P1 with Matt and Tommy - More from Ferrari's Carlos Sainz! (Part Two)

Episode Date: September 12, 2023

We’re back with the second part of our fascinating chat with Ferrari legend Carlos Sainz!Today we speak about his relationship with Charles Leclerc, how it feels to always be followed by the Netflix cameras and how he judges his speed when it’s really wet. Plus, does he ever get nervous? If you've not listened to the first part of the interview, scroll down! You can grab our new merch here!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. Myself and Tommy are midway through chatting to the glorious, beautiful, chiseled Carlos Sines. So we've got another 30 minutes so you can enjoy it. I'm not going to talk anymore. Go on. Go on. Fill your ears with that content. We now move away from the racetrack.

One thing F1 fans love is the call-down room. But how long does it take to call down? after a race. Has the adrenaline worn down by then? How long does it take? Are you there at the end in an evening laying in bed? You know, still are pretty wired from the race in the afternoon. I think the cool down room only exists because they need to put the podium ceremony together. For us, we could go straight to the podium like no problem, but I think it only exists for that. And I think recently they've done more of a thing about the cool down room, no? Before no one used to talk about the cool-down room and now everyone is...

Now the commentators are deliberately be quiet so you can hear what you're saying instead. Which now makes us be more careful on the cool-down room to what we say, no? Because it's like, ugh, now we know everyone's... It's not a cool-down room. It's not a cool-down room anymore. So, yeah, it's interesting. But yeah, normally you drink as much as possible and you ask a couple of doubts that you had about someone else's strategy.

what did they do at the start or yeah you always have like a couple of doubts that you clear with with wherever you're sharing the podium at the time do you do chat in that cool down room and figure out what's going on is there a lot of chatter outside of the cool down room you know you see a driver in the paddock you might chat about the race a little bit or how are your tires etc is there a lot of that sort of debriefing between drivers only with the two or three drivers that you get on better with yeah and yeah for me in that case is obviously charles land of So sometimes I'm with X teammates normally you have a bit more complicity because you've shared themes before and on you and you have a good chat about how's that weekend feeling, how

they're doing with their car, what are they feeling. So yeah, there is a bit of that but only in very specific cases where you both coincide that have a couple minutes off which normally in F1 with our schedules. It's not very common. Two minutes off in the middle of the paddock to catch up. Drivers briefing sometimes, press conference when we are in the TV pen, queuing to do one or two TVs there, we chat a bit. We catch up.

There's an interesting thing where I think they've only ever done it once where they filmed the driver briefing. And I think there was a little bit of backlash from the drivers saying, you know, this is a very funny meme of Checo. Of Checo, right. Yeah. That's exactly like that. That is a classic.

It's a little bit like the one that you did when you were like that after when you were chatting to Will Bucks and that one went round everywhere. And they called me to us two hours. That whole driver briefing, do you think they were right to kind of not broadcast? Because does it get to the point sometimes like you mentioned in the call-down room where You want to say something, but you know you can't because it's being filmed, it's going to go here, it's going to go there, it's going to go around TikTok or whatever. It's a good point, yeah. I think once you put a camera in front of us, nothing's going to be as natural as it would be.

So it's a fine line, no, between how much you want to say, but also how natural you want things to be. And even the same happens sometimes with Netflix. Once you have a camera on Netflix following you, how natural are you or how explicit are you going to be explaining things? Because you know that camera is there, no? Are they everywhere? Do you just turn around and you're like, oh God, there's a mic arm, you know, over your shoulder? There's weekends where they are everywhere.

Like Netflix follows us two or three weekends per year full time. And then they're everywhere. They put the mic on and you have a mic and you don't even remember, you have a mic like this one everywhere. But yeah, it's a fine line of how much you want to show, but also the thing that you show to be true and to be real. I don't know. I don't know where's that limit.

I think I'm pretty sure everyone would be playing a role also. Like in this briefing, I'm going to talk more or I'm going to do that. Everyone would become a bit of an actor. Yeah, yeah. And it wouldn't be natural anymore. Although that check of face, I can tell it's natural. Wasn't he called out or something for a corner cart, I feel like or something.

That was, I thought there was a chat about something that he had done. And that, yeah, there's a great thing. Someone was throwing him under the bus a bit with something. Yeah. You mentioned about how,

I guess this goes into the opposite of what you said, because you mentioned about how your friends of Lando and Charles, but Napa fence at us, is it hard to form true friendships with other drivers, especially when they're your teammates? Yes. But for example, I feel like with Lando is here,

be more friends now than when we were teammates because now you don't share. And I'm pretty sure it will happen also a bit with Charles. I think with Charles, I genuinely get on well. Like we have a good relationship. We are actually very similar in many ways and we have very similar conversation going all the time, very similar kind of banter. Like there's just good vibes with him. And I'm sure that as soon as we are not teammates anymore because we are

So we will still get on very well and respect each other like we do now. So yeah, probably a bit of it, yes, because now obviously being teammates, there's always that competitive of trying to beat each other. But at the same time, having to help Ferrari and the situation is triggered. And when you are not teammates, there's less pressure. Next question comes in from Hassin Ammoud. What's the best gift received from a fan? and the weirdest?

There's so many. Especially in Japan, there's many, many crazy gifts, but funny ones. I don't know. So many gifts. So many. What I need to do is maybe start doing is posting a picture of a funniest presence, you know, and also ourselves thank you on Instagram, maybe to whoever gave it. Like a favorite gift of the race week or something.

Unlike this, we have proof and recording of the amount of crazy years. And then you can go, well, this one. This question people have asked me a few times, and I'm never good enough to answer, good memory enough to answer. So maybe this is an idea for social media. Let us start doing it. Let that one down. Let that one down.

Best presence, best gifts will go in Instagram. Here you go. All right. Very cool. This one's from 97 JDR. Which F1 track do you think would be the best? if you did it in reverse. Not reverse as in,

backwards. But actually, racing it backwards. Sure, spa. I think Spah, Duino, towards might be crazy.

But apart from this, you know, I've thought about this before. Really? I actually have. You know, Susuka? Yes.

Are uphill. Imagine them doing them downhill. Oh, wow. That must be good. I can see a trend here of doing things downhill rather than uphill. Yeah, normally steep up hills if they become downhill. So yeah, I would say maybe Susuka.

Any other. There are many downhill, I guess like Portsmouth is quite up and down. Yeah, but then I guess there's not. Yeah. Or tomorrow, turn one long left. The Dyer's there would scream. Certainly would. But those two are good.

Yeah, those two are good enough. Yeah, they're very strong. Didn't, was it, Max, did it down there? There was someone that, they did some kind of repousher run where they went down there. Yeah, which is, don't get me wrong, you would need to change the runoff area and everything. Oh yeah, absolutely. Next question comes in, oh, it's actually from us. Do you ever get nervous during a Grand Prix weekend and if so, when is it at its highest?

I always get nervous. Who doesn't is the question? I think nerves are good. Nerves get you in. get you in the moment, make you feel a bit of pressure, which is what I need to perform. Without pressure and without nerves, I cannot get to my 100% level of concentration and self-demand that it requires to perform. And I like those nerves. Like, there's a perfect point of nerves, you know, that you always try to find when you're an athlete. when you are too nervous, too excited,

or when you're too relaxed and you're not nervous enough. And I always try to bring myself to that perfect point of nerves that I know is getting me a bit excited, it's getting me fired up, it's getting me ready to race, but it's not getting me too nervous or too excited. And you're always, as an athlete in your head,

balancing that, trying to find that switch spot, the switch spot where you know you perform at your best, and that's why we also, sometimes do focus in exercises, concentration, just to shift yourself from one to another, depending on where you are that weekend. Because we are all not perfect. There's 23 weekends. Especially when you do a lot of races in a row, maybe you can use to the pressure and you're not as nervous.

Well, if it's the first race of the season, you're firing so much. Or where it needs Monaco, for example. Monaco qualifying, you're firing. and city tracks where you know that you're taking more risk that the excitement is higher, no, and it's just, I don't know, it's just trying to shift yourself from that switch. So you'd say street tracks qualifying, that's the one way you're trying to just

breathe a little bit slower. Yeah, yeah, I would say so. So you say like you try and get yourself in this good mindset where sometimes you're a bit too calm, sometimes you're a bit too excited, what is that process for you? Are you just talking to yourself going, Carl's, chill out? You're a bit too excited. right now or like what's the bit more specific a bit more yes for sure there's those thoughts in

your head but then there's techniques know when you're too excited there breathing techniques really help to to calm you down and when you are a bit too calm i could warm up getting your heart rate up um cold bath something to really like put you up it also helps so i would say if you're too excited breathing techniques if you are a bit too calm make sure you're a bit too calm make sure you sure you warm up a bit harder. You maybe if you have to raise your heart rate in your warm up, but a bit make sure that they, you properly spike it more.

You get to 180, 190 where I feel like I'm like, how do you say, like out of breath? And that's suddenly switches me on. Okay, so it's like a physical sort of exercise manager just to get you. Okay, cool. So this is one you actually, you asked to Daniel Ricardo, I believe. So it'd be interesting to see if you give the same answer. And it's who on the grid would you,

trust most to keep a secret? Who's the most quiet? Who is the quietest? Yeah, Kimmy's not here anymore. I would say Kimmy. If Kimi was here, you tell Kimmy, Kimi doesn't give Adam. You probably wouldn't be listening. Thanks for telling me. I would say Kimi, yeah. Oh, that's true fair. I think didn't Dona Mikhaili said no one, I think, and then he tried to think of someone, and then I don't think he still managed to. If you would have to tell someone, I would just give me, if not no one. Just give him a call.

He'd forget by the end of the conversation. Next question from you're on camera smile. When you close your eyes and think of the highlight of your F1 career, what comes to mind? Normally the best moment of each year. So I would have to go year by year and realize which one was my best moment of that year. And that's like the highlights of my career, if I would say. Okay.

Like one race per year, they're always taxing your mind and you always enjoy. So, yeah, when you think back to every team that you've been to every year, that's normally when. I guess the expectation is different, isn't it? Each year and depending how good the car is. Gavin Curly 90 has asked, what do you think of Connor Moore's impression of here? We've actually had him on our podcast. and obviously his

his color science is definitely probably his best impression everyone told me this and when I saw the impressions that's why I had mixed feelings about it because I saw it and I was like

I'm not the best I think there's two or three other guys that he's doing it incredibly perfect but everyone was telling me no but he's about he's the best and I was like yeah but this other two or three guys is incredible also. He does honestly an incredible job. I laugh a lot. At the beginning, I had mixed feelings

because everyone said I was the best and I didn't feel like I was the best. I thought that maybe George. George is very good. George was very good. Christian Horn is very good. Christian was very good. Even Max with a Red Bull Can was very good. Daniel's laugh as he replicates the laugh. Incredible. But yeah, the more I see, the more I see myself. The more I keep seeing it, he's getting better. The more I see, yeah, he's like me. That is great. We love to have him on the pod.

Next question. Driving in the wet is a masterful skill. How do you go about judging just how fast you can go through a certain part of the circuit if the conditions are constantly changing? What's the process? Is it just hope or how do you manage it? You know, when it's hope, when we're, are on slicks. When we are on slicks on a wet track is hope.

Yeah. It's a lot of hope, a lot of, a lot of risk. That's when you're also quite nervous because you know a small mistake and out of line there's zero grip and the car is going to spin and you're going to probably have a pretty big crash. And you, especially when it's a dry line, you have this much space to put a slick tire on. If you put it out of this much space at 300kpH, you're off into a spin and a crash. And that's where it's hope, because you are judging the speed that you're going to get into that dry line

where the tire that you're loading is not going out of that line. And it's incredible. And this year we've run on those conditions very, very often, and we've had to do a lot of qualifiers in one that we're just putting the slick for two laps at the end in Spa.

We had the two qualities exactly, say. We had it also in Canada. We had it in Spain. We had it in, I don't know, so many races. And in the wet, normally the wet gives you two or three laps, where also the wet tire comes into temperature and you're loading the car, filling the grip, and then you go use the battery for one lap.

Once you've learned the truck, you go for it. So yeah, the wet is a bit more little by little. The slick on the wet or on a damp track is the proper proper risk proper highest adrenaline I think that you can

have in an F1 car together with a street truck yeah so the nerves again that's so I guess you just start to see a bit of a drizzle on your visor and that's when that's when the heart rate

goes up a little bit more and so I guess when it starts to rain immediately I guess a lot of people maybe misunderstand that it doesn't mean instantly it's slippery right it takes a little bit of time

like is there a measurement that you get told oh like right, cars it's raining X amount intensity, or is it literally just feel? I've been nine years in the F1 and I've been trying to find million different ways to look at the radar, to tell my engineers to tell me the amount of rain in levels.

In the end, there's no better sensor than, sorry for your ass and your hands in the car, because that's where you're feeling the grip. And yes, they can tell you if it's raining in the other side of the circuit, but until you don't go to that corner and feel how much lack of grip there is, on a, because it's not the same being on a worn, hard tire

than being on a new soft. The grip level in the wet is gonna be completely different until you don't know an experiment with the tire that you have at the time. The grip there is there, you cannot tell exactly what's the right thing strategy wise, no? And yes, not only when it starts raining,

but when it starts drying, it's the same, which is more the qualifying that I would talk. Because then you gamble on the dries and, yeah. Exactly, exactly. Exactly. Is that moment the most, you're probably, you mentioned street tracks, but most alert in a F1 car when it's that dry line that you can't, because I guess when it's dried, you have those moments where

we sometimes have heard it on the radio maybe like someone's leading and the engineer comes in going, everything all right, still, still awake? Do you have those moments as well where you're kind of almost not switching off, but you kind of need to be a lot. The dam truck or dry line on an F1 car is where mentally, when you jump out of the car, you're more tired. Because you've got mentally exhausting. Full focus is mentally exhausting.

It's a bit like the city trucks, you have less margin of error, so the level of concentration is higher. It's not the same the margin of error that you have in Paul Ricard. To the margin of error you have in Monaco, you have when there's a dry line, even in Paul Ricard, when there's a dry line. So it's by far the most draining race that race, the wet races, and the drying to wet, to dry, to wet. Mentally, you're more tired at the end of the day than maybe a dry race, more physical race. That's when the memes come out, when you're doing your, like, chilled face.

Exactly. Absolutely, so in doubt. Wanting to leave the press conference. Exactly. Let me go to bed. 455 Nation has asked if you could go golfing with any three current or former F1 drivers who would you pick to go with so Lando is my golf paddy let's call him like that the one that I always normally golf with and then I heard Lance I've played with Lance once and he's pretty good and Checo is getting there

so Corin I would choose those ones and then X I think Alan Proscoe to handicap two he told me once wow really really good yeah and there were others um i don't know off the top of my head but i think uh fernando he used to play also a bit more no he doesn't play anymore but yeah i'm sure there's there's others of the 90s that i would like to have a good round and catch up and see what they have to see are you sorry tell you are you are you playing a lot of golf uh at the moment still yeah yeah Yeah, I'm playing a lot. I went through a very good phase of my golfing career two or three months ago,

and now I'm going through a bit of a bump. Back to the range. And I need to go back to our range. I played this summer, but I haven't played great. I'm not going to lie. It's one of the most frustrating sports in the world, isn't it? I haven't changed a thing. I am the same guy hitting the same ball, stult in front of me, and with the same clap.

Yeah. Two months later, instead of getting better, I don't know why the ball is going right. And I'm just sitting there saying, what was I doing? What was my movement part? And my, the brain of a golfer is, that is a dangerous brain. You get really into trouble there. I was going to ask if you think Formula One drives enjoy golf because it's maybe very different Formula One and more chill. But from the sounds of it, it's quite the opposite and you get frustrated.

And you still have that, say even if you mentioned like Landers, your golfing better, you still like super competitive, have to be in that kind of. Yeah, but I feel like even when we play golf, we're playing against ourselves. It's like he's trying to do his best round ever. I'm trying to do my best round ever. And that's the beauty about golf that you're in reality,

you're playing against yourself all the time because it's you bat swing after bad swing after bad swing and suddenly you do a good swing. And you say, why did I do a good swing? And then you try and learn from that and repeat it then. And it's against your score and then you obviously compare scores and compete against each other.

But more for me also, the amount of time that you spend outdoors playing golf is really nice. Four hours, no phone, just walking in nice grass. Normally I play golf only when the weather's good. I'm not one of these golfers that when it rains and it's windy place.

I only choose my golf days as my enjoyment days. Yeah, I used to play a lot of golf as well so I can completely and honestly relate to, you've had a great week the week before and you turn up and you're swinging one degree different and all of a sudden the ball is in the hedge it's correct it's a right this is what is that what's the best and worst part of your golf game would you say my best normally the mid to short irons when I play well I can hit it pretty close to

a pin or miss very little greens unfortunately I don't have a short iron enough in my hands because I miss a lot of drives. Like I can hit really good drives but my dispersion with the drive is too big and it's what I'm like if I'm now a handicap 7-8, if I would like to keep to handicap zero, I know my dispersion with the driver should be a lot less because that's where all my bogies, double bogies come from, losing balls right or left. And my putting, my patting, when I'm good, I'm pretty good. Nice. I know this is a four-on-one podcast, but I am interested in the other sports as well. Question, when can we race with you on your karting track for a video?

Whenever you want. Let's do that our next thing. Yeah. We can record our next podcast or next video. Do a podcast whilst on the track. Yeah, that'll be Carlos Sien, go-kart center in Madrid, which is, honestly, guys, whenever you want, because I really, it's my, I have my office there. It's my second home, let's say, no. So whenever you guys want, we can put together. I had an idea once.

I wanted to do like a kind of, how do you call it, like a top gear show in the go-kart center. Bring athletes or famous people to do one lap and see what lap time they can get. They're starring a reasonably placed car, don't they? Yeah. Amazing. Well, there you go. We've got plenty of ideas from this podcast. Yeah.

There's a lot of things that can write it down. Gift of the Week. everything you know this is haven't told you the rule that I would change yes let's let's finish on that I still don't know come on you can do this just came to my head why did I put myself into trouble again

okay whilst you think of that let me ask you a question Hungary we had the hard medium soft qualifying for the first time what did you think of that was that because from a fan's perspective we were buzzing because you had like show I knew fastest in Q1 we were like what's going on this is the greatest thing ever. What was it from like a driver's perspective? But that happened because it was genuinely a very close qualifying. Yeah. I don't know what happened in Hungary. We're all within half a second

of each other. It's like all the cars were the same. Did you get the spec cars out or just paint them different? Is that right? Is that what? Yeah. Maybe. Tested it out of the secret. I think it did feel like that for some reason. I thought the qualifying itself was fun. Having to do hard, medium soft in quality was really good fun that was fun everything else from the weekend was not good that moment was it weird pushing on three different compounds in a qualifying yeah that's why i say it's weird but it's cool it makes a bit of driver learning going on in quality still in quality there's improvisation there's filling with the tire there's two attempts also per quality there's no need to save tires too much and so yeah that

The qualifying was good fun. It was just that we were all saving tires from FP1, FP2, and FP3 to make sure we had tires available for that qualifying to be able to do hard, hard, medium, medium, soft. So it made FP1, FP2, and FP3 quite useless in a way or very different to what it used to be. And that's what made us drivers criticize the format, not the qualifying itself.

Because the qualifying itself, I don't think there is a lot. a problem with you. Yeah, it's one of those. Of all the things to change in Formula One, qualifying, it's probably the best thing we've currently got, isn't it? Yeah, definitely. Well, we've given you time, Carlos. What do you think?

Let's try and throw things up in the air that you might want to change. I have an idea. Okay. I would still do the spring weekends a reverse championship order grid for a spring. Alone, here we go. I do think if we get, because just imagine let's say

Mark starting last the Ferrari starting P-16 I don't know where we would 14th 13th the lower field the whole field

would be like closing on each other and if you put points up until P10 I would be starting P14 saying I can get to top 10 or top five Mark starting from P20

would believe he can get to a top 10 with the Red Bull. Everyone who's starting P8, they might be the only points they get in the whole year, not this year, because everyone's getting points, but in other years,

you would be holding on to that P1, P2, P3 for your life. So the racing that you would get that day would be incredible. And it doesn't affect the rest of the weekend. You still have the main race that everyone cares about and everyone wants to win that race, but you have that race on Saturday

to, talk about something else. I mean, we're sold, absolutely. Yeah. Do you actually think that could happen, though? As much as we would love for that to happen, do you think it's possible? There's a few drivers that have with us for it.

Like we've said, if you really want the sprint weekend to make it interesting and to make the sprint race something different, why don't we try this? Yeah, because I mean, from a fan perspective, we found that almost the sprint weekend originally that was kind of part of the weekend was, better than this weekend now where you've just got it on a Saturday is its own little thing.

There's not many points up for grabs and then you've got the Friday and the Sunday. And essentially just the whole race is just the first half or not even first half, the first third of a race before pit stop. So there's not really that much. What I find sometimes with this spring race is that is the first third of the race. Yeah, you're getting what's going to happen on Sunday. It's a spoiler. Yeah. It's a spoiler of the main race because it's a. exactly the sting length and probably even the tire that we're going to start on Sunday.

So you're going to get a race simulation of what is actually the race on Sunday that everyone has always a, let's see what happens. Is the tire going to degrade? Is the Ferrari is going to be quick? Are the Mercedes going to be fast? Is the Red Bull going to domain? Saturday at the moment, unfortunately, gives you that insight into what Sunday is going to look like.

While if it's a reverse grid, there's so much going to be. on, not so much overtaking that no one settles into a pace. Everyone's going to be overtaking after overtaking and in really having some good fun. And you would, you would right, because that's another thing that I'm fascinated to speak to an F1 driver about it, because there's been this perception of, oh, if, you know, why would a driver when they're 13th and 12th, they wouldn't risk it, but surely your driver instinct even though you know there's no points on the table if you're quicker you want to go for the moves right and it's exciting regardless for sure especially because you see those points not

too far away from you if you are b20 because you have the fastest car but p10 is not too far away no and and i think we all we're we're we're animals inside the car we don't like we still want to overtake the guy in front of you even if it's for p12 people who say we don't we don't care about 13 to 12 is alive because you're one step closer to one championship point that could change your whole year no one point two points here are there

every point counts so at least that that's my approach love it well that concludes our podcast with Carlos thank you so much what was that oh you got the picture of you see the picture

that is that's amazing hopefully we can overlay that If you can send us that, that would be amazing to put over the podcast. If you're listening on audio, you're going to have to go and watch it on YouTube, because, yeah, that's a great picture. Kars, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been great. It's been a hot room, but thank you for sticking with us and appreciate it.

I've heard a little fine. Thank you so. Thank you so much. And that's it. See you soon. See you. See you. See you.

P1 is a Stack production and part of the ACAST creator network.