Bernd Maylander: 500 races in the Safety Car

0:00This episode is sponsored by Indeed. There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes of this show, booking guests across time zones, tight turnaround edits and constant time management. And when things get chaotic, you realise pretty quickly how important it is to have the right person on your team. If I had to hire someone tomorrow, I wouldn't just want a good editor. I'd want someone who understands pace in long-form interviews and can work fast under pressure. And in moments like that, you think, this is a job for sponsored jobs. Because Indeed Sponsored Jobs boosts your listing in search results, helping you reach the candidates with the specific skills and experience you actually need.

0:39And it works. Sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95 % more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs. That's a serious edge when the pressure's on. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to indeed.com slash podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.

1:20Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Cadillac has entered Formula One, deepening the racing pedigree behind every V-Series on the road. Discover a line-up that delivers pure adrenaline in the form of modern luxury. Experience the quickest Cadillac ever, the all-electric Lyric V, the peak performance of the CT5V Blackwing, the nimble agility of the Optic V, and the legendary roar of the Escalade V, all engineered to thrill. Find out more about Cadillac's performance story in Formula One and our race-tested V-Series lineup at cadillac.com.

2:09What's up, y 'all? Summer's got a different tempo. Everything's a little looser, brighter. One plan turns into another. You hear something, you stay a little longer. Next thing you know, you're somewhere you didn't plan to be. It's those in-between moments. That's where the ideas hit. Conversations stretch out. Little memories sneak up on you. Sometimes it's just about what's in your hand. That color. That chill. The new tropical butterfly refresher from Starbucks. Guava and passion fruit flavors with mango pineapple flavored pearls. Yeah, that feels like summer before you even taste it. Funny how one small stop becomes the best part of the day.

2:48Start your summer rhythm with Starbucks. Try the new Tropical Butterfly Refresher from Starbucks.

3:01Of the current Formula One grid, only Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso have led more laps than safety car driver Bernd Maylander. So what's it like having the fastest drivers on the planet right behind you? Somehow, if you have these F1 drivers behind you, you can feel the power, you can feel the spirit. Everyone is looking forward for the restart. If you ask me if I'm still nervous, yes, I'm nervous. Without this adrenaline, I think it would be boring and I would be not a safety car driver anymore, but I need that. Bernd loves the thrill, but safety always comes first. So he's not fazed when drivers complain about his speed.

3:45I spoke to him a couple of times after the race. I said, oh, please don't say all these things. And he said, yeah, yeah, no, but in that moment I didn't understand why you drove so slow and I explained to him and he always agreed. That's completely normal.

4:05Hello and welcome to F1 Beyond the Grid with me, Tom Clarkson. Bernd Maylander reached a monumental milestone in Melbourne earlier this year when he completed 500 Grand Prix as the FIA safety car driver. A lot's changed since his first race back in 2000 and we discuss it all. Bernd tells me how the safety car and his role have evolved over the last 25 years. The car is much quicker now and his role is much busier and it's fascinating to hear about the similarities between his preparation for a race weekend and the F1 drivers themselves. We also reflect on some of Berndt's most memorable moments, from the heavy rain at Fuji in 2007, to the drama of Brazil 2016 and everything in between.

4:53And in all that time driving the safety car, it's astonishing that Berndt has only crashed once. So I had to ask him what happened.

5:06Bernd, it's great to have you on the show again. It's been six years since you were last on. The sport has changed a lot in that time, but one thing hasn't, you are still the safety car driver. That's right, yeah, but the sport's still great. We have good times, I have to say, on the track. So it's great to be back, by the way. Are you still loving it? Still loving being the safety car driver? That's why I'm here. Yeah, absolutely. What you said, yeah, six years ago, the time is running so quickly. I always say if the time is running quickly, many things are going on in a positive way. So that's why six years, it just could be yesterday.

5:48I remember exactly when we've been sitting together. That was in Portimao. Yeah, it was Portimao. We had the ocean behind us. Yeah, that was very fantastic. Well, we're speaking at Suzuka, one of the great racetracks. Can we wind it back? a couple of races because melbourne 2026 was a big one for you wasn't it 500 races as the fia safety car driver it's an amazing tally how proud are you of that achievement i have to say well i knew that these numbers coming up i was flying to australia on the difficult situations by air traffic like you know and for me it was just yeah okay well 500 sure something will going on i was quite relaxed but then during the weekend i realized okay it's nice the people recognized it the fi have done something really nice on the thursday afternoon we had an evening we had a nice barbecue with some surprises for me i have to do a speech but i'm not really good in it but i have to say i'm really proud for this number but i always say without a team you can't do that so you need a good positive team behind you and that's what i definitely had my co-drivers the race directors, the people around me were supporting the job.

7:02And that was great. And the whole group's been joining us for the barbecue. So it was really cool, I have to say. And yeah, it's great. But now I'm looking forward for the next number. Well, before we come on to what that next number might be, can we throw it back to 2000 when you started out on this journey? Did you imagine you'd still be doing it 500 races later? No, not in 2000. And so when I originally started in 1999 in Formula 3000, that was more or less a year to learn the whole procedure. And then you arrived in Melbourne 2000, standing on the grid. I recognize still a picture. I have still a picture in my mind.

7:42A young boy standing next to a big safety car. And I knew what I have to do, but I was really, really nervous to go on the grid on a Sunday. there was I think just covering Formula 1 at that time and it was great I thought okay well now you're a small part of Formula 1 for maybe one lap or two laps you never know and I never expect that long time to be in the safety car but that's exactly if you really like to do something and you have a great team and it's running in a positive way then that can happen that you're doing 500 Grand Prix or even more. I suppose back then you were still very much a racing driver weren't you?

8:27You were thinking like a racing driver and was this almost a sideshow for you? For sure the main reason was the focus during a race weekend it's a little bit different it's a little bit more focused on the competition in the job as a safety car driver and that what I recognized very quickly you've been focused on different things you're focused what can happen you try to improve the safety job what you have to cover where's a shortcut for example there's a shortcut on a track if that happens maybe we can use a shortcut as a race driver you never think about that because that's up to your engineers and to your people around you and so you work really close with the race director together to improve the job to looking more to the weather forecast for things like that as a race driver okay if it's raining it's raining but you're not really focused on the weather forecast so that was a different job than that what I realized and but a very great job and so one weekend I was the race driver and on the other weekend I was the FIA Formula One safety car driver and that's what I really enjoyed for five years and then I stopped officially racing championship racing I would say and been even more focused on the job as a safety car driver and great did you miss racing or does this still scratch that itch for you missing racing now with 54 i would say at the competition sometimes i wouldn't sign a contract for a whole championship now with 10 races for example but sometimes to drive a nice GT3 car, like Max is doing this, for some races.

10:11Yeah, that would be great. I have done this four years ago with an old colleague with Bern Schneider. We did a GT race in Germany with a GT3 car, and that was really good fun and competition. So if you put your helmet on and the gloves, and if you are on a proper race car, you're in that mode again. I think it's a normal DNA thing. for a race driver that you are fully focused on the job what you have to do. In the safety car, you have to realize it very quickly that you are not in a race car, that you're in the safety car to have a different kind of mode because you have to protect something else.

10:54You're still driving a very high performance car though, aren't you? For the last five years, the safety car has been the AMG GT Black Series, hasn't it? Can you put some stats on that in terms of how quick it is horsepower yeah the the gt black series well it's the quickest safety car ever so far uh this car is developed for a racetrack to be not a race car but to be a really performance car on a racetrack um so with 730 horsepower big v8 engine but the car is so nice drivable on the limit uh with full downforce so this car you really feel the downforce uh great balance so it's really driving like a little race car with slick tires and that helps for sure that keeps up your performance and that's very important i think to cover this check to have a great performance car and if you think about which car we had where we're coming from and which part the safety car had 25 years ago and now where we are now with which kind of cars it's it's Great to see.

12:01And I'm always surprised by the engineers, what they are developing. So I can say now, yes, I'm really looking forward for the next models. You mentioned Max, Max Verstappen a minute ago. He's in a Mercedes GT3 and he's racing it at the Nürburgring. Is his car quite similar to what you're driving at F1 races? Similar. I think the basics are somehow similar. So the basics, front, middle engine, transaxle, the balance. But the GT3, it's a proper racing car. This car is developed just to be a race car on a racetrack with much more downforce, less weight. But the basic, you can say, yeah, it's a kind of.

12:39The safety car, we have different rules. So it should be a road car. We have even nearly 200 horsepower more than the GT3 car. But we are much heavier in the car. We have to use road tires. So the balance in the end, it's something different. we have to cover the safety part as a safety car and we don't want to win the race that's a different job i'm gonna come on to that but just as an aside while we're mentioning max verstappen you've done a lot of racing at the nurburgring in fact one of your first races was at the nurburgring right how impressed have you been by what max has done absolutely and that's i think in general the whole motorsport uh gt world is uh keep an eye on it what he's doing at at that racetrack because the new working notch life that's where i started everything when i drove by my private car every weekend when after i get the driving license um that was my track to learn how to drive quick it was not always safe but uh i never crashed on the private car yeah but um He's doing a fantastic job up there, and I think everyone loves it.

13:51It's pure racing. It's a very difficult track. It's difficult to overtake. So you need a lot of passion sometimes to get the right moment to overtake someone, especially in the GT3 cars. I saw some of the in-car from his race the other day. It's fantastic. The way he was carving through the traffic. Yeah, and that's the great thing. So you have different classes up there, different categories, and you not only have to drive quick, you have to drive very clever to ride for the right moment and that's what Max is enjoying. So it's great to see him up there. I will be there this year for the 24-hour race.

14:28Not only about him, but I think that's some very topic that he's up there and a lot of people becoming extra for him. Does a driver ever properly know the Nordschleife or does it, can you always get better? Can you always know it better? I think, yeah, you always, you're looking for the perfect lap up there and then you think okay even if you're on pole position you know okay maybe there's still a half a 10 or something and this is the notch life you have so many corners and for sure you need a little bit of luck to get a proper lap without traffic but this is the competition up there and different weather conditions and because the track is more than 20 kilometers only the Nordschleife.

15:12And this is the challenge up there. And I think everyone loves it. Everyone who's infected by this virus motorsport is searching for the Nordschleife. This episode is sponsored by Indeed. There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes of this show, booking guests across time zones, tight turnaround edits and constant time management. And when things get chaotic, you realise pretty quickly how important it is to have the right person on your team. If I had to hire someone tomorrow, I wouldn't just want a good editor. I'd want someone who understands pace in long-form interviews and can work fast under pressure.

15:49And in moments like that, you think, this is a job for sponsored jobs. Because Indeed Sponsored Jobs boosts your listing in search results, helping you reach the candidates with the specific skills and experience you actually need. And it works. Sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95 % more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs. That's a serious edge when the pressure's on. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.

16:27And listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves. at indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to indeed.com slash podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed-sponsored jobs. This episode is sponsored by Indeed. There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes of this show, booking guests across time zones, tight turnaround edits, and constant time management. And when things get chaotic, you realise pretty quickly how important it is to have the right person on your team.

17:11If I had to hire someone tomorrow, I wouldn't just want a good editor. I'd want someone who understands pace in long-form interviews and can work fast under pressure. And in moments like that, you think, this is a job for sponsored jobs. Because Indeed Sponsored Jobs boost your listing in search results, helping you reach the candidates with the specific skills and experience you actually need. And it works. Sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95 % more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs. That's a serious edge when the pressure's on. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes.

17:50Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to indeed.com slash podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.

18:35now we've discussed the black series but since mercedes got involved as the safety car supplier they've had 13 different cars okay good good that you know the number i've been counting you alluded to it earlier but how have they evolved can you remember the first one even if i was not involved in driving that car but i had maybe the most kilometers on that car because it was my first company car for mercedes i was racing for mercedes at that time as a junior in DTM ITC. And I get a phone call on, I think it was a Monday or Tuesday morning after the Monaco Grand Prix. I was home. Norbert Tauk, assistant, he called me and said, Bernd, how many kilometers do you have on your car?

19:30And I said, why are you asking me this question? You know, I have this car since four weeks. I'm happy. I'm more than happy to have a C36 AMG. That was the sports model, I would say. And so I had to bring the car back on the same day because I was living very close to the headquarter at that time. And they took my car and told me, okay, this car will be the new safety car in Formula 1 from the French Grand Prix afterwards. And so I lost my car and this car was the first safety car from Mercedes-Benz in 1996. I get a new one a couple of weeks or more months later, but in the end, that was the first contact to a proper safety car.

20:12I didn't expect that I'm sitting in the safety car five years later. And just give us an idea of how much quicker the Black Series is compared to that. A lap of Manicor, you say the French Grand Prix, how much quicker would you be now than back then? I would say 20, 25 seconds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it was already a very quick car for that time. It was the quickest, most sporty car, the C36 with 280 horsepower, I guess, at that time. So that was very powerful V6 engine. But now we have a V8 engine, double turbo, 730 horsepower, flat grand shift. So it's completely different. And there are many cars in this list where you made a proper step forward by the drivability.

21:00But that's the engineers. That's the great thing. 40 years ago, you thought sometimes, OK, that must be now the most sportive car. and for sure there are still some very special cars i would say like like a ferrari f40 this is outstanding car in the 80s and there are sometimes in some decade are some special cars where still you have think that was a milestone yeah now look we've talked about mercedes but of course aston martin was supplying the safety car for five years as well tell us about that period Well, they joined in 21. The first contact for me was with Aston Martin in 2020. And I never had any contact to Aston Martin.

21:44I knew the things from James Bond and these kind of things. And the most popular color was the green ones, the green Aston Martins. And it was fantastic how they joined us. Quite open. They learned a lot in 2020. They were just at the racetrack to learn to understand the procedure. and then they developed a really great car and they've been supplying together with AMG, the safety medical car for five years. Great company, I just can say, great cars, nice spirits, they're building really lovely cars, nice design, very drivable. The Vantage safety car what I had over the whole period was the same basic car like the Black Series or the car before it was a front middle engine transaxle so really good balance for a basic car and that's very helpful for me as a safety car driver to have a good basic car with a nice handling well was it difficult to swap between the two cars because it would be mercedes one weekend and aston the next wouldn't yeah sometimes that happened but after a couple of laps you you know exactly what you have to do and that's what i said before um the basic of the car has been in the same level and then you have to adapt a little bit your driving skill.

23:00With the GT Black Series, now you're even on a higher level. But to cover my job, that's not really the most important thing. The basic must be really good. And that's what we had. So somehow I can say, yes, I miss Aston Martin in that job. Because what I said before, great people with a great brand. One of the scariest things I've seen recently on the TV came in 2024 at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. I think you know where I'm going with this. But we saw you in the barriers at the Parabolica. What happened? How scary was it? Yes, for sure. If you think about it, you're in Monza on a high-speed track and you have this problem.

23:41For sure, you have to be a little bit lucky to not have another proper accident. Most important thing was for me that my co-driver, Richard, that he was okay, that I was okay. what happens in the end we had a brake issue we find out where immediately after the test that was during the track test on the thursday we find out immediately what happened and luckily it was not a system failure of the brake system so we could be sure that the brake will work in the future that's i think one of the most important things and yeah it was a crash that can happen in racing because you're working on sometimes on the limit especially on the track test you you try to find your driving level for the races and yeah it was a big impact if you think about with 270 no brakes it's not really nice was that the only time you've crashed the safety car yeah yeah luckily yes in 500 races in 500 well more or less yeah 500 race was the only time that I hit a barrier and it was a big one luckily I did the right thing in that moment I just tried to bring the car in a rotation to reduce the speed because if you have no brakes for sure you can turn in in a corner but nothing will happen by the way so you will go straight into the barrier and that's what I want to avoid to not going straight into the barrier just to bring the car in a rotation to slow down in any way and that's what we did that's the racing driver in you though isn't it it's kind of everything slows down i have the presence of mind to do that i never practiced that by the way so it was the first and hopefully the last time in the end everything went well and we could find the mistakes and done look you mentioned your co-driver richard richard darker other than being mad to sit alongside you at those high speeds tell us a little bit about richard and what does he do how does he support you it's quite important because uh it's teamwork um for I can cover the driving part.

25:49We get a lot of information into the safety car. Let's say from the moment onwards, if something happens on the track, it starts with the standby situation. So he's usually pressing the button, standby, reporting to race control. I'm listening to everything. From that moment onward, we know everything on the track. For example, turn three accident, two cars on the left side, a lot of debris on the track. okay that's the information what we what we have we have a screen we can see it and he's reporting back so when we're passing the that area he's reporting back i can report as well but four ices and four ears see and hear more if i'm not 100 sure if it was now left or the right side because i'm focused on driving it's a backup so he let me know okay no band it was on the left side so that's just for safety procedure and that is very very helpful luckily mostly we have nothing to do we're just sitting in the car doing the race watching the race on the screens watching the gps mapping and then we also can have a nice chat that's also very helpful but it's good to have kind of a safety backup for your information because we don't want to disrupt race control all the time they have to manage many other things in that situation if something happens and that's very helpful and it's like an airplane cockpit that's what I always say that's why you have a co-pilot you could fly the airplane alone but it's good to have someone next to you it's good that he has no steering wheel no but it's good to have a safe device to have someone with me you mentioned the track test on a Thursday earlier can you now talk us through what a Grand Prix weekend looks like for you when do you arrive tell us about that track test on a Thursday what happens on a Friday Saturday and Sunday I have to say since Covid more or less changed a lot from the beginning onwards from 2000 to now the procedures are kind of the same but with the modern technique what we have we have to test even more things and it's so high professional so I'm arriving Wednesday evening at the hotel sometimes we have Wednesday already the track walk where we analyze the track where we look if the track is fully in shape for the f1 weekend but usually do this on the thursday morning thursday afternoon we have our track test and this test is not only based to learn the track in my case for sure for me it's good to be back on the track to find out where's the limit how to drive every corner where's the breaking point and things like that That's basic.

28:27For sure, that's my job. But we're also testing all the technical things, timing, TV. So Formula One is really involved to set up the right places for the cameras. The timing, very important because Thursday is the day before Friday. And from Friday morning onwards, everything has to work in a perfect way because there are the cars, the race cars on the track. You cannot say, oh, the timing is not running in a perfect way. It has to run. It has to run good. And that's what we are testing on a Thursday afternoon. FIA-wise, we are practicing different procedures because now in the modern Formula 1, we have different procedures for a red flag, for a restart, for a standing start, for a rolling start.

29:12And that's what we are playing with, different procedures to teach ourselves if we are 100 % on the level what we want to be. that's why we're practicing this in the first half an hour of the track test that's our procedure we're always playing in different procedures aborted starts or so many different things and that's what we are practicing that's very important for race control for us for everyone who's involved in in every race and every race weekend during the track test on a thursday it's the safety car and the medical car you're both out there yeah yeah how hard are you pushing though if i see the medical car in my mirror i'm pushing like oh no um but we'll be playing together different rules so mostly i'm playing the safety car and he's playing the first f1 car and there's different scenarios what we are playing with uh i think the people on the grandstand they don't understand the procedure what we are doing but luckily we know what we are doing and that's a very important procedure for the whole weekend and for sure you're you're going on the limit let's say on that track test if I have a free lap you're bringing the car really on the on the limit and for sure there's a difference between the safety and medical car the medical car yes usually two doctors plus the driver inside the car is much heavier but he also has to be very quick if he has to go on the track if something happens so both drivers uh carl or bruno or myself we pushing us to the limit to have everything 100 under control so is thursday the fastest you drive the car all weekend depends to the track conditions because on thursday that's as a race driver you realize this very quickly usually you don't have that grip level than on a friday or saturday or even on a Sunday because the track conditions improve during a race weekend by the grip and we know this from all the racetracks and for sure on a Thursday you maybe you start in the beginning of the track test two seconds slower than to the end because the track improves during that but you always try to keep the car on the limit because I think one of the great misunderstandings about the safety car tell me if i'm wrong is that i think people assume you're flat out when you're leading the field in a race but that's rarely rarely the situation isn't it yeah absolutely so sometimes i'm really lucky when the race director or when rui tells me on the radio but now you can drive as fast as you want more or less and that's the best moment for me because then you really can you can push you know okay we have two more laps to go and then we're coming in so you know you can really push hard but mostly we are not on the limit because of the situation on the track let's say if there's a lot of debris in a in turn four uh there are marshals on the track i picked up the leading car i know okay we have to give them time that that the track is clear when clean when we pass in this area um so we're not driving flat out we should be driving slower instead of 200 we're just going for 120.

32:33And that's exactly the moment when the people or when the drivers, when they're pressing the button, are the safety cars driving so slow. They don't have this information. We have it and we guide the drivers through this area and safely, that's my job. And after that, if the track is clear and ready to go, for sure we're speeding up on a limit. That's the best moment for me, because then you really, you can drive. and the other situations are sometimes really tricky to make everyone happy and definitely the the leading car is the most affected car because he loses advantage he's the leader still from the pack but still they're looking for their own performance but it's completely normal i do my job to stay safe to guide everyone on a safe way around the drivers the people who involved in in in this situation.

33:28Can you hear the radio messages from the drivers? No. I remember Hamilton in particular when he was winning everything at Mercedes. He was quite outspoken. The safety car needs to speed up. This is too slow for us. I spoke to him a couple of times after the race. I said, oh, Lewis, please don't say all these things. And he said, yeah, yeah, no. But, you know, in that moment, I didn't understand why you drove so slow. and I explained to him and he always agreed. That's completely normal. It's kind of heat at the moment stuff. Yeah, that's absolutely understandable and fine from my side. I have no problem about that.

34:09Even when I was racing, the safety car turned up in front of me. Even I was saying, why is he driving that slow? I have to watch for my tire temperatures to be in the right performance. That's what a driver, what's the job of a race driver. And my job is a little bit different. I have no tire problems or tire pressure problems and we always say safety first and I think everyone understands this we're working together with the driver for example for this year we have a slightly different situation in a safety car deployment than in the years before because they don't want to go that quick anymore because of the power of the cars it's a different procedure and you have always to learn every year a little bit of different procedures.

34:57So the race drivers don't want to go that quick? No, because they don't want to use the battery, let's say on a long straight, I want to save energy. And that means you're driving a little bit slower. You're not going really in this high speed, let's say over 250. For example, in Vegas, we could go up to 300. That's the longest straight. That's the quickest track by high speed. and I'm pretty sure they're happy with 200 there or not you don't have to go up to 250 or more anymore. Is it difficult to pick up the lead car when you come out of the pits particularly late on in the race if there are lap cars and things like that?

35:32Yeah that's that's exactly the problem so sometimes if it's late in the race you know where's the leader and race control always try to send me on track in front of the leader that's the perfect situation but if they're going for a pit stop if they're on a different strategy than many other cars maybe it's not a leader anymore and i get guided i can see it where who is the leader but yeah it's a tricky moment to make the right the right move even for for race control um or if it starts immediately from one to the other side it starts to rain and they're changing tires um it's that's a quite tricky moment but that's the challenge and that's uh yeah why you really have to understand and to read a race and if you're really in that flow you you get the points and that's the that's the passion it was an inauspicious start for the safety car back in 1973 in Canada its first race I just us talking about this reminds me of didn't it pick up the wrong car and it all got very confused back in I haven't watched that race.