P1 with Matt and Tommy - How To Run an F1 Team | Ep1 – Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon

Episode Date: August 1, 2024

This episode is brought to you in partnership with Amazon Music.Have you ever wondered what goes into running a successful F1 team? We have! So, a few days before this year's Silverstone GP, we spent a few days with the BWT Alpine F1 team to find out!On today's episode, we head to the Silverstone paddock to chat with Alpine's two superstar drivers: Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly! They chat about where their motorsport journey began, how they best use their time away from the track, working with the engineers and wider team to improve performance, representing their home nation and loads more!If you want to hear an exclusive Q&A segment where we asked Pierre and Esteban your questions, you can find it at the end of this episode over on Amazon Music. Click here to listen now! P1 Live is heading to North America this Fall and tickets are now on sale! Click here to get your tickets, which are already close to selling out!Sign up to our Patreon here! You'll get access to bonus episodes, our classic race series, every P1 episode ad-free and access to our Discord server where you can chat with other F1 fans!Follow us on socials! You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok.. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the P1 podcast, which today is brought to you in partnership with Amazon Music. A few weeks ago, we were invited to spend a few days with the BWT Alpine F1 team ahead of the British Grand Prix, and it was amazing. We spoke to loads of people from around the team about what goes into running a huge F1 team. We got a chance to look around their Enstone factory and the pit garages at Silverstone, which was an awesome experience. and we were even taken on a hot lap around Silverstone by Esteban Ocon. Terrifying, but absolutely amazing as well. Today is the first of two episodes you'll be hearing from our days with Alpine, and it features two men we reckon you've probably heard of.

A few days out from the race Silverstone, we were lucky enough to sit down with Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gazley for a chat about their journey to the top of world motorsport, how they like to spend their time away from the track, what they're expecting from the rest of the season and loads more. They were both really lovely and open, and we know you're going to really enjoy today's episode. Oh, and one more thing.

We asked you guys to submit your questions for both Esteban and Pierre, to hear their answers to some fascinating and hilarious questions, and to see if we asked your question, then just head on over to Amazon Music. Search for P1 with Matt and Tommy in Amazon Music, and you can listen to the extended version of today's episode over there. Better yet, you can listen ad-free with your Prime membership. Right, on to today's episode and our first of the Alpine F1 drivers, it's Pierre Gazzley.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the Poo-1 podcast. We are joined with Pierre Gassley. How are you, my friend? Very good, very good. We're here in Silverstone, so we're inside. Yeah, inside. Out the wind. Don't mind that.

Now, we've got lots of questions for you, so I hope you don't mind. First and foremost, we're going to go back a little bit. Okay, so get your primary. Well, can you remember your earliest racing memory, driving or from the stands? Yeah, I do remember. I won't be able to remember the year, but it was a year I went to Charles. Actually, it was my... Oh, no, actually, it wasn't with Charles.

I'm mistaken. I didn't know him at the time. But I had the chance to go to the Raskas in Monaco. and you know I just remember standing there and hearing this crazy loud engine which I'm missing a lot and that was yeah that was probably the first time I've seen an F1 car live and I remember from 10 kilometers away from Monaco I could hear like that yeah roaring engines and it was at the time like getting goosebumps and really feeling that beast sort of feeling from the from the F1 car just coming from the engine sound so that was probably the first memory racing I

remember my first race which I won but I'm not gonna lie to you I was the only go-kart on the race I technically that they did give me a trophy but somehow I was the only one that entered by default there was no one else on my on my category was it like a race that you signed up for expecting other people to be Yeah, actually I should have got like my money back because I mean it was like our you know our track with Esteban where we at the time like I didn't know him but the place where we've trained when we were younger and I got no idea how come no one showed up on that race but all the other categories were quite full but yeah I was nine years old mini car the first category and my first ever cut but it feels nice to start with the win so Maybe subconsciously they knew you were going to be really good and we're like Yeah, we're not turning up.

It's going to be an F1 driver one day. I'm not going to... Mental preparation, psychological. This question is what does your race weekend routine usually look like? Now obviously we watch from home, we know you're doing the practice sessions, but is there any other behind the scenes thing you can tell us like when do you arrive to the track, for example? So in Europe, I usually arrive on like a Thursday morning.

Any other races outside of Europe will come Wednesday, Tuesday, Melbourne we get even like on Monday before. But then yeah, Thursday is mainly for media. A couple of meetings with the team, strategies, set up. And between practice, it's, you know, people usually think we have a lot of free time, but I spend most of my time in the three hours. Oh, not that Mercedes one, the Alpine one over there. Just like working with the guys trying to fine-tune the setup, trying to really get down to the limitation of the car and, you know, working on the data. So a lot of onboard analysis and I like to work on the data, I'd be with the guys there. And yeah, after, you know, quite boring foods, EF1 Dreher, we stick with chicken, rice, a bit of pasta, quinoa sometimes with nothing too exciting there.

and yeah I have my couple of routine warm-up routine my ball exercise which you guys all love and yeah a couple of other cognitive exercise just to wake up before I get in the car fully dialed in you mentioned about the data I'm interested to know how much do you actually how many hours do you spend trawling through all of the millions of strands of data that you get well you go spend the entire day and night like in there because you got so much stuff available so you've got to try to limit and really prioritize the most important so you'll never get down to everything you want to look at but it's more like trying to be extremely clear and precise with the gap saying telling them okay like in that particular account and that exact moment this steering

angle etc that's when the the car is not reacting the way I want or the traction etc this phase of the throttle application it gets into quite a lot of details and then after you have you have You look at, I don't know, lines, data, compared with other cars, high fuel, low fuel. There's a lot of things, but yeah, a couple of hours over the weekend. But I also need my time at night, like, just to disconnect a bit before, you know, come back the next day. Do you not lay an in bed with your A4 piece of paper? I used to do that when I was younger and now, not anymore. I'm asleep, honestly.

Next question is, how do you feel F1 is different from when you first started? What are the biggest changes for you? What are the biggest changes? So, yeah, my first race was back Malaysia 2017. Few more white hairs since back there. For a couple of guys in the paddock, to be fair. No, I mean, the cars have changed, the engines have changed. The way of driving, not really, you know, it's still an F1 car,

you still approach it the same way. You said about the F1 car and how obviously they change between regulations and things. Do you have to adapt your driving style much between these, especially when they're big changes like 20? Yeah, I think 2026 we might see because it's a full set engine and chassis. From just the tire we've had from the moment I entered not that much. You always fine-tune, you know, based on the car behavior, a bit of understeer, oversteer, you can adapt to go around the issues. but now I will say like mainly the Netflix effects I know we talk a lot about it but

in terms of exposure in 2017 when I came as a F1 driver I was in the States and I had to tell people I'm a NASCAR driver for them to understand what I do and these days are over you say you're an F1 driver and people actually understand what you're going to be in so yeah I will say probably the sport has boomed and the exposure is way more and even as soon as you enter all the guys before you were racing into like bottom of you know the ranking and people will not always notice you know i feel like all 20 drivers really get exposed so what do you like to do away from f1 is it important to have that time like you say where you kind of switch off otherwise you're just thinking about it all all the time well i'm

that type of guy where i know i tell myself like whenever the season starts i sacrifice a lot of my private life my friends my family and just real like think drinks sleep eat F1 from morning tonight but then when I get to the summer break I need my time off and now I tell my guys around me like I give you my hundred percent for five months the first part of the year but I need my three weeks to recharge and whenever I come back in Zandvo I know I'm ready for another four months strike and but it's important to get that balance for me and be able to It's mainly mentally, you know, at the end of the day, just because I know it fuels me with good energy to spend this time with my friends, my family, which is quite limited.

So it's a balance to find. And then the other sports that you tend to play to relax on these weeks off, golf, I think, is one of those? Yeah, my girlfriend is not too happy about it, especially whenever I start with a G, a word with a golf, she loses it because she knows it's like a five-hour thing. It's not a short one, is it? Yeah, yeah, especially with number of shots, I got to take some. Don't get your money to her, don't you? So, well, yeah, golf is one of, yeah, the sport I tried to get into, and we also play with some of the other drivers.

It's quite cool because we're competitive, so once we get into something, you want to get to a decent level and actually compete. So golf, paddle, I love football. Yeah, I will say that probably the three sports I try to do. It's taken over, isn't it? Yeah, it's taken big time. It's become the paddock sport, it seems now, isn't it?

Not long till we see a chord building in the building in the paddock, yeah. That would be great if we could have that. I'd be all over that. Fans would love it watching you guys have a proper competition. I'm not sure we would all love the fans looking at our game. Then it would get really competitive. To be fair, I feel we have like a good level and because everyone got into it, everyone's putting the work and the hours.

And yeah, a couple of good games. Absolutely. Next question. Who do you regularly interact with away from the track within the Alpine time, are they involved in the design, engineering, testing process? I will say the main ones are the closest one to you. So you're a racing engineer, team manager, team principal, strategists, logistics, which takes a lot of time of sorting out, transfer flights, etc.

But I will say otherwise, yeah, technical director. You have maybe 10 people, like key people that you'll be in touch on a regular basis. And then after when you go to the factory, then I got meetings with different departments to then go a bit deeper in the organization. But yeah, I'll say like roughly 10 people that you're... regular regularly in touch with what does the mid-season break look like for you is it like completely switch off forget about Formula One completely or Motto-G-p because it's nice they got their break before so I get to watch all the the Moto-GP I mean yeah as an athlete

you can't just stop training so even maybe the first week I'll reduce a bit my training but then from the second week onwards it's almost pretty much every day so I'll train like still six days a week, a lot of cardio. But I also enjoy it. I enjoy the process of just knowing that it just makes me feel good. But then otherwise, after I've done my one and a half hour session, try to go to the sea, the beach, play around with my friends, or my family, and yeah, just enjoy having a, you know,

I was going to say a normal life, but it's not a normal life because we're quite privileged. We get to go to nice place and stuff, but just try to enjoy the moment. without thinking, okay, tomorrow I got an 8 a.m. meeting with the strategy or like, with the team or whatever. So it's, which obviously you love, right? You love those 8 a yearm meetings. Right, that is it. That is all the time we have got with Mr. Pierre Gazzdi. So thank you so much, yeah, for coming on. No problem. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Join us after the break where we'll be joined by Alpine's other driver and official friend of the podcast, Esteban, Ocon. Welcome back to the P1 podcast. Let's get straight into our chat with the lovely Esteban Ocon. And remember, head on over to Amazon Music where you can listen to an extended version of today's episode where we ask Pierre and Esteban your questions. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the P1 podcast.

We're here with Esteban Ocon. Yes. How are you, my friend? I'm good. I'm very good. Yeah, it's very windy. Yeah, very windy, very cold. But it's British summer. People seem to love it.

Beautiful, isn't it? We're inside. I'm ready to ask you some questions. That's awesome. Are you ready for them? I'm ready for them. Okay. Okay, question number one, we need to go back a little bit here, okay?

Okay. So, can you remember your... You tend to like that to make me go back in time. A lot. Let's start at the beginning. All right, okay. Can you remember your earliest racing memory, whether that's driving or from the stands? Yes, I do remember.

Probably my first memory is driving on the grass of my home and in the fields as well, with a go-kart. My dad was taking the front of the go-kart off so I could, you know, basically not have the front getting caught in the grass. So yeah, that's the probably the earliest memory I got. How old do you reckon you were then? I was probably almost five, I would say. Okay. Yeah, probably my second time doing go-kart. And you got the bug then, would you say? Was that? Yeah, yeah, it was on. That was the only thing I was asking was to go and get driving again. Yeah, for sure. Amazing. Who do you regularly interact with away from the way from the the track within the Alpine team, if that's a design engineer testing process?

Yeah. Well, my engineers, both Josh and Stuart, I'm constantly testing them, asking them for staff. But to be honest, we have a very good availability to communicate with every engineer. You know, with teams now since COVID, it's really good, you know, that we have everyone available 24-7, pretty much, which, you know, I shouldn't do. But yeah, it has happened where I woke up at night two or three in the morning and I send the text because I'm not thinking you know if the following day I will forget it so I have done that turn seven lap 43 exactly that's pretty much that is it really scary yeah yeah just replaying the whole thing yeah yeah it has happened okay next question is what does your race weekend routine look like and we're not talking about you know the standard

practice whatever what's your routine look like routine looks like routine looks like trying to get as much sleep as I can, you know, from Wednesday night onwards, really, because, you know, the first day is a full run the whole day. You know, we try and prepare as well as we can with the guys. But, you know, getting, let's say, two hours and a half, three hours of engineering. That's why we try to do. And then the rest is very, you know, dependent on whether we are in Europe or outside of Europe. Some races are more busy than others.

But, yeah, getting good food, getting good sleep, getting the... right amount of work with the engineers is what is needed. Then the rest, you know, is, it can be flexible. So the rest I can have a different routine, but those main things are the ones that you need to look at. So you mentioned about good sleep. Of course, you travel all the way around the world. Jetlag destroys me. How do you sort of combat that? Are there any sort of little things that you do to make it work for you? Because it doesn't work for everyone. No, for sure. I need to sleep much more than the, you know, average person. How much do you sleep?

12 hours a night. Do you? Wow. Minimum, to be fair. Not without even moving, just 12 hours out. I will have to do that, yeah, because I got quite a light sleep in general. So to get like two hours and a half of deep sleep, that's, you know, you will need to have those 12. And that's what I try and get from Wednesday night to Saturday night, you know, onwards.

Normally on the Friday night is quite tricky because we start earlier, we finish late. But, you know, if I can get that, most of it in the weekend, it's pretty good. And how do you combat the jet lag side of things? Yes. If you go somewhere completely different times. Yeah, my girlfriend will hate me for that, obviously, because, you know, at home, when we are doing the first part of the season, for example, it's pretty much no life. I need to offset myself prior to the week, prior to the travel, so three, four days before.

And I end up on the last day before flying, like, for example, in Australia, I was going to sleep at 4 in the morning. So she was doing the offset as well when she could, when she was able to do it, because of course she works as well. But yeah, it's very difficult for sure. But it's needed. What do you like to do away from F1?

And is it important to have other interests outside the sport? Yes, it's very important to have other interests. Also with my friends, you know, we have a good group of friends and we like pretty much the same things. but it's always around cars somehow. You know, it's whether it's radio control cars or going drifting or going to do sports, like mountain biking or something, you know, it's, yeah, I just like to enjoy whatever time I will have, you know, with my friends around.

And, yeah, I mean, I like to spend quite a lot of time looking at the new fighting techniques as well because I got a friend and, you know, I'm supporting him and we managed to put him in a in a professional league for fighting, and he's actually fighting next week. So it's the first big one for him, and yeah, I'm involved on that a lot. And you've got the techniques as well, so you... Well, yes, I need the knowledge enough

to see, you know, who's going to come up with him next and, yeah, so that they don't, you know, put him with somebody where he has weakness against, you know. So, yeah, I'm a big mixed martial arts. Okay, for anyone listening, don't mess with Estebanok on. at that one you will come off worse i got pointy elbows that hurts use them wisely yes uh next question uh what what does the summer break

look like for you you mentioned obviously there's a lot of time spending with friends and stuff can you switch off completely from formula one or is there always like a lap 47 you know that kind of thing that you still or you can i try i tried to switch off yeah it's quite important there they are really i would say two weeks in the year where um you know i will completely switch off that will be one week in summer break. Otherwise, I need to resume training and stuff, so can't have the full shutdown. And then from Christmas to New Year as well,

those are going to be the two weeks where we're off, we do everything we like, I can go to sleep later, I can eat what I want. Yeah, those are the two ones that are quite enjoyable. So obviously you've been doing fitness for a long time now. What sort of level do you think the enjoyment is for doing the fitness side? The cardio, yeah, honestly, enjoyable zero.

Unless, you know, it's a, you know, a group of friends that we go out with mountain bikes, you know, that's cool. But, you know, cycling indoor for two hours and then running for half an hour, 45 minutes. After that, it's just a pain. So probably when I retire, I said to my friends, like, I'm not going to do any sports. I'm done. But no, I think, yeah, I will, I will probably. keep you know the training a little bit on the gym side but yeah the rest honestly no not for me how are you feeling about the rest of your time at Alpine

yeah I mean we have obviously the season to finish together and I want to finish it on the high you know we've been together for for many seasons now you know I've been part of this team as well as a junior driver in the past and and it's been a it's been a great journey you know some good memories some a little bit worse ones for sure but you know we've we've achieved quite a lot and and you know we've achieved the two highest position of the team you know P1 and P2 so you know it feels good and I want to to achieve you know the best I can for the reminding of the season for sure he said P1 as well did you notice that yeah last time we had a

podcast together just before Monaco is all I'm saying yeah that's very true well you go hopefully if that happens we have podcast every single race now next question is it's funny because it's talking about how you feel F1 is different from when you first started to now and the first video we ever did was with you way back in 2017 so I feel like we're all going down memory lane a little bit I remember you were like oh he's got his little bag you know coming oh god no you are you were one of the first one that felt sympathy for me so I appreciate I made I felt more than that I was almost crying to be

thank you but anyway so how do you feel that Formula One has sort of changed between when you first joined and now what's the biggest differences for you massively i think um you know back then when i started pretty much you couldn't film inside the paddock that's first of all that's that you know you could make a picture but you couldn't do like more of a three second video um and i remember the first stories or the first videos that came out on social media at the time where cars were coming out the paddock that was coming from a phone it was a revolution you know and yeah I mean it was a lot less popular I mean the amount of people now we see around the track it's just awesome and and it's really cool to see you know that we

have new fans and new supporters everywhere we go and and yeah it's just pure passion which is cool I'm interested to know a little bit more about the F1 driving side so like the first car you ever drove way back when to now do you feel like your driving styles had to adapt or change with these regulations that have come in and that's sort of stuff as well and then obviously looking forward to 26 as well where it's a massive change yeah well i drove i drove a lot of cars now um the first car i drove was the 2012 uh kind of kimmy and i was flying um but then when i arrived into 2014 fp1 in abudavi that was a shock because this car was like eight seconds slower than the the car of kimmy back then and then my first season i was in the manor

so i had to adapt to everything because i couldn't the car was too small for me i had to basically clear my first when I was turning clear the second one and then coming back I had to clear both so at the end of the race I had like two black marks and wear gloves completely because I had to yeah pass the two points where I was turning so how often did you have to do that until it was sorted no the whole year was tricky the whole year so when I was coming to tracks like suzuka for example where there wasn't too many steering angle corners I was super happy because I didn't have to pass my legs every time you know that's how small the car was wow and I was doing top speed of like 340 in Sao Paulo couldn't break at the end of a break the thing was locking up

everywhere but you know it was a fun challenge and I was arriving in F1 and yeah I was figuring out how everything was working and I had some good ones you know starting Malaysia last and being P11 by by the end of lap one stuff like that you know that was that was quite cool beautiful all right well we're done thank you so much Esteban for coming in the pod really appreciate it my friend Oh yeah, your leg is dented from that wheel. Yeah, exactly, yeah. I've lost everything now, so yeah. Thank you so much, man.

Thank you, man. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode of P1 and thanks to the awesome Pierre Gazley and Esteban Okon. Remember, if you want to hear more from the drivers, then head on over to Amazon Music where you can listen to an extended version of today's episode. Join us for our next episode we recorded in our few days with Alpine,

where we speak to two men at the heart of the team, behind the scenes who talked us through the challenges of running a successful F1 team. They offer loads of unique insights and it is a really interesting listen. P1 is a stack production and part of the ACAST creator network.