Brrraking Bad: Insights on F1 performance engineering

Brrrake aka Blake Hinsey, a former Red Bull Racing and Force India F1 Team engineer, joins Soumil Arora and Kunal Shah on this episode of the Inside Line F1 Podcast. 

Blake shares how one can become a Performance Engineer in Formula 1 by narrating his story, working with the current World Champion team as well as a team that was fondly known as 'best bang for buck' World Champions. He shares some of his fondest Formula 1 memories. 

Blake tells us how he was hired to engineer Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull Racing, only for VET to join Ferrari. He shares more about working with Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez and other Red Bull Racing drivers. And of course, what makes VER so special?

'Engine Braking' is Blake's podcast along with another social media sensation and former Red Bull Racing engineer, 'Engine Mode 11'.

Tune in!

(Season 2023, Episode 16)

Follow our hosts on Twitter: Soumil Arora and Kunal Shah

Image courtesy: Formula 1

**Navigating Budget Constraints and Upgrade Lead Times in Formula One**

Blake Hinsey, a former Red Bull Racing and Force India F1 Team engineer, joins Soumil Arora and Kunal Shah on the Inside Line F1 Podcast to discuss the challenges and strategies involved in Formula One car development, particularly in the context of budget constraints and upgrade lead times.

**Key Insights:**

* **Budgetary Constraints and Efficient Resource Allocation:**

* Force India, known for its efficient use of resources, faced limitations in terms of the number of updates they could introduce during a season compared to wealthier teams like Red Bull.
* Despite the budget constraints, Force India's engineers demonstrated ingenuity in finding cost-effective solutions and maximizing the performance of their car.

* **Lead Times for Upgrades:**

* Teams typically plan upgrades well in advance, with some components designed and built before the start of the season for specific races or events.
* Lead times vary depending on the complexity of the upgrade and the resources available.
* Factors such as calendar-specific events, problem-solving, and cost considerations influence the timing and prioritization of upgrades.

* **Adapting to New Regulations:**

* New regulations, like the ones introduced in 2022, can pose significant challenges for teams as they adapt their cars and strategies.
* Teams that make calculated risks and allocate resources effectively can gain an advantage, while those that hedge their bets too heavily may struggle.

* **Collaboration and Cross-Functional Teamwork:**

* Successful teams foster a culture of collaboration and teamwork across different departments, including vehicle dynamics, aerodynamics, and simulation engineering.
* Engineers with expertise in various fields work together to optimize the car's performance and address challenges.

* **The Importance of Data and Analysis:**

* Data plays a crucial role in Formula One, informing decisions related to car development, strategy, and race execution.
* Engineers analyze vast amounts of data from simulations, wind tunnel tests, and on-track performance to make informed judgments and improve the car's competitiveness.

* **The Human Factor in Formula One:**

* Despite the reliance on data and technology, Formula One remains a human endeavor, with engineers and drivers making subjective judgments based on experience and intuition.
* The ability to strike a balance between calculated decision-making and adapting to unforeseen circumstances is essential for success.

**Engaging Discussion:**

The podcast hosts engage Blake in a lively discussion, delving into specific examples and anecdotes from his time at Force India and Red Bull Racing. They explore the technicalities of vehicle dynamics engineering, the challenges of working with different drivers, and the impact of budget constraints on car development.

**Overall, the podcast provides valuable insights into the intricate world of Formula One car development, highlighting the importance of strategic planning, efficient resource allocation, and collaboration among engineers in achieving success on the track.** ## Inside Line F1 Podcast Episode 16 Summary:

**Guest:** Blake Hinsey, former Red Bull Racing and Force India F1 Team engineer.

**Topics Discussed:**

* **Blake's Journey to Becoming a Performance Engineer:**
* Narrates his experience working with the current World Champion team and a team known for being the 'best bang for buck' World Champions.
* Shares fond memories from his Formula 1 career.

* **Working with Drivers:**
* Reveals how he was hired to engineer Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull Racing, only for Vettel to join Ferrari.
* Shares insights into working with Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez, and other Red Bull Racing drivers.
* Discusses what makes Verstappen so special.

* **'Engine Braking' Podcast:**
* Highlights Blake's podcast, 'Engine Braking,' co-hosted with another social media sensation and former Red Bull Racing engineer, 'Engine Mode 11.'

**Key Insights and Perspectives:**

* **Performance Engineer's Role:**
* Explains the role of a performance engineer, emphasizing the importance of driver feedback and data analysis.
* Describes the tasks and responsibilities of a performance engineer during a race weekend.
* Discusses the significance of communication between the performance engineer and the driver.

* **Driver Feedback and Perception:**
* Explores how drivers perceive and value feedback from performance engineers.
* Notes that different drivers have different responses to feedback, and performance engineers must adapt their approach accordingly.

* **Max Verstappen's Driving Style:**
* Highlights Verstappen's high threshold for instability and ability to cope with a nervous car.
* Explains that Verstappen's driving style allows him to extract more lap time in certain situations.
* Compares Verstappen's driving style to that of Sergio Perez, noting their different strengths and weaknesses.

* **Car Development and Performance:**
* Discusses the potential impact of Red Bull Racing's wind tunnel time penalty on their car development.
* Speculates whether other teams can catch up to Red Bull Racing's performance advantage throughout the season.
* Emphasizes the importance of efficient car design and development in Formula 1.

* **Daniel Ricciardo's Struggles at McLaren:**
* Attributes Ricciardo's struggles at McLaren to the car's characteristics, which were not suited to his driving style.
* Expresses skepticism about the idea of teams scouting drivers to match their car's DNA.
* Argues that driver adaptability and skill are more important factors in determining success.

* **Adrian Newey's Involvement at Red Bull Racing:**
* Describes Newey's involvement in the team, noting his contributions to car design and development.
* Highlights the collaborative process between Newey and the technical team at Red Bull Racing.
* Praises Newey's wealth of knowledge and experience in Formula 1. ## Blazing a New Trail: From Trackside Engineer to Content Creator

In this episode of the Inside Line F1 Podcast, Blake Hinsey, a former Red Bull Racing and Force India F1 Team engineer, joins Soumil Arora and Kunal Shah for an engaging conversation. Blake shares his journey from being a trackside performance engineer for Max Verstappen to becoming a full-time content creator.

### Navigating the Path to Success

Blake's career trajectory took a series of perceived downgrades, but he embraced each transition as an opportunity for growth and exploration. He moved from trackside performance engineering to simulator performance engineering to gain a deeper understanding of data analysis and longer-term car development.

### The Genesis of Engine Braking

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Blake began creating gaming content on Twitch. This experience sparked an idea: he realized he could apply his Formula One expertise to create technical and analytical content for a wider audience.

### Filling the Knowledge Gap

Blake identified a gap in the Formula One content landscape: there was a lack of accessible and engaging technical analysis. He decided to fill this void by creating YouTube videos and a technical newsletter, providing deep dives into race weekends and performance strategies.

### The Art of Storytelling

Blake emphasizes the importance of storytelling in capturing the audience's attention. He believes that the stories behind the numbers and the fundamental questions are more intriguing than the numbers themselves.

### The Significance of Branding

Blake's decision to name his content creation venture "Engine Braking" was a result of a combination of factors, including a nostalgic connection to his Counter-Strike handle. He acknowledges that branding can be a tricky aspect of content creation.

### A Farewell and an Invitation

The podcast concludes with Blake expressing his gratitude for the opportunity to share his insights and stories from the inside of Formula One. He extends an invitation to the Inside Line F1 Podcast hosts to visit him in England for a coffee or a beer.

### Key Takeaways

* Blake's career journey highlights the importance of embracing change and seeking new challenges.
* The creation of Engine Braking demonstrates the power of identifying a gap in the market and filling it with valuable content.
* Storytelling is a crucial element in capturing and retaining an audience's attention.
* Branding decisions can have a significant impact on the success of a content creation venture.
* Collaboration and networking are essential for growth and success in the content creation space.

[00:00.000 -> 00:24.000] Hey there folks and welcome to the InsideLand F1 Podcast and we've got some breaking news.
[00:24.000 -> 00:26.560] Yes, it's nothing about Fernando Alonso,
[00:26.560 -> 00:31.600] the stewards or the fallout from the Melbourne GP whatsoever. We've actually got Break,
[00:31.600 -> 00:36.880] the famous internet content creator on Formula One on the show. And if at this stage, you're
[00:36.880 -> 00:41.760] generally genuinely wondering who he is, well, are your YouTube recommendations not working?
[00:41.760 -> 00:49.840] Is your Twitter feed all right? Because his content is all over everywhere and for good reason. He produces some amazing Formula One stuff and
[00:49.840 -> 00:54.560] the reason behind that is he's got years of experience working in the sport for the likes
[00:54.560 -> 01:00.640] of Red Bull Racing and the old Sahara Force India Formula One team. So it'll be amazing to have
[01:00.640 -> 01:06.080] Blake on the show to chat more about that. But the one thing that I have to bring out,
[01:06.080 -> 01:11.040] Blake, firstly, before we start off, is the name of your podcast, where you very creatively
[01:11.040 -> 01:15.360] mixed it in with, of course, Engine Mode 11, to call it Engine Braking. That's very
[01:15.360 -> 01:21.120] characteristically clever of you. Not bad. It's not bad. It was kind of some low-hanging fruit.
[01:21.120 -> 01:26.080] That one wasn't too difficult. And I think more than cleverness,
[01:26.080 -> 01:31.200] it attests to both of our lack of creativity when it comes to certain things. But in that
[01:31.200 -> 01:35.560] respect, hopefully we try to make up for it in other places. But yeah, engine braking,
[01:35.560 -> 01:37.960] what a name for a podcast and on brand.
[01:37.960 -> 01:42.400] Absolutely. Yeah, it kind of works really well. But let's actually also introduce the
[01:42.400 -> 01:49.480] connection that we have, the Force India connection right here. Because Kunal, back in the day when you were also part of the team, both
[01:49.480 -> 01:53.880] of you were working, of course, as a part of the same team. But did you ever cross paths?
[01:53.880 -> 01:57.880] Because naturally, right, Formula One teams are, let's say, not like the 80s, where you
[01:57.880 -> 02:01.000] just had seven or eight people in the team. You know, Somal, that was the first time somebody
[02:01.000 -> 02:10.720] actually called it the Sahara Force India Formula One team. I don't think any of us apart from when we were in front of the investors at Sahara, I don't think any one of us
[02:10.720 -> 02:16.880] ever called it the Sahara Force India Formula One team. But I spoke to Blake, I think it was last
[02:16.880 -> 02:22.640] week and we realized that there was an overlap in our tenure and we actually never met each other
[02:22.640 -> 02:28.280] but we were pretty sure that we crossed paths while going from the garage to the hospitality and so on.
[02:28.280 -> 02:32.160] So, but it's great that we're able to have you, Blake.
[02:32.160 -> 02:38.800] I'm so excited to hear your stories in Formula One with Force India and lots of other things
[02:38.800 -> 02:43.240] that we have planned for the next hour or so.
[02:43.240 -> 02:44.240] I'm excited, man.
[02:44.240 -> 02:48.400] And it's weird because I'm sure, like, there's no way that we never crossed paths.
[02:48.400 -> 02:51.120] We have to have, it's just like one of those things, like you have the engineers
[02:51.120 -> 02:54.480] kind of like blinkered and you know, with their clipboard back and forth between
[02:54.480 -> 02:57.080] the office, like who are these marketing people, blah, blah, blah.
[02:57.120 -> 03:00.760] But like at the same time, that's, that's not actually how it works, but it's just
[03:00.760 -> 03:03.880] like one of those things, like there's so many, especially me, when I was new at
[03:03.880 -> 03:05.160] force India, when, when I was new at Force India,
[03:05.160 -> 03:08.700] because I was there from 2012 to 2014,
[03:08.700 -> 03:12.200] my first few years in the sport, I was so overwhelmed,
[03:12.200 -> 03:14.440] because I was learning very quickly on the fly,
[03:14.440 -> 03:17.120] which we'll get into, but it's like,
[03:17.120 -> 03:18.480] like you said, it's not small teams.
[03:18.480 -> 03:20.560] The teams are, the trackside teams
[03:20.560 -> 03:23.000] are upwards of 70, 80 people sometimes,
[03:23.000 -> 03:24.240] especially back then.
[03:24.240 -> 03:25.480] So the
[03:25.480 -> 03:28.640] fact that we would have been in the same paddock, in the same motorhome or
[03:28.640 -> 03:32.760] hospitality unit, walked past each other, never had a conversation is not actually
[03:32.760 -> 03:37.760] that uncommon. I'm sure we all had the Kingfisher beer that was always served
[03:37.760 -> 03:43.960] in the hospitality and the lovely tasty foods as well. So good old days, you
[03:43.960 -> 03:46.920] know, we actually ran an episode series last year
[03:46.920 -> 03:48.800] called My Force India Stories.
[03:48.800 -> 03:51.160] And we brought along some of the other people
[03:51.160 -> 03:54.320] who actually worked at the Force India Formula One team.
[03:54.320 -> 03:57.440] So that's something that we would love to bring out
[03:57.440 -> 03:59.080] during the conversation with you as well.
[03:59.080 -> 04:01.760] And I know Samuel has a full lineup planned,
[04:01.760 -> 04:04.080] and he's like, dude, don't go about revealing things
[04:04.080 -> 04:05.200] just yet. No, no, nothing't go about revealing things just yet.
[04:09.840 -> 04:14.160] Nah, nah, nothing like that. I'm just so intrigued to know more about you, Blake. But there's one thing I think our listeners should also know about and that's your journey in the
[04:14.160 -> 04:19.760] sport. Because I've seen that Reddit AMA of yours, I think a couple of months ago, and I was so
[04:19.760 -> 04:26.000] intrigued by it because you came all the way from Texas to the UK to study. And again, that's a long shot, right?
[04:26.280 -> 04:29.720] Trying to get a job in the world of motorsport, but you eventually got in.
[04:29.920 -> 04:32.400] So what was that way, that route like,
[04:32.400 -> 04:35.760] and just how did you make your way into Formula One and Force India initially,
[04:35.840 -> 04:39.840] or rather Sahara Force India Formula One team initially? Yeah, there we are.
[04:40.120 -> 04:44.440] It was Force India when I joined. Sahara branding came, I think a year later.
[04:44.520 -> 04:45.680] In 2011, when did Sahara branding join, I think, a year later in 2011.
[04:45.680 -> 04:46.640] When did Sahara branding join?
[04:46.640 -> 04:49.760] 2011, wasn't it, Kunal? That's when they invested their money in you.
[04:50.800 -> 04:52.640] Yeah, yeah. It was 2011.
[04:54.480 -> 04:55.920] Yeah, but that's fine. I love this.
[04:56.800 -> 05:02.160] I guess to me, being an outsider following the sport, it was always Force India before that.
[05:02.160 -> 05:07.200] And then at that time, then you join, you add, you tag on another name at the beginning of the title. You're like, ah, it was always Force India before that. And then, you know, at that time, then you join, you add, like, you tag on another name at the beginning of the title. You're like,
[05:07.200 -> 05:10.720] ah, it was pretty big. Wait, like Aston Martin, Aramco, Cognizant, Formula One team?
[05:11.840 -> 05:15.440] Yeah, exactly. Just bolt-ons, bolt-ons, another couple million, another couple million,
[05:15.440 -> 05:22.960] another couple million. Yeah, exactly. Exactly like that. But the path was, the path, I think,
[05:23.600 -> 05:27.640] was fairly atypical because I asked a lot of people,
[05:27.640 -> 05:29.680] I was like, how do I want to get a job in Formula 1?
[05:29.680 -> 05:34.040] I'm reaching out to peers, mentors, none of them have the answer.
[05:34.040 -> 05:35.360] I'm like, what is the answer?
[05:35.360 -> 05:39.620] So I think a lot of people around the world, especially if you're in engineering or even
[05:39.620 -> 05:43.360] not even in engineering, you've probably heard of Formula SAE or Formula Student, which is
[05:43.360 -> 05:50.400] huge, which is huge for getting young people, predominantly engineers, but there's also scope for marketing,
[05:50.400 -> 05:52.880] electronics, you name it.
[05:52.880 -> 05:56.400] There's a lot, just as the sport of Formula One has so many people involved in it, so
[05:56.400 -> 05:59.020] does Formula SAE and Formula Student.
[05:59.020 -> 06:02.160] So that was kind of what ignited that thing.
[06:02.160 -> 06:06.000] And then through that, formula competition in michigan.
[06:06.600 -> 06:15.880] I met some people there and they were at a university called oxford brooks i knew it was an english team and i talked to the guys and i recognize like.
[06:16.420 -> 06:26.040] You don't sound english is like i'm from california what are you doing there is like well i came to the oxford brooks because i wanted to get a job in Formula One and I noticed that a lot of people are,
[06:27.120 -> 06:28.960] several people were going to university
[06:28.960 -> 06:31.200] to do master's degrees in the UK,
[06:31.200 -> 06:33.940] which had the benefit of also giving you access to a visa,
[06:33.940 -> 06:37.760] which is, for me, being an American or non-European,
[06:37.760 -> 06:39.960] you need a visa to work in the UK
[06:39.960 -> 06:41.440] or in most Formula One teams.
[06:41.440 -> 06:43.680] And depending on in Italy or Switzerland,
[06:43.680 -> 06:47.540] there's different visas, but that's a big barrier to entry for a lot of people
[06:47.540 -> 06:50.500] outside of where the Formula One teams are based
[06:50.500 -> 06:52.380] is do you have access to visas?
[06:52.380 -> 06:55.540] So I was like, you know what, that sounds great.
[06:55.540 -> 06:56.980] I'll go, I'll get some more experience.
[06:56.980 -> 06:58.420] I'll do a one year MSC.
[06:58.420 -> 06:59.700] I'll learn more about motorsport
[06:59.700 -> 07:01.100] from an academic point of view.
[07:01.100 -> 07:02.740] I'll maybe get some more experience.
[07:02.740 -> 07:05.460] I met some great people and ultimately,
[07:05.460 -> 07:08.000] summary of all those things landed me an interview
[07:08.000 -> 07:10.480] at Sahara Force India.
[07:10.480 -> 07:11.920] Wee.
[07:11.920 -> 07:12.760] Did it, I did it.
[07:12.760 -> 07:15.520] But yeah, so I got the job at Sahara Force India
[07:15.520 -> 07:17.940] as a vehicle dynamics placement.
[07:17.940 -> 07:19.320] So that was my road into it.
[07:19.320 -> 07:20.800] And so, a lot of people say,
[07:20.800 -> 07:22.920] where do you need to get experience?
[07:22.920 -> 07:26.240] Well, Formula One is not as old school as it used to be. There's a lot of people say, where do you need to get experience? Well, Formula One is not as old
[07:26.240 -> 07:30.640] school as it used to be. There's a lot of people that learn from the ground up and come up through
[07:31.280 -> 07:35.040] from being a truck driver all the way up to being a mechanic to a race engineer.
[07:35.600 -> 07:40.400] Those stories are happening less and less because of how specialized Formula One is getting
[07:40.400 -> 07:43.840] and how specific people's knowledge needs to be. So a lot of times when you're looking for,
[07:42.500 -> 07:45.120] and how specific people's knowledge needs to be. So a lot of times when you're looking for,
[07:45.120 -> 07:46.060] let's say engineering jobs,
[07:46.060 -> 07:49.660] people are looking for a bachelor's degree,
[07:49.660 -> 07:51.380] you know, a traditional four year
[07:51.380 -> 07:53.420] mechanical engineering degree,
[07:53.420 -> 07:55.380] master's degree, depending on the type of job.
[07:55.380 -> 07:59.140] So I was kind of in the right place at the right time,
[07:59.140 -> 08:01.340] the right experience and skills
[08:01.340 -> 08:02.600] that they needed for that job.
[08:02.600 -> 08:04.860] So that was my road from Texas,
[08:04.860 -> 08:09.600] where I lived my whole life until I was 25 until the UK and then a fast track academic
[08:09.600 -> 08:12.880] period of a year and then landing a job at Sahara Force India.
[08:12.880 -> 08:16.560] Blake, there's two questions that really come to mind from that one. Firstly,
[08:16.560 -> 08:20.880] a master's in motorsport. I know we've all seen those adverts, we've all seen
[08:20.880 -> 08:27.280] website articles or something about that, about a master's in motorsport engineering. And for many, it may sound like a big curiosity.
[08:27.280 -> 08:30.480] But genuinely, from the inside, is it useful?
[08:30.480 -> 08:31.280] Does it really help?
[08:31.280 -> 08:32.780] And what sort of stuff do you learn?
[08:32.780 -> 08:36.320] Because for one set of people, the best way to learn
[08:36.320 -> 08:37.440] is by doing it.
[08:37.440 -> 08:39.160] So do you get to do a lot of stuff?
[08:39.160 -> 08:42.360] That, Sumil, is an excellent question.
[08:42.360 -> 08:43.280] It's a great question.
[08:43.280 -> 08:48.720] And I'm in a couple of minds about it because my opinion,
[08:49.080 -> 08:53.280] let's say that you, any job, but we're going to be specifically talking about
[08:53.280 -> 08:57.560] from lawn, there are a couple of hundred engineering jobs, maybe a couple of
[08:57.560 -> 08:58.920] thousand at all.
[08:59.400 -> 09:00.520] Everybody wants to do them.
[09:00.540 -> 09:02.920] You know, so many people like I want to be a form of one engineer.
[09:03.280 -> 09:03.800] It's like, right.
[09:04.160 -> 09:09.200] You have to compete against, Let's put it in perspective. When I, my last year at Red Bull
[09:09.200 -> 09:13.920] Racing, when I was looking through the vehicle dynamics placement role for second year students,
[09:14.480 -> 09:23.280] I think there were something like 600 CVs for that job that made it through the initial HR
[09:23.280 -> 09:26.320] screening. You know, like checking, do they have the right
[09:26.320 -> 09:30.720] education level? You know, it's like, did they tick the right boxes for what we're looking for?
[09:30.720 -> 09:37.120] So imagine that there's 600 people. So to answer the question, does the motorsport master's degree
[09:37.120 -> 09:50.600] help? Yes, it does. But doing this motorsport master's degree alone is insufficient in order to, let's say, set yourself apart or be considered.
[09:50.600 -> 09:57.600] Because what most people are looking for, when I was interviewing new people coming in for these student placement jobs, is like,
[09:57.600 -> 10:05.060] what are you doing outside of university? If you show up and go to your courses and you get great marks, that's fine.
[10:05.060 -> 10:08.120] But what else are you doing?
[10:08.120 -> 10:09.460] How curious are you?
[10:09.460 -> 10:11.420] How enthusiastic are you?
[10:11.420 -> 10:16.220] Because if somebody that gets perfect marks and has very little curiosity outside of what
[10:16.220 -> 10:23.300] they're being, especially spoon-fed in their lectures, it's like, here's the lecture criteria,
[10:23.300 -> 10:27.240] here's what we're going through. If people are only doing that,
[10:27.240 -> 10:28.440] you're not setting yourself apart
[10:28.440 -> 10:30.580] because there's 30 other people from your year
[10:30.580 -> 10:32.040] that have applied for this job
[10:32.040 -> 10:34.520] that have the exact same academic experience as you.
[10:34.520 -> 10:35.720] What else are you doing?
[10:37.040 -> 10:38.840] So that was important.
[10:38.840 -> 10:40.660] But I will say,
[10:41.760 -> 10:44.320] the one year, the master's degree,
[10:44.320 -> 10:48.240] there are a lot of very clever lectures. You do learn a lot,
[10:48.240 -> 10:52.960] but just doing the course alone is insufficient. You have to go above and beyond. And that's true
[10:52.960 -> 10:58.800] for everything where there's a very high performance and very high demand. Teams are
[10:58.800 -> 11:02.880] looking for the best of the best of the best. Just being one of 30 people that happen to show up and
[11:02.880 -> 11:10.160] do the same degree as a bunch of other young men and women isn't enough to set yourself apart to be considered even for an
[11:10.160 -> 11:16.080] interview. So I think that's kind of my caution. Like, yes, it's very useful. Can you make use of
[11:16.080 -> 11:20.720] it? Absolutely. Can you use it to elevate yourself? Yeah, but you need to do a lot more than just that.
[11:21.280 -> 11:31.360] I think it makes it even more incredible to see what you've done in that case, than using that platform to go on and let's say work for two very well-run teams, let's put it
[11:31.360 -> 11:36.400] that way, which brings me on to Force India and your role as a vehicle dynamics engineer. We've
[11:36.400 -> 11:41.200] all heard of that before, we've all heard of that term before, but just really on a daily basis,
[11:41.200 -> 11:46.160] just what decisions do you have to make? And I'm also very curious about how do tasks
[11:46.160 -> 11:50.320] get allotted as well, because generally, there might be a technical director who comes up with
[11:50.320 -> 11:55.120] a car concept and then do you get allocated tasks on the basis that okay, today, you've got to work
[11:55.120 -> 11:58.560] on finding an X solution to a Y problem or something quite like that?
[11:59.120 -> 12:03.120] That's another great question. And it varies a lot. And I'll take you,
[12:03.120 -> 12:09.120] we'll compare and contrast because at Force Force India I was a vehicle dynamics engineer for a relatively short period before becoming
[12:09.120 -> 12:15.760] trackside performance engineer for Dureston and Perez but the Force India was a really small team
[12:15.760 -> 12:21.680] back in the day. Our entire vehicle dynamics group which included their very young not yet
[12:21.680 -> 12:25.120] existent simulator program, model development,
[12:26.640 -> 12:30.280] this vehicle dynamics performance simulation engineering.
[12:30.280 -> 12:34.800] In general, vehicle dynamics encapsulates tires,
[12:34.800 -> 12:37.440] suspension, simulations,
[12:37.440 -> 12:39.120] so how all those things come together,
[12:39.120 -> 12:42.320] and also a little bit of how you deal with information
[12:42.320 -> 12:44.920] that you get from, let's say, the wind tunnel or aero
[12:44.920 -> 12:47.720] to help make aero maps that you use to run simulations
[12:47.720 -> 12:48.800] to inform performance,
[12:48.800 -> 12:50.600] because you can't run a lap time simulation
[12:50.600 -> 12:52.840] or a performance simulation of a car
[12:52.840 -> 12:54.040] without all this information.
[12:54.040 -> 12:55.000] So the Vehicle Dynamics Group
[12:55.000 -> 12:57.480] kind of pulls all this stuff together.
[12:57.480 -> 13:02.160] They have expertise in not only suspension, the tires,
[13:02.160 -> 13:04.580] the vehicle dynamics models, the dynamic simulations,
[13:04.580 -> 13:08.600] and they also have a really good feel for how to use the aerodynamic data and then how to
[13:08.600 -> 13:13.320] set up the car. So that's a kind of a requirement or a set of skills that
[13:13.320 -> 13:17.720] those need. In order of what kind of jobs would you do, vehicle dynamics roles tend
[13:17.720 -> 13:22.600] to have a couple of different threads that they work on. So you'll have
[13:22.600 -> 13:38.120] long-term, very long-term, which is future vehicle concepts and these people make it maybe one person that's only working on long term concepts or maybe somebody who's jumping around between concepts you have a middle term which is like we've got a new package and update coming out in two months.
[13:38.720 -> 13:47.440] What do we need to do that are you feeding back the right parameters to the suspension designers or whoever else? Are you defining targets for aerodynamics to start developing?
[13:47.440 -> 13:52.640] Right. We need to add more load in the low speed entry. Can you guys add that? Because
[13:52.640 -> 13:56.240] this is what our results have found. And then there's day-to-day stuff like
[13:56.880 -> 14:02.640] something terrible happened at the weekend in terms of car performance. Go away. It's Monday.
[14:02.640 -> 14:06.200] Go away and look at this and come up with a solution or find out as much as you can
[14:06.200 -> 14:09.960] by next week or tomorrow, you know,
[14:09.960 -> 14:11.960] so that's kind of like the three things,
[14:13.080 -> 14:14.800] the development scales and then the scope
[14:14.800 -> 14:16.960] of what a vehicle dynamics engineer would do.
[14:16.960 -> 14:19.560] So it's very much concerned
[14:20.620 -> 14:23.440] with bringing the performance aspects of the car together.
[14:23.440 -> 14:43.040] So in terms of, if you ask somebody, what's the sensitivity, how much lap time does this give you? Does it sometimes feel like with so many people working on just one final piece of output,
[14:43.040 -> 14:48.560] that there are many people tugging in the opposite directions? Because just creating a Formula One car from a project management
[14:48.560 -> 14:54.080] standpoint is a marvel. You've got so many people working on just one thing. So does
[14:54.080 -> 14:57.920] it often happen that you don't feel motivated because maybe what you're working on isn't
[14:57.920 -> 15:02.040] directly going to be added on the car or may or may not be there? Does that sort of element
[15:02.040 -> 15:04.120] also come about at times?
[15:04.120 -> 15:09.040] I think that's a very personal, specific question, you know, like depending on different
[15:09.040 -> 15:14.400] people's motivation structures. But to answer the first bit, yes, you would every now and then find
[15:14.400 -> 15:19.520] that people might be pulling in different directions, let's say. But that's the role
[15:19.520 -> 15:24.960] of the person you mentioned, for example, the technical director to say, listen, this is the
[15:24.960 -> 15:25.660] objective.
[15:25.660 -> 15:27.420] I've listened to all of your feedback.
[15:27.420 -> 15:31.240] I've digested all the information that you've given me.
[15:31.240 -> 15:34.000] We should go down this direction because at the end of the day, one person has to make
[15:34.000 -> 15:35.000] the call.
[15:35.000 -> 15:40.000] And I think that's what a good technical director can do is take in all the information, listen
[15:40.000 -> 15:43.920] to people not be hung up too much on what they think they know.
[15:43.920 -> 15:45.500] And then then have people
[15:45.500 -> 15:46.960] below them that they can trust.
[15:46.960 -> 15:50.200] Because ultimately, that's if a technical director doesn't trust the people below them
[15:50.200 -> 15:55.760] and they are making different decisions than their information.
[15:55.760 -> 16:01.840] But at the same time, I will counter that statement to say that as much as we like to
[16:01.840 -> 16:07.680] think that Formula One is a very measured and calculated endeavor,
[16:07.680 -> 16:13.660] there are so many human factors involved in it, and there are so many judgment calls because
[16:13.660 -> 16:18.060] we do not have all the information, we do not have all the answers all the time.
[16:18.060 -> 16:32.440] So a technical director is often making assessments based on both qualitative and quantitative things. And their answer is a product of their experience and their, yeah,
[16:32.440 -> 16:35.880] ultimately their experience and the information they've been given. So I
[16:35.880 -> 16:41.560] think that's one of the reasons why you see paradigm shifts in performance. Teams
[16:41.560 -> 16:44.760] have different philosophies, teams have different technical structures, they have
[16:44.760 -> 16:47.080] different managerial structures,
[16:47.080 -> 16:48.480] and we don't have all the data.
[16:48.480 -> 16:50.300] Formula One engineers don't have all the answers,
[16:50.300 -> 16:53.520] there is so much smoke, there is so much chaos.
[16:53.520 -> 16:54.920] And I think that's what makes it interesting,
[16:54.920 -> 16:57.520] because if it was calculated, we would rock up,
[16:57.520 -> 16:59.560] and we would watch the same thing play over and over
[16:59.560 -> 17:01.460] and over every weekend.
[17:01.460 -> 17:03.160] Arguably, we might see that this season
[17:03.160 -> 17:05.240] in terms of going into the field.
[17:05.240 -> 17:15.100] But at the same time, that result is a product of that team probably being relatively insensitive
[17:15.100 -> 17:20.920] to a change in how much they have to spend and adapting to spending less, better than
[17:20.920 -> 17:27.080] other teams and having minimal impact on their figures. And the same thing is true for Cindia.
[17:27.080 -> 17:32.760] Now Aston Martin, Cognizant, Aramco, so on and so forth.
[17:32.760 -> 17:38.240] That team, they bit the bullet last year and they've put a lot of eggs in baskets.
[17:38.240 -> 17:48.840] I guarantee you a lot of that is calculated quantitatively, but there were a lot of qualitative judgments made in order to arrive at a car
[17:48.840 -> 17:53.880] with that vast of a performance increase in a single season.
[17:53.880 -> 17:57.240] Well, some might say it's the effect of some crack.
[17:57.240 -> 18:00.360] They got my crack in and that's been helping out a little bit.
[18:00.360 -> 18:01.360] Yeah, potentially.
[18:01.360 -> 18:08.200] Dan Fallows, another excellent aerodynamicist who's spent many years working on several championship-winning
[18:08.200 -> 18:09.720] cars and going through the troubles
[18:09.720 -> 18:12.840] of very uncompetitive cars.
[18:12.840 -> 18:14.760] So yeah, it's not one person.
[18:14.760 -> 18:16.440] It is always a group and several people.
[18:16.440 -> 18:21.360] But the recipe there looks very impressive.
[18:21.360 -> 18:23.440] On that, Blake, I really wanted to know this,
[18:23.440 -> 18:26.040] because I've not had this chat with Kunal as well yet,
[18:26.040 -> 18:29.880] but when you're in the technical side on a team like Force,
[18:29.880 -> 18:31.040] in a team like Force India,
[18:31.040 -> 18:34.160] where there's been lots of well-documented history
[18:34.160 -> 18:35.240] of budget constraints,
[18:35.240 -> 18:37.240] where you've heard a lot about the team saying,
[18:37.240 -> 18:40.240] okay, there have been times where we've had to pick updates
[18:40.240 -> 18:41.080] based on our budgets.
[18:41.080 -> 18:43.280] Again, same thing with all the teams will be doing now
[18:43.280 -> 18:44.920] because they have a budget cap.
[18:44.920 -> 18:48.640] To what extent was that true? And did you folks genuinely see
[18:48.640 -> 18:52.800] updates that you had to drop because it was probably not the most cost effective idea? Or
[18:52.800 -> 18:55.760] there's, let's say, another competing idea that would offer more bang for your buck?
[18:57.040 -> 19:04.480] Absolutely. For Cindia, I always thought was the best budget team out there. And I think that team,
[19:04.480 -> 19:06.140] in whatever incarnation they've been
[19:06.140 -> 19:10.120] have always had a very strong ability to do quite a lot
[19:10.120 -> 19:14.040] with relatively little in terms of cash.
[19:14.040 -> 19:17.000] So yeah, there was times to put it in perspective.
[19:17.000 -> 19:20.160] At Force India, you might have a couple of floor updates
[19:20.160 -> 19:22.440] a season in the time or front wings, let's say,
[19:22.440 -> 19:23.880] front wings or floors,
[19:23.880 -> 19:33.440] those tended to bring the most performance in terms of load and characteristics in the past. Back in the V8 days, pre V6 hybrid,
[19:33.440 -> 19:37.440] you know, we'd be lucky to see a new floor front wing a couple of times in the season.
[19:38.640 -> 19:43.280] Lo and behold, you show up in the airport with Red Bull and every weekend they have two or three
[19:43.280 -> 19:49.080] front wings and boxes. Most of those are new specifications, so they're literally, they're able to scatter fire the
[19:49.080 -> 19:53.160] problems whereas you have a team like Force India, you don't have the cash, you don't
[19:53.160 -> 19:57.520] have the manufacturing capability in-house at the time, all their big laminates were
[19:57.520 -> 19:58.520] done out of house.
[19:58.520 -> 20:03.000] Maybe they did front wings and stuff in-house, but you know, they had much different constraints
[20:03.000 -> 20:07.260] and it's like if you brought a front wing out in hand luggage, you felt like a
[20:07.260 -> 20:07.920] rock star.
[20:07.940 -> 20:11.520] Whereas you look at, you know, you go to the airport and you see Red Bull and
[20:11.520 -> 20:13.660] they've got two new front wings to test an FP one.
[20:14.020 -> 20:15.820] You know, and when I moved to Red Bull, that was the thing.
[20:15.820 -> 20:19.780] It's like every weekend we'd go down to goods in before the race, uh, before we
[20:19.780 -> 20:22.440] got in the van to the airport and say, what are we taking to the track?
[20:22.440 -> 20:25.920] And it's like, you know, barge boards, front wings.
[20:25.920 -> 20:28.280] It's just like the difference,
[20:28.280 -> 20:31.000] the contrast between those two environments was vast.
[20:31.000 -> 20:35.880] But I have to say, there were a lot of things
[20:36.860 -> 20:39.160] after leaving Force India and going to Red Bull
[20:39.160 -> 20:42.160] that I, in terms of approaches and methodologies
[20:42.160 -> 20:43.720] and how you approach problems,
[20:43.720 -> 20:46.800] that I took that I learned from my peers at force india.
[20:47.220 -> 20:58.140] And i feel like we applied those things at red bull maybe they weren't significant things but they were i don't talk about specifics but they were definitely several things that in terms of a process and tracking things,
[20:58.160 -> 21:03.300] red bull didn't have to worry about because i could just throw it out to do it again and again and again and testing and was like no well.
[21:03.640 -> 21:06.080] All the stuff is there we just have to keep track of it and look at this.
[21:06.080 -> 21:08.440] And it's like, oh, look, here's here's things.
[21:08.440 -> 21:14.200] So those ideas and concepts of being efficient definitely apply.
[21:14.400 -> 21:18.440] And maybe some people when you're in a cash rich situation, you don't have to
[21:18.440 -> 21:22.080] think about those so much, but definitely I learned a lot.
[21:22.720 -> 21:25.760] On that subject, I really want to talk a little bit more
[21:25.760 -> 21:27.720] about these upgrades that you mentioned.
[21:27.720 -> 21:29.720] When you bring them along, we've often
[21:29.720 -> 21:31.800] heard teams' technical directors say that, oh, we've
[21:31.800 -> 21:34.420] been planning this upgrade from before the start of the season
[21:34.420 -> 21:35.440] and all that stuff.
[21:35.440 -> 21:39.000] But the lead times, generally, for an in-season upgrade,
[21:39.000 -> 21:40.920] when do you start to figure out the problem?
[21:40.920 -> 21:43.360] And how long does it actually take, generally,
[21:43.360 -> 21:44.560] to get an upgrade out there?
[21:44.560 -> 21:48.560] Because, of course, it's very specific based on the circumstance as well. If there's a major problem
[21:48.560 -> 21:53.440] you tend to investigate a little further and get on it a little quickly. But is there any lead time
[21:53.440 -> 21:57.760] difference as well between let's say a Force India and a Red Bull or was there when you were
[21:57.760 -> 22:02.720] when you were at those places? Yeah in terms of a lead time yes there would be a difference but
[22:02.720 -> 22:07.320] to go back to that question there's two kind of upgrade regimes that you've got.
[22:08.960 -> 22:12.800] I'm not sure it's entirely true now, but say, for example.
[22:14.840 -> 22:18.160] One of the you'd have usually how it work is before this year,
[22:18.160 -> 22:21.560] you'd have three in season tests, right, in order.
[22:22.840 -> 22:25.000] For them to produce those items,
[22:26.060 -> 22:29.160] to have them designed and built in time for the test,
[22:29.160 -> 22:30.860] there's sufficient time by the time
[22:30.860 -> 22:32.820] winter testing had started,
[22:32.820 -> 22:36.620] teams had already planned a race one upgrade package.
[22:36.620 -> 22:38.400] So imagine this, you've got,
[22:38.400 -> 22:40.900] let's say between the first test and the first race
[22:40.900 -> 22:43.040] used to be about a month, right?
[22:43.980 -> 22:47.680] So by the time that you had those components built
[22:47.680 -> 22:49.960] on that car for that month of winter testing,
[22:49.960 -> 22:51.600] you had enough time to say, well,
[22:51.600 -> 22:53.900] we've already found more performance in the wind tunnel.
[22:53.900 -> 22:56.440] We've already designed, we're starting to build our race one
[22:56.440 -> 22:56.960] package.
[22:56.960 -> 23:01.480] So that kind of gives you an idea of the time scale of that.
[23:01.480 -> 23:03.780] The next thing is, throughout the season,
[23:03.780 -> 23:07.720] there are different events that have different requirements from a performance point of view.
[23:07.720 -> 23:14.360] A classic example is your first super high downforce circuit always used to be Monaco.
[23:14.360 -> 23:16.360] It was, you know, race 5 or race 6.
[23:16.360 -> 23:22.160] So, those big, dirty, really inefficient components that you would put on the car from Monaco,
[23:22.160 -> 23:25.460] because despite Monaco being a low-speed circuit,
[23:25.460 -> 23:28.200] it wants as much downforce as you can take,
[23:28.200 -> 23:30.520] and it doesn't care about how much drag you put on the car
[23:30.520 -> 23:31.720] to a certain point.
[23:31.720 -> 23:34.520] So, you know, like these big rear wings,
[23:34.520 -> 23:37.640] all the bits and pieces when you had, you know,
[23:37.640 -> 23:38.460] what do you call them?
[23:38.460 -> 23:40.360] Beam wings, the monkey seats, and all this stuff,
[23:40.360 -> 23:41.760] all these really inefficient bits
[23:41.760 -> 23:44.320] that added dirty, gross downforce,
[23:44.320 -> 23:46.000] you wouldn't really be focusing on those
[23:46.000 -> 23:49.200] for Barcelona Test or Australia Race.
[23:49.200 -> 23:50.040] You'd be saving those.
[23:50.040 -> 23:52.000] So those things are in long-term.
[23:52.000 -> 23:55.120] The next one is your really low downforce stuff,
[23:55.120 -> 23:57.240] such as your Monza and Spa.
[23:57.240 -> 23:59.440] Those were typically around the summer break,
[23:59.440 -> 24:01.220] race 10 or so.
[24:01.220 -> 24:02.760] So you've got this kind of two things.
[24:02.760 -> 24:04.360] You've got the long-term development,
[24:04.360 -> 24:08.600] which is tied to calendar-specific events that you know, it's like, right, we need to start working
[24:08.600 -> 24:13.400] on these supervision bits for here. You know, these, these are our targets for this race.
[24:13.400 -> 24:17.440] These are targets for this race. And then there's problems and troubleshooting. And
[24:17.440 -> 24:23.680] you might find that, let's take, for example, the, in the case of Mercedes last season,
[24:23.680 -> 24:26.680] you know, the, the, the problems that they had related to porpoising
[24:26.680 -> 24:32.320] in their car's operation envelope, they couldn't get out of those problems very quickly because
[24:32.320 -> 24:33.320] they were very costly.
[24:33.320 -> 24:38.480] It's a lot of speculation, but it looks like a lot of the internal rear suspension was
[24:38.480 -> 24:42.080] possibly a thing, so they didn't have enough travel to move their car out of that certain
[24:42.080 -> 24:43.080] region.
[24:43.080 -> 24:46.440] So reinvesting in rear suspension, kinematics, and rockers,
[24:46.440 -> 24:48.100] those are not only very expensive,
[24:48.100 -> 24:50.200] but they can be very long lead time,
[24:50.200 -> 24:51.880] depending on the construction method
[24:51.880 -> 24:53.220] and requirements of them.
[24:53.220 -> 24:55.400] So, you know, you can get yourself into issues,
[24:55.400 -> 24:57.860] but like you said, you've got to diagnose,
[24:59.760 -> 25:01.600] develop a new solution,
[25:01.600 -> 25:03.240] and then design and build the components
[25:03.240 -> 25:04.160] to solve that solution.
[25:04.160 -> 25:09.600] So sometimes you might, like let's say you have an issue and your floor is stalling.
[25:09.600 -> 25:12.680] Maybe you just have to cut strakes in the diffuser, which was often a thing.
[25:12.680 -> 25:13.680] That's easy.
[25:13.680 -> 25:16.040] Like, you know, you can do that between FP1 and FP2.
[25:16.040 -> 25:19.440] That's like, you know, the quick on the fly, like floor stalling through the high speed
[25:19.440 -> 25:20.440] corners, right?
[25:20.440 -> 25:22.840] We need to take 10 mil off of the strakes in the diffuser.
[25:22.840 -> 25:23.840] Okay, fine.
[25:23.840 -> 25:24.840] That's normal.
[25:24.840 -> 25:26.640] And you like next week is like, I would gloom back on, forget it.
[25:27.520 -> 25:29.200] But like, that's the level of stuff.
[25:29.200 -> 25:31.920] So you have this super rough and ready approach,
[25:31.920 -> 25:35.200] which are things that you know that you can tune in situ.
[25:35.200 -> 25:36.880] And then you've got these things where it's like,
[25:38.320 -> 25:41.200] we need 15 millimeters more rewrite height envelope.
[25:42.400 -> 25:45.080] And the way we've packaged all the internal dampers,
[25:45.080 -> 25:48.480] everything else, we can't do that with this packaging.
[25:48.480 -> 25:50.080] What do we do?
[25:50.080 -> 25:51.960] And then you have cost cap on top of that.
[25:51.960 -> 25:54.680] And then you really put teams that,
[25:54.680 -> 25:56.200] if you hedge your bets too heavily
[25:56.200 -> 25:58.340] and put all of your eggs in certain baskets,
[25:58.340 -> 26:00.520] especially in new regulation periods,
[26:00.520 -> 26:02.880] you can struggle massively as a result of that.
[26:02.880 -> 26:09.520] That just gets me so curious on your old team, Bull Racing because as of this moment in time they don't seem like they have
[26:09.520 -> 26:14.480] any major conceptual issues with their car but on the subject of developing your car for specific
[26:14.480 -> 26:19.600] races again I can imagine that planning might have gone ahead I think a long while ago around
[26:19.600 -> 26:23.920] about the start of the season that hey when we go to Monaco we need a certain upgrade and Red Bull
[26:23.920 -> 26:25.960] Racing don't really have the wind tunnel time
[26:25.960 -> 26:26.960] this year for that.
[26:26.960 -> 26:30.400] So it's not clearly affected the car at the start of the year.
[26:30.400 -> 26:32.680] Do you think it'll hinder their performance at the end,
[26:32.680 -> 26:35.560] that they won't be able to develop maybe as quickly as,
[26:35.560 -> 26:37.720] say, for instance, an Aston Martin, perhaps?
[26:37.720 -> 26:38.520] It's possible.
[26:38.520 -> 26:40.200] And it depends on, yeah, because Aston
[26:40.200 -> 26:44.400] will have, due to the sliding scale of development
[26:44.400 -> 26:46.560] where you finish last season dictates how many
[26:46.560 -> 26:51.360] aero development points or wind tunnel hours or CFD hours that you have available at your disposal.
[26:51.360 -> 26:57.360] I think we will potentially see Red Bull tailing off in terms of their gap to everyone else
[26:57.360 -> 27:00.880] throughout the season, especially because they have a cost cap penalty breach that they've
[27:00.880 -> 27:07.720] incurred, which is further reduced there. But at the same time, I think we're looking at, are we going to have a brawn championship
[27:07.720 -> 27:13.420] year where they started out with this insane concept and they had no cash or funds to develop
[27:13.420 -> 27:16.480] and everybody catches up by the end of the season?
[27:16.480 -> 27:24.080] Or is the advantage going to be quite strong and do they have it locked in indefinitely?
[27:24.080 -> 27:25.000] I don't know.
[27:25.000 -> 27:30.160] It's really hard to say, but in terms of like specifics like Monaco and your spa, those
[27:30.160 -> 27:32.040] are things that you know are coming.
[27:32.040 -> 27:35.120] So you've budgeted for them like, right, we need probably this is where we need to have
[27:35.120 -> 27:36.760] our most efficient bits.
[27:36.760 -> 27:41.040] This is where we can have the high downforce packages for your Singapore's, your Monaco's
[27:41.040 -> 27:42.400] and so on.
[27:42.400 -> 27:50.380] But I think it's completely possible and for me to speculate whether or not people can catch up, I hope they can,
[27:50.380 -> 27:54.400] because I just want to watch some good racing and I don't want to restrict that
[27:54.400 -> 27:56.080] racing to watching the midfield race each other.
[27:56.080 -> 27:56.640] I want to see.
[27:57.440 -> 28:00.440] Ferrari Mercedes Aston, but will they be able to catch up?
[28:00.680 -> 28:06.600] I really wish I could say, and I they can. But maybe they've just created
[28:06.600 -> 28:08.520] a monster this year.
[28:08.520 -> 28:11.800] Maybe are you still doubting it at this point?
[28:11.800 -> 28:17.080] Let's put it this way.
[28:17.080 -> 28:23.240] The car is so good it leaves you shell shocked. That's the point.
[28:23.240 -> 28:30.240] The car is phenomenal. And in the races, they are conserving the pace quite reasonably. The gap that
[28:30.240 -> 28:35.280] we've seen, from a performance point of view, if you look at the performance gap in qualifying,
[28:35.280 -> 28:39.520] that's not where the performance is. Yes, they have a reasonable qualifying gap, but it's quite
[28:39.520 -> 28:45.120] similar to where they're at now. That's what I'm studying on my laptop right now is the
[28:45.120 -> 28:50.260] top teams performance gaps, their performance differences in the race this year. The qualifying
[28:50.260 -> 28:54.600] gaps are similar to the end of last season on average, not much different. It's literally
[28:54.600 -> 29:00.580] what have they done to let them go faster for longer? Red Bull, very efficient concept
[29:00.580 -> 29:01.880] this year.
[29:01.880 -> 29:07.120] Aston, although a less efficient concept in terms of drag,
[29:07.120 -> 29:09.120] very high performance package as a
[29:09.120 -> 29:11.280] whole. So let's
[29:11.280 -> 29:13.680] see. And I don't, you know what?
[29:13.680 -> 29:16.160] The more that I think I know,
[29:16.160 -> 29:18.160] the more that I realize I don't know.
[29:18.160 -> 29:20.080] So I'm happy to just let this one play
[29:20.080 -> 29:21.840] out. I'm not going to make any huge
[29:21.840 -> 29:23.120] predictions. Do I think people will
[29:23.120 -> 29:24.640] catch up to Red Bull?
[29:24.640 -> 29:28.960] I hope so. But the gap they have right now looks massive.
[29:28.960 -> 29:36.120] Well, finally, it's what, first time in 11 years that you get to sit back and have sort
[29:36.120 -> 29:39.960] of no skin in the game. So that must be a little bit relaxing as well.
[29:39.960 -> 29:46.280] I'm enjoying it. I say that, I guarantee you, I am working probably more hours now
[29:47.480 -> 29:50.120] than I was as a trackside performance engineer.
[29:52.040 -> 29:52.880] It never stops.
[29:52.880 -> 29:56.440] The content life, content life never stops.
[29:56.440 -> 29:58.480] No, but the quality of it as well.
[29:58.480 -> 30:01.200] I'm amazed at how you're able to constantly churn out
[30:01.200 -> 30:02.880] such great ones all this while,
[30:02.880 -> 30:03.920] especially on your Twitter,
[30:03.920 -> 30:06.400] because the way you're active and constantly analyzing everything that
[30:06.400 -> 30:11.020] kind of goes on in not that's a real time but thereabouts 20 minutes after
[30:11.020 -> 30:13.680] something's happened we see one of your tweets and it's pretty amazing to see
[30:13.680 -> 30:17.100] that but I want to go back to the trackside performance engineer part
[30:17.100 -> 30:20.220] because that's how I kind of got to know about you in the first place Blake
[30:20.220 -> 30:25.080] where I remember you had posted out a video I think some time earlier
[30:25.080 -> 30:30.000] last year explaining about more of what you do, what your page is about and you
[30:30.000 -> 30:33.280] mentioned that you of course have worked as a track site performance engineer. I've
[30:33.280 -> 30:36.240] heard of that position before. I'm assuming that a lot of our listeners
[30:36.240 -> 30:41.840] have as well but really on a daily basis just what just what sort of work is it?
[30:41.840 -> 30:45.240] Is it tracking driver data and what I'm really intrigued about is how much the drivers actually value that sort of work is it? Is it tracking driver data? And what I'm really intrigued about
[30:45.240 -> 30:47.040] is how much do the drivers actually
[30:47.040 -> 30:48.480] value that sort of feedback?
[30:48.480 -> 30:51.240] Because there might be deferring schools of thought, right?
[30:51.240 -> 30:53.200] That, hey, you can't tell me more about driving.
[30:53.200 -> 30:54.040] I'm the one driving.
[30:54.040 -> 30:54.840] You haven't.
[30:54.840 -> 30:57.480] That's an actually great question.
[30:57.480 -> 30:59.240] And I think different drivers will
[30:59.240 -> 31:00.240] have different responses to that.
[31:00.240 -> 31:02.080] But to go back and answer the first question,
[31:02.080 -> 31:04.280] the performance engineer, I like to think
[31:04.280 -> 31:09.360] of a performance engineer as a race engineer. Because let's for example, my title at Red Bull was
[31:10.480 -> 31:16.320] race engineering, race engineer dash performance. And then there was race engineer dash operation,
[31:16.320 -> 31:24.160] which is the race engineer. So the performance engineer is like the more detail oriented
[31:24.800 -> 31:27.600] version of a race engineer was the race engineer is more concerned
[31:27.600 -> 31:32.800] with the operation of the car, the communication with the driver, taking in like what upgrades
[31:32.800 -> 31:37.040] are coming, do these upgrades make sense, and they're really the point of contact overall
[31:37.040 -> 31:40.320] for the car, but they lean very heavily on their performance engineer.
[31:40.320 -> 31:44.560] Now, during a race weekend, a performance engineer will do a multitude of tasks.
[31:44.560 -> 31:49.480] A lot of that, as you alluded to, is driver performance and driver to some effect driver coaching,
[31:49.480 -> 31:54.760] but a lot of it's more performance based than, uh, but it depends on the driver as well.
[31:54.760 -> 31:59.360] The other bit about that is the performance engine will have tasks such as often fuel
[31:59.360 -> 32:08.160] management, which is, um, sometimes done by the engine performance engineer, but often on the chassis side by the chassis performance engineer breaks.
[32:08.160 -> 32:19.120] So the management of break blanking breaks operation break performance break balance mapping so that the maps that the drivers have to adjust their break balance on the fly the differential.
[32:19.120 -> 32:26.680] And then lots of liaising with how the data comes off of the car. Is the data make sense?
[32:26.680 -> 32:27.520] Is it working?
[32:27.520 -> 32:28.340] Do you need to chase it?
[32:28.340 -> 32:29.960] Is it like, hey, this sensor's wrong, can you check?
[32:29.960 -> 32:31.320] Because a lot of the time, the performance engineer
[32:31.320 -> 32:33.520] is the first person that notices that stuff.
[32:35.240 -> 32:36.800] And then also just like talking to the driver.
[32:36.800 -> 32:40.240] So for example, when the driver comes in an FP1 or FP2,
[32:40.240 -> 32:41.740] the performance engineer will be on the radio
[32:41.740 -> 32:44.160] to the race engineer as soon as that lap is done saying,
[32:44.160 -> 32:50.180] here's what I've noticed, here's what I what i think you need to be very concise and precise about what information you feed the race engineer.
[32:50.540 -> 32:57.540] So that he can better inform the driver and the drivers in the garage the performance engineer will be doing quite a bit of the talking to the driver.
[32:58.120 -> 33:03.900] I'm in the same goes for qualifying everything else but when you see like for example the computer screens up in front of the driver.
[33:04.080 -> 33:06.960] But when you see, like, for example, the computer screens up in front of the driver, and then going through it, that's often the performance engineer walking them through,
[33:07.680 -> 33:12.560] often their comparison to their teammate, which is the person that you have the most data about,
[33:12.560 -> 33:14.880] and often your most relevant point of reference.
[33:14.880 -> 33:20.480] So then in terms of drivers, how perceptive are they to your feedback? Because performance
[33:20.480 -> 33:23.760] engineers probably don't have much experience driving a Formula One car, which is fine.
[33:25.280 -> 33:30.320] Good performance engineers can spot nuance in the data. They have a good understanding of what all
[33:30.320 -> 33:35.520] the squiggly lines mean, and they can notice stuff like, okay, I noticed that you're, say,
[33:35.520 -> 33:40.800] for example, pushing corner entries too much and losing out on the exit. The driver is searching
[33:40.800 -> 33:46.040] for grip and they're doing that, but you could say, ah, I've noticed that your teammate is not doing that.
[33:47.120 -> 33:48.800] Obviously, if there's something your driver's doing well,
[33:48.800 -> 33:49.960] you might not just say it out loud.
[33:49.960 -> 33:52.440] You might say, hey, you're absolutely destroying
[33:52.440 -> 33:53.280] your teammate here.
[33:53.280 -> 33:54.280] You're not gonna say that on the radio
[33:54.280 -> 33:55.680] because then you're the other side of the garage.
[33:55.680 -> 33:57.800] But in the evening, you'll have discussions
[33:57.800 -> 33:59.360] with the other side of the garage.
[33:59.360 -> 34:00.840] I noticed this, what about that?
[34:00.840 -> 34:01.680] What about that?
[34:01.680 -> 34:03.700] And it's like a back and forth exchange.
[34:03.700 -> 34:06.560] But some drivers more receptive to feedback than others.
[34:08.400 -> 34:11.160] And it also depends on how good the performance engineer is
[34:11.720 -> 34:14.120] and their experience level, because let's put an example.
[34:14.120 -> 34:17.400] My first year at Force India, when I was Paul D'Aresta's performance engineer,
[34:17.720 -> 34:20.160] I was very new to the game.
[34:20.160 -> 34:23.880] I leaned very heavily on the other performance engineer to for insight.
[34:24.400 -> 34:28.400] I leaned on my race engineer quite heavily, who's interestingly the race engineer I worked
[34:28.400 -> 34:33.300] with my entire time, both for Cindy and Red Bull, who's Max's current race engineer.
[34:33.300 -> 34:37.080] He was the race engineer I worked with for my entire six years across two teams at the
[34:37.080 -> 34:38.080] track.
[34:38.080 -> 34:42.080] So it's cool seeing that dynamic still.
[34:42.080 -> 34:46.280] But I leaned quite heavily and learned quite a lot from GP about performance engineering
[34:46.280 -> 34:50.320] because that was him in a past life was performance engineer.
[34:50.320 -> 34:54.800] Finding things that are important to discuss and understanding what's not important to
[34:54.800 -> 34:59.320] discuss at the right times is very crucial for performance engineering.
[34:59.320 -> 35:03.680] A lot of it is think about what you're going to say, think about again, is it worth saying
[35:03.680 -> 35:06.080] out loud and then say it?
[35:06.080 -> 35:07.600] And then learning that was quite difficult
[35:07.600 -> 35:09.100] because I just, I get excited.
[35:09.960 -> 35:11.920] We could kinda like to talk, so.
[35:11.920 -> 35:13.700] With a character like Max, I can imagine
[35:13.700 -> 35:16.600] that might've been tricky because he's straight up,
[35:16.600 -> 35:18.040] no nonsense, and.
[35:18.040 -> 35:23.040] Yeah, but that makes a really easy driver to work with.
[35:23.040 -> 35:25.120] In terms of technical detail,
[35:30.240 -> 35:34.640] he's very good. He's not like he's not the most super, super technical, but at the same time, he's a very technical driver. He can give you this is the main problem. This is bothering me.
[35:34.640 -> 35:38.480] And, you know, those are the kind of the litmus test is like, this is a big problem. We have to
[35:38.480 -> 35:42.560] fix this. This is slightly annoying. Can we do anything about that? And then that makes it very
[35:42.560 -> 35:50.100] easy. The communication loop with him, for example, was pretty straightforward. It's like, what do you think? It looks like
[35:50.100 -> 35:54.100] you're dragging the rear brakes into turn 10. He's like, yeah, that's bothering me.
[35:54.100 -> 35:57.220] Can you fix that? Like, yeah, we can fix that. Cool. I'm like, what about turn three? Is
[35:57.220 -> 36:00.900] that problematic? No, it's fine. Okay. Well, I was like, well, it's hurting the tires.
[36:00.900 -> 36:07.040] Can you take a little bit more forward here? Yes, yes, I can or no, I can't because I'm on the edge of front locking.
[36:07.040 -> 36:09.120] You know, those feedback loops were like super tight.
[36:09.760 -> 36:13.120] It was working with Max is probably the easiest and it also helps that he was.
[36:15.040 -> 36:21.120] Insanely fast 95% of the time, you know, so it sometimes it makes it difficult when you
[36:21.120 -> 36:24.640] your car is the reference to find performance, but then then you have to get better at finding
[36:24.640 -> 36:25.740] the details and you can't just be like, but then you have to get better at finding the details.
[36:25.740 -> 36:28.400] You can't just be like, oh, you're losing half a tenth here.
[36:28.400 -> 36:33.240] You have to go even deeper into the details and compare the driver to what you think the
[36:33.240 -> 36:37.880] optimum could be or should look like, which is a very subjective thing.
[36:37.880 -> 36:41.960] It comes, like we talked about earlier, just comes through experience.
[36:41.960 -> 36:49.440] Wait, so you've also worked with Checo in comparison as well right? So what sort of feedback difference do you see
[36:49.440 -> 36:53.000] between the two? Because we've all known of Sergio Perez as being the master
[36:53.000 -> 36:57.360] of tyre management but then in terms of extracting and finding that
[36:57.360 -> 37:00.520] extra performance you see a major difference between him and maybe even
[37:00.520 -> 37:04.680] an Alex Albon because he's gone out and written quite a huge article about how
[37:04.680 -> 37:05.720] the car wasn't really
[37:05.720 -> 37:07.340] set up to his liking.
[37:07.340 -> 37:09.560] And he was always in the back for recording me.
[37:09.560 -> 37:11.680] But of course, at the same time when you were there,
[37:11.680 -> 37:13.280] the team as well.
[37:13.280 -> 37:16.080] Yeah, so I worked with Alex quite a bit in the simulator.
[37:16.080 -> 37:17.960] I wasn't at the track when he joined the team.
[37:17.960 -> 37:20.240] But I worked with Alex in the simulator
[37:20.240 -> 37:21.400] when he was the race driver.
[37:21.400 -> 37:25.040] And then he spent a year doing simulator driving for us.
[37:25.840 -> 37:29.760] I cannot say enough nice things about Alex. He's one of the nicest people I've ever met.
[37:29.760 -> 37:35.440] And he's also, I think, insanely underrated and very talented. I think he's a great driver.
[37:35.440 -> 37:48.560] But the differentiation between that is, and we, with Perez, so I worked with Perez at Force India from in 2000 and 13, 14, I believe it was.
[37:49.360 -> 37:52.480] So the last two years, and then I moved to Red Bull to work with Kivyat.
[37:54.160 -> 37:59.920] Actually, it was Vettel, but Vettel left. Bastard. I love Seb, though. I really wish I would have
[37:59.920 -> 38:05.480] gotten to work with Seb because he's a genuinely another amazing person and driver.
[38:05.480 -> 38:13.480] But to go back to the question about differentiation in driver and feedback and for example, Alex's
[38:13.480 -> 38:17.600] specific case in Checo, I think the difference between Checo and Max is different than what
[38:17.600 -> 38:22.400] we saw between Alex and Max, maybe.
[38:22.400 -> 38:26.320] Alex really didn't like the instability that Max could cope with in the car.
[38:26.320 -> 38:30.640] And that was, it sounds like a cheapskate answer.
[38:30.640 -> 38:32.880] There's no more detailed answer than that.
[38:32.880 -> 38:38.520] We spent a lot of time working on how do we add stability to the car in the right places.
[38:38.520 -> 38:42.680] All those things tend to do, they don't make the car any faster.
[38:42.680 -> 38:47.620] And it's one of those things, like, if a car can do well
[38:47.620 -> 38:49.900] and not damage the tires massively and have a very,
[38:49.900 -> 38:53.560] quite a bit of front end, or a very nervous car,
[38:53.560 -> 38:55.620] the driver that can cope with the nervous car better
[38:55.620 -> 38:56.960] will go faster.
[38:56.960 -> 39:00.480] Whether or not that car is good on its tires in the long run,
[39:00.480 -> 39:03.440] you know, typically a nervous car will tend to eat up
[39:03.440 -> 39:05.560] rear tires more.
[39:05.560 -> 39:09.960] But that was just one of Max's, is one of Max's strengths.
[39:09.960 -> 39:13.280] His threshold for instability is very high.
[39:13.280 -> 39:17.160] And the point at which it becomes a problem that he notices is also very high.
[39:17.160 -> 39:22.920] So you can have a driver who's struggling to find lap time on the entry to a corner
[39:22.920 -> 39:30.000] because the stability, like I know if I turn in a little bit too much here, the rear is going to go. Max is like, well, just kind of get there. And if it
[39:30.000 -> 39:33.680] happens, I'll catch it, but often not. So it's one of those things you can't see it sometimes
[39:33.680 -> 39:39.280] in the data. And that, that is what makes it very hard to performance engineer problems like that,
[39:39.280 -> 39:43.920] because drivers as a control system, not particularly well understood. We think we do.
[39:43.920 -> 39:52.240] And then you have drivers that are like, I't go any faster and it's like i'm looking at data i don't see why you can't go any faster your teammates like no.
[39:53.500 -> 39:56.220] That's just you know the save it was a the.
[39:56.740 -> 40:03.380] The meta changes in terms of tires or car performance characteristics are aerodynamics in the future you could see.
[40:06.480 -> 40:11.160] characteristics or aerodynamics in the future, you could see Max Verstappen not particularly happy with that car. I think he's also a very adaptable driver, so I don't think he would
[40:11.160 -> 40:16.580] struggle in my experience, but you could see that closing a performance differentiator
[40:16.580 -> 40:18.520] between two drivers.
[40:18.520 -> 40:23.280] And that brings me on to Checo, because of course, he might have evolved in his time,
[40:23.280 -> 40:26.200] of course, when you work with him at Force India 2, of course,
[40:26.200 -> 40:27.880] what we have right now at Red Bull Racing.
[40:27.880 -> 40:31.480] But still, it's a different, it's a different driving style.
[40:31.480 -> 40:33.080] It's a different driving approach.
[40:33.080 -> 40:36.160] We can now see that Checo, at least in terms of long run race pace,
[40:36.400 -> 40:39.520] is matching up those lap times that Red Bull Racing have set for him
[40:39.720 -> 40:41.080] in comparison to Max as well.
[40:41.080 -> 40:43.560] At least that's what we've seen in the last couple of races.
[40:43.560 -> 40:47.400] So, isn't it amazing how they're able to get
[40:47.400 -> 40:50.840] to those similar lap times in completely different styles,
[40:50.840 -> 40:52.800] different approaches, different ways to go about it?
[40:52.800 -> 40:55.280] And as a performance engineer, that must be frustrating,
[40:55.280 -> 40:55.780] right?
[40:55.780 -> 40:57.920] Because as you mentioned, there's no benchmark.
[40:57.920 -> 41:00.160] You don't know what's the right approach, if there ever
[41:00.160 -> 41:03.000] is a right approach, as well.
[41:03.000 -> 41:06.000] Yeah, that's an interesting question. And I think it's one of
[41:06.000 -> 41:10.720] those super nuanced things that a lot of people have a lot of opinions about it. But at the end
[41:10.720 -> 41:17.840] of the day, yeah, I think Cecho looks to be on really good form this season. He seems a bit
[41:17.840 -> 41:23.200] happy with the car. I think there's still a little bit of single lap performance difference between
[41:23.200 -> 41:26.760] the two of them right now, but he does look very comfortable in the car.
[41:26.760 -> 41:35.360] And that's one of those things it's like, I don't know how you coach that. I don't know how you resolve that in the long term because you definitely don't sort out in the short term.
[41:35.360 -> 41:46.000] And then in terms of the driving style, Max can cope with a bit of instability, but he does also need a lot of front end. Checo likes to lean on the brakes. He tries to find all the grip on the
[41:46.000 -> 41:51.440] entries to the corner, often to the detriment of the exits, which is something that is not in my
[41:51.440 -> 41:55.280] experience in working with him in the past, but just looking at the telemetry data from the last
[41:55.280 -> 42:02.080] couple of qualifying events. So he's hunting for it still. And it's a super like, we could talk
[42:02.080 -> 42:07.780] about this for an hour. And we could talk about it for an hour and not come up with anything particularly insightful
[42:07.780 -> 42:12.440] that would be like illuminating on the topic, you know, because it's one of those like super
[42:12.440 -> 42:16.280] fluffy things that we don't really understand particularly well.
[42:16.280 -> 42:19.840] As much as we believe you could say it's like, right, if you understand it so well, then
[42:19.840 -> 42:20.840] fix it.
[42:20.840 -> 42:21.840] Exactly.
[42:21.840 -> 42:24.080] And I'll be like, oh.
[42:24.080 -> 42:26.720] So the other answer is, is driver A better than driver B?
[42:26.720 -> 42:28.760] I don't know if that's the right question either.
[42:28.760 -> 42:31.200] So it's super interesting.
[42:31.200 -> 42:34.040] But it just makes me so curious about how hard the performance
[42:34.040 -> 42:35.960] engineers at McLaren might have been working
[42:35.960 -> 42:38.320] with Daniel Ricciardo over the course of the last couple
[42:38.320 -> 42:40.600] of years, just understanding his style,
[42:40.600 -> 42:42.280] understanding both the cars again,
[42:42.280 -> 42:44.040] because we had two different concepts that
[42:44.040 -> 42:51.120] were completely going on there, and trying to fix it and it must be such a big curiosity for both the teams McLaren
[42:51.120 -> 42:55.520] and now Red Bull Racing will have him as a reserve driver that okay is it going to work is it the
[42:55.520 -> 43:00.720] driver is it the concept is the driving style it's such a muddle I suppose we'll never really
[43:00.720 -> 43:05.320] find out until we put him in the car don't't we? Until? Are you saying if or when?
[43:05.320 -> 43:06.160] Ah.
[43:06.160 -> 43:06.980] No, I'm just kidding.
[43:06.980 -> 43:07.820] I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding.
[43:07.820 -> 43:08.660] I'm not doing that.
[43:08.660 -> 43:09.480] I'm not that guy.
[43:09.480 -> 43:11.140] Do you think it will ever happen, though?
[43:11.140 -> 43:11.980] I don't know.
[43:11.980 -> 43:13.080] I don't know, I think Checo's doing a great job.
[43:13.080 -> 43:16.160] And I think people that say, like,
[43:16.160 -> 43:18.280] Daniel is washed or something,
[43:18.280 -> 43:19.360] like, that's not how it works.
[43:19.360 -> 43:22.320] You don't just forget how to drive a Formula 1 car.
[43:22.320 -> 43:24.320] Like, you know, where is Daniel
[43:24.320 -> 43:25.680] relative to other drivers in the field?
[43:25.680 -> 43:26.480] I don't know.
[43:26.480 -> 43:27.200] Yeah, I don't know.
[43:27.200 -> 43:29.040] But was he as bad?
[43:30.880 -> 43:34.160] Was the McLaren stint in the last year indication of his skill level?
[43:34.160 -> 43:37.680] No, that car was a pile.
[43:37.680 -> 43:39.760] It was not a good car.
[43:40.800 -> 43:43.520] And Lando just happened to get on with it.
[43:44.480 -> 43:46.160] It wasn't a particularly fast car.
[43:46.160 -> 43:49.840] Lando outperformed that car massively, in my opinion.
[43:49.840 -> 43:54.880] I think if you see Daniel in a competitive car again, he will be competitive, but that car was his anti-car.
[43:54.880 -> 44:02.320] You know, like, imagine, we know Max can do a nervous car, Checo likes a lot of front end, but also stability.
[44:02.320 -> 44:03.920] Checo likes stability, right?
[44:03.920 -> 44:06.800] Take Daniel and put him in the car.
[44:06.800 -> 44:08.600] That's everything that he hates about a car.
[44:09.160 -> 44:13.380] You know, uh, one of the things Daniel hates is a really pointy front end on
[44:13.380 -> 44:18.560] initial turn and like the sensitivity, because that sets up in his control loop.
[44:18.560 -> 44:19.020] He's like, right.
[44:19.020 -> 44:22.600] The way the car feels on the initial two to three to five degrees of steering
[44:23.280 -> 44:24.800] dictates how much rotation I'm going to get.
[44:24.800 -> 44:28.400] And if he says that feels way too pointy, you know, you do lots of things to
[44:28.400 -> 44:32.720] try and dial that down, but they just made the car slower. And then you have a car that's
[44:32.720 -> 44:36.880] that and then unpredictable and poor grip and poor downforce. And then you have Daniel
[44:36.880 -> 44:40.280] and McLaren.
[44:40.280 -> 44:45.440] But I'm going to open a can of worms here. When we had Peter Winsor on our show, he said that teams
[44:45.440 -> 44:49.680] and drivers, they need to work together a little bit more. The teams need to scout the drivers a
[44:49.680 -> 44:54.080] little bit more to understand their driving styles before picking the right choice. Kind of like what
[44:54.080 -> 44:59.120] they do in the world of bikes, where whenever a factory tries to hunt down a rider, they look at
[44:59.120 -> 45:04.400] if their style actually matches the style of the bike. So he was actually pretty disappointed with
[45:04.400 -> 45:05.660] the Formula 1 academies.
[45:05.660 -> 45:08.580] And he said that a new system sort of has to be created
[45:08.580 -> 45:11.100] to work around and maybe scout drivers better
[45:11.100 -> 45:12.660] before making their choices.
[45:12.660 -> 45:14.100] You kind of agree or disagree with that?
[45:14.100 -> 45:16.340] Because we've seen that with certain drivers
[45:16.340 -> 45:18.860] like Carlos Sainz, whatever you give them,
[45:18.860 -> 45:20.540] it sort of moderately works.
[45:20.540 -> 45:22.500] I'm not saying it's a hundred percent successful,
[45:22.500 -> 45:24.700] but when Daniel Ricciardo ends up going to a McLaren,
[45:24.700 -> 45:28.720] it just doesn't really work out. It's like chalk and cheese. So what do you think about teams
[45:28.720 -> 45:31.600] actually scouting driver styles before they hire someone?
[45:31.600 -> 45:38.960] I don't think that teams and people have enough information to make assessments on that. Like,
[45:38.960 -> 45:49.920] this is like the super, super complicated thing of skill, potential, adaptability to practice, adaptability to
[45:49.920 -> 45:52.680] varying car conditions, car styles.
[45:52.680 -> 46:00.480] And who's to say that McLaren's car DNA of two years ago will match the car tomorrow?
[46:00.480 -> 46:01.480] Nobody can say that.
[46:01.480 -> 46:10.820] So you can't really select a driver and say, this is mcclaren's like right now let's develop that and the narrative that teams develop cars specifically for drivers.
[46:11.540 -> 46:14.300] I think the reason people like that narrative.
[46:14.800 -> 46:26.760] Is because it gives an explanation of why their favorite driver might not be doing so well it's it's honestly that's an excuse in a crutch in order to change the characteristics of a formula one car takes
[46:28.800 -> 46:30.800] Six months
[46:30.880 -> 46:32.880] or regulation change
[46:32.880 -> 46:40.480] It's a retailer and put load in certain places or aerodynamic characteristics in certain places and take them away from somewhere else without losing performance
[46:41.080 -> 46:48.820] Takes months and then to validate that that trend that you've developed in your simulator, on your wind tunnel, your CFD, in the opposite order, of
[46:48.820 -> 46:52.960] course, um, translates to what happens on the circuit that requires
[46:52.960 -> 46:55.660] several iterations because your hit rate is not a hundred percent.
[46:55.720 -> 46:59.000] You know, just because you say I found all this performance that will, let's
[46:59.000 -> 47:03.440] say that I've added a lot of rear end load in medium speed entry to help Daniel out.
[47:04.660 -> 47:05.560] Do you get that on the track
[47:05.560 -> 47:06.960] after it goes through all your tools?
[47:06.960 -> 47:08.720] I mean, look at what happened to Mercedes last year.
[47:08.720 -> 47:10.360] It's an easy example to draw,
[47:10.360 -> 47:12.920] but it's like, they're like, this car should be amazing.
[47:12.920 -> 47:14.360] They show up on the track, it's like,
[47:14.360 -> 47:16.720] tools don't match reality, why not?
[47:16.720 -> 47:19.760] That's because Formula One is chaos.
[47:19.760 -> 47:21.040] Some teams have better tools,
[47:21.040 -> 47:22.980] some teams are more susceptible
[47:22.980 -> 47:28.320] to being blindsided by other things. You don't notice it until it happens to you. It's going to happen to Red Bull at some point.
[47:28.320 -> 47:31.920] They're going to be comfortable that they understand all the mechanisms around it.
[47:31.920 -> 47:36.240] They're going to make a huge change to something at some point or regulations change. And the way
[47:36.240 -> 47:39.200] that they've developed their last car through the last cycle will have a negative impact
[47:39.840 -> 47:46.380] or not. I don't know. But yeah, the idea of can you scout drivers to match your team? Now, I disagree completely.
[47:47.140 -> 47:48.960] Because you don't know what that driver
[47:48.960 -> 47:50.220] is like and you don't know what they're
[47:50.220 -> 47:50.980] like in that car.
[47:50.980 -> 47:52.820] The Formula 3 and Formula 2 cars are
[47:52.820 -> 47:54.380] very different to the Formula 1 car.
[47:56.500 -> 47:58.000] What you like to see is a driver that
[47:58.000 -> 47:59.620] has good adaptability
[47:59.820 -> 48:01.820] with a high natural skill ceiling.
[48:02.620 -> 48:04.400] And that will usually produce a driver.
[48:04.400 -> 48:06.400] But like, can we on paper
[48:06.400 -> 48:10.480] write down characteristics and attributes that a driver needs to have? Or maybe their weight,
[48:10.480 -> 48:15.920] or their height, or their reach, or you know, their who knows? I don't think so. I don't think
[48:15.920 -> 48:20.960] so. Like honestly, I don't think it matters. You want the fastest driver in the fastest car. And
[48:22.080 -> 48:25.440] and so if you don't have the fastest car, sucks for you. If you don't have the fastest driver, you better hope your car is good. And if you don't have the fastest car, sucks for you. If you don't have
[48:25.440 -> 48:28.800] the fastest driver, you better hope your car is good. And if you don't have the fastest car,
[48:28.800 -> 48:33.760] maybe get someone like Adrian Newey, who was a part of your team for again, or rather you were
[48:33.760 -> 48:37.600] a part of his team. Let's just put it that way. He was part of my team, honestly, let's put it that
[48:37.600 -> 48:43.440] way. When it's Adrian Newey, everyone's just a part of his team. But when you're at Red Bull
[48:43.440 -> 48:45.240] Racing, there's obviously so many employees,
[48:45.240 -> 48:47.920] so much of distance between him, I can imagine,
[48:47.920 -> 48:50.440] and then every one of you who's working on the specifics
[48:50.440 -> 48:53.040] of the simulator or the performance or anything like that.
[48:53.040 -> 48:56.520] But what's it like just being in the same team as him?
[48:56.520 -> 48:59.240] Have you seen his famous drawing board
[48:59.240 -> 49:01.200] where he literally draws up with the pencils?
[49:01.200 -> 49:03.920] And does the impact actually come back down
[49:03.920 -> 49:09.920] to you folks when you're working as well? It's a really interesting thing because Adrian's involvement in the team has
[49:09.920 -> 49:14.240] varied over the years. When the team wasn't doing particularly well, he was also often,
[49:14.240 -> 49:19.040] he's often, I mean, he's got the Hypercar project, he's done the Valkyrie and everything else. So,
[49:19.040 -> 49:23.440] you know, he's doing lots of time on all these things. So I'm not sure his current involvement
[49:23.440 -> 49:26.040] in the team, but it has varied over the last couple of years
[49:26.040 -> 49:28.160] to from a lot to very little to,
[49:28.160 -> 49:30.680] but like definitely he's always in the office.
[49:30.680 -> 49:31.960] He's always drawn.
[49:31.960 -> 49:33.560] So the main entrance is you go in
[49:33.560 -> 49:36.620] from the reception of Red Bull into the engineering office.
[49:36.620 -> 49:37.840] They keep calling it a drawing office,
[49:37.840 -> 49:39.400] but he's the only one that draws anymore.
[49:39.400 -> 49:40.240] Let's be honest.
[49:41.200 -> 49:45.600] It's design office now, but that's, he's, that's his office.
[49:45.600 -> 49:46.600] He's got this drawing board there.
[49:46.600 -> 49:50.600] He's always working on stuff and he's always, you know, having conversations with people,
[49:50.600 -> 49:56.000] especially, uh, from vehicle dynamics point of view at a top level with the chief engineer,
[49:56.000 -> 49:58.000] um, heads of race engineering.
[49:58.000 -> 50:01.240] So he's in that loop, but in terms of him coming into the simulator, he wouldn't come
[50:01.240 -> 50:04.440] into the simulator because, you know, if there's something he was super interested in, he'd
[50:04.440 -> 50:05.880] come and ask some questions and go away and
[50:05.880 -> 50:06.880] think about it.
[50:06.880 -> 50:10.960] But he's often, you'd see him always sitting down in meetings with aerodynamics, just talking
[50:10.960 -> 50:13.200] about concepts and ideas and looking over things.
[50:13.200 -> 50:19.280] So but at the same time, people just got on with stuff as well.
[50:19.280 -> 50:21.720] And he'd be in there, it's like, right, what are you doing with this?
[50:21.720 -> 50:22.720] Does this make sense?
[50:22.720 -> 50:25.760] And he'd often come back and say, you know what? What about this? In my experience, this works really well. And they'd go and test it's like, right, what are you doing with this? Does this make sense? And he'd often come back and say, you know what?
[50:25.760 -> 50:26.680] What about this?
[50:26.680 -> 50:28.480] In my experience, this works really well.
[50:28.480 -> 50:29.400] And they'd go in and test it.
[50:29.400 -> 50:31.320] And if he's got a strong feeling on it,
[50:31.320 -> 50:34.120] it would go one way, but often very led by data.
[50:34.120 -> 50:36.960] So you've got this combination of experience
[50:36.960 -> 50:38.880] and wealth of knowledge over many years
[50:38.880 -> 50:40.640] with many formulas of car,
[50:40.640 -> 50:43.280] and then a very strong technical team
[50:43.280 -> 50:48.000] able to crunch lots of numbers and go through all sorts of permutations of ideas.
[50:48.000 -> 50:50.000] And you end up coming up with pretty good stuff.
[50:50.000 -> 50:55.000] You know, Blake, you actually ended up working with Adrian Newey only at Red Bull Racing.
[50:55.000 -> 50:58.000] But here's something that you probably didn't know.
[50:58.000 -> 51:02.000] But I was in one of the meetings at Force India.
[51:02.000 -> 51:06.320] And the new investor Sahara in one of the board meetings asked,
[51:06.320 -> 51:13.200] so why is the Red Bull car going so quick? And obviously the answer was that, hey, they have
[51:13.200 -> 51:19.280] Adrian Newey. So he turned around and said, what will it take for us to hire Adrian Newey? If it's
[51:19.280 -> 51:30.560] about money, we'll figure a way out. So of course, it was one of those conversations that didn't reach the final destination.
[51:30.560 -> 51:34.520] Otherwise you would have had Adrian enforcing the Red Bull racing.
[51:34.520 -> 51:35.520] That would have been wild.
[51:35.520 -> 51:37.340] That would have been wild.
[51:37.340 -> 51:41.560] But like people are accusing, not accusing, but people saying, oh, the Aston Martin now
[51:41.560 -> 51:42.600] is a Red Bull copy.
[51:42.600 -> 51:44.240] It's like, have you looked at the car?
[51:44.240 -> 51:45.600] They don't look very similar.
[51:45.600 -> 51:48.400] I mean, some of the ideas are similar, but yeah,
[51:48.400 -> 51:49.920] I think now,
[51:51.200 -> 51:53.240] or maybe people can probably disagree with me on this,
[51:53.240 -> 51:54.080] but that's fine.
[51:54.080 -> 51:56.760] I think now it's very difficult for a singular person
[51:56.760 -> 52:00.160] to have a profound impact on the performance of a team,
[52:00.160 -> 52:04.800] unless there are many broken branches in the tree,
[52:04.800 -> 52:05.600] if that makes sense. But right now, if most of the branches in the tree, if that makes sense.
[52:05.600 -> 52:08.480] But right now, if most of the branches are working correctly,
[52:08.480 -> 52:11.240] it's very difficult for one person to have a profound impact.
[52:11.240 -> 52:13.400] If Adrian left Red Bull,
[52:13.640 -> 52:15.840] they might struggle in a couple of years.
[52:15.840 -> 52:19.000] Would they be able to continue to develop over the next few years?
[52:19.000 -> 52:24.640] Probably. All the other sensitivities and important factors,
[52:24.640 -> 52:25.000] we wouldn't potentially know. If he stopped working on the car, would you know tomorrow? All the other sensitivities and important factors,
[52:25.000 -> 52:26.440] we wouldn't potentially know.
[52:26.440 -> 52:27.860] If somebody, if you stopped working on the car,
[52:27.860 -> 52:28.780] would you know tomorrow?
[52:28.780 -> 52:29.620] No.
[52:29.620 -> 52:31.000] Would you know in six months?
[52:31.000 -> 52:31.840] Maybe.
[52:31.840 -> 52:32.660] Would you know in three years?
[52:32.660 -> 52:33.680] Probably.
[52:33.680 -> 52:34.680] But it depends.
[52:34.680 -> 52:37.440] It depends on how good the rest of the systems are
[52:37.440 -> 52:39.560] around the current meta of whatever
[52:39.560 -> 52:41.580] is the most important on the car.
[52:41.580 -> 52:43.740] But it is currently still aerodynamics as always,
[52:43.740 -> 52:45.960] so I reckon you would notice it.
[52:45.960 -> 52:48.400] I suppose we'll have to hear more of the corporate jargon
[52:48.400 -> 52:50.880] and more stuff like, ah, technical structure,
[52:50.880 -> 52:52.080] right people, trust.
[52:52.080 -> 52:55.080] But again, exactly, it gets boring
[52:55.080 -> 52:56.480] when the interviews tend to happen.
[52:56.480 -> 52:58.720] But let's get to something that's not boring, Blake.
[52:58.720 -> 53:00.720] We have to talk about the kind of content
[53:00.720 -> 53:02.800] that you're creating and just how did he get
[53:02.800 -> 53:04.020] on this journey eventually?
[53:04.020 -> 53:08.040] Because on the grand scheme of things, it's kind of intriguing. You're still in your prime, you're creating and just how did he get on this journey eventually because on the grand scheme of things it's kind of intriguing you're
[53:08.040 -> 53:11.360] still in your prime you're still young you still got lots of energy some might
[53:11.360 -> 53:14.960] ask hey why did you leave formula one but there's a good reason behind it you
[53:14.960 -> 53:18.840] get to work on some awesome data and stuff and as you mentioned early in the
[53:18.840 -> 53:23.080] episode as well you're actually spending more time analyzing formula one so when
[53:23.080 -> 53:28.880] did you make up your mind that okay this is what I've got to do? And just how did you come up with the idea of sharing such awesome content with
[53:28.880 -> 53:40.560] all of us? It's an interesting concept and I've described it like this. Since 2017, my career has
[53:40.560 -> 53:47.360] been a series of what's perceived to people outside as downgrades.
[53:50.240 -> 53:55.760] And I've had people say, I was like, no, I don't think so. I disagree. But so 2017 trackside performance engineer to the up and coming Max Verstappen, I decided
[53:55.760 -> 54:00.160] I want to focus more on car development and longer term stuff and bigger picture and understanding
[54:00.160 -> 54:03.840] analyzing data. As a trackside performance engineer, you don't have that much time to do
[54:03.840 -> 54:05.800] it. You're very focused on a week to week scale.
[54:05.800 -> 54:07.600] I'm like, I've done it for six years,
[54:07.600 -> 54:08.880] I'm not that interested.
[54:08.880 -> 54:10.520] So I decided I'll go back and work
[54:10.520 -> 54:11.800] as a simulator performance engineer.
[54:11.800 -> 54:15.480] And that will allow me to dig deeper into the data,
[54:15.480 -> 54:17.240] take a step back and look at stuff on a,
[54:17.240 -> 54:19.360] you know, like a midterm scale on certain projects
[54:19.360 -> 54:21.880] and still be involved with the performance operation
[54:21.880 -> 54:24.200] on a weekly basis with the car and the simulator.
[54:24.200 -> 54:25.260] That was great.
[54:25.260 -> 54:26.260] People said that's a downgrade.
[54:26.260 -> 54:32.100] I'm like, okay, well, you didn't have to spend, you know, 25 weeks of a year at the track,
[54:32.100 -> 54:36.420] which after six years, I decided it wasn't me for the long term.
[54:36.420 -> 54:37.540] I didn't want to be a race engineer.
[54:37.540 -> 54:39.580] I didn't want to do what GP's does now.
[54:39.580 -> 54:44.180] I think it's a very different job to me and what my goals are.
[54:44.180 -> 54:45.000] So I did that.
[54:47.960 -> 54:48.400] Then after four more years of simulator performance engineering, I was like, you know what?
[54:49.440 -> 54:53.440] I don't want to wait four more years for the next person above me to, you know,
[54:53.440 -> 54:54.800] move on or do something else.
[54:55.360 -> 54:56.880] Uh, one of new challenge.
[54:57.120 -> 54:59.340] And through COVID, I started making content around gaming.
[54:59.340 -> 55:01.800] Surprisingly, you know, it's like one of those things that you're locked in your
[55:01.800 -> 55:04.960] house, your furloughed, you're not working for several months.
[55:05.400 -> 55:06.400] I'll start streaming on Twitch.
[55:06.400 -> 55:07.400] I'll stream Warzone.
[55:07.400 -> 55:11.960] I love that game, but it's now a terrible, terrible game in a terrible state, so I don't
[55:11.960 -> 55:12.960] touch it.
[55:12.960 -> 55:14.440] But that kind of like kicked off this thing.
[55:14.440 -> 55:20.040] I was spending my lunch breaks making content for Warzone on my laptop.
[55:20.040 -> 55:23.640] Every lunch break I'd be posting stuff on social media, editing new clips.
[55:23.640 -> 55:28.000] And it was like, that's interesting. And I thought, you know, I can do this. If I spend more time,
[55:28.000 -> 55:31.040] I can scale this and make a living off of it. I mean, it won't be as much as I'm making as
[55:31.040 -> 55:35.280] a Formula One engineer, but I can do something that's my own and I can have a different challenge
[55:35.280 -> 55:38.080] and grind this. And if I invest more time. And so ultimately I decided, you know what,
[55:38.080 -> 55:43.040] I'm going to do content creation. I'll focus on gaming. And then a couple of months into that,
[55:43.040 -> 55:45.440] I realized quite foolishly, I was like,
[55:46.560 -> 55:49.280] you know what, maybe I'm not that passionate about it. I was more passionate about just
[55:49.280 -> 55:53.040] doing something that was my own. I was like, well, why don't I do this version of that thing,
[55:53.040 -> 55:57.760] but why don't I do it something over something I have experience in, you know, and that I know a
[55:57.760 -> 56:02.400] bit about. And then I was like, wait a minute, I can analyze Formula 1 data, still we have access
[56:02.400 -> 56:08.280] to Fast F1. So I can do a lot of the stuff I used to do and share that with other people.
[56:08.280 -> 56:13.520] Because I looked online, I'm like, there's a couple of good technical content, but there's
[56:13.520 -> 56:18.080] not really – there's interesting observations, but there's very few people coming from experience
[56:18.080 -> 56:19.080] talking about it.
[56:19.080 -> 56:23.840] Like, for example, an example that comes to mind always is Kyle Engineers, who's a Mercedes
[56:23.840 -> 56:25.520] aerodynamicist that does really great
[56:25.520 -> 56:27.080] Formula One aerodynamics analysis
[56:27.080 -> 56:27.920] from somebody that's done it.
[56:27.920 -> 56:30.160] I was like, but there's nobody in the vehicle performance,
[56:30.160 -> 56:32.260] vehicle dynamics space, race engineering space
[56:32.260 -> 56:33.100] that does that.
[56:33.100 -> 56:35.320] And I was like, I could fill that gap.
[56:35.320 -> 56:36.160] You know, I could do that.
[56:36.160 -> 56:37.200] And so that's kind of the thing.
[56:37.200 -> 56:42.200] And so over that first six months or so of 2022,
[56:42.260 -> 56:44.960] I kind of like started learning how to do YouTube,
[56:44.960 -> 56:46.760] how to contact the, how to, um, how
[56:46.760 -> 56:51.240] to contact the Formula One audience. And yes, that's what I'm doing now full time. So it's
[56:51.240 -> 56:57.720] a mixture of making technical analytical stuff on break F1 on YouTube, uh, doing on the weekends.
[56:57.720 -> 57:01.660] I'm going to watch the races. So I decided, you know, why don't I live stream watching
[57:01.660 -> 57:08.160] the races with other people and talking about what's going on. So on twitch.tv front slash break with three hours. That's that's what I do on the qualifying
[57:08.160 -> 57:13.360] and race weekends. I'm doing a technical newsletter, you know, like deep dives into
[57:13.360 -> 57:18.800] every weekend and really like race engineering style performance reports, looking at performance
[57:18.800 -> 57:23.840] strategy and everything else on a mailing list on buy me a coffee, which is basically
[57:23.280 -> 57:25.920] on a mailing list on buy me a coffee, which is basically the price of a coffee every week.
[57:25.920 -> 57:28.920] You get a deep dive into every detail
[57:31.120 -> 57:32.440] I can think of of the race weekend
[57:32.440 -> 57:34.440] to understand what teams performances are
[57:34.440 -> 57:36.360] and what did we miss when you watch the broadcast?
[57:36.360 -> 57:37.960] Because that's one thing I really struggle with
[57:37.960 -> 57:39.480] is when you watch a broadcast,
[57:40.440 -> 57:43.040] you're probably focused on one car at a time
[57:43.040 -> 57:44.360] or one team at a time.
[57:44.360 -> 57:45.760] So that means that your retention is
[57:46.620 -> 57:49.720] You know your observation is 5% of what's happening anytime
[57:50.520 -> 57:54.720] Which is like, okay. Well, I'd like to go back. I can't change the broadcast
[57:54.720 -> 57:58.960] but what I can do is I could go look at any lap or any number of laps and gaps and strategies and
[57:59.240 -> 58:03.580] That's insightful and fun for me and I found out that other people want to know about that stuff, too
[58:03.580 -> 58:07.000] So it's like why don't I share that because I can't like I can't make videos every weekend about every race.
[58:07.000 -> 58:09.500] Some races are boring, you know, but people still want to know.
[58:10.400 -> 58:15.500] So that's kind of like the transition from the series that the series of downgrades
[58:15.500 -> 58:19.000] in my career from trackside performance engineer to the world champion
[58:19.000 -> 58:22.500] Max Verstappen now to full-time content creator, but.
[58:23.500 -> 58:24.600] It's been really rewarding.
[58:24.600 -> 58:26.600] I get to have really exciting,
[58:26.600 -> 58:31.720] interesting conversations with people like you who are also passionate. And that's the thing that
[58:31.720 -> 58:37.880] sucks when you're inside the sport. You can't talk about it. But what you can talk about is nothing.
[58:37.880 -> 58:43.720] And what I found is that people, you don't want to know what the center of gravity of the Red
[58:43.720 -> 58:46.240] Bull RB19 is. It's not an interesting number.
[58:46.240 -> 58:48.320] I mean, I don't know the number,
[58:48.320 -> 58:50.540] and people on team wouldn't tell you what the number is.
[58:50.540 -> 58:51.760] That's not that exciting.
[58:51.760 -> 58:55.160] The idea is the stories and how stuff works,
[58:55.160 -> 58:58.900] and the really fundamental questions are the more interesting ones,
[58:58.900 -> 59:00.560] especially for the wider audience.
[59:00.560 -> 59:01.800] People are like, I want to know the dirt,
[59:01.800 -> 59:02.800] like what's their suspension do?
[59:02.800 -> 59:04.880] It's like, it's not that important.
[59:04.880 -> 59:06.960] But it's still interesting for me, and I want to know the dirt, like what's their suspension do? It's like, it's not that important, but it's still, it's still interesting for me and I
[59:06.960 -> 59:09.560] want to know, but I don't know.
[59:09.560 -> 59:12.440] But so I think that's kind of like my approach has changed.
[59:12.440 -> 59:13.440] Like people don't want to know about that.
[59:13.440 -> 59:16.480] It's like, wait a minute, people love talking about this stuff.
[59:16.480 -> 59:19.720] So, and the numbers don't lie.
[59:19.720 -> 59:27.960] We're figuring it out slowly, slowly, surely, we're having a really good time making analytical content, having the podcast,
[59:27.960 -> 59:29.520] and it offers me lots of opportunities
[59:29.520 -> 59:31.720] to talk with people like you guys.
[59:31.720 -> 59:33.120] Two things on that, Blake.
[59:33.120 -> 59:34.760] Firstly, that's a brave decision,
[59:34.760 -> 59:38.160] just to step aside from Formula One and do this.
[59:38.160 -> 59:39.560] That genuinely is a brave one.
[59:39.560 -> 59:41.040] So that's really inspiring,
[59:41.040 -> 59:42.840] just that you decided to follow your passion,
[59:42.840 -> 59:44.240] which is amazing in that regard.
[59:44.240 -> 59:47.280] But the second thing you mentioned, it's called Break.
[59:47.280 -> 59:49.000] Yes, thank goodness.
[59:49.000 -> 59:51.720] The number of hours though, how did you settle on that?
[59:51.720 -> 59:54.240] I have no idea, honestly.
[59:54.240 -> 59:57.320] I think it was an old Counter-Strike handle.
[59:57.320 -> 01:00:00.880] I used to play Counter-Strike 1.6 back in the day and then Call of Duty.
[01:00:00.880 -> 01:00:03.320] I was like, yeah, exactly.
[01:00:03.320 -> 01:00:05.920] I go back, I'm a little bit older than you might think.
[01:00:05.920 -> 01:00:08.080] I played Counter-Strike Beta.
[01:00:08.080 -> 01:00:11.600] So when Half-Life came out, yeah, it was very old.
[01:00:11.600 -> 01:00:12.600] I'm ancient, man.
[01:00:12.600 -> 01:00:13.600] I've aged myself.
[01:00:13.600 -> 01:00:17.560] But yeah, the number of Rs, three's good.
[01:00:17.560 -> 01:00:20.080] Two's weird.
[01:00:20.080 -> 01:00:21.080] One's too generic.
[01:00:21.080 -> 01:00:22.520] I don't know.
[01:00:22.520 -> 01:00:23.760] It's a weird branding point.
[01:00:23.760 -> 01:00:27.280] That's another career downgrade is the branding decisions I've made.
[01:00:27.280 -> 01:00:31.640] I know it kind of works out well. Engine braking and brake here. That's... when I
[01:00:31.640 -> 01:00:34.360] initially... I was having a shower right before this interview and I was thinking
[01:00:34.360 -> 01:00:38.400] that's an uncannily clever name. Low-hanging fruits. I think that kind of
[01:00:38.400 -> 01:00:42.680] works at least with me. So you're in good company in that regard. I appreciate it.
[01:00:42.680 -> 01:00:46.980] But amazing, amazing having you on the podcast, Blake,
[01:00:46.980 -> 01:00:50.260] to share all your insights and your story on Formula 1.
[01:00:50.260 -> 01:00:53.860] And I'm just left amazed at the end of it,
[01:00:53.860 -> 01:00:56.900] but also so glad that you took out the time to come here.
[01:00:56.900 -> 01:00:59.980] So seriously, thank you for being a part of this episode.
[01:00:59.980 -> 01:01:00.900] I appreciate that.
[01:01:00.900 -> 01:01:02.860] It's been fantastic to speak with you.
[01:01:02.860 -> 01:01:06.580] And I hope that your audience finds the stories
[01:01:06.580 -> 01:01:08.340] from the inside insightful.
[01:01:08.340 -> 01:01:10.860] We'll have to do more Force India stories at some point.
[01:01:10.860 -> 01:01:12.460] There's a couple pretty fun ones.
[01:01:12.460 -> 01:01:14.220] Oh, we, you know what, we have to.
[01:01:14.220 -> 01:01:15.300] So far, we've recorded three
[01:01:15.300 -> 01:01:18.020] of our Force India episodes in person.
[01:01:18.020 -> 01:01:23.020] Whenever you're coming down next, we can figure something out.
[01:01:23.460 -> 01:01:25.600] A couple of flights across the world.
[01:01:25.600 -> 01:01:26.600] Exactly.
[01:01:26.600 -> 01:01:27.600] Who knows?
[01:01:27.600 -> 01:01:28.600] Who knows?
[01:01:28.600 -> 01:01:29.600] Maybe we might come to that site.
[01:01:29.600 -> 01:01:30.600] Exactly.
[01:01:30.600 -> 01:01:31.600] Exactly.
[01:01:31.600 -> 01:01:34.080] But seriously, amazing you're having me on, Blake.
[01:01:34.080 -> 01:01:35.080] Seriously.
[01:01:35.080 -> 01:01:36.080] Thank you so much.
[01:01:36.080 -> 01:01:39.320] And if you do end up over in the old foggy island, do be sure to let me know.
[01:01:39.320 -> 01:01:41.760] I'd love to have a coffee or a beer.
[01:01:41.760 -> 01:01:42.760] It'd be fantastic.
[01:01:42.760 -> 01:01:43.760] Depends on the time of the day.
[01:01:43.760 -> 01:01:44.760] We'll figure.
[01:01:44.760 -> 01:01:46.240] But awesome. And thank you for listening to this episode as well, folks. have a coffee or a beer it'd be fantastic. Depends on the time of the day we'll figure.
[01:01:50.640 -> 01:01:55.680] But awesome and thank you for listening to this episode as well folks. If you've gotten to this point let me guess you probably enjoyed listening to it as well right? So leave us a good rating
[01:01:55.680 -> 01:02:00.720] in case you did and also share this episode with any friends or family members who you think might
[01:02:00.720 -> 01:02:06.840] enjoy learning about Formula One from the inside as well. So once again, thanks for listening and we shall be back with more.
[01:02:06.840 -> 01:02:08.640] Bye bye and take care.
[01:02:21.350 -> 01:02:23.350] you