we still go racing. Like in F1, what Liberty Media was very good. they never compromised the racing. The racing they left, we go racing, but we built the surrounding for it, that more people watch our great racing. And that's a compliment to everyone.

And that is what I try to tell other people. We are not taking away from racing if we get more people to watch it. It's even better. It's better for the people. Because again, we do the same as said before. We make life better for everyone in the sport. So why should we not do it? We need to think a little bit more

outside of the sheer racing. We need to think how can we market this thing better because it is a great sport. I want to hang on to that for a second because you seem to be pretty complimentary of F1 ownership of FIA. And from a fan perspective, I feel like I've seen a lot of criticism

over the years. And one of the things I've seen is the introduction of certain courses like the Vegas course, over classic, like more dynamic European courses and accusations of like sacrificing something about the sport in order to have this influx of American money through like a race like the Vegas race. So do you feel like you disagree with that sentiment? Is that like not an accurate reflection of what's going on? I disagree with two things. Okay. I'm always very complimenter

of the FIA. I'm not. Okay. I'm sometimes because some of the things they do right, some of the things they do wrong. And secondly, Vegas, I mean, let's start with Vegas. Vegas was very much critique the first year when it was introduced. It has created one of the most exciting races in Formula One. A lot of people say always, oh, you know, all the, like go to Miami.

It's a great race, but outside of the race, you get everything you want. You know, it's Miami. You guys know Miami. You know, that is what the people of Miami want. They don't want to go and watch a car race. They want, you know, everything going on in the shortest time possible, you know, to get a boost. So, and the hardcore race fans say all this stuff or they shouldn't be there. I always say, guys, it's everybody's own choice what he wants to do.

But you have the choice. If you don't want to go to a concert after the race, you know what? Don't go. but the race is still the race like it was 10, 20 years ago. Have the race tracks changed? Yes. But, I mean, again, what I would completely be with you. I just came from Madrid yesterday, you know,

and the race in Madrid was, I mean, the race in Madrid was actually good, organized everything. They did a good job for the first year race. But the race track is just like, I mean, wow, they need to change something. And they all, everybody. The quality or what? Like, it's not, what does that mean?

You cannot overtake. Oh, okay. It's a possession. Yeah. It's a process. It's qualified. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they follow each.

Like Monte Carlo. But Montecaro is the same and nobody wants Monte Carlo to go away. But just because of the history behind it, right? Correct. But if you have 24 races, you cannot have like, I mean, I love old race courses,

Suzuki, Spa, Monza. But if you have cookie cutter races, 24, nobody will watch them. You need to bring in the sprint race, the sprint weekends, you know, when you've got the race on Saturday, the night race, the city race, all that elements

because otherwise if you have got, I call it now 24 spas after 12 people don't watch it anymore. You have to have, because that people want to be entertained. But then again, on the entertainment of the day, you can pick what you want to watch or not. And now I think there is a lot of people

which actually are not really interested in the race. They are interested in what is there, in the experience of the weekend. For the people attending that weekend. Attending that weekend. you know, they go there because there is food stands, there is music, I mean, go to Miami. I mean, you can do whatever you want. You think you're in paradise, huh?

You know, because it's all in this race track, you know, and they race really the bar, Miami on that one. And a lot of other ones follow now because they have to. Because also, it's the same, like I said before, the social media, people consume more and faster. 20 years ago, going watch an F1 race, if you had F2 race, or at the time it was called GP2, and the GP3 race and the phone, that was enough that people would go there. Today, nobody would go if you have got only, not nobody. A very small amount of people, a percentage of the people which go now would go if it would just be a car race.

Do you think this is part of it sounds like broadening the appeal for a wider range audience, which has allowed the sport to grow and, okay, yeah, that makes sense. That's perfectly how you said that, you know, just to grow everything. You know, this is part of the growth. I'm curious with that, like growth, comparing it to some of the other sports. So you've also worked in NASCAR. You've worked in Formula One, obviously.

Moto GP, there may be others that I'm blanking on. Raleigh, too, right? Valley, yeah. Though you've worked in a wide variety of motorsports. What are some of the key differences in terms of how the business is run from each one of these? Because it does seem wildly different,

even though it's all cars on a track in many cases. As I said before, it's just Formula One gives you all this element's technology, which, as much as you, can say NASCAR there's technology there is not a lot of it you know so it is just wait can you explain that i don't know NASCAR what is what is that what is that what is that is that is that is they are very similar you know they're not complete the same but the base is the same uh you know know nasca it's not about technology you know it's about racing sheer racing and people having a good

time on a weekend you know and and therefore i think it's a sport which never picked up internationally you know it's difficult to sell these big cars or or or or people attract them if you go to Europe or Asia. It's very difficult to do. Because, I mean, in the States here, you know, we know this big cars, this is what we like. But in other places, it's not like, they cannot really connect with these big things.

They don't think this are race cars. They think, you know, in the end, they're stock cars. But I think it's a good race series. But will it never be as big as Formula One? No, it will never be a global sport, you know. Right. Just cannot go there. I mean, it's the same.

Rallying, you mentioned. in the 80s and 90s was very big in the world. But then, again, when TV came in, you cannot televise rallying because there's a car going down, a single car going down a road. You know, once you have watched three cars, it's like, yeah. You get it. Exactly, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's like, all right, I got that. You know, you look at the watch, you know, who's fastest, you know, after, okay, I got it. But I'm not going to watch that the whole day long, and there is, you know, or three days long. So it's very difficult to televise this. a fantastic sport in my opinion, but it will never be a really

big sport. And going back to F1, why? Because as we said in the beginning, you've got what drive to survive showed, you've got so many, you have technology, you've got the politics, you have got the glamour, you've got the bullshit, you've got everything in there, and that is people always, there is always something in F1.

Normal car racing, you've got to race on the weekend, on Monday you read about it and then you wait until the next race comes. In F1, you read something about Tuesday, but Max Verstappen did. You read what Louis Hamilton did, you know, on Wednesday. There is always something going on there.

A bit of a soap opera. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. What attracts you to it? It's amazing. Is it the, what got you into this, this award?

What was you? The bullshit. Is it the bullshit? Is it the bullshit? No, no, I, I love racing. I mean, I'm in racing. Just any racing. Just you, the idea is so.

I follow actually a lot of racing. I mean, some more than others. But you can ask me, who is good in whichever, serious, I can give you a pretty good answer, you know, because that is what I do since 40 years. I always loved racing cars since I'm a child, and it doesn't go away, you know. It's just something attracts me. I mean, you know, a lot of people, they watch football or they watch soccer. I mean, I don't watch that, you know.

I listen a little bit who is leading the championships, but I wouldn't, I personally cannot watch a soccer or football match the whole match. I cannot do it. It's just not in me because I'm not interested enough in it. I look at the result, it's fine, but I cannot do it because I just love racing cars.

And, you know, when you're in a long time, obviously, I love business, and then you start to love the business of racing cars as well, because it is a good business and business doesn't mean only mean making money. Also, what we said before, to start something up, to give something to society, you know,

to make a living out of it, which is good. If you can do something in life, what you love and like, you normally do a good job. I'm a big believer. If you give me a job, I don't like, I'm complete shit at it because I could not be interested in doing it. Plus you get to work with good people,

the way you like. Yeah, exactly. People share the same. Impassion and interesting. Exactly, yeah, which is cool, you know. Okay. When I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice.

I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community. community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my out of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth Advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IG Private Wealth.com. Sean Ramosferm from today explained from Vox. Like many of you, I lived through 9-11. My memories, of that day are of horror and shock and devastation, which is why I think 25 years later,

it's so surprising that my feeds are filled with 9-11 memes that are ironic, irreverent, and surely insensitive. Think pasta stacked up to look like the Twin Towers with Eminem in the background and a caption that reads, Never Forgetty Mom's Spaghetti. Some of you surely know what talking about and some of you surely don't. So on the show, we're going to try and get everyone on the same page. Please consider this a trigger warning. Bear with us as we try to understand how jokes about the worst attacks in our country's history have helped a lot of young people deal with it and avoid it. How 9-11 became a meme. Maybe the most popular meme online. Perry is a good question. How did you end up going from a mechanic to these upper positions, like managing, eventually owning a team?

I feel like that is almost the story or narrative you hear in like a movie. Not really what you'd expect to hear. I was like, I made my way from the bottom to the top. I started working in racing like all this time ago. So how does that transition into the business that actually happened? The fact that you started as a mechanic, it's so interesting. You're talking about how much you love racing and that's all that you watch. But also clearly are really tapped into the business side and think about it and care about it a lot.

But also you started as a mechanic and you made and worked on car. It seems like you've touched on kind of all the different aspects of it. So yeah, how did that journey progress? Again, I never worked in racing car until I was 20. I finished my national service and I just applied. I read magazines about racing cars and a job I'd worked in there. They were looking for mechanics in Belgium. I lived in Italy.

I applied for the job. I didn't think at the time I will get the job because I never worked with racing cars. So why would they offer me? But they said, can you come for an interview? So I drove to Belgium, you know, interviewed, and they gave me a job, you know. And that is how I started.

I loved it. You know, I was into it, you know. And then from there on, and it was different times, guys. I mean, this was 40 years ago. I mean, you were not even born when I started, you know. So, I'm 35.

Yeah, you see, none of you were even born when I started racing. So thanks for making me feel even told. Because I have a question I want to ask you. But it's just step by step, and I never applied for a job afterwards. You know, once you're in, once you were in racing, it was like, okay, you get to know these people.

They ask you if you come and work there. There was an opportunity. And obviously, opportunity, normally they are connected with challenges. and risk. I was never afraid. Once there was something there, hey, Gunther, would you think you could do this? Sure, I can do this. You know? Confidence

and ignorance takes you a long way, you know? That's a mixed together. Exactly. Mixed together. And that is how I moved on and how I ended up in Formula One. Again, I like to tell that story how strange. Because I was in rallying, I was perfectly happy, wasn't looking for a job, was technically director at M Sport,

which was the fourth works team. And I got a call from the assistant of Nikilauda, you know, the former three-time world champion. He wanted to speak with me. I said, sure, Nickylauda, he was my childhood hero, you know. He wants to speak with him. I never met the guy before. And he got my name because he was running Jaguar F1,

which was owned by Ford Motor Company. So they said, he was looking for people. He said, speak with this Gunther Steiner guy, you know. So I went for dinner with him, and he gave me a job. That is how I ended up in F1, you know. And again, and the business side of it, I grew up in my family. They had a butcher shop.

So they were always in business. So I like that part of it. And I always want to have my own business because motorsport is quite volatile business, you know. And it's not a big, there is not like in soccer or football. There are hundreds of people involved and you can find a job. Motorsport is pretty small, you know. So if you lose the job, it's sometimes difficult to find one.

And you have no security, you know. Right. So I always said, I need to do something not to, have always to rely on getting a job. And then when I came to the States, I came to the States with Red Bull to open up their NASCAR team, I decided it's time now I start my own business. And that is how I started my business.

I learned a lot there. And that again, because I started businesses, not real businesses, but companies for other people before. So I had some experience there, like at M Sport. I didn't start M Sport, but the engineering side of it, I started for M Sport, you know. So combining it, and I just kept on going. and I always like to do new things, exciting things, you know, and I like challenges.

I think it's interesting to hear that story from you because there's similar themes across anybody I've met that works in kind of a niche industry. Any niche specialized industry, it's usually like find my way in somehow when I'm young, hold on to that first job, and then be really proactive and eager, and then you just, the industry is so insulated that pretty much every opportunity just comes like recommendation by recommendation. Like you're never applying, you're never applying to something. You just have to like make your name within this niche space

and like hope the next opportunity kind of comes your way. Yeah, absolutely. And as I said before, motorsport 40 years ago was, if it is small now, it was a lot smaller then. And motorsport, you couldn't, now people, you know, you can go to university, engineering schools where they teach you racing cars and all that stuff. time, that didn't exist. You needed to love racing cars and you got the job, you know,

and you need to have a mechanical understanding of things and you could work in it. Today, this wouldn't be possible, you know, but at the time it was possible and I said, you know, I took the opportunity, I moved away from home, you know, 2,000 miles away from home and 1,500 miles away from home and started new. But that is what I wanted to do at the time, you know, and therefore maybe it worked out. I want to ask you about that because you said, you know, my age makes you feel old but you telling us what you're doing

at a day-to-day schedule is making me feel old because you talked about you just got off a play from Madrid. You've done decades and decades and stuff and now you're starting a few months ago, essentially this brand new challenge of owning a team. Are you ever going to slow down? How do you see your life? Is it enter your mind at all?

Are you full speed ahead gas got a guy forever? You know, as long as I'm healthy, I think this is what, I mean, my family tells me, I mean, I'm sure you. I'm stupid. They tell me why you're doing all these things here. Obviously, what you miss are away from home, but I try to take care of them,

taking them sometimes with me. I'm lucky because I married my wife more than 30 years ago. And already at the time, I had this lifestyle. Because if you change the lifestyle, it couldn't work. She doesn't know any different. Not that she agrees to it, but she doesn't know any different. She can't get her too used to that. Exactly.

Yeah, exactly. But it's one of the things. I quite like to do things, you know, for me, I hate to be bored. I hate to do nothing. It's a very strange thing. I'm very, I wouldn't say impatient. I always need to have something to think about,

something which I need to work out. And being on the road is just part of it because that is not what I like most. But for example, when I fly, you know, some people, or they look which airline they fly with And, you know, for me, that is just like, it will be shit anyway. So just get over with it, you know, and go there what you need to do. You know, I have no expectations.

If you do things without expectations, you're pretty easy to do, you know. That's beautiful advice. No, no, it's like this morning, I mean, I got back home from Madrid last night at 9.30. I left the house at 9.30 this morning, you know. but for me like, okay, I need to go to a flight four and a half hours from Charlotte to. I'm so relaxed going on because it will be four and a half hours

which, you know, they're not enjoyable sitting on a plane, but it gives you time to think, think about the positives. You're left alone because nobody bothers you. So at least I take that advantage and do that one on it. Instead of, oh, I have to sit on this plane four and a half hour, that is shit, you know.

No, I don't care about it, you know. No expectation. No, it's good. I mean, that is a good, healthy attitude. Very impressed. Okay, but so I don't like travel, so I'm biased here. But you, how many days a year do you think on average over your 40-year career have you been traveling? I would say an average between half-fifteen, 200 days a year I'm traveling.

So half of your entire adult life you've been traveling. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Tomorrow afternoon at 4.30, I fly to Vienna because you've got the motor GP race. And then I fly back to Tuesday. to Charlotte to L.A. to Vienna. That's crazy. That is insane.

You got lounge access? I, I, this, so I think, uh, an underestimated part of F1 for people that don't know much about the sport is the logistics setup that each team goes through on a race weekend or a race week. Like what, what leads up to each one? You have all these people, all this gear, these facilities to build. You have all these facilities to build. out. I kind of, I wanted to know what managing that looks like from the principal's perspective. Like, when do you show up for the race? How do you oversee all these teams that are moving in, basically an entire company's warehouse's worth of stuff? These teams, they are so good in doing what you just set the logistics. As a team principle, we don't have to worry. You've got your people which know exactly what to do. You need to get the right people like everything. Because it's such a well-oiled machine because otherwise they couldn't put the show on they put on and it developed

over 50 years you know it started up slowly and got better and better every year what about that first year that hoss is a team is that was that year like crazy or challenging that that was really challenging that was really challenging but again i don't know if i was lucky if i was good i think a combination of both i i found the right people that is what you need to find you know because you cannot do it all yourself. And I'm against micromanaging, you know, I just want to have to drive people. I'm always there for you, but I'm not going to do your job.

Don't ask, you know, because then I'm actually going to do it myself anyway, you know, so I just had very good people there, and it was difficult to get old equipment together, and again, we were not the richest team, we couldn't just spend money for the sake of, you know,

so we had to be very careful, but it was all done. I mean, obviously going to Australia, because the first race was in Australia. Can you imagine that? You go to Bahrain for a test and then you ship everything to Australia and everything worked very well.

But FOM, you know, the promoter, it's all centrally, the logistics organized. You know, everybody puts his stuff, their stuff together and then you need to put it on a plane which is organized, but FOM, you know, and also the containers, you can ship it whoever you want, but all the team stick together

because if there is a boat out with 11 F1 teams on, if there is a problem, that boat will get priority. You know, if you're on some strange boat somewhere, you could end up without the stuff. But therefore you're always ganging up together and like clearing customs and things like this. You need to do it together.

Otherwise, you could get stuck in customs. So it's a well-oiled machine, but if you see how complex it is and how good it is done, it's amazing. A lot of companies could actually learn from them processes. Because if you think on a Monday morning, 7 o'clock, you go to a race track after a race. You would never know that there was a race that weekend.

They all gone. Wow. I saw it in Vegas. Yeah, it's crazy. So when you're talking about picking the right people, I was wondering, when you came in as this first American team in like 30 years, in F1 at the time, and you have all of these storied European teams, way more established, did that present a problem as an American team, like finding the people and the resources

in these things? I mean, that's your job to figure out, I imagine. But was it hard because you were an American team? Did it really make a difference? No, no, the American team was not an issue because we had the base in England. You know, we had the base in England. So that was not an issue when you come with a new team.

And obviously, as we always said, we did things complete different. And people, when you explained them in the beginning, how you're going to do it, they were like, they cannot work. Why not? Or because it was never done like that. Never done like it doesn't mean that you cannot.

I mean, that's a big lesson for people. It's like, oh, it was never done like that. Okay, but why does it mean you cannot do it differently? And that was more to convince people or not convince that they, some people get it immediately. Okay, that's actually not a bad idea. And I jump on this bandwagon because it gives an opportunity, you know, because we were a small team and you could do a lot more

than being, you know, the saying better to be the tail of a cat, or better to be the head of a mouse than the tail of a cut, you know. You're more visible. Instead of being just a number in a big team, in a small team, you can make it more difference. Responsibility comes with accountability as well, but if you want that challenge, there was opportunity.

And that is what I found. A lot of people, I didn't expect that there was so many. They were in big teams, but they couldn't see them going anywhere. They were stuck, you know, because their boss was there for the next 10 years. So do I want to do the same job the next 10 years, or do I want to do maybe a little bit of a different job,

maybe having to work harder, but getting somewhere in life? Be a more meaningful part of a smaller team. Oh, that's really cool. I am wondering, like, the... So there's a scene in the very first episode of Drive to Survive. I haven't watched it. And you haven't watched it. We haven't watched it.

But you might remember, it's... I think it's the 2018 season. and it's the Melbourne race and you guys have place, you qualify really well, you're like fourth and fifth, and then in the actual race, both of your cars have an issue with the pit stop

and have a loose wheel. And at least in the show, it's presented as primarily one mechanic who was new making a mistake. And he's super distraught, you know, he's like, he's crying a bit and he feels obviously very guilty that the team's,

failure at this opportunity is like very much on him. How do you like the stakes are so high in that moment. You're one of like 200, 300 people on this team and you're kind of the reason that the team failed for that weekend. How do you manage that situation or help that person get through that? Because I think that stuff like that is really, really hard. Yeah, it's not easy because obviously the first thing came up, we have to suck this guy. I said no. No. The guy was actually a very good mechanic, you know. I knew the equipment that year there was a problem with the wheel nuts

and even in practice two stops out of ten they had exactly that problem and these two stops they came in the race. I mean, the guy was one actually a very good mechanic he's still in Formula One and for me getting rid

of this person and he was distraught obviously we didn't tell him that everything was shit. He knew that himself, you know? He didn't need any encouragement in that one, you know. But for me, letting him go would have, first of all, destroyed him, but the whole team would have suffered because they would lose all their confidence because this guys know exactly what happened, you know. And it wasn't his personal fault. It was fault of the equipment and being unlucky, you know. So if I let him go, guess what, the confidence

of the other people doing the spit stops, where that would go? I mean, they would be, we would have it would take six to 12 months to fix the pit crew again if you let that guy go. It's better. I had to pick him up, you know, and the other thing is never kick a guy if he's on his knees, you know, you never do that in life

because that is not good, you know, and the guy was on his knees, obviously, the easy thing to, oh, I suck him and I blame him so I wash my hands. No, we as a team didn't do a good job, we had a technical problem, we need to fix it, help this guy up, so the other ones get confident, and on the next bit,

they don't think about it. Because the pit stops, in my opinion, are between 70% to 80% up here mentally. They're actually doing the job. That's not the difficulty. It's the confidence you need to have, that you can do it at any time under any conditions. That is what you need to know.

And as soon as you lose that confidence, you are two seconds slower because you are thinking about it. You don't, you just have to, I'm going to do this. You don't have to, boom, do it. You know, because there are little jobs each of the guy does, you know,

but they need to be perfect. And if you are not confident, if you hesitate, you know, there you see yet, you know, if one of them hesitates, it's not going to happen.

Wow, it's so fascinating. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. But you can see, this is not actually the job, look at the guy, the job,

boom, boom. Yeah, yeah. It's all in, I always think it's mentally, it's very challenging. And if you are insecure or you're afraid, you cannot do this. You just cannot do this.

Yeah, you need to be. And that for, that guy we picked him up, said, hey. No, it makes sense for the morale of the whole team. Exactly, yeah. He obviously cares about it. So he's not like, he wasn't in attentive. We didn't have to tell him that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like, oh, that makes so much sense. What are the biggest lessons that you've learned over 40 years of managing people or hiring people and running the team? Because certainly, it sounds like from everything I've seen, people really like working for you. And how did you cultivate that? Is it just your natural charisma? Is that intentional? Have you changed things over time?

No, I would say it's a respect thing. For me, the most important thing in life is to respect people. You know, you can have, you know, I have, I throw tantrums like a child sometimes. You know, I know that, but it's emotions. But then I come back and I'm never afraid to apologize, you know, if I did something wrong. But I always, what I demand from people is to respect because I respect anybody, you know, whoever you are in life, you know, and in a team, that is what you need to do. to get a team to work as a team,

that is what you have to teach them. You need to respect each other. You don't have to like each other or be friends with each other. But each other's job, you have to respect, you know, and you need to be prepared as a boss to make hard decisions to let people go if they don't contribute for the good of the team

because otherwise you set a bad example, having a rotten apple in there and you don't do anything about it as a boss. That's not good. Because with that, I don't respect the other people. One has to work, doesn't have to work and post gets paid. That's not good.

You know? So sometimes you say if you let people go, that's hard. It's hard. But sometimes you have to do it because the good people deserve that one, you know, because the other person doesn't contribute to the good of the team. So for me, respect and, you know, do I achieve always to respect everybody at the first place? No, no, because I'm not perfect. But it's something I know and you work on it, you know.

but I normally, if I don't respect somebody anymore, I struggle with people, I normally fall out with them. That makes sense. And I tell them, I tell them, but I think of them, you know, which normally is not good things when I tell them, you know. There's something like refreshing about that, though. I think people are attracted to that honesty, the ability that you're not going to do the bullshit.

You're not going to keep it secret. I think over time that builds up a level of trust among people that work with you, probably. Can I ask you about like a, a, a love? point. You know, you've had this long distinguished career. You've done all this stuff. Are there parts where you had, you seem very confident. Did you ever have self-doubt? Did you ever feel like, what was, what was a point for you where you felt very uncertain about the future or what you were doing or where you felt like you had to make some changes? You know, I think, I think I did. I'm not,

I'm not Mr. Perfect. But I don't remember. But for me, the thing is, that period is normally very short because then I get up the next morning. You know, I could compare it. with a bad race result, you know, on a Sunday night, you have a bad race result, you know, we had really bad ones.

It's not fun. You feel like shit. You feel so, yeah. Feeling shit means it's already a compliment, you know? Because you know already what Monday is coming.

Everybody else will tell you that how shit you are, you know? And you know that you were shit, you know? But that, for me, it was always more, how can I get up again?

I always try to, look at the positive things going forward. So obviously in your career, you have points where you lose your job, you know, and things like this. But you have to get yourself up again on your feet, you know? It's like the world is still

a good place, you know, the sun will come again, you know, even if it's rains, the sun will come again, you know? So just dwelling on, oh, this was bad, I mean, no, it's like, what is out there? I mean, and in time a big believer, one door closes too open.

You know, sometimes you think, oh, if this goes wrong, I'm done. No, no, no. Actually, there will be more opportunities after. And I can tell you that of my own experience, you know. There was always something as long as you got, you know, and the will to do it. It's the will what you need. You can do it.

I mean, I heard you say part of that in a different interview that you did. And a lot of that interview is focused on when Gene gave you the call and let you go from Haas a few years ago. And I don't know if I was surprised, but you are so insistent on the lack of a grudge, like how you were pretty accepting and ready for that decision to be made. And I, would you say that's like a quality

you're carrying through your life, like intentionally? Like, I guess giving people the benefit of the doubt or not holding grudges over, or something like that? Because obviously, that was a position that you held for a long time. You obviously had disagreements about how the team was run,

but you don't seem to have any heavy feelings about it in a way. No, I don't care. And that's the worst for me can get. You know, I don't, I normally don't hate people or anything. I just don't care about them if I don't like them, you know?

So that's what I feel. So for me, I think of me, my family, you know, and it didn't work for me anymore. I couldn't see a future what I was doing, you know, And I said it before. I should have stopped before. But as you said, it's something you're in there.

You cannot give up. You're in between a rock and a half place. You don't want to give up, but you don't really see how this could go forward, you know? And at some stage, when it happened, I was happy. I was more than happy. I mean, it's time.

It's actually time. I didn't even want to discuss it. I just told him, you can do what you want to do, I do what I want to do. I'm fine. is there some sort of like dream scenario in racing that you haven't been able to I guess get to yet like you you know you're talking to atriac was talking about how you still are working so hard you still have kind of this relentless pace in your life

and you don't really seem intent on changing that so I'm wondering like with the motor GP team you have now uh with what you accomplished in f1 like is there something that you really have in mind that you haven't been able to do in your career so far that you're like i still want to achieve that like 10 20 years from now winning a world championship yeah yeah you know that is what and that is what you if you're in racing to race and i'm in racing to race that is you want to win you know and that is my dream you know and that for that i think keeps me going wow what what's like the the path to i guess the most reasonable path forward to like achieving that do you feel like you'd like sign up to be a principal

for another team again? I guess I didn't fully understand your answer from earlier. Like, no, no, no, I, the answer. We can win a World Championship in MotoGP, right? Yeah. Or it could be in any, in any big role to be on.

Sorry, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it, got it, got it, got it. Okay. Could be motor GP, could be in anything. That would be a perfect life scenario for me to win that one. Because as I said, I've done a lot of other things, you know, but they never won this championship,

you know, I start a few teams, I started a few projects, I started a few things. It's good, but in the end, I never won that one while you're doing it. And I'm not, you know, that I'm, get obsessed by it. But that is, you ask me, what would you like? That is the highest goal.

That makes sense. That is still the most important thing to fit. Like, I mean, even people, the most talented, just such a few manner of teams. But, yeah, it doesn't matter. If you don't try, you would never get there. I did. I totally understand. It makes a little sense.

Well, speaking of doors opening, the most important door in your life is this new podcast that you've kicked off. And, you know, what we can do is maybe you and I will do our show and your show will do a contest. And if you rank first, that would be the grand... We'll call you the grand champion of podcast. I don't even understand the podcast industry completely. And I do it. But, I mean, you're the experts here, you know.

If you want to know about racing, come to me. If I want to go talk about podcasts, I need to come to you. You know? Yeah, yeah. This is a real hard. Equally prestigious fields. just two, I'm real meeting of the minds. But you have, I mean,

while all this other stuff was going on, and you were a pundit for Formula One for the last couple years, on top of all these other things, you also wrote two books, and you started this podcast, and you tell us about those real quickly, and maybe even plug some upcoming stuff that you have.

Yeah, I mean, the books, again, Bonner for my life stories, I never want to do a book, I had no interest in it, you know? Honestly, I mean, it's like, the best book plug ever, like, it's like, this guy calls me, me up, hey, I want to do a book about you.

Didn't answer the email, sends me another email, didn't answer it. The third said, out of respect, I answered the guy. He's persistent. You got to give him a shot. Hey, thanks for your email, but I'm not real interested. And then can we just have a talk? All right, let's have a talk with this guy, you know? And we talked, then he came to see me, and we became friends, and he's my ghostwriter.

He's actually coming to the Austrian race with me. I did the book we did 87 shows I did with him 87 I was ready to kill the guy you know but anyway yeah

but that is how it started honestly I said no to a book but the thing was like I said I'm not writing a biography because every man and his dog has done one you know and who would actually buy it you know he said no no

we're doing a book he came up with this idea about a year in your career going forward I said James is James and if nothing happens that year, what are you going to write about you,

you know? Be sure something will happen, you know. And we had good fun. You know, he came to me to a few races. And again, for me, it was, and it became, I think it's, if not the best selling motorsport book ever, at least it's in the top three.

And it was the number one on the Sunday Times. I mean, for a motorsport book. Again, credit goes to him not to me. I mean, I can do the stupid stuff. He needs to write it, which is as difficult as doing it. So anyway, no, and then in 24, I was approached. Let's do a podcast, you know. And I knew these guys because I think, like with you guys,

I did a podcast with them with Brian and Matt from Red Flagg. And we started Wangar Hours, you know, the podcast, you know. That was our name. We were going to do Wanker. That was in our talk. That was in our talk. So anyway, and, you know, hopefully more people subscribe, so we get in front of your podcast, so at least I win a championship.

And it's good fun. I mean, I enjoy it because it is about Formula One, but we are not talking about which laptop the tires were changed. You know, we're talking in a more interesting for the people which I think the casuals. Yes, the casuals, which like the action, you know. like a little bit of, you know, disagreement in a podcast, not just technical, or they had a new front wing, no, they had a real new wing, who the hell cares, we want the action.

Well, you know that stuff. That's the cool part. You have the experience to know that stuff, but you can still bring the casualty. And we're actually doing a show on Saturday. It's the 24th of October, I think, you know, I'm traveling so much that I'm lost in, at 9 o'clock on Saturday during the Austin Grand Prix. You know, we're doing a live podcast. So hopefully a lot of people are coming. And we did it last year. It was pretty successful and you do it again.

And it's good fun because the audience as well can ask some questions in the end. So it's always interesting. Nice. Good news, Sanders. Thank you so much for coming out our podcast. It was a really interesting conversation.

Again, check out if you're at the Austin GP, the live podcast that he's going to be hosting. Or check out the podcast that we just mentioned. But from all of us here on wanker stand. We can make it combined. Yeah, yeah. But wanker day, except at the wanker hours, you know, yeah.

And we'll be racing at the Wanker Grand Prix against you. Thank you so much, Goodler, for joining us. Thank you, thank you guys for having me. And we'll see y'all next time. Bye-bye. Bye.