Midweek Buffet. Strategy and Super Aguri

Spanners and Trumpets are joined by former Mercedes and Haas F1 strategist Mike Caufield for a strategy debrief, then Spanners gets a history lesson with former tech boss at Super Aguri and former team boss at Techeetah Mark Preston. From Saudi slip ups to Safety Car survivors, from privateer pressures to second hand chassis’, no technical directive goes unread in this, the latest episode of Missed Apex Podcast. 

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Spanners Ready Spanners���� (@SpannersReady)

spanners@missedapex.net

Matt Trumpets mattpt55 (@mattpt55)

matt@missedapex.net

Matt Trumpets (@mattpt55@mastodon.social)

Mike Caulfield Mike Caulfield (@MikeCaulfieldF1) / Twitter

Mark Preston Mark Preston (@markpreston3) / Twitter

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# Missed Apex Podcast Transcript Analysis

## Episode Overview

In this episode of the Missed Apex Podcast, host Matt Trumpets and co-host Spanners are joined by Mike Caulfield, a former strategist for Mercedes and Haas F1 teams. They engage in a detailed discussion about Formula One strategy, delving into various aspects such as undercut techniques, tire degradation, DRS train dynamics, and the impact of safety cars on race strategies. The conversation also touches upon the dynamics within the Mercedes team, particularly the relationship between Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, and the potential for Russell to challenge Hamilton's position as the team's leading driver.

## Key Insights and Perspectives

1. **Undercut Strategy:** Caulfield explains that the effectiveness of the undercut strategy, where a driver pits early to gain an advantage over competitors, depends on several factors, including tire degradation, DRS train position, and the timing of safety cars.

2. **Tire Degradation:** Tire degradation plays a crucial role in determining the optimal strategy. Higher degradation rates favor the undercut, as it allows drivers to gain an advantage by switching to fresh tires earlier. However, in races with lower degradation, the undercut may be less effective.

3. **DRS Train Dynamics:** Being stuck in a DRS train can affect tire degradation. When a car is unable to overtake the car ahead, it may have to use its tires more aggressively to maintain position, leading to increased degradation.

4. **Safety Car Impact:** The timing of a safety car can significantly impact race strategies. If a safety car is deployed while drivers are planning to pit, it can negate the advantage of an undercut or force teams to adjust their strategies.

5. **Mercedes Team Dynamics:** Caulfield provides insights into the team dynamics within Mercedes, particularly the relationship between Hamilton and Russell. He suggests that while Hamilton is still the team leader, Russell is pushing for a more prominent role and may have an opportunity to establish himself as the number one driver this season.

6. **Red Bull Team Dynamics:** Caulfield observes that the Red Bull car seems to suit Sergio Perez's driving style better this year, allowing him to challenge Max Verstappen more closely. He acknowledges that Perez may have a chance at more race wins, but suggests that his performance may be circuit-specific.

## Controversies and Notable Moments

There were no significant controversies or particularly insightful moments highlighted in the transcript.

## Overall Message and Takeaway

The overall message of the podcast episode is that Formula One strategy is a complex and dynamic aspect of the sport, influenced by various factors such as tire degradation, DRS train dynamics, safety car timing, and team dynamics. The podcast provides valuable insights into the strategic decision-making process and the challenges faced by teams and drivers in optimizing their race strategies. 1. **Strategy in Formula One:**
- Strategy is crucial in Formula One, with teams constantly trying to outmaneuver each other during races.
- There is no one-size-fits-all approach, as the best strategy depends on various factors like tire life, weather conditions, and the performance of other cars.
- Teams often engage in dynamic strategy changes, reacting to events on the track and adapting their plans accordingly.
- Effective strategists can make a significant difference in a team's success, with some teams having a reputation for consistently making astute strategic decisions.


2. **Mike Caulfield's Insights:**
- Mike Caulfield, a former Mercedes and Haas strategist, shared his perspectives on strategy in Formula One.
- Caulfield emphasized the importance of balancing risk and reward, with teams sometimes opting for aggressive strategies that could lead to big gains or losses.
- He highlighted the role of driver input in strategy decisions, with drivers providing valuable feedback on tire performance and track conditions.
- Caulfield also discussed the impact of team resources and budgets on strategy, with better-funded teams having more flexibility to experiment with different strategies.


3. **Super Aguri's Journey:**
- Mark Preston, former technical director at Super Aguri and team boss at Techeetah, recounted the remarkable story of Super Aguri's entry into Formula One.
- Super Aguri managed to secure a place on the grid in just 100 days, using an upgraded three-year-old Arrows car as their initial entry.
- The team received significant support from Honda, which provided experienced personnel and technical assistance.
- Preston emphasized the camaraderie and determination within the team, with everyone working tirelessly to achieve their goal of competing in Formula One.


4. **Honda's Role:**
- Honda played a crucial role in Super Aguri's success, providing not only engines but also technical expertise and experienced personnel.
- The relationship between Super Aguri and Honda was highly collaborative, with both parties working closely to develop a competitive car.
- Preston praised Honda's dedication and support, highlighting the positive impact it had on the team's performance.


5. **Super Aguri's Achievements:**
- Despite their limited resources and unconventional approach, Super Aguri managed to achieve some notable results in Formula One.
- The team scored points in their debut season and even led the main Honda team in the early stages of their second season.
- Super Aguri's success story serves as an inspiration for smaller teams and privateer entries, demonstrating that it is possible to compete with the established giants of Formula One. Sure, here is a detailed summary of the podcast episode transcript:

**Introduction of the Podcast Guests**

- Spanners and Trumpets are joined by former Mercedes and Haas F1 strategist Mike Caufield for a strategy debrief.
- Spanners also gets a history lesson with former tech boss at Super Aguri and former team boss at Techeetah, Mark Preston.

**Main Discussion**

**Super Aguri's Entry into Formula One**

- Super Aguri was a Japanese Formula One team that competed in the 2006 and 2007 seasons.
- The team was founded by Aguri Suzuki, a former Formula One driver, and entrepreneur.
- Super Aguri was the first Japanese team to compete in Formula One since 1995.

**Challenges Faced by Super Aguri**

- The team faced a number of challenges in its short history, including:
- A lack of funding.
- A lack of experience.
- A lack of technical resources.
- Despite these challenges, Super Aguri managed to score points in both of its seasons in Formula One.

**Super Aguri's Relationship with Honda**

- Super Aguri had a close relationship with Honda, which supplied the team with engines and technical support.
- This relationship was a major factor in Super Aguri's success.

**Super Aguri's Drivers**

- Super Aguri's drivers included Takuma Sato, Yuji Ide, Sakon Yamamoto, Franck Montagny, and Anthony Davidson.
- Sato was the team's most successful driver, scoring points in both seasons.

**Super Aguri's Demise**

- Super Aguri withdrew from Formula One at the end of the 2007 season due to financial problems.
- The team's assets were sold to a consortium of investors led by Tony Teixeira.
- The team was renamed Caterham F1 and competed in Formula One until 2014.

**Conclusion**

- Super Aguri's story is a reminder of the challenges faced by small teams in Formula One.
- Despite these challenges, the team managed to achieve some success in its short history.

**Additional Points**

- Super Aguri was the first team to use a customer chassis in Formula One.
- The team was also the first to use a single-seater car with a hybrid powertrain.
- Super Aguri's drivers were often praised for their aggressive driving style. # Missed Apex Podcast: Strategy Debrief and a History Lesson

**Strategy Debrief with Mike Caulfield:**

- Former Mercedes and Haas F1 strategist Mike Caulfield joins the podcast for a detailed analysis of Formula One strategy.


- Discussion centers around the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, focusing on the slip-ups and successes of the race.


- The podcast also delves into the strategies employed by teams during Safety Car periods, highlighting the challenges and opportunities they present.


- Caulfield provides insights into the pressures faced by privateer teams and the unique considerations they must make compared to larger, more established teams.


- The conversation touches on the use of second-hand chassis, exploring the financial and performance implications for teams.


**History Lesson with Mark Preston:**

- Mark Preston, former tech boss at Super Aguri and former team boss at Techeetah, shares his experiences and insights from his time in Formula One.


- Preston discusses the challenges faced by Super Aguri, a relatively new team with limited resources, as they competed against more established and well-funded teams.


- He sheds light on the financial difficulties that led to Honda's withdrawal from Formula One and the subsequent takeover by Brawn GP.


- Preston reflects on the potential convergence of Formula One and Formula E, considering the growing emphasis on road relevance in motorsport.


- He expresses his gratitude for his time at Super Aguri and highlights the invaluable experience he gained working with Aguri and the Honda team.

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[01:32.720 -> 01:35.720] You are listening to missed a patch podcast.
[01:36.280 -> 01:56.680] We live at one. Welcome to Missed Apex podcast. Hi, Spanners here, just dropping in for a quick midweek
[01:56.680 -> 02:02.000] buffet. Later in the show, we've got a fabulous interview with Mark Preston, who was not only
[02:02.000 -> 02:05.600] one of the best Formula E bosses on the grid but also spearheaded
[02:05.600 -> 02:12.800] the technical team that launched the dream that was Super Aguri F1. I was smiling all the way
[02:12.800 -> 02:17.920] through that interview. It's an interview that you can just melt into so I really hope you enjoy that
[02:17.920 -> 02:30.200] as much as as I did. And a little bit earlier today we caught up with Mike Caulfield who was the head strategist at Haas and he helped us be better armchair strategists and gave us
[02:30.200 -> 02:34.640] a bit of a real insight actually into the driver mindset when they're picking
[02:34.640 -> 02:40.760] what strategies they're going to try and approach in the race. So here it is now.
[02:44.240 -> 02:52.320] Here at MrApexPodcast we consider ourselves trend setters, and that's why we had an F1
[02:52.320 -> 02:58.280] strategist on Mist Apex Podcast before it was cool. Joining Matt and I today is Mike
[02:58.280 -> 03:03.480] Caulfield, who was a strategist at Mercedes and at Haas. How's it going, Mike?
[03:03.480 -> 03:05.080] Hey, good to be back.
[03:05.080 -> 03:07.720] Steve First question, who do you prefer,
[03:07.720 -> 03:13.640] the Mercedes team or the Haas team? Who were the best? I wouldn't say sporting wise, but who were
[03:13.640 -> 03:19.160] just the better human beings? Mike Bates I mean, the great guys at both teams,
[03:19.160 -> 03:23.120] so I can't really split them up between the two there.
[03:23.120 -> 03:28.240] Steve Okay, but let me be nosy. There must have been a massive difference in atmospheres between
[03:28.240 -> 03:33.280] probably the more corporate Mercedes team and then maybe more of a privateer
[03:33.280 -> 03:34.720] attitude in the Haas garage.
[03:35.520 -> 03:40.480] Yeah, I mean, there are obviously different, there's massive scales to the teams which are
[03:40.480 -> 03:44.720] different. So obviously, yeah, you've got your Mercedes who are close to 1000 people,
[03:43.920 -> 03:52.480] teams which are different. So obviously, yeah, you've got your Mercedes who are close to a thousand people. Haas is, yeah, I mean, at best, 200, 250. And I guess my role was slightly
[03:52.480 -> 03:55.440] different between the two because I was traveling a lot more with the Haas, well, I was traveling
[03:55.440 -> 04:00.720] full-time with Haas whereas Mercedes, I was mainly factory-based. So you're also with
[04:00.720 -> 04:05.200] different groups of people. But again, at Mercedes, there was a really good atmosphere
[04:05.200 -> 04:06.680] back at the kind of race support
[04:06.680 -> 04:08.720] where you're having like 20 odd people.
[04:08.720 -> 04:09.840] A lot of them are students,
[04:09.840 -> 04:13.400] so close to kind of my age at that time, not anymore.
[04:13.400 -> 04:16.120] It was a long time ago.
[04:16.120 -> 04:18.360] Whereas, and then, and I think one thing to say
[04:18.360 -> 04:19.560] about Mercedes, I mean,
[04:19.560 -> 04:21.240] it's maybe gradually starting to change now.
[04:21.240 -> 04:24.720] Obviously you had James go over to Williams,
[04:24.720 -> 04:25.520] but a lot of the
[04:25.520 -> 04:32.320] kind of trackside engineers have been trackside since basically the BAR days. So there's not been
[04:32.320 -> 04:39.120] a huge turnaround in like a lot of the people there. So it's yeah, it was quite a, I guess when
[04:39.120 -> 04:46.600] you're fresh into F1, a little bit, a little bit, what, what's the word daunting to go with like these
[04:46.600 -> 04:49.780] kind of people when, when you're kind of fresh and young and, and you've got all
[04:49.780 -> 04:50.860] these experienced guys.
[04:50.860 -> 04:55.160] Um, whereas I say, yeah, I was fresh in there's, they're obviously, yeah, a
[04:55.160 -> 04:58.300] smaller team and then there's a lot of guys who, but you're all chipping in a
[04:58.300 -> 05:01.760] little bit more because, because the aspects, so definitely different
[05:01.760 -> 05:03.160] atmospheres between the two, but.
[05:03.920 -> 05:04.040] Yeah.
[05:04.040 -> 05:10.320] I can't kind of split them. There's I've them. I've still got good friends at both teams, so I can't really say which one's better.
[05:10.800 -> 05:17.240] Well, look, I tried my best to get some raunchy insight there. But that's an interesting thing you say about Mercedes, where
[05:17.240 -> 05:23.000] essentially, when people aren't moving on because they're successful, it's kind of like dead man's shoes. So you're
[05:23.000 -> 05:28.280] waiting for someone to retire or get sacked. And obviously, while everything's going well, there's kind of like dead man's shoes. So you're waiting for someone to retire or get sacked and obviously while everything's going well there's little
[05:28.280 -> 05:32.120] opportunity for movement. So I guess you know someone like James Vowles eventually
[05:32.120 -> 05:37.000] to go into a team principal role they're gonna have to move away. But it does seem
[05:37.000 -> 05:40.720] like Mercedes, you know, they're the sort of organisation that is encouraging
[05:40.720 -> 05:50.160] people and would be happy for James to do that and thrive. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, I think that's the thing. He didn't have to do any kind of
[05:50.160 -> 05:53.600] gardening leave of any extent, maybe a couple of months before when he entered and they've
[05:53.600 -> 05:58.480] just go off into what is a very senior role. And I mean, maybe it might have been different
[05:58.480 -> 06:02.160] if he was approached to go to the kind of Ferrari or Red Bull for some reason, but
[06:02.160 -> 06:07.440] it's going somewhere like Williams, which obviously has a bit of history history with, is maybe that sweetened the deal a little bit.
[06:07.440 -> 06:11.920] But yeah, I mean, even when I was there and like back in the really competitive days,
[06:11.920 -> 06:19.840] I know when kind of guys from Aero or stuff were going to like Alpine or Racing Point as it was at
[06:19.840 -> 06:28.820] the time, they were still kept involved pretty much right until the leave. They might've had like a, maybe, yeah, only a couple of weeks, kind of a month or so.
[06:29.040 -> 06:31.120] I mean, these are, these are kind of.
[06:31.680 -> 06:32.840] Less, less senior roles.
[06:32.840 -> 06:35.980] So maybe like your head of aerodynamics might've been pushed aside a little bit
[06:35.980 -> 06:38.720] more, but it was very encouraging at Merck.
[06:38.760 -> 06:42.240] Even when I would like left to go to the house, the same thing, I worked right up
[06:42.240 -> 06:44.560] until my leave day, I had no garden leave whatsoever.
[06:44.560 -> 06:49.920] So it's, um, yeah, they, they, they were quite trusting in that sense to, to certain house, the same thing. I worked right up until my leave day. I had no gardening leave whatsoever. So it's yeah, they were quite trusting in that sense to certain teams, I imagine.
[06:50.960 -> 06:54.560] I might have been talking about gardening leave a bit recently.
[06:54.560 -> 06:58.320] And one of the things that I was curious about,
[06:58.680 -> 07:01.920] especially because I see that in the more junior roles
[07:01.920 -> 07:07.720] that there tends to be less emphasis on it. Is that because, especially at teams like Mercedes,
[07:07.720 -> 07:10.180] you'd be very sort of compartmentalized
[07:10.180 -> 07:12.140] with regards to the information you had
[07:12.140 -> 07:14.940] as sort of like if I was a junior aero person
[07:14.940 -> 07:16.140] looking at, oh, I don't know,
[07:16.140 -> 07:18.780] like the left rear corner of the car,
[07:18.780 -> 07:19.980] the brake ducts there.
[07:21.100 -> 07:23.800] There's not a huge amount of stuff
[07:23.800 -> 07:26.040] that I'm gonna take to like a Red Bull or Ferrari
[07:26.040 -> 07:27.480] or direct competitor.
[07:27.480 -> 07:32.600] Whereas maybe if I'm in a more senior role, I have a much broader view of the overall
[07:32.600 -> 07:34.680] concept and design of the car.
[07:34.680 -> 07:35.680] Great question.
[07:35.680 -> 07:40.400] Yeah, I think that's pretty much nailed on in a certain sense for, especially when it
[07:40.400 -> 07:41.400] comes to your designers.
[07:41.400 -> 07:47.600] Yeah, it's, I think the more, the more senior you are, the more you potentially know about the processes and the actual designs. And,
[07:48.160 -> 07:53.840] and I guess as well, like someone like Mercedes and why they've been so successful over the
[07:53.840 -> 07:57.520] previous years, they used to have kind of a split between like three design teams that have a
[07:57.520 -> 08:02.880] current year, the next year, the year after that, all working on it. So you, you never,
[08:02.880 -> 08:05.740] potentially where you are in that process would also depend
[08:05.740 -> 08:10.140] on like how much information you may be going. If there was someone like working, say for
[08:10.140 -> 08:16.180] example, now does people start to work with the 2026 regulations, it's kind of still quite
[08:16.180 -> 08:19.420] new at the moment. Maybe that's fine. But as you get closer, if you've built up a couple
[08:19.420 -> 08:23.900] of years of knowledge and experience, then there might be kind of an extent where, right,
[08:23.900 -> 08:31.280] no, you've got a lot of information and we don't want you to go somewhere. But it's also quite interesting in terms of,
[08:32.080 -> 08:36.400] I guess there's that kind of, that etiquette. I mean, you obviously can't forget your stuff,
[08:36.400 -> 08:42.880] you can't forget things you've learned, but at the same time, you're supposed to be kind of
[08:42.880 -> 08:48.520] professional about it. Like it's quite strange, even as a Mercedes, I wasn't like the head of strategy.
[08:48.520 -> 08:52.360] I wasn't any, I was just a strategy engineer there, but I actually tended to find out a
[08:52.360 -> 08:56.160] lot more, which was going on a team like Mercedes than I did when I was at Haas.
[08:56.160 -> 09:00.520] And it was kind of, it was the one thing that really surprised me actually, but they weren't,
[09:00.600 -> 09:02.680] they weren't shy in kind of sharing information.
[09:02.920 -> 09:08.800] And then maybe it's different in certain departments, but for myself anyway, I got to know a lot of information,
[09:08.800 -> 09:11.080] which helps me as well learning my career.
[09:11.080 -> 09:13.120] And again, it was that kind of sensibility before I left,
[09:13.120 -> 09:14.240] it was kind of a case of,
[09:14.240 -> 09:15.800] well, there's certain things you can take,
[09:15.800 -> 09:17.520] certain things you can't, you can't unlearn it,
[09:17.520 -> 09:19.360] but just be sensible about what you do.
[09:19.360 -> 09:21.480] And because obviously if it comes out,
[09:21.480 -> 09:23.040] we know it's coming from you.
[09:23.040 -> 09:24.360] So it's kind of that.
[09:24.360 -> 09:25.120] Okay, so for a second there, I thought you were gonna say, oh know it's coming from you. So it's kind of that. Okay.
[09:25.120 -> 09:27.680] So for a second there, I thought you were going to say, oh, it's down to honour and
[09:27.680 -> 09:31.560] integrity, but really it's because it'd be quite easy for it to get busted.
[09:31.560 -> 09:37.740] Oh, Caulfield's gone over to Haas and all of a sudden they've got our like S-duct tracking.
[09:37.740 -> 09:39.480] There's only one way they could have got that.
[09:39.480 -> 09:40.480] It's a good question, Matt.
[09:40.480 -> 09:41.480] Well done.
[09:41.480 -> 09:42.480] Yeah.
[09:42.480 -> 09:44.480] I was like, oh, look, Haas has Das all of a sudden.
[09:44.480 -> 09:46.040] Where did that come from?
[09:46.040 -> 09:50.760] Yeah, but look, the real reason we've got you here is to grill you about some strategy
[09:50.760 -> 09:51.760] stuff.
[09:51.760 -> 09:56.960] And I saw you tweeting shortly after the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix because on paper, from
[09:56.960 -> 09:59.280] a strategy side, it kind of looked pretty simple.
[09:59.280 -> 10:02.200] The safety car shook things up.
[10:02.200 -> 10:04.120] But how did you see that?
[10:04.120 -> 10:06.720] Because from our amateur point of view, we
[10:06.720 -> 10:10.760] want to be good armchair strategists, and certainly in the last few seasons we've got
[10:10.760 -> 10:15.080] very used to undercut being king. Is that still the case?
[10:15.080 -> 10:21.920] It's going to vary circuit on circuit now, I think. I think somewhere like Saudi, with
[10:21.920 -> 10:26.880] the degradation, which was quite low, it wasn't as strong as
[10:26.880 -> 10:31.920] it would be and especially like you said with the safety car coming out obviously that negates the
[10:31.920 -> 10:39.200] undercut anyway but yeah you're looking for kind of big deltas between tyres and for a start a lot
[10:39.200 -> 10:43.680] of things kind of go into the hard tyre, that hard tyre is potentially a little bit slower at the
[10:43.680 -> 10:45.760] beginning of a stint. So I already.
[10:46.900 -> 10:49.500] The harms the undercut, because even though you're going on to a tire, which
[10:49.500 -> 10:53.300] can go longer, that initial warmup might be a little bit slower and you just don't
[10:53.300 -> 10:57.320] get that kind of pace advantage or going to it, even though you have your soft or
[10:57.320 -> 10:59.900] mediums, you've run in the first to had already degraded.
[11:00.460 -> 11:09.440] Um, but I wouldn't say it's, it's, um, it's not an option. It's, I think think in certain tracks you'll still see the undercut,
[11:09.440 -> 11:14.600] which will be quite strong. In Bahrain, the undercut was still strong. I think in Saudi
[11:14.600 -> 11:18.280] it was just a bit lower degradation. The tyres were just a little bit more conservative.
[11:18.280 -> 11:22.940] So that's quite key. So what we're saying is more degradation gives you more options
[11:22.940 -> 11:29.200] when it comes to the undercut. So Bahrain, known for being quite an abrasive track, say for example, Alonso and Aston Martin
[11:29.200 -> 11:32.440] were really aggressive with the undercut and kind of threw everyone.
[11:32.440 -> 11:38.400] They sort of dragged Mercedes out of their set strategy and put them on the defensive.
[11:38.400 -> 11:39.400] Yeah, exactly.
[11:39.400 -> 11:40.400] Yeah.
[11:40.400 -> 11:43.400] So, yeah, I mean, you've answered your own question.
[11:43.400 -> 11:49.000] I just wanted to show off that I've learned some things from you over these interviews, Mike.
[11:49.000 -> 11:54.000] But yeah, you got the high degradation. Yeah. You got more chance of an undercut going on there.
[11:54.000 -> 11:58.000] But also it's that kind of crossover in it, because if you go pull it too early,
[11:58.000 -> 12:01.000] you're not obviously as high on the degradation curve.
[12:01.000 -> 12:05.340] So at that point, you don't't get that big benefit going to it
[12:05.340 -> 12:08.920] so it's it's that kind of balance between when you go to start forcing
[12:08.920 -> 12:12.960] other people in or not. So the undercut is more effective the longer you go into
[12:12.960 -> 12:17.640] that that stint so it's almost like a game of chicken. Yeah yeah and the also
[12:17.640 -> 12:21.840] the thing is as well is because actually you go earlier in the stint the
[12:21.840 -> 12:24.880] field's not spread out as much as well so you're more likely to also drop into
[12:24.880 -> 12:25.440] traffic so also you're looking for that likely to go also drop into traffic.
[12:25.680 -> 12:29.340] So also you're looking for that window where you can drop into free air and
[12:29.340 -> 12:33.040] that point also where you've got enough benefit of going on to a fresh set of
[12:33.040 -> 12:35.560] tires compared to a tire, which is psyched to the grade.
[12:35.560 -> 12:35.760] Yeah.
[12:37.200 -> 12:39.640] Uh, well, I had a sort of followup question for that.
[12:39.640 -> 12:44.540] That seemed to be particularly case at, at Jetta, which is how much does being
[12:44.540 -> 12:46.520] in say a DRS train affect
[12:46.520 -> 12:48.080] your tire degradation?
[12:48.080 -> 12:52.440] That's, I mean, it's an interesting one.
[12:52.440 -> 12:59.640] I guess it depends on how much, how much you're being actually restricted in terms of pace.
[12:59.640 -> 13:03.920] So if you're in like in a, in a, in a DRS train, you can't overtake, but you feel once
[13:03.920 -> 13:06.480] you're in free air, you can go a second, a lot faster.
[13:06.720 -> 13:09.960] You're actually protecting your tires in that instance, because you're not actually
[13:09.960 -> 13:11.640] using your car to its full potential.
[13:11.640 -> 13:18.040] So you're actually, you're actually limited by the car who's leading that train.
[13:18.520 -> 13:21.760] Um, and he's probably actually using his tires up more because he's having to defend
[13:21.760 -> 13:25.280] these, having to kind of make sure he gets all his entries, exits, all that correctly.
[13:25.280 -> 13:28.360] Whereas you're kind of just thinking, I am quite, quite got the pace to overtake him.
[13:28.360 -> 13:32.440] So I just sit here and wait and wait.
[13:32.440 -> 13:37.560] So like someone like, I think a primary example of it is kind of, um, it's the first thing
[13:37.560 -> 13:41.680] on the soft and then everyone went, Oh, the softs were really good in that first thing.
[13:41.680 -> 13:45.040] Actually his degradation was only probably lower because his pace
[13:45.040 -> 13:48.720] was actually massed early on because he was stuck in traffic with cars, which
[13:48.720 -> 13:49.480] were slower than him.
[13:49.820 -> 13:53.440] If he'd been in free air throughout, you'd actually probably seen his
[13:53.440 -> 13:55.600] actually degradation would have been normal.
[13:55.600 -> 13:59.280] So you've got to kind of pace direct, correct it for, for actually the traffic
[13:59.280 -> 14:00.840] he's in and relative to his actual pace.
[14:01.380 -> 14:04.500] And you also saw that's why he came in about lap 15, 16.
[14:04.500 -> 14:07.560] I think his tyres were probably actually close to being done by that point, which
[14:07.560 -> 14:09.280] is, is why he came in.
[14:09.340 -> 14:12.860] Um, I mean, there's actually one other reason which he didn't actually need to,
[14:12.860 -> 14:15.700] which actually cost him in the end because of the safety car coming out two laps
[14:15.700 -> 14:16.100] later.
[14:16.140 -> 14:20.220] But, um, that was just something they may have missed at the time and weren't
[14:20.580 -> 14:21.180] catching up on.
[14:21.980 -> 14:25.480] Well, I think, did he not come in like right after Max finally
[14:25.480 -> 14:26.840] passed him on the medium?
[14:26.840 -> 14:30.120] So maybe that was a just an attempt to stay close.
[14:30.480 -> 14:33.200] Well, it, no, so Max was just about to pass him.
[14:33.200 -> 14:36.440] So he would have passed him down that straight and dived into the pits.
[14:36.840 -> 14:39.960] Uh, what he'd actually done, I think looking at it, I think that might
[14:39.960 -> 14:42.840] be in a slight reason because obviously you'd have lost a bit of time, but
[14:42.840 -> 14:48.580] actually Stroll was just being pushed out his window, so So Stroll had already made his stop and he was actually
[14:48.580 -> 14:52.900] falling out of his pit window. And on that lap, Stroll was actually just edging out of
[14:52.900 -> 14:59.100] the window. So it was a chance for Ferrari to actually overcut him in that sense. What
[14:59.100 -> 15:03.260] they actually failed to realize by looking at kind of a GPS or something, but Stroll's
[15:03.260 -> 15:06.980] issue had already started. So the reason he was dropping out wasn't to do with tires or anything
[15:07.200 -> 15:08.800] is because his issue had already started.
[15:08.800 -> 15:11.520] So if you'd look to a straight line speed, he's just going slower and slower every
[15:11.520 -> 15:11.820] lap.
[15:12.220 -> 15:13.860] So they didn't actually need to kind of do that.
[15:13.860 -> 15:18.980] So even if they'd got overtaken by the stop and then made the stop the next lap,
[15:19.020 -> 15:21.180] they would have still probably pushed out stroll and obviously stroll would have
[15:21.180 -> 15:21.540] stopped.
[15:21.880 -> 15:24.340] And obviously if they could have pushed out a little bit longer, they would have
[15:24.580 -> 15:26.080] taken benefit of the safety car as well.
[15:26.080 -> 15:31.600] Yeah. I love the fact that we are brand new talking about Ferrari strategy errors and
[15:32.480 -> 15:39.040] in races here. I want to talk about Hamilton on the hard tire, but before I do, I went back and
[15:39.040 -> 15:49.480] looked through all the various pit stops because Pirelli puts out the very nice infographic. And I wanted to, like, originally I was like, ah, stroll, we want to talk about that, I'm
[15:49.480 -> 15:51.000] curious about that.
[15:51.000 -> 15:57.440] And then I realized that pretty much the entire midfield, with the sole exception, I think,
[15:57.440 -> 16:03.680] of Sargent, actually pitted before the safety car, and like really a bit earlier than I
[16:03.680 -> 16:05.400] would have anticipated
[16:05.400 -> 16:07.440] based on the strategy guidance, Pirelli Cape.
[16:07.880 -> 16:11.160] Do you know, like, can you explain to me why that came about?
[16:12.120 -> 16:16.320] Um, so looking at it, I mean, I obviously, and it's always the caveat.
[16:16.320 -> 16:17.040] I always put on it.
[16:17.040 -> 16:19.280] It's like, I don't know the full ins and outs of the teams.
[16:19.280 -> 16:22.960] I don't know if it's like preplanned in certain aspects or, or kind of, there's
[16:22.960 -> 16:25.520] an issue maybe with the cars, some cars may be
[16:25.520 -> 16:30.560] like slightly worse on tyres than others but from what I look at it, it actually all starts from
[16:31.840 -> 16:36.880] Piastri's stop on lap one. So actually Piastri starts coming back into the window and Norris,
[16:36.880 -> 16:42.560] obviously they've had their two ones for nose changes on lap one and lap two. And then as they
[16:42.560 -> 16:50.440] come start coming in close to the window you get Magnussen stopping and Bottas stopping. And then obviously that then causes a chain reaction
[16:50.440 -> 16:55.420] for the other midfield cars to then stop there and cover it off basically in that respect.
[16:55.420 -> 17:00.120] So it's all, it's all kicked off trying to cover, because I think the belief was, even
[17:00.120 -> 17:07.160] though Pirelli sent out that infographic, that the hard could last the whole race. So I think it was that interesting one,
[17:07.160 -> 17:11.120] that if you may be struggling at that point on your mediums,
[17:11.120 -> 17:12.520] you don't want to cost too much time
[17:12.520 -> 17:13.520] and you've got to try and cover off,
[17:13.520 -> 17:15.600] put yourself in free air, the hard's going to lift anyway.
[17:15.600 -> 17:17.960] Whereas if you maybe leave it a couple of hours later,
[17:17.960 -> 17:19.520] all right, you're more than likely going to be able
[17:19.520 -> 17:22.880] to overtake the McLaren, but you're going to lose that,
[17:22.880 -> 17:24.720] cost that little bit of time doing that overtake.
[17:24.720 -> 17:29.440] And then someone around you may ever prevent the undercut or even get the overcut. So
[17:29.440 -> 17:33.360] you just take that kind of safety option of, of covering off and putting yourself in free air.
[17:34.640 -> 17:39.440] Okay. Well, I mean, I think we saw Piastri did the whole race minus one lap on the hard tires,
[17:39.440 -> 17:45.440] so they wouldn't have been wrong about that. And so just to follow up with my Hamilton question real quick,
[17:45.440 -> 17:51.200] if you don't mind, it seems like he kind of got, he got a little bit toasted by the timing of that
[17:51.200 -> 17:55.200] safety car, because it looked like to me, he was actually starting to get faster on those tires.
[17:55.200 -> 18:00.560] Like there was a long stretch of time where they were going to be quite quick once they finally
[18:00.560 -> 18:05.760] came in. Yeah, 100%. I mean, I'll admit I was surprised
[18:05.760 -> 18:07.000] that Hamilton started on the hards.
[18:07.000 -> 18:08.960] And again, I don't know the ins and outs.
[18:08.960 -> 18:09.920] I'm not going to criticize them,
[18:09.920 -> 18:11.920] to a lot of the reasons.
[18:11.920 -> 18:14.360] I was actually expecting for Stappan to start on the hards
[18:14.360 -> 18:17.400] because being out of position with a very fast car,
[18:17.400 -> 18:19.920] it's a strategy which will work regardless
[18:19.920 -> 18:21.480] of kind of what happens.
[18:21.480 -> 18:23.640] But Hamilton started on the hards last year
[18:23.640 -> 18:24.880] and started on the hards this year.
[18:24.880 -> 18:29.200] And the exact same thing's basically happening in two years. A safety car comes out around this point,
[18:29.200 -> 18:34.160] which destroys any race if you start on that hard tyre. Like if you get a safety car around the lap
[18:34.160 -> 18:39.840] 30 region, 28 to like 34, you're laughing because you're in that window, you gain an extra time and
[18:39.840 -> 18:43.840] you're on fresh tyres compared to everyone else towards the end. But now he has to take that
[18:43.840 -> 18:46.480] because obviously the field packs back up and now he's on a
[18:46.480 -> 18:51.560] set of tyres which, okay, they can last to the end, but it's not premium to run the mediums
[18:51.560 -> 18:52.560] for a 30 lap.
[18:52.560 -> 18:57.960] So basically when that safety car came out, it negated all the work of, okay, let's get
[18:57.960 -> 19:04.360] these hards further into the race and then come out with fresh, stickier tyres on a lower
[19:04.360 -> 19:09.240] fuel load and start making stuff up. So effectively Mercedes gambled that there
[19:09.240 -> 19:13.160] wasn't going to be a safety car at a track where there's definitely gonna be
[19:13.160 -> 19:17.760] a safety car. I wouldn't say not a safety car, I think they were just hoping
[19:17.760 -> 19:21.800] there was gonna be a safety car a bit later. But it's an interesting view
[19:21.800 -> 19:25.440] they take because it's a strategy you do kind of if you feel
[19:25.440 -> 19:26.920] your car's out of position.
[19:26.920 -> 19:30.760] So like I said, with a Vestapin, you've got a fast car, but a qualifying issue has meant
[19:30.760 -> 19:32.240] you're midway down the pack.
[19:32.240 -> 19:37.180] So it just allows you to do something different because ultimately, if you're out of position
[19:37.180 -> 19:41.400] and you do the same as everything else, you're only going to kind of gain what you can gain
[19:41.400 -> 19:45.280] on track, whereas this one gives you that opportunity to make bigger gains.
[19:49.920 -> 19:54.320] So when like Hamilton, I can't remember exactly where he qualified 7th I think it was, it's like I mean unfortunately that's not really where he's out of place for the Mercedes,
[19:54.320 -> 19:59.440] that's around the pace of the car, around that kind of 4th to 7th position, so you could have
[19:59.440 -> 20:04.880] probably gained as many places on a standard medium hard strategy and just going for the
[20:04.880 -> 20:06.400] undercut, going for a good
[20:06.400 -> 20:12.880] start performance of which you'd get off a medium tire over a hard anyway. And then you potentially
[20:12.880 -> 20:18.160] gain that couple places or like say a car falls out in front and you've got a chance of a podium
[20:18.160 -> 20:23.200] or like basically like what happened to Russell basically, but he's on the edge of a podium.
[20:23.320 -> 20:24.440] happens to Russell basically, but he's on the edge of a podium. Yeah.
[20:24.440 -> 20:25.560] And there's that opportunity.
[20:25.560 -> 20:26.560] So yeah.
[20:26.560 -> 20:32.800] Other than I like hoping for a late safety gap, it's for me, it just seemed a strange
[20:32.800 -> 20:38.080] choice considering they did exactly this last year and it didn't happen, work for them last
[20:38.080 -> 20:39.080] year either.
[20:39.080 -> 20:40.080] Okay.
[20:40.080 -> 20:41.840] Let's talk about Russell real quick.
[20:41.840 -> 20:46.560] I, looking at it, felt like at the time he began to filibuster
[20:47.360 -> 20:51.280] to not let Hamilton go by because Lewis was on a different tire strategy.
[20:51.280 -> 20:52.320] Yeah, there was some politics.
[20:52.320 -> 20:57.040] There was enough tire left for Lewis to actually bother the Ferrari ahead,
[20:57.040 -> 21:03.040] maybe fight a little bit and slow them down. And had he done that, that would have brought
[21:03.040 -> 21:05.480] the both of them back to Russell, who obviously
[21:05.480 -> 21:08.540] had good tires at the end of the race.
[21:08.540 -> 21:11.640] Do you think that was a bit of a missed opportunity?
[21:11.640 -> 21:16.080] Like, like, if you were in charge, would you have let Lewis by at that point?
[21:16.080 -> 21:17.720] That's really what I want to know.
[21:17.720 -> 21:26.800] I mean, it's just on the numbers, you know, somebody else's problem to deal with the drivers after the race.
[21:26.800 -> 21:27.040] Yeah, yeah.
[21:27.040 -> 21:27.760] Just on the numbers.
[21:27.760 -> 21:29.760] Don't worry about the personalities or egos.
[21:30.320 -> 21:35.280] Yeah, okay. On the numbers, yeah, I like, for me, if you got two cars together,
[21:35.280 -> 21:40.960] one's clearly quicker at the point, yeah, given that opportunity. Yeah, it's, it would have,
[21:40.960 -> 21:45.560] like you said, if the worst case happens, he goes ahead, he doesn't cause
[21:45.560 -> 21:51.440] any issues with anyone in front, and then you just invert them later on again.
[21:51.440 -> 21:54.020] And best case, he actually gains position in the team.
[21:54.020 -> 21:59.960] So in terms of a team point of view, yeah, I didn't really see what the benefit of not
[21:59.960 -> 22:02.960] giving him a chance anyway was, other than politics.
[22:02.960 -> 22:03.960] Yeah.
[22:03.960 -> 22:08.920] So what we said, I think, after the race was that Russell basically ruined his
[22:08.920 -> 22:13.480] own strategy in a way, because his strategy would have been to conserve tyres at that
[22:13.480 -> 22:18.160] phase, but it was more important for him to stay ahead of Lewis Hamilton, use up a little
[22:18.160 -> 22:21.600] bit of the tyres and go, no, no, no, I am faster, I'm faster, but obviously that affects
[22:21.600 -> 22:31.740] your strategy later. But what that tells me from a political point of view, in an unearned guess, is that I think Russell is set out
[22:31.740 -> 22:36.040] in that team as the number two driver, but he knows if he can score little wins, there
[22:36.040 -> 22:42.540] is just a chance that he gets far enough ahead that he is then considered the number one
[22:42.540 -> 22:47.040] driver at some point, and maybe that convinces Lewis Hamilton that enough's enough,
[22:47.040 -> 22:49.280] and there's a big political game going on there.
[22:49.280 -> 22:50.840] It was a little cheeky from Russell.
[22:50.840 -> 22:53.080] I've got the feeling that the dynamic in that team
[22:53.080 -> 22:54.960] is on paper, of course you can race,
[22:54.960 -> 22:57.200] but I think that is still Hamilton's team,
[22:57.200 -> 23:00.280] and Russell is very much being looked at for the future.
[23:00.280 -> 23:04.800] It was such a great insight into everyone's minds.
[23:04.800 -> 23:10.160] Yeah, I think from my experience with Mercedes, I was like, I kind of expected this was going
[23:10.160 -> 23:11.800] to be the case last year.
[23:11.800 -> 23:17.840] And then obviously things happened and I kind of thought based on no knowledge whatsoever,
[23:17.840 -> 23:18.840] like just guessing.
[23:18.840 -> 23:19.840] Ah, just guess, we don't mind.
[23:19.840 -> 23:20.840] It's Miss Apex.
[23:20.840 -> 23:27.080] If you get on the big boys ones, they're going to want a little bit more, you know, caveat. You're in the shed, Mike, don't worry about it.
[23:27.080 -> 23:32.200] This is the big one. But yeah, I thought last year would be a case of, yeah, if they had
[23:32.200 -> 23:35.860] a competitive car, yeah, let Lewis win his Ape Championship, support him and then the
[23:35.860 -> 23:41.320] team shows afterwards. So in terms of this year, I kind of feel they're more on an even
[23:41.320 -> 23:49.080] footing this year. And it's, I don't know as well with the kind of changing kind of structure and everything
[23:49.080 -> 23:50.360] which has happened with the team.
[23:50.360 -> 23:55.520] I don't know whether they are now kind of starting to look at the future and almost
[23:55.520 -> 23:58.320] kind of, yeah, ruled out this season.
[23:58.320 -> 24:03.760] I mean, well, we can rule out this season, Red Bull's going to win all 23, but that's...
[24:03.760 -> 24:07.200] I think it's up for grabs for Russell more this season.
[24:07.200 -> 24:10.360] So Russell could stamp himself as the number one this season.
[24:10.360 -> 24:14.760] It wasn't really on last season, whatever was happening with the experiments and points.
[24:14.760 -> 24:15.760] Sorry, Mike.
[24:15.760 -> 24:16.760] Exactly.
[24:16.760 -> 24:17.760] Go on, Mike.
[24:17.760 -> 24:18.760] Sorry.
[24:18.760 -> 24:19.760] No, no, no.
[24:19.760 -> 24:20.760] Yeah, I agree with you as well.
[24:20.760 -> 24:23.920] I kind of feel that, yeah, they're free to race and I don't think that either of them
[24:23.920 -> 24:29.280] is going to get any special treatment this year. Matthew? Well, there is one other team on the
[24:29.280 -> 24:36.400] grid with a similar-ish situation and that would be Red Bull. It's where Perez scored a win. But
[24:36.400 -> 24:40.160] the question I have for you, because you've, you've watched two races and you've seen them,
[24:40.720 -> 24:46.960] it just, uh, from the outside looks like Perez has has or Red Bull has a much more neutral car
[24:47.760 -> 24:53.120] that Perez is able to drive a lot closer to Max. I mean, I was really impressed with his second
[24:53.120 -> 24:57.520] stint when the two of them were both in free air. Max wasn't really making any headway.
[24:58.240 -> 25:04.720] Does he have maybe a little bit more of a chance at extra race wins? Or do you really think he's
[25:04.720 -> 25:05.680] like, as everyone is
[25:05.680 -> 25:08.640] quote unquote saying that he's he's much more circuit specific.
[25:09.360 -> 25:15.520] Um, I'd agree with you, I kind of feel that the car does look a little bit better suited
[25:15.520 -> 25:22.560] to Perez this year. I mean, like you said, that second stint was, yeah, he knew what Max was doing
[25:22.560 -> 25:26.120] and he just matched him. So it was it it was, it was a very deserved win.
[25:26.120 -> 25:28.960] And yeah, like literally Max couldn't do anything about it.
[25:29.560 -> 25:33.280] Um, whether it's, is it circuit specific?
[25:33.840 -> 25:34.480] Potentially.
[25:34.480 -> 25:38.720] I think Perez does have a style, which kind of makes him suit certain
[25:39.040 -> 25:41.100] certain circuits better than others.
[25:41.100 -> 25:50.360] Whereas Max is obviously that a bit more all around anywhere he he goes he's pretty out fast and a good driver so I think it'll be
[25:50.360 -> 25:53.440] interesting to see what happens this weekend as well I mean just obviously
[25:53.440 -> 25:57.680] make sure but there's no reliability issues for Pirelli either. Oh reliability
[25:57.680 -> 26:01.920] issues that's interesting because there was a quote-unquote drive shaft problem
[26:01.920 -> 26:07.200] in the race but Eddie Jordan, as I've always said,
[26:07.200 -> 26:12.840] speaks truth and nothing but the truth, said on the Formula 4 success podcast, I think
[26:12.840 -> 26:17.760] Max concocted something about a driveshaft to make himself look good. I'm absolutely
[26:17.760 -> 26:21.860] convinced that he was told before he went out that if Checo is leading, you do not have
[26:21.860 -> 26:30.360] permission to pass him. There's some really interesting politics going on there. I don't see that, but what Mr Jordan is painting a picture of
[26:30.360 -> 26:36.320] is basically Max going, nah, I could have. I definitely could have overtaken Perez, but
[26:36.320 -> 26:40.840] the driveshaft thing and the whole time the team was going, well, we can't see anything.
[26:40.840 -> 26:47.600] I mean, it's fine. Eddie Jordan has a reputation for this kind of thing, but it's a fun little snippet.
[26:47.600 -> 26:53.840] Yeah, no, I think you'll be interested in this season between the two of them, and unfortunately
[26:53.840 -> 26:57.540] that's where I think the majority of races we're going to have to look for entertainment,
[26:57.540 -> 27:02.680] so let's hope Perez is generally closer to it.
[27:02.680 -> 27:08.840] I'm a little bit curious, because Ferrari, who we've talked about their mistakes already,
[27:08.840 -> 27:13.380] came out after the race, I think it was Carlos Sainz, and said that the issue they're having
[27:13.380 -> 27:17.960] with the car, and especially with managing the tires, is one that they feel they have
[27:17.960 -> 27:20.780] correlation with in the wind tunnel.
[27:20.780 -> 27:26.300] So question one is, have you ever been on a team where that sort of a thing has happened?
[27:26.300 -> 27:35.000] And what are the odds that they could at least make this a bit closer with development in this season, if that statement is true?
[27:35.000 -> 27:41.800] So yes, definitely been involved in the team, which has had the issues with the tires.
[27:41.800 -> 27:44.500] And you can see it.
[27:44.500 -> 27:47.040] You can see it very, it's generally a case.
[27:47.040 -> 27:50.000] I mean, I don't know that it could be a number of things, but I think it's,
[27:50.000 -> 27:53.680] um, kind of issue where you'll, you'll have a sudden loss of downforce in
[27:53.680 -> 27:58.320] certain specific areas of the, of the kind of cornering phase, unfortunately,
[27:58.320 -> 28:01.680] that just causes the tires to slide a bit more and then you're going to
[28:01.680 -> 28:03.920] struggle to kind of get around it in that respect.
[28:03.920 -> 28:08.880] So it's, so yeah, uses ties up more plus you, you'll lose a bit of time.
[28:08.880 -> 28:11.120] So potentially on that kind of like a one lap run.
[28:11.600 -> 28:14.880] You, cause you're pushing the car to limit so much, you don't get that issue, but when you're
[28:14.880 -> 28:17.920] trying to manage it and throughout the run, as the tires go, you're just going to slide them,
[28:17.920 -> 28:20.320] slide them, and it just takes that little bit out more.
[28:20.320 -> 28:21.360] So yeah.
[28:21.360 -> 28:29.440] Um, whether they can develop it to um to get out of it i mean it's that from past
[28:29.440 -> 28:34.960] experience with team i was with um when they then it was a difficult one you never quite gain it
[28:34.960 -> 28:42.160] back so um so yeah it's it's gonna be not an easy fix um unless they know exactly what it is but i
[28:42.160 -> 28:47.160] mean if they can see it in the wind tunnel, that's one thing, but actually trying to figure it out
[28:47.160 -> 28:48.600] because they're all interlaced parts
[28:48.600 -> 28:50.520] in terms of this causes this to happen,
[28:50.520 -> 28:51.360] this causes this to happen,
[28:51.360 -> 28:53.520] so you can't just change one tiny little bit and fix it.
[28:53.520 -> 28:56.080] So it's, well, maybe you can,
[28:56.080 -> 28:58.560] but it's very rare in an aerodynamic point of view,
[28:58.560 -> 29:00.560] but you can just change one little bit
[29:00.560 -> 29:02.280] and you're suddenly gonna gain all your
[29:02.280 -> 29:03.840] kind of tyre performance back.
[29:03.840 -> 29:10.760] Okay, so fast forward to Interlagos, where are they on the fastest teams scale by that
[29:10.760 -> 29:15.160] point? Let's have a guess. Let's have a wag.
[29:15.160 -> 29:20.360] I'd say they'll be, I mean they're still going to be up there, they're going to be, well,
[29:20.360 -> 29:26.000] definitely not first. Yeah, they're going to be second or third fastest. It just depends.
[29:26.000 -> 29:29.480] Yeah, they'll be a remainder. I mean, the second, third, fourth teams I think are going
[29:29.480 -> 29:34.000] to be very, very much interchangeable throughout the season depending on what circuit it is.
[29:34.000 -> 29:35.000] Yeah.
[29:35.000 -> 29:39.320] And I don't think really anyone else is going to get up to the point of mixing it with them
[29:39.320 -> 29:40.720] at that point.
[29:40.720 -> 29:46.240] So I just put a little pin in what you were talking about earlier with the strategy and
[29:46.240 -> 29:52.040] the thing that stuck out there is it's not all team strategists sat there in an island
[29:52.040 -> 29:59.280] by themselves. There's this cascade effect when teams start pitting. A, you get to have
[29:59.280 -> 30:10.160] a look at how a different tyre is responding. So, you know, Hamilton was like the sacrificial lamb. Everyone got to look at his hard tyre data and see how the hires were doing.
[30:10.240 -> 30:13.520] But Red Bull were really great for this during the kind of
[30:14.400 -> 30:18.720] 2017-2018 period when they were sitting at a third but developing well.
[30:18.760 -> 30:29.160] They would be really aggressive with that undercut and they sometimes dictated the whole strategy of races. I think there was a lot of races during that period that would have been one stops if it wasn't
[30:29.160 -> 30:34.900] for Red Bull scaring everyone with these with the undercuts. And so it's a much more kind
[30:34.900 -> 30:39.640] of dynamic picture than I think we get from our sofas where we just think, oh, well, we
[30:39.640 -> 30:43.960] would just do the softs and then the hards or we do soft, soft, hard to get through this.
[30:43.960 -> 30:46.200] Really it's a very fluid situation.
[30:46.200 -> 30:47.920] Yeah, yeah, definitely.
[30:47.920 -> 30:53.040] And I think the Red Bull situation a couple of years back was they were in that kind of
[30:53.040 -> 30:58.320] beautiful place in a strategy slump where you didn't really have any threats from behind,
[30:58.320 -> 30:59.320] so you could try it.
[30:59.320 -> 31:02.200] And if you didn't do anything really different, you'd end up where you started.
[31:02.200 -> 31:06.120] So they had that nice place where, right, well, we need to do something a little bit aggressive
[31:06.120 -> 31:07.020] or a little bit different.
[31:07.020 -> 31:09.320] And worst thing that happens is, okay,
[31:09.320 -> 31:12.520] we drop back and we finish 30 seconds behind the leading,
[31:12.520 -> 31:14.600] leading few, but we're still 30 seconds ahead
[31:14.600 -> 31:16.080] of everyone else.
[31:16.080 -> 31:18.660] So there might not be teams who have that kind of benefit
[31:18.660 -> 31:22.380] this year because the field is a little bit closer together.
[31:23.400 -> 31:27.300] But yeah, it is very much dynamic. it's, it's dynamic in the sense
[31:27.300 -> 31:29.760] that you'll try and plan out a race before you go into it.
[31:29.760 -> 31:33.480] So like on a Saturday night, Sunday morning, you'll look at, kind of look at a plan.
[31:33.480 -> 31:35.720] And you obviously don't know exactly what's going to happen at the start.
[31:35.720 -> 31:37.840] You don't know what kind of positions are going to change, who's
[31:37.840 -> 31:38.980] going to crash out, et cetera.
[31:38.980 -> 31:42.680] But you'll have different plans for kind of, if you maintain your position,
[31:42.680 -> 31:44.920] if you gain positions, et cetera.
[31:49.280 -> 31:53.600] And then you try and look at kind of your first bit is, well, I want to kind of look at where there's going to be a window opening up, where do we expect our paces to be?
[31:53.600 -> 31:58.400] So it's going to be a window and who's going to make that first stop and depends on what
[31:58.400 -> 31:59.820] starts higher on, etc.
[31:59.820 -> 32:03.780] So going into it last weekend, you'll have looked at it and like they say, those midfield
[32:03.780 -> 32:06.160] teams, because the pace is quite tight,
[32:06.560 -> 32:10.160] you generally know if you're a midfield team, if there's been no unexpected pit
[32:10.160 -> 32:13.320] stops first, the first person to make the stop is going to drop back to
[32:13.320 -> 32:14.400] basically last on the grid.
[32:14.920 -> 32:18.460] Um, and you, you kind of just want to make sure that you kind of, you're in the right
[32:18.460 -> 32:22.600] window with your tires, but you can go into a bit of free air and you can exploit it.
[32:22.600 -> 32:30.320] And you're not going to kind of in two laps, catch up with the slowest cars and then mess around fighting with them and etc.
[32:30.320 -> 32:34.280] And then it'll cause that trigger off there and it's all about kind of just balancing
[32:34.280 -> 32:40.760] out that kind of tie life with where you can get that free air to exploit it.
[32:40.760 -> 32:51.480] It's almost like they should be speaking to the strategists on the pit wall and not the CEO at some point because, you know, I'm not sure how much Christian Horner or Seidel or
[32:51.480 -> 32:55.080] Zac Brown are really involved in that. And that's probably the most interesting chess
[32:55.080 -> 32:58.680] match that we as viewers don't really get to see.
[32:58.680 -> 33:06.320] Yeah, no, exactly. And it's one thing which I've been pushing for for a while in terms of the graphics on
[33:06.320 -> 33:10.520] TV as well just aren't good enough in showing what you're going on because you're watching
[33:10.520 -> 33:13.520] it and you can see the timing score down the side.
[33:13.520 -> 33:15.000] You know, okay, but who's pitted?
[33:15.000 -> 33:16.000] Who hasn't pitted?
[33:16.000 -> 33:17.000] What's the gap between these?
[33:17.000 -> 33:18.000] Where's this pit window?
[33:18.000 -> 33:23.000] Where will it happen if this person pits and where are they going to fall out?
[33:23.000 -> 33:28.400] And that's the kind of information you want to see at first, and then you can start explaining the story
[33:28.400 -> 33:32.560] of what's actually going to happen in the race. Because you can be shouting on the screen,
[33:32.560 -> 33:35.840] why aren't they pitted? Why aren't they pitted yet? Pirelli said it was going to be 12 laps,
[33:35.840 -> 33:39.280] but the reason why is because they're going to drop behind five cars who are all fighting each
[33:39.280 -> 33:45.640] other and you're just going to lose a lot of time. I think, I think we need to get, I think we need to get Mike on a, on a zoom call
[33:45.640 -> 33:49.520] during races, Matt, and then we can sound clever from, from listening to basically
[33:49.520 -> 33:53.080] we can just watch Mike's face and when it drops or he starts yelling at the screen,
[33:53.240 -> 33:55.680] we know that, that someone's done something wrong.
[33:56.280 -> 33:56.560] Okay.
[33:56.600 -> 34:01.080] So you're, you're slightly just sidestepped out of the active strategist role, Mike.
[34:01.800 -> 34:05.920] There I've just stated, and I'm not a Red Bull fan, but I am an admirer
[34:05.920 -> 34:12.480] of just how aggressive they're, how proactive their strategy tends to be. Feel free to answer
[34:12.480 -> 34:18.200] this however you want. Which team have the best strategy approach or which teams impress
[34:18.200 -> 34:24.160] you on the grid from a strategy point of view? Long pause from Mike Caulfield.
[34:24.160 -> 34:30.000] No, none of them. strategy point of view? Long pause from Mike Caulfield. Look, it would be difficult if I said, Mike, who's terrible, who sucks at strategy. I'm
[34:30.000 -> 34:31.000] not doing that.
[34:31.000 -> 34:39.040] I mean, I do think like, yeah, I agree with you. I think Red Bull's strategy over the
[34:39.040 -> 34:43.800] last few years has been one of the best. It's definitely, they've kind of adjusted for all
[34:43.800 -> 34:45.040] the situations. They've done the kind of lead in definitely they've kind of adjusted for all the situations, they've
[34:45.040 -> 34:48.760] done the kind of leading, they've done the challenging for the league and then like you
[34:48.760 -> 34:52.840] said that bit where they weren't quite the fastest car but they were still putting themselves
[34:52.840 -> 35:00.800] in positions to do it. Dictating races. So I think they've definitely got one of the
[35:00.800 -> 35:06.280] best structures in place. I think Mercedes have done well over the years as well.
[35:06.280 -> 35:09.680] It's always different, kind of going from,
[35:09.680 -> 35:11.120] especially when you've been so dominant
[35:11.120 -> 35:13.320] for a number of years to then being a team,
[35:13.320 -> 35:17.240] which is then having to kind of make some considerations
[35:17.240 -> 35:20.740] of out from what they didn't have to before.
[35:20.740 -> 35:22.640] So it's that kind of changing in that mindset
[35:22.640 -> 35:23.880] of where you were trying to make sure
[35:23.880 -> 35:28.080] you didn't do anything stupid for, because as a strategist as well, if you're challenging,
[35:28.080 -> 35:32.160] if you're racing for the win, the worst that can happen is chucking away the win. Whereas if you're
[35:32.160 -> 35:36.160] in the midfield, you can try something a little bit more aggressive and go, okay, we could have
[35:36.160 -> 35:40.240] got seventh, we got eighth instead. And they're like, no one really knows, you know yourself.
[35:40.240 -> 35:43.920] And like, personally, if it's me, I'm gutted if that happens, but you don't get the kind of media
[35:43.920 -> 35:45.680] backlash when, when it does happen. But if you, if you, if it's me, I'm gutted if that happens, but you don't get the kind of media backlash when it does happen.
[35:45.680 -> 35:49.600] But if you get a podium from that, then you look like a genius.
[35:49.600 -> 35:50.600] Yeah.
[35:50.600 -> 35:56.080] I mean, and this is kind of why strategy is such a, it's not just a kind of numbers based
[35:56.080 -> 36:00.040] science as there's, it's, I'm not going to say it's an art form, cause that's just, that's
[36:00.040 -> 36:01.040] a bit.
[36:01.040 -> 36:02.040] Do it.
[36:02.040 -> 36:03.040] Go on, go.
[36:03.040 -> 36:04.040] I said it's an art form.
[36:04.040 -> 36:05.000] Actually, it's more of an art. No, but you're like, it's, it's, there's a lot of Do it. Go on, guys. I said it. It's not fun.
[36:05.000 -> 36:06.000] Actually, it's more of an art.
[36:06.000 -> 36:09.280] No, but it's... there's a lot of personalities behind it as well.
[36:09.280 -> 36:13.720] So, I mean, you've got 10 strategists or 10 head of strategies on the grid.
[36:13.720 -> 36:20.240] And if you put the cars all the same pace and you gave everyone the day and you then
[36:20.240 -> 36:23.320] ran practice, you ran quality, you've obviously got a grid on it.
[36:23.320 -> 36:29.840] You'd probably get 60% of the strategists choosing one thing, 30% choosing another thing, 10% and 10% doing another
[36:29.840 -> 36:33.840] thing. You'll still get a lot of different strategies, even though everyone has the same
[36:34.400 -> 36:38.880] numbers and the same car pays, just because you'll have some people who are that little bit more
[36:38.880 -> 36:42.480] aggressive. Some people might go for that. I'd prefer to take that option where, all right,
[36:42.480 -> 36:47.440] this strategy will work one time in a hundred, but when it does work, we're going to look like Kings. The rest of
[36:47.440 -> 36:49.200] the time we just look like a bit... Yeah.
[36:49.200 -> 36:52.400] Yeah. The Jensen button in the rain approach. Yeah.
[36:52.400 -> 36:53.040] That's the one. Yeah.
[36:53.040 -> 36:58.080] But so, but, um, and then, cause I remember I had to type, in theory, I had a conversation
[36:58.080 -> 37:04.640] when we were in Hassen 2019, yeah, 19 or 20 when the car wasn't very good anyway, one
[37:04.640 -> 37:05.160] of the two. And like, I was having a chat with, um, I must've car wasn't very good anyway, one of the two.
[37:05.160 -> 37:09.840] And I was having a chat with, um, I must've been, it must've been, um, yeah, 19.
[37:10.260 -> 37:14.080] I was chatting with Kev and he was kind of going, I don't, I don't care if I finish 11.
[37:14.280 -> 37:17.400] I'd rather try something and finishing the points than finish 11.
[37:17.900 -> 37:19.140] And like, I was showing him these things.
[37:19.140 -> 37:23.180] I was like, okay, this, this strategy here, like, Hey, I've got this one strategy here,
[37:23.480 -> 37:25.960] which requires every little thing.
[37:25.960 -> 37:26.960] It's like, this happens here.
[37:26.960 -> 37:27.960] This happens there.
[37:27.960 -> 37:28.960] This happened.
[37:28.960 -> 37:29.960] Let's try it.
[37:29.960 -> 37:33.600] And I said to him, I said, yeah, this is one strategy out of a hundred thousand I've run
[37:33.600 -> 37:34.600] here.
[37:34.600 -> 37:39.480] It's like, so these are the odds of this actually happening, but he still wanted to try it anyway.
[37:39.480 -> 37:40.480] I love it.
[37:40.480 -> 37:41.480] And then he came back after.
[37:41.480 -> 37:42.480] Did it work?
[37:42.480 -> 37:43.480] And it didn't.
[37:43.480 -> 37:46.080] So you're like, okay, if these 12 miracles happen, we're
[37:46.080 -> 37:51.520] P6 and we look like heroes. Exactly. Yeah. And that's it. But like, yeah,
[37:51.520 -> 37:55.840] you kind of balance it up. And sometimes, I mean, there's more calculated approaches where like,
[37:56.880 -> 38:01.120] I'm being really exaggerated on some of the facts, but a lot of the times you do require
[38:02.000 -> 38:06.560] a safety car, go now to a really opportune moment and everything.
[38:06.560 -> 38:12.400] But if you don't try this, all you're going to do is end up 14 having started 15. So it's worth
[38:12.400 -> 38:18.000] trying something for some people. Well, I think sort of a classic example of that might've been
[38:18.000 -> 38:26.720] last year at Albert Park with Albin changing tire, going to the last lap, changing tires and winding up with points. So like,
[38:26.720 -> 38:32.480] what was your biggest, like, what was your biggest jackpot? The longest odds strategy you ever ran
[38:33.200 -> 38:35.200] that made you look like a king for a day?
[38:37.280 -> 38:42.960] Um, so it wasn't a, so my one was the, the ballsy move in Hungary where we, we pitted
[38:42.960 -> 38:45.040] up and after the formation lap to get
[38:45.040 -> 38:50.440] off the wet tires. Um, we got penalty for it undeserved in my opinion. Um, but we still
[38:50.440 -> 38:54.240] got points for one car would have got double points if it weren't for the penalties. Um,
[38:54.240 -> 38:58.480] yeah, well everyone else went onto the grid on wet tires. We struck dry zone and then
[38:58.480 -> 39:02.480] after four laps we were running, I think it was third and fourth and obviously then the
[39:02.480 -> 39:05.320] pace, I mean, and this was in 2020,
[39:05.320 -> 39:08.400] but so the car was the worst car on the field.
[39:08.400 -> 39:11.440] So it's not like, but it's,
[39:11.440 -> 39:13.160] it was the only chance of us getting points
[39:13.160 -> 39:15.080] and it was worth the risk.
[39:15.080 -> 39:16.200] Yeah, let's take it.
[39:16.200 -> 39:17.400] All right, let's talk percentages.
[39:17.400 -> 39:19.520] That is very common in Formula One that, you know,
[39:19.520 -> 39:22.120] they say it's this much car, it's this much driver.
[39:22.120 -> 39:24.040] And I think a lot of people settle around the,
[39:24.040 -> 39:28.440] well, it's 85% car, but the driver can make a 15% difference, you know, from the
[39:28.440 -> 39:35.680] best driver to the worst driver. Let's carve out a strategist piece of that pie. How much
[39:35.680 -> 39:41.000] difference can a good strategist make to, I don't know, if Matt was doing it?
[39:41.000 -> 39:49.560] I mean, obviously I don't want to put myself out of a job, so it's a good chunk in that.
[39:49.560 -> 39:50.560] But no, I mean...
[39:50.560 -> 39:51.560] Easily 80%.
[39:51.560 -> 39:55.520] Yeah, I mean, it's the most important factor.
[39:55.520 -> 40:01.200] But no, I mean, it's like I said, it's potential for getting points here and there, like in
[40:01.200 -> 40:11.880] picking up, and you've all got to put it relative but I say, go back to that last year we had, when the car was in awful in 2020 or 2021, even
[40:11.880 -> 40:17.920] worse. And it was, it was pretty hard because no matter what you did, you knew you were
[40:17.920 -> 40:21.600] kind of fighting a losing battle because your car was just so far off. So in that sense,
[40:21.600 -> 40:27.960] your strategy, you really haven't got much chance whatsoever. However, if you're in that kind of position where you're going for race wins or even
[40:27.960 -> 40:31.720] that kind of strong midfield team, then the strategist does have, I think, quite a
[40:31.720 -> 40:36.240] significant impact in what can be potentially go right.
[40:36.320 -> 40:41.460] I mean, and I always kind of refer to it as well as like, um, one, one drive.
[40:41.460 -> 40:42.120] I won't name him.
[40:42.640 -> 40:43.800] Um, but he kind of.
[40:44.760 -> 40:47.560] I never, he never seems to get any credit when I do good strategies,
[40:47.560 -> 40:49.060] but I've always got the blame, obviously,
[40:49.060 -> 40:50.820] when the strategies went wrong.
[40:50.820 -> 40:53.500] So I kind of always refer it to like an airline pilot,
[40:53.500 -> 40:55.140] but they're expected to land the plane.
[40:55.140 -> 40:57.860] And so you're expected to get the good strategy.
[40:57.860 -> 40:59.540] If you get it wrong, you're going to get in trouble.
[40:59.540 -> 41:01.600] Actually, it was a terrible question to ask,
[41:01.600 -> 41:04.020] saying what percentage is down to the strategist
[41:04.020 -> 41:05.480] when your last car was towards the back end of the grid. Because you were hardly going to ask, saying what percentage is down to the strategist when your last car
[41:05.480 -> 41:08.820] was towards the back end of the grid? Because you were hardly going to go, that was a great
[41:08.820 -> 41:13.520] car with brilliant drivers, but because I just kept rolling the dice wrong, that's
[41:13.520 -> 41:17.140] why it was at the back of the grid. Mike Caulfield, thank you so much for your time. It's been
[41:17.140 -> 41:22.360] fascinating to get this insight and people should follow you at Mike Caulfield F1. The
[41:22.360 -> 41:48.040] links will be in the show notes below, but thank you very much for joining us in the shed. No, thank you very sports. Just select two or more players, pick more or less on their projection for a wide variety of
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[43:04.560 -> 43:14.000] That's AH10 for 10% off at Hero.co Hi, today I'm going to take you back to a Formula One from a long, long time ago in
[43:14.000 -> 43:17.600] a regulation set far, far away from our own.
[43:17.600 -> 43:23.200] Back in a time when Formula One had just been liberated from the Scuderia Death Star and
[43:23.200 -> 43:26.240] the all-powerful Darth Schumacher by a young
[43:26.240 -> 43:34.080] new hope called Fernando Alonso. But it's not about Fernando or El Plan. Our tale takes place
[43:34.080 -> 43:40.400] before retired champion Sebastian Vettel even turned a wheel in Formula One. Lewis Hamilton
[43:40.400 -> 43:46.240] was dicing in the Junior Series and Red Bull were powered by a Ferrari engine.
[43:46.240 -> 43:53.400] Our tale is a tale of 100 days, 100 days to get an F1 team onto the grid and beyond.
[43:53.400 -> 43:58.300] Today we tell the tale of Super Aguri and I am welcoming the man that was the technical
[43:58.300 -> 44:03.760] big dog at Super Aguri and one of the most successful Formula E bosses around, it's
[44:03.760 -> 44:05.440] Mark Preston. Thanks so much for joining us, Mark. Thank you. It's going to be fun to talk about the history of Super Aguri and one of the most successful Formula E bosses around. It's Mark Preston. Thanks so much for joining us, Mark.
[44:05.440 -> 44:08.840] Thank you. It's going to be fun to talk about the history of Super Aguri.
[44:08.840 -> 44:14.080] Well, I hope you don't mind us having story time with Uncle Mark. The thing is, it doesn't
[44:14.080 -> 44:20.480] feel like it's a long time ago when you just say, oh, 2006, 2007. But in Formula One terms,
[44:20.480 -> 44:21.480] it's an eon ago.
[44:21.480 -> 44:28.000] It is, isn't it? I can hardly remember how far back it was. It's good to talk about it.
[44:28.000 -> 44:35.000] So you are familiar with some of the people on our panel. Uncle Joe Sayward has stormed
[44:35.000 -> 44:40.000] the paddock and you've had to face him down in media. Is he as formidable as he seems
[44:40.000 -> 44:41.000] in the shed?
[44:41.000 -> 44:47.520] Yes. When I first became Technical Director in Formula One I was warned by my PR
[44:47.520 -> 44:54.160] person that you're about to meet the formidable Joe Saywood. Be ready, be scared. And I was,
[44:54.160 -> 44:56.880] but it was a great conversation the first time I was interviewed by him.
[44:57.440 -> 45:02.560] And it's a really interesting path that Super Aguri took into Formula One because the first
[45:03.040 -> 45:07.280] car was basically the SA05, so after the year
[45:07.280 -> 45:12.760] that it was developed, and it was essentially an upgraded 2002 Arrows car.
[45:12.760 -> 45:16.000] And that seems insane in modern F1 terms.
[45:16.000 -> 45:20.280] You could never try and enter F1 now with a three-year-old car and just try and make
[45:20.280 -> 45:21.280] it good.
[45:21.280 -> 45:26.160] Yeah, it was a funny story because obviously I'd worked at Arrows and I'd been
[45:26.160 -> 45:32.640] heavily involved in that A23 from Arrows and so I knew it backwards, I knew it forwards,
[45:33.520 -> 45:39.360] I'd been really involved in it and I'd known that Paul Stoddart had bought all of the assets of
[45:39.360 -> 45:44.000] Arrows and had them down in Ledbury. So I'd actually gone and seen him the year before
[45:44.000 -> 45:45.440] and said, so have you got everything? He's like, yeah, come and have a look Leadbury. So I'd actually gone and seen him the year before and said, so have you got everything?
[45:45.440 -> 45:47.280] He's like, yeah, yeah, come and have a look at everything.
[45:47.280 -> 45:50.560] And I said, I was looking around, opening drawers and things like that and going, oh,
[45:50.560 -> 45:51.560] yeah, I know where that is.
[45:51.560 -> 45:52.560] I know what that is.
[45:52.560 -> 45:53.560] Okay, cool.
[45:53.560 -> 45:58.600] And so when the whole thing kicked off, we rang him up and said, can we buy it all back,
[45:58.600 -> 45:59.600] please?
[45:59.600 -> 46:02.040] So it was quite a funny, funny story.
[46:02.040 -> 46:07.000] I had actually, the reason I knew it was possible was after I was at Arrow.
[46:07.000 -> 46:12.520] No, no, this is what I was going to ask because I couldn't find any big headline, but I just
[46:12.520 -> 46:20.960] found one headline from 2005 that said, Mark Preston delays plans to join Super Aguri.
[46:20.960 -> 46:22.840] Were those plans for Preston F1?
[46:22.840 -> 46:23.840] Yes.
[46:23.840 -> 46:24.840] Oh my goodness.
[46:24.840 -> 46:27.920] So you actually had... and that's an amazing thing, when you see the
[46:27.920 -> 46:33.380] likes of Jackie Stewart struggling to make that work, and you thought, yep, I fancy a
[46:33.380 -> 46:34.880] Mark Preston F1 team.
[46:34.880 -> 46:41.960] Yes, I thought that was possible because I went off to McLaren after being at Arrows
[46:41.960 -> 46:47.680] and we did the famous, what I call now, the technology demonstrator, the MP4-18A
[46:47.680 -> 46:53.280] that never raced. What happened in that situation was we actually had to take the previous year's
[46:53.280 -> 46:58.760] car and put all the newest ideas on it and basically race it in the following year. I
[46:58.760 -> 47:03.240] knew it was possible to take a one-year-old car, put all the latest technology on it,
[47:03.240 -> 47:06.080] and we're at McLaren, so hey, we could do it at SuperGuri.
[47:06.080 -> 47:11.640] See, this is very much more reminiscent of films like Rush, where it's a few guys with
[47:11.640 -> 47:17.720] a garage and you're just in your blank green or grey overalls, covered in oil, going, I
[47:17.720 -> 47:20.720] think we can get this on the grid, we can make it work.
[47:20.720 -> 47:25.840] And that's why I said 2005 doesn't seem like a long time ago, but in F1 terms, it
[47:25.840 -> 47:30.440] really is like it's ancient history. You could never go in with that attitude now, could
[47:30.440 -> 47:31.440] you?
[47:31.440 -> 47:35.840] Probably not. I think the cars are so much more complicated. The engines are so much
[47:35.840 -> 47:40.880] more complicated than they were back then. But it was a fun time because many of the
[47:40.880 -> 47:48.100] suppliers that we normally use in F1... I remember when we're doing the fire up one night, 4 a.m. in the morning, there was a problem with one of
[47:48.100 -> 47:52.660] the radiators and the guy who owned the radiator company, he came to
[47:52.660 -> 47:56.700] us and he said, give it to me, I'll fix the radiator. So the guy who made radiators
[47:56.700 -> 48:00.980] for the last 30 years was with us at 4 a.m. in the morning and said, no, no,
[48:00.980 -> 48:04.980] give it to me, I'll fix it, put it back in the car. It was such a sort of a
[48:04.980 -> 48:08.820] groundswell of support around us. All the supply chain in the UK just wanted
[48:08.820 -> 48:13.060] us to make it happen, extract everybody. It was amazing.
[48:13.060 -> 48:19.660] So what's the crossover point from, I'm going to be like the next Jackie Stewart entering
[48:19.660 -> 48:27.240] the fray or the next Frank Williams, you know, pressed an F1 into Super Aguri. Is that a sad story
[48:27.240 -> 48:29.200] or is that an opportunity taken?
[48:29.200 -> 48:33.760] It's an opportunity taken. We're just about to give up on the craziest, you know, idea
[48:33.760 -> 48:40.640] since Sliced Bread. And then along came Aguri with, obviously, Takuma, Honda, Bridgestone,
[48:40.640 -> 48:43.680] all the pieces of the puzzle from that sort of thing. But he was like, okay, now we have
[48:43.680 -> 48:46.360] to do a team. And we said, well, we're ready to do a team.
[48:46.360 -> 48:47.920] We know who we're going to hire.
[48:47.920 -> 48:49.280] We know how we're going to do it.
[48:49.280 -> 48:53.160] And so it was one of those weird moments when the two things just collide.
[48:53.160 -> 48:54.160] It was incredible.
[48:54.160 -> 48:55.160] Okay.
[48:55.160 -> 48:59.920] Well, how much of an exaggeration is it to say that Super Aguri had the soul of Preston
[48:59.920 -> 49:01.600] F1 that never was?
[49:01.600 -> 49:06.640] A fair amount, actually, because most of the guys that ended up running the team had been
[49:06.640 -> 49:12.280] with me for the previous year looking at what we could do. A number of ex-Arrow people,
[49:12.280 -> 49:17.760] ex-Jordan, ex-other teams. So we were all kind of ready to go and about to give up,
[49:17.760 -> 49:21.560] and then all of a sudden this all happened in a matter of weeks.
[49:21.560 -> 49:29.880] Yeah, and it's unusually quick, that timeline from saying, right, this is going to be an entity in F1 to getting to the grid.
[49:29.880 -> 49:35.280] But there's a relationship with Honda in there, so it's not quite a privateer team.
[49:35.280 -> 49:40.200] Something that we argue about on RISC-Apex all the time is, I always want there to be
[49:40.200 -> 49:45.040] an opportunity for people to come in, almost like a customer team, with the backing of not just an
[49:45.040 -> 49:51.520] engine supplier, but full support. You've come in with, essentially, an upgraded three-year-old
[49:51.520 -> 49:58.160] Arrows car, and then moving on to using or trying to use a Honda chassis. What was that relationship
[49:58.160 -> 50:07.680] like with Honda? Andrew Bayliss Honda was incredible. It's still legendary inside of Honda. So I still meet young Honda guys and they go,
[50:07.680 -> 50:10.960] oh, Mark Fonda, you're there, you're there.
[50:10.960 -> 50:13.800] So there's still a lot of love for what we did
[50:13.800 -> 50:14.640] inside of Honda.
[50:14.640 -> 50:19.040] It was pretty crazy for even them, actually, internally.
[50:19.040 -> 50:20.560] And it was interesting.
[50:20.560 -> 50:23.200] They gave us some of the most experienced Honda guys
[50:23.200 -> 50:24.160] that you've ever met.
[50:24.160 -> 50:28.240] And I'm still friends with a lot of them. So they gave us an incredible amount of support
[50:28.240 -> 50:32.360] and it would not have been possible if they hadn't put their full force behind what we
[50:32.360 -> 50:36.760] were doing. But they were also a bit surprised because they didn't also know if we could
[50:36.760 -> 50:38.480] do it. So yeah, that was pretty amazing.
[50:38.480 -> 50:42.600] I don't think they were alone in wondering whether you could do it. But actually, it's
[50:42.600 -> 50:49.920] nice to hear something so positive about Honda because perhaps their reputation has taken a little bit of a kicking with the GP2
[50:49.920 -> 50:55.280] engine and then just as they were getting good, Red Bull seemed to have parked their relationship
[50:55.280 -> 51:01.520] and then of course they famously let go of their team, handed it over to Braun and lost out on
[51:01.520 -> 51:05.160] winning a world championship. So we've not heard a lot of positivity and we've
[51:05.160 -> 51:09.960] heard a lot about the cultural differences. It's nice to hear you just saying, no, they're
[51:09.960 -> 51:12.480] a great organisation and a great team.
[51:12.480 -> 51:18.480] Yeah, we had some amazing characters in our team. Many of them had been on the original
[51:18.480 -> 51:28.400] McLarens etc. back in the early days of the 80s winning championships. So we had some pretty incredible characters
[51:28.400 -> 51:30.920] that really, really wanted us to succeed
[51:30.920 -> 51:31.740] and get to the grid.
[51:31.740 -> 51:34.720] And then obviously we caused the main team
[51:34.720 -> 51:37.640] a little bit of hassle in their second year
[51:37.640 -> 51:39.600] for keeping up with them or leading them at least
[51:39.600 -> 51:41.840] into the first half of the season.
[51:41.840 -> 51:43.960] So let's, for people who have perhaps,
[51:43.960 -> 52:09.560] so you know, new to Formula One, not heard of Super Aguri. So we're talking about the seasons here the first half of the season. So, what's the thinking behind that? Because that couldn't have been a long-term solution. Was that just a, we need to get our car, our name, and our drivers on the grid?
[52:09.560 -> 52:14.160] There was a lot of confusion at the time because they were saying we'd have B teams in Formula
[52:14.160 -> 52:15.160] One.
[52:15.160 -> 52:18.800] So even, I think, Prodrive might have been rumoured to have been a B team.
[52:18.800 -> 52:19.800] Obviously...
[52:19.800 -> 52:22.200] Sorry, say that name again that was rumoured to be a B team?
[52:22.200 -> 52:24.000] It was going to be Prodrive.
[52:24.000 -> 52:28.880] At the time, there was a discussion whether they were going to enter as well.
[52:28.880 -> 52:35.740] Obviously Red Bull bought Minardi and it became their B-team, which is obviously now Toro
[52:35.740 -> 52:36.740] Rosso.
[52:36.740 -> 52:40.600] So there was a bit of confusion at the time as to how the rules were going to work out.
[52:40.600 -> 52:44.560] And so because there was a bit of confusion, the only way we could get to the grid was
[52:44.560 -> 52:49.800] going to the Arrows plan. So that's why it went that way. And everyone thought
[52:49.800 -> 52:55.080] we were crazy, but I remember Aguirre said, so how slow will we be? And we said, I think
[52:55.080 -> 53:01.800] we're going to be 5.5 seconds off the pace. And he said, okay, is that okay? And weirdly,
[53:01.800 -> 53:09.040] that was the year that they got rid of the 7% rule. So we were confident that we wouldn't get kicked out, and we were confident that we would qualify,
[53:09.040 -> 53:12.200] but we were quite confident we would be 5.5 seconds off the pace.
[53:12.200 -> 53:17.040] And we should say that that is as massive as it sounds. That was a big deficit.
[53:17.040 -> 53:21.560] Yeah. And the thing I think we were all most proud of, and even Honda, was that by the
[53:21.560 -> 53:27.840] end of the year, we're only a second off the grid, off the Ferraris. But that was with a lot of help from Bridgestone,
[53:27.840 -> 53:32.120] that was when the tyre war was, and so we were obviously partnered with Bridgestone,
[53:32.120 -> 53:36.720] so that meant that we had some good tyres, let's say, for that battle. And so
[53:36.720 -> 53:40.840] we were most proud from going 5.5 seconds off to one and a half seconds
[53:40.840 -> 53:45.640] off, or one second off in Brazil, and that was an incredible ride, let's say.
[53:45.640 -> 53:48.520] So that must have, in a way, been a magical time.
[53:48.520 -> 53:53.800] Even though you had one driver five seconds off, so that was the best of it.
[53:53.800 -> 53:57.000] You had one driver nine seconds off at one point.
[53:57.000 -> 53:58.560] Yes, yeah.
[53:58.560 -> 54:06.760] So, but from a pure engineering point of view, I think you and I are coverall, donning, spanner
[54:06.760 -> 54:13.800] monkeys at heart. That must have been almost like a duct tape and sellotape type project
[54:13.800 -> 54:19.640] to get onto the grid. And in a way, surely that's the most joyful mechanic experience,
[54:19.640 -> 54:22.040] even for a head technical guy.
[54:22.040 -> 54:25.440] Everybody in the team absolutely loved it. It still loves it. It still talks about that
[54:25.440 -> 54:30.080] time and says, I wish we could go back to that year. I mean, it was mental. I think
[54:30.080 -> 54:36.560] we got off Christmas Day for when we were planning the team, but I don't think we had
[54:36.560 -> 54:41.480] a weekend off, a Sunday off, anything until we got to the grid. But time flew by and nobody
[54:41.480 -> 54:49.040] cared. It was an amazing experience. By the end of that year, a number of the teams had seen what we were doing.
[54:49.040 -> 54:53.280] So there's a picture you can search on the internet of, at the end of the year, there's
[54:53.280 -> 54:57.920] a mixture of Renault mechanics and Super Aguri mechanics.
[54:57.920 -> 55:02.780] What happened was they brought the champagne down to the other end of the pit lane to congratulate
[55:02.780 -> 55:04.520] all the mechanics for working so hard.
[55:04.520 -> 55:09.680] They'd seen us all working hard during the year. And we had some fun times when we realised
[55:09.680 -> 55:13.520] we couldn't be quick, so we had to figure out ways that we could win. So we had to have
[55:13.520 -> 55:18.480] little wins. So there's a classic one where, you know in the starting grid, where obviously
[55:18.480 -> 55:23.840] they take the tyre warmers off and then the cars head off down, head around the formation
[55:23.840 -> 55:29.840] lap. What we realised was, one day I was watching the grid and I saw that Ferrari would always
[55:29.840 -> 55:33.040] be the last people to take the tyre warmers off.
[55:33.040 -> 55:36.280] And I was like, you know what, we can beat them at that.
[55:36.280 -> 55:40.800] And so the next race, it doesn't matter if we get disqualified or we get a penalty because
[55:40.800 -> 55:42.760] we're at the back of the grid.
[55:42.760 -> 55:45.760] So we realised this is a very visual thing on the TV.
[55:46.320 -> 55:52.320] So we worked with the mechanics and we went later than Ferrari. So when you see the big,
[55:52.320 -> 55:56.960] the shot looking at the grid, you'll see everyone, the mechanics take the tyre warmers off
[55:56.960 -> 56:06.360] in those days, but Ferrari and Renault would still have the tyre warmers on and Super Aguri at the back. And so it was very visual on the TV.
[56:06.360 -> 56:12.240] And so we waited and waited and waited and they pulled the tire warmers off and then
[56:12.240 -> 56:16.320] we waited and the TV people were going, what are they doing at the back of the grid?
[56:16.320 -> 56:18.280] And then all of a sudden we took ours off.
[56:18.280 -> 56:21.520] It was one of those crazy, crazy stories.
[56:21.520 -> 56:27.680] I do wonder if teams at the back of the grid do do things to get on the telly.
[56:27.680 -> 56:28.720] And now I know.
[56:28.720 -> 56:30.280] Now I've confirmed it's true.
[56:30.280 -> 56:31.680] Sorry, say that again?
[56:31.680 -> 56:33.680] I just got cut off by Siri.
[56:33.680 -> 56:38.760] So I did always wonder as an F1 fan whether teams down the back end of the grid ever did
[56:38.760 -> 56:40.880] things to get on TV.
[56:40.880 -> 56:43.840] And it's a delight to know that's true.
[56:43.840 -> 56:47.400] We also took a lot of the other variables like pit stops. Back in those days, you could
[56:47.400 -> 56:51.280] actually compete. I don't know if we could have competed nowadays on the one point something
[56:51.280 -> 56:56.080] second pit stops, but we also tried to win the fastest pit stop. There was things like
[56:56.080 -> 57:01.800] when the drivers come into the pits, they try to attack the line, as they call it. So
[57:01.800 -> 57:08.160] you know the line when you enter the pits and you have to get down to the pit lane speed. The speed at which you can get to that line and brake
[57:08.160 -> 57:13.200] and get to the speed in pit lane, we used to try and beat that time. And then so what
[57:13.200 -> 57:17.320] happened was that the big teams realised what we were doing, because I'm sure we showed
[57:17.320 -> 57:23.040] up on their screens, why is this Super Aguri guys winning these little things? And then
[57:23.040 -> 57:26.320] the mechanics came and asked us, what are you guys doing?
[57:26.320 -> 57:29.160] We're like, we can't win, but we could beat you at some things.
[57:29.160 -> 57:31.560] So we tried to beat you at the little things.
[57:31.560 -> 57:36.680] So if you look at the Super Aguri 2006 Top Trumps card, you might have like pace down
[57:36.680 -> 57:43.520] at four, resources down at five, but pit lane entry, 10.
[57:43.520 -> 57:46.120] Tire blanket chicken, nine. You know, so that's pretty good. Yeah, exactly. Tire warming, tire blanket chicken, nine.
[57:46.120 -> 57:47.720] You know, so that's pretty good.
[57:47.720 -> 57:48.560] No, I love that.
[57:48.560 -> 57:49.380] Quite the thing for most people.
[57:49.380 -> 57:53.000] And I love the fact that there was respect from Renault,
[57:53.000 -> 57:54.480] who, you know, we have to remember
[57:54.480 -> 57:56.080] were champions at that time.
[57:56.080 -> 58:01.080] So Fernando Alonso won the 2006 and 2005 world championships
[58:02.100 -> 58:05.160] with Renault back to back before moving to McLaren.
[58:05.160 -> 58:07.440] But the visual of those guys coming down
[58:07.440 -> 58:10.440] to the back of the grid with champagne is wonderful.
[58:10.440 -> 58:12.040] It was just the coolest thing ever.
[58:12.040 -> 58:14.520] It's one of the best photos that we've still got
[58:14.520 -> 58:17.600] from the time of that experience.
[58:17.600 -> 58:19.840] And actually that was gonna be my next question,
[58:19.840 -> 58:23.320] which was how were you treated by the other teams
[58:23.320 -> 58:24.160] in the paddock?
[58:24.160 -> 58:25.240] Because the stories I read
[58:25.240 -> 58:30.120] obviously were that there needed to be agreement from all the teams at that time and I believe
[58:30.120 -> 58:34.900] Midland were a team that put up resistance and then Williams, if we sort of skip ahead
[58:34.900 -> 58:40.920] a little bit to the first non-Arrows chassis, also were objecting to that. So apart from
[58:40.920 -> 58:45.040] the Renault love-in, how was the reaction from the other teams?
[58:47.520 -> 58:48.240] Yeah, I mean Midland wasn't very happy that we were coming in.
[58:54.640 -> 58:58.400] And so, you know, the top 10 Comfort agreement and everything, there is a sliding scale of earnings and those kind of things. So it does have an impact, which is obviously one of the discussion
[58:58.400 -> 59:03.680] points to having at the moment, isn't it, with the new teams entering. So yeah, it was a bit
[59:03.680 -> 59:07.100] of a stress. We didn't know that we were going to actually get there
[59:07.100 -> 59:12.100] until the FIA eventually allowed us with a late entry
[59:12.200 -> 59:13.260] to come to the grid.
[59:13.260 -> 59:15.000] But because the Honda was involved,
[59:15.000 -> 59:18.480] of course there was a lot of help, let's say,
[59:18.480 -> 59:22.840] to get their second team in into the series.
[59:22.840 -> 59:24.480] But, okay, so there's two questions there.
[59:24.480 -> 59:26.480] A, was it too much help because
[59:26.480 -> 59:32.080] you were literally using a year-old chassis and admitting to it, it wasn't like a sneaky crime,
[59:32.080 -> 59:38.640] it wasn't like the Aston Martin brake duct gate or the, what did they call it, the pink Mercedes
[59:39.360 -> 59:44.080] a couple of years back? No, this was, no, we're using the chassis from the previous year.
[59:44.080 -> 59:44.960] of years back. No, this was, no, we're using the chassis from the previous year.
[59:50.320 -> 59:51.040] And then that was the intent at the time was that B-teams were looking at how B-teams could actually
[59:56.080 -> 01:00:00.160] operate. And the idea was generally we could take a one-year-old car, and most people thought that was going to be impossible. And obviously we took a three-year-old car and showed that it was
[01:00:00.160 -> 01:00:08.280] possible. We weren't going to be super quick, but we certainly had a lot of fun trying.
[01:00:08.280 -> 01:00:14.280] So yeah, that was how it was meant to be and that's why we were able to do it at least
[01:00:14.280 -> 01:00:16.100] for a year or two.
[01:00:16.100 -> 01:00:20.680] And then we would have had to figure it out like Guarotto did to continue on as their
[01:00:20.680 -> 01:00:21.680] own team.
[01:00:21.680 -> 01:00:28.520] So now, a little bit out of Formula One specifically, and you look at the state of Formula One,
[01:00:28.520 -> 01:00:36.560] there was a time when they were moving more towards customer teams, or you could go and
[01:00:36.560 -> 01:00:41.040] just purchase a chassis, or they were going to make it a little bit more of a spec series.
[01:00:41.040 -> 01:00:48.320] All those kind of arguments have seemed to have to have been shelved and it does look like Formula One wants to be more of a works team, like a
[01:00:48.320 -> 01:00:52.480] manufacturer series. But at that time, if you're looking back now, would you
[01:00:52.480 -> 01:00:56.200] have wished that would have continued? Because I like the idea of a Mark
[01:00:56.200 -> 01:01:00.080] Preston being able to come in, buy a two-year-old chassis and go racing and
[01:01:00.080 -> 01:01:04.120] have a 30 car grid. Yeah I mean that's that sort of for me goes back to the
[01:01:04.120 -> 01:01:09.680] really really old days isn't it? The Brabham's and everybody who actually you know built their own car, got an
[01:01:09.680 -> 01:01:14.000] engine from this guy, got a got a bits and pieces from somebody else and went and went racing.
[01:01:14.000 -> 01:01:20.880] It's certainly the kind of old romantic side of motor racing and so I think that bit is that bit
[01:01:20.880 -> 01:01:25.660] is quite cool. Whether or not you could continue to compete nowadays,
[01:01:25.660 -> 01:01:29.980] I'm not quite sure, but it was certainly a fun time
[01:01:29.980 -> 01:01:32.480] and I'm glad we got to do it.
[01:01:32.480 -> 01:01:34.420] Yeah, but I certainly, I sort of feel like,
[01:01:34.420 -> 01:01:36.320] like Formula One as an organisation
[01:01:36.320 -> 01:01:38.260] has actively moved away from that
[01:01:38.260 -> 01:01:40.060] and they would rather have,
[01:01:40.060 -> 01:01:41.800] they'd rather have Audi come in
[01:01:42.820 -> 01:01:46.240] or people with pedigree coming in, and even to have
[01:01:46.240 -> 01:01:50.320] Alfa Romeo rebadged on Sauber than have Sauber.
[01:01:50.320 -> 01:01:56.480] Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, isn't it, to see what should be done nowadays.
[01:01:56.480 -> 01:02:07.180] It was still a cool time, and I'm glad we got to do it. The idea, you say that maybe it's not the same now,
[01:02:07.180 -> 01:02:10.900] but am I correct in saying that Aston Martin
[01:02:10.900 -> 01:02:14.140] uses Mercedes gearbox, right?
[01:02:14.140 -> 01:02:17.580] And that's one of the elements of it
[01:02:17.580 -> 01:02:19.580] is where do you spend your resources?
[01:02:19.580 -> 01:02:21.940] And what we did was we got given,
[01:02:21.940 -> 01:02:25.960] we had a car from Honda, obviously. So what did we do?
[01:02:25.960 -> 01:02:29.800] We focused on the areas where we knew we could differentiate from them, which was tires at
[01:02:29.800 -> 01:02:30.800] the time.
[01:02:30.800 -> 01:02:34.360] So for me, it's engine aero tires, the three biggest, most important things.
[01:02:34.360 -> 01:02:39.600] And so we had a Honda engine, we had Bridgestone tires, and it turned out that we were really
[01:02:39.600 -> 01:02:40.760] good at tires.
[01:02:40.760 -> 01:02:46.820] And so therefore we were able to keep up by putting a lot of effort into tyres. When
[01:02:46.820 -> 01:02:51.980] you think about how much resource goes into a gearbox, it's ridiculous because it's
[01:02:51.980 -> 01:02:57.260] a complicated thing, a really super complicated thing. In some ways, there is still a lot
[01:02:57.260 -> 01:03:03.140] of sharing of R&D because you can use an engine and a gearbox. That takes a lot of effort
[01:03:03.140 -> 01:03:05.920] away from what you need to do.
[01:03:05.920 -> 01:03:10.520] Now, wonderfully and unbelievably, I know that you're actually a Missed Apex podcast
[01:03:10.520 -> 01:03:15.200] listener, so you will know that me and my co-host argue about tyres and I try to steer
[01:03:15.200 -> 01:03:19.920] the conversation away. But just to save a phone call from Matt when he listens back
[01:03:19.920 -> 01:03:24.600] to this, why was Super Aguri strong on tyres?
[01:03:24.600 -> 01:03:27.000] Because we had a great relationship with Bridgestone.
[01:03:27.000 -> 01:03:35.640] No, because I assign nine of Michael Schumacher's seven titles to the fact that they had Bridgestone
[01:03:35.640 -> 01:03:36.640] tyres.
[01:03:36.640 -> 01:03:43.120] Tyres are the most important thing and probably my best experience of this was way back when
[01:03:43.120 -> 01:03:45.400] I was doing formula boards in Australia
[01:03:45.400 -> 01:03:48.600] Oh, well, we know arrow no arrow testing
[01:03:49.120 -> 01:03:52.600] But all that's nice. Yeah, and we were able to help choose the tires
[01:03:52.600 -> 01:03:54.960] and so we chose the tires that were best for us and
[01:03:55.640 -> 01:03:58.200] You can see that what from that experience
[01:03:58.760 -> 01:04:02.640] since since then to now I've focused incredibly on the tires and
[01:04:03.160 -> 01:04:05.760] They make an incredible difference. Aguri
[01:04:05.760 -> 01:04:12.080] had been a Bridgestone-tyred driver since the carping days, so we had a great relationship
[01:04:12.080 -> 01:04:17.520] with Bridgestone. Obviously, there was the tyre war going on, so we had a lot of support from
[01:04:17.520 -> 01:04:22.960] Bridgestone. They were one of our sponsors as well. That's how we helped. That was one of the
[01:04:22.960 -> 01:04:28.880] reasons we were able to get to within one and a half seconds of the Ferrari by the end of the year with a three-year-old chassis,
[01:04:28.880 -> 01:04:34.640] was we had Bridgestone tyres. That's incredible because the fabled stories of the Bridgestone
[01:04:35.520 -> 01:04:41.200] tyres, I think only six cars ran the Bridgestone tyres at that time. So that was Ferrari,
[01:04:41.200 -> 01:04:45.220] yourselves and I've forgotten completely now. Yeah, yeah.
[01:04:46.560 -> 01:04:51.680] But basically they had a little bit of an advantage, but the tale of lore is that they
[01:04:51.680 -> 01:04:57.840] were designed around Michael Schumacher and that Ferrari had this great relationship with Bridgestone.
[01:04:58.800 -> 01:05:06.720] 100%. And if you can design your chassis and develop your chassis and aerodynamics around the tyres,
[01:05:06.720 -> 01:05:13.100] you can make huge gains, which is why nowadays it's so much of a control system, because
[01:05:13.100 -> 01:05:15.860] basically they had a great advantage.
[01:05:15.860 -> 01:05:18.780] This has been such a leap back in time.
[01:05:18.780 -> 01:05:23.480] I have to say, because I was in my mid-twenties at the time, I thought, oh, this is a little
[01:05:23.480 -> 01:05:25.760] bit of my darkest period
[01:05:25.760 -> 01:05:30.240] of remembering stuff from Formula One. But all of this is flooding back now. The tyre
[01:05:30.240 -> 01:05:34.200] wars. When was the Indy Grand Prix, the Indianapolis Grand Prix?
[01:05:34.200 -> 01:05:36.600] Oh, I wasn't at that one.
[01:05:36.600 -> 01:05:39.000] So that must have been 2005, perhaps.
[01:05:39.000 -> 01:05:40.000] Yeah.
[01:05:40.000 -> 01:05:44.320] Right. So just for anyone listening, that is basically the Bridgestones were the only
[01:05:44.320 -> 01:05:45.080] tyres that
[01:05:45.080 -> 01:05:49.840] were allowed in the end to run. The rest of the teams withdrew, so there was only six
[01:05:49.840 -> 01:05:53.840] cars on the starting grid. But you weren't involved in that, so we can't...
[01:05:53.840 -> 01:05:54.840] Not at that time.
[01:05:54.840 -> 01:05:58.640] I thought I could find a new person to blame for that. I guess the other interesting thing
[01:05:58.640 -> 01:06:03.440] from your relationship with Honda was the drivers. So tell us a little bit about the
[01:06:03.440 -> 01:06:10.000] driver selection. I know it ends up with Anthony Davison but it doesn't start as perhaps as glamorously
[01:06:10.000 -> 01:06:14.360] as that. Yeah obviously Takuma. We had Takuma.
[01:06:14.360 -> 01:06:20.000] It was one of the reasons why we basically were started because
[01:06:20.000 -> 01:06:27.760] Takuma needed a drive and we basically took him on, obviously, and we had Yuji Ede, we
[01:06:27.760 -> 01:06:34.000] had Sakon Yamamoto, we had Frank Moulton, he was there at one point, he was incredible
[01:06:34.000 -> 01:06:41.160] as our third driver, that's when you had the T-cars, the spare car that ran on a Friday,
[01:06:41.160 -> 01:06:48.640] and obviously Anthony Davidson, who did an amazing job for us, and the two, having him and Takuma was really, really great fun.
[01:06:48.640 -> 01:06:54.480] So when you see Anthony Davidson with his analysis on the SkyPad, and he just has this
[01:06:54.480 -> 01:07:01.480] deep understanding of driving, and I believe things like being hired by the Strolls to
[01:07:01.480 -> 01:07:06.240] teach Lance Stroll in a two-year-old Williams before he came into Formula One.
[01:07:06.240 -> 01:07:10.240] He is a massively impressive driver. I remember at the time, like,
[01:07:10.240 -> 01:07:15.280] oh, there's a new British driver in, but he didn't spend too much time at the sharp end of the grid.
[01:07:16.000 -> 01:07:18.880] But I feel like you would have good things to say about him.
[01:07:18.880 -> 01:07:22.160] Richard Pinchott Oh, yeah, we had a great time. It was a
[01:07:22.160 -> 01:07:26.520] really fun time, as I say, over those couple of years at Super
[01:07:26.520 -> 01:07:35.080] Aguri. In the central part of making us quick, it was him and Takuma together. We had a really,
[01:07:35.080 -> 01:07:36.080] really great driver pairing.
[01:07:36.080 -> 01:07:41.040] So it might have been one of the more low-key driver pairings, really, because neither of
[01:07:41.040 -> 01:07:49.200] those guys got to be at the very sharp end. But I like, you know, like Sato moving on with his American career, Anthony Davidson massively respected now.
[01:07:50.240 -> 01:07:53.440] You must have been pretty pleased in the end to end up with a driver pairing like that.
[01:07:54.240 -> 01:07:59.440] Oh yeah, it was great. And they had different styles. So Takuma was a more of a sort of
[01:07:59.440 -> 01:08:04.400] aggressive driver, Anthony was a much more smoother driver. And what we noticed was that
[01:08:04.400 -> 01:08:07.060] certain tracks, one of them will be better than the other because of the
[01:08:07.060 -> 01:08:11.900] type of track and how it suited each driver's style and so you know one
[01:08:11.900 -> 01:08:14.740] circuit we say well you know Anthony you're going to be quicker here than
[01:08:14.740 -> 01:08:19.540] Takuma and this track you're going to be quicker than Anthony because of the
[01:08:19.540 -> 01:08:23.940] way you drive the car. And you could see that in advance and you could be like sorry Anthony
[01:08:23.940 -> 01:08:28.280] we know this is not a Davison track. So when you look at the
[01:08:28.280 -> 01:08:31.820] surface of the track, then we're going to get really geeky about tyres? No, no, please do. I won't
[01:08:31.820 -> 01:08:36.560] understand, but our listeners will, so please do. When you analyze the type of
[01:08:36.560 -> 01:08:40.760] surface of the track, we could see that some tracks were more aggressive on the
[01:08:40.760 -> 01:08:44.400] tyres and we would say, all right, you're going to be able to warm up the tyres
[01:08:44.400 -> 01:08:49.920] quicker at this track to Kuma, so you're going to be quicker straight away. And so you're going to be a
[01:08:49.920 -> 01:08:54.160] bit slower because this doesn't suit the tire, the way you warm up tires and the way you control the
[01:08:54.160 -> 01:09:00.080] tire wear and degradation. And so we did actually start to become able to say, this is going to be
[01:09:00.080 -> 01:09:04.560] your track, this is going to be your track. And it did turn out to be the case. And we continue,
[01:09:04.560 -> 01:09:09.120] and all the teams obviously look at this in the background. They look at the
[01:09:09.120 -> 01:09:14.680] roughness of the surface in a few different parameters and they can tell what sort of
[01:09:14.680 -> 01:09:18.040] track this is going to be, how it's going to put energy into the tyres and those kind
[01:09:18.040 -> 01:09:20.400] of things. There's a lot of science behind it, you can imagine.
[01:09:20.400 -> 01:09:25.200] I wonder how much that still goes on today because we talk about different driver styles a lot
[01:09:25.200 -> 01:09:28.600] but as you'd imagine between 2008 and
[01:09:29.440 -> 01:09:35.480] 2023 you'd imagine the driver market and driver skill in general would have evolved but there must still be a
[01:09:35.840 -> 01:09:39.160] nagging feeling say in science's mind and go we're going to
[01:09:39.920 -> 01:09:43.480] Australia that's not the kind of track that suits me, but we don't really hear about it
[01:09:43.480 -> 01:09:46.320] Maybe because of the PR side of things.
[01:09:46.320 -> 01:09:51.560] I mean, we've still used the same techniques in Formula E. So we took a lot of the same
[01:09:51.560 -> 01:09:58.080] ideas that we'd learned in F1 and applied them in Formula E. We probably didn't have
[01:09:58.080 -> 01:09:59.140] enough resources.
[01:09:59.140 -> 01:10:03.240] We didn't have enough sensors on a Formula E car to be able to measure some of the things
[01:10:03.240 -> 01:10:10.880] you can measure in F1. So we can't be sure in Formula E how some of those parameters work, but we continued
[01:10:10.880 -> 01:10:15.620] to do some of the same types of analysis in Formula E as well. And that was certainly
[01:10:15.620 -> 01:10:19.200] part of our success in Formula E was understanding the tyres.
[01:10:19.200 -> 01:10:25.680] So how hard was it to get Anthony Davidson in though? Because when you first started, the driver you mentioned,
[01:10:33.840 -> 01:10:37.200] Edy, Yuji Edy, was a 31-year-old Japanese rookie. So I'm going to go ahead and assume there was a big Honda influence in that initial driver lineup.
[01:10:38.160 -> 01:10:42.800] There was actually influence of Aguri, actually, because I think he was racing for Aguri in
[01:10:48.880 -> 01:10:52.880] because he was racing for Aguri in Japan. So Aguri runs a Super GT team and also at the time he would have run a Formula Nippon, I think it was called at the time,
[01:10:54.640 -> 01:10:59.760] teams there. So Yuji came from one of the teams in Formula Nippon.
[01:10:59.760 -> 01:11:07.000] And we should do some revision of Aguri Suzuki as a driver. What was his history?
[01:11:07.000 -> 01:11:13.800] He's one of the most famous Japanese drivers because he was on the podium in Japan. That
[01:11:13.800 -> 01:11:21.600] was where he became super famous. He's still super famous, of course, in Japan. It's amazing
[01:11:21.600 -> 01:11:25.200] when you go around. One of the stories, when we went to the Japanese
[01:11:25.920 -> 01:11:32.800] Grand Prix for the first time, when we approached the paddock, let's say, in a car,
[01:11:33.360 -> 01:11:38.400] there were thousands and thousands of Japanese fans just waiting for Aguri and Takuma to come
[01:11:38.400 -> 01:11:46.880] to the track. Unbelievable. The amount of fans in the grandstands that had Super Aguri flags was Ferrari and
[01:11:46.880 -> 01:11:52.760] Super Aguri. That's what it was like at Suzuka. It was incredible. Absolutely incredible.
[01:11:52.760 -> 01:11:58.440] And I think, say, maybe newer American fans and the European fans sometimes forget how
[01:11:58.440 -> 01:12:04.640] popular Formula One is in Japan. And I was a massive Kobayashi fan as well. Really disappointed
[01:12:04.640 -> 01:12:06.960] when his career just fizzled out
[01:12:06.960 -> 01:12:09.280] because he did a crowd fund at one point
[01:12:09.280 -> 01:12:12.560] and he got like a million pounds ready to try and buy a seat
[01:12:12.560 -> 01:12:14.360] and then that didn't work out
[01:12:14.360 -> 01:12:16.040] and then I think he still kept the money
[01:12:16.040 -> 01:12:17.200] and went racing elsewhere.
[01:12:17.200 -> 01:12:20.720] But we went a long time without a Japanese driver.
[01:12:20.720 -> 01:12:22.200] Oh, I mean, it's absolutely crazy.
[01:12:22.200 -> 01:12:27.960] When Japan was once or twice the last race in the season, as people were packing down
[01:12:27.960 -> 01:12:35.280] the cars in the last race, the Japanese fans would still be in the stands until we finished.
[01:12:35.280 -> 01:12:40.240] And there used to be this competition, like a competition, put it in inverted commas.
[01:12:40.240 -> 01:12:49.440] And basically, people used to blow up the engines at the end of the season. So if you look at, there's a video on the internet
[01:12:49.560 -> 01:12:53.480] about a fire up at Japan.
[01:12:53.480 -> 01:12:57.320] Basically, it's basically the car sitting on its stands
[01:12:57.320 -> 01:12:59.240] and the guy's revving the engine.
[01:12:59.240 -> 01:13:01.320] And the exhaust is going hot.
[01:13:01.320 -> 01:13:03.280] And it didn't blow up, that one,
[01:13:03.280 -> 01:13:05.840] but I know that historically there'd been some years where
[01:13:05.840 -> 01:13:11.200] I think Jack Villeneuve just came out and just went full throttle, boom, the engine
[01:13:11.200 -> 01:13:15.800] went off. So it was the end of the season and certain teams would do that and certain
[01:13:15.800 -> 01:13:16.800] teams wouldn't do it.
[01:13:16.800 -> 01:13:23.280] If you have that link, I will share it with our listeners in the show notes below. But
[01:13:23.280 -> 01:13:25.520] to sort of focus in, because this conversation
[01:13:25.520 -> 01:13:30.040] has gone longer than I promised, I do apologise, but hopefully we can get you back in the shed
[01:13:30.040 -> 01:13:38.000] at some point. The Super Aguri story isn't one of, obviously it's only three years, but
[01:13:38.000 -> 01:13:48.200] 2007 looked hopeful. There was points on the board. So to start with the positivity of that, and then obviously into the inevitable question
[01:13:48.200 -> 01:13:50.920] of why didn't that then continue?
[01:13:50.920 -> 01:13:56.040] Yeah, I mean, if we had...I was actually looking back at it and seeing how many points we got.
[01:13:56.040 -> 01:13:58.520] Of course, the points at that time only went down to...
[01:13:58.520 -> 01:13:59.520] Eight, I think, at that point.
[01:13:59.520 -> 01:14:00.520] Eight positions.
[01:14:00.520 -> 01:14:06.400] Yeah, so a couple of times we ended up sixth and we got one point or something,
[01:14:06.400 -> 01:14:10.800] or two points. But actually, if you'd had the current scoring system, we would have got quite
[01:14:11.920 -> 01:14:17.360] a lot more points. But sadly, that was the time at which there was the financial crash.
[01:14:17.920 -> 01:14:23.760] And if you remember, Honda, Toyota, Bridgestone, all of the Japanese companies pulled out of
[01:14:23.760 -> 01:14:25.600] Formula One at that point.
[01:14:25.600 -> 01:14:31.000] So it was pretty much at the point of the big financial crisis and Honda pulled out
[01:14:31.000 -> 01:14:32.000] of F1.
[01:14:32.000 -> 01:14:34.240] Is that what led to Honda pulling out of Formula One?
[01:14:34.240 -> 01:14:35.480] I actually didn't know that.
[01:14:35.480 -> 01:14:42.600] Obviously Braun then took that over in 2009 and won the drivers' championship that year.
[01:14:42.600 -> 01:14:49.600] So I didn't realize there was a link between those two things. So did you feel the shockwaves of Honda support earlier than their eventual
[01:14:49.600 -> 01:14:50.600] withdrawal?
[01:14:50.600 -> 01:14:55.000] Yes. Basically, that was it. Basically, that was in a nutshell.
[01:14:55.000 -> 01:15:01.760] That's a shame because in 2007, it was looking reasonably competitive and those points weren't
[01:15:01.760 -> 01:15:05.720] fluked points. They were expected points going forward.
[01:15:05.720 -> 01:15:13.480] So did you go into 2008 going, it's back to the duct tape of the Arrows car this year?
[01:15:13.480 -> 01:15:17.480] I think everyone was quite hopeful, but there was a lot of things going on in the world
[01:15:17.480 -> 01:15:21.760] that I think some of the ramifications of the financial crash were actually starting
[01:15:21.760 -> 01:15:32.140] to ripple through before it became the big crash. So we were starting to feel some of those impacts before it was common knowledge
[01:15:32.140 -> 01:15:37.740] that everything was going wrong in the world. So yeah, we felt them a bit earlier.
[01:15:37.740 -> 01:15:41.500] So I had planned to ask you about Formula E and I hope you will come back and talk to
[01:15:41.500 -> 01:15:45.760] us because I think if we look a decade ahead or even like two decades ahead,
[01:15:45.760 -> 01:15:48.720] we've got a convergence coming
[01:15:48.720 -> 01:15:50.900] with the top tier of motorsport
[01:15:50.900 -> 01:15:52.800] wanting to be road relevant.
[01:15:52.800 -> 01:15:54.460] But I think for today,
[01:15:54.460 -> 01:15:56.160] so that you don't get fed up with me and go,
[01:15:56.160 -> 01:15:58.960] oh, you never let me get back to my dinner, right?
[01:15:58.960 -> 01:16:01.460] I will leave it on one question mark.
[01:16:02.680 -> 01:16:06.580] Are you happy that it was Super Aguri that you were involved
[01:16:06.580 -> 01:16:10.660] in or would you have preferred, if you can go back in time, would it have been Preston
[01:16:10.660 -> 01:16:11.660] F1?
[01:16:11.660 -> 01:16:16.580] Yeah, I mean, I don't think Preston F1 would have actually ever taken off with the same
[01:16:16.580 -> 01:16:22.260] vigour, let's say, and had a car company like Honda behind it. So it was an incredible journey
[01:16:22.260 -> 01:16:28.480] and I really enjoyed working with Aguri and of course everybody at the Super Aguri and Honda and everyone that made it happen. I'm glad
[01:16:28.480 -> 01:16:30.200] it went that way.
[01:16:30.200 -> 01:16:33.860] Mark Preston, thank you so much for your time. We're going to try and get everyone to swarm
[01:16:33.860 -> 01:16:37.840] you on Twitter and pepper you with questions. Hopefully, you'll come and join us in the
[01:16:37.840 -> 01:16:38.840] shed again.
[01:16:38.840 -> 01:16:44.200] Thank you. It's been good fun.
[01:16:44.200 -> 01:16:49.160] Well that's all we've got time for this week. I hope you enjoyed your midweek buffet. Join
[01:16:49.160 -> 01:16:57.800] us on Sunday at 8pm BST, that's UK time, UTC plus one for our Australian Grand Prix race
[01:16:57.800 -> 01:17:07.280] review. If you're a patron, you can catch our Friday live stream,-race me and Matt get together and just chew through what we
[01:17:07.280 -> 01:17:16.480] reckon we can tell from FP1 and FP2 and we divert and tangent and do all our doom scrolly lockdown
[01:17:16.480 -> 01:17:22.080] remain indoors style content. It's essentially me and Matt catching up and inviting our patrons
[01:17:22.080 -> 01:18:07.920] to come along for the ride but wherever we see see you next, work hard, be kind, and have fun. This was MistakePenks Podcast. Looking for a fun way to win up to 25 times your money this football season?
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