Laura Mueller + Esteban Ocon on their race engineer-driver dynamic at Haas

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.

1:54all about. Each vividly immersive episode delves into one remarkable subject from world history, from revolutionary people and world-changing inventions, to defining events that still shape our lives today. So if you love innovation, ambition, and stories about what happens when people go all in, give Short History Of a listen. Search for Short History Of wherever you get your podcasts.

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3:18F1 is an extreme sport in which cars race at 200 miles an hour, inches from walls and from each other. Drivers are pushed to their limits, both physically and mentally, but they're not out there alone. Safety car, safety car. Lots of people are boxing for slicks. We are expecting more rain in 10 minutes. I don't think slicks now. Copy. The voice in their ear is their race engineer, the main link between driver and team, both on track and off it. What the engineer says and when they say it is crucial. Once a lap, you say, this is how many laps to go. I think if I start talking to you more than once a lap, you'd be like.

4:04If it's critical decision to take on strategy, there are times where we must have talked like 25, 30 seconds in a lap. But you lose time doing that. A driver's relationship with their race engineer is probably their most important in the sport. So when Laura Muller and Esteban Ocon were teaming up at Haas for the first time earlier this year, they were eager to get up to speed quickly. Were you scared? Yeah, because obviously we were both new, so I wasn't too sure at first. Laura, she's the most motivated that I know. She's the hardest working engineer I've ever met. Because we were all new to what we were doing, we all don't really have a preconceived idea of how it should be and just do things the way we need them to be done.

4:53So I think we moulded very well together.

5:00Hello and welcome to F1 Beyond the Grid with me, Tom Clarkson. A brand new role for Laura Muller and a brand new team for Esteban Ocon. 2025 has been a big learning curve for both of them. So how have they built such a strong relationship? What do they need from each other and how do they communicate both in and out of the car? Laura and Esteban share brilliant insights into their first season together. You'll hear fascinating details like when is the right time to talk on the radio and how often that changes in different situations. Laura also looks back on her journey to becoming a race engineer and the childhood hero who inspired both hers and Esteban's career.

5:47Guys, great to have you on the show. How are things? Good so far. So far, so good. So far, so good. Tell us first of all about the race driver, race engineer relationship. How would you describe it, Esteban? Well, it's the most important part of the work, really. Having to have Laura as my eyes from the outside is the most important thing. Together, if we don't work well, we are suffering in the weekends. That's the way it goes, unfortunately. You can't drive the car nowadays alone. We were chatting about that earlier. Yeah, there's so much going on that we need to be having many brains together.

6:29and if you put that in a good way, you can improve and you can build your weekends much stronger. So for me, that part of the work is the most critical one, the prep before, the prep on Thursdays, the chats in between the sessions. And when we are doing a strong weekend, we can feel it all together. It's becoming one piece and it's going to plan. It's a very satisfying piece of work in between and behind the scenes. Laura you're his eyes and another brain on the outside of the car how do you see what he does to help you you have a preconceived idea how the weekend's gonna go like you you start somewhere and you think you're gonna end up at a different place with setup and all these things but without his feedback like when he finishes a run you don't really know where to go because you can look at the data but in the end what he feels in the car is is very vital to our decision making so without his comments i would take much longer to make decisions but she would still be able to but she needs time the time is the constraint that's that's the thing so all the info is there in the data yes and by speaking to estepan you can just speed up the process yeah basically like you you see in the data what's happening but then you know i i usually say to estepan we see this and this do you agree if he says yes you can you can go ahead and move on but then if he would say no that's absolutely not what I feel then it gets like complicated but yeah you kind of need the agreement we're talking at race 21 this is the first year that you guys have worked together how long did it take you to understand each other to how long until the telepathy between you started working i don't know how much telepathy you need from me but i'd say like three four races until you like broadly know what this guy needs and what he means and stuff but i think i think we're still in the process of sometimes i think you want this but you want the exact opposite so it just you know i think it never really stops hang on laura can you just explain what you've just said so he says one thing and actually just explain that Laura please no but like so you know you have all these decisions to make and and things and like my boss asked me oh what do you think Esteban would want and sometimes I'm like I think he wants this and then I talk to him and he he says no I want the exact opposite but he has a good reason for it and I have a good reason for mine but then you know I just I just anticipated something completely different what do you always say the blanket's too short.

9:13That's your thing. There's always a compromise somewhere. La comperta e troppo corta. Yes. In Italian, it's the blanket's too short. So you can't have everything you want, which is where, you know, we have to take the decision together, which is quite important. Let's talk about your driving style, Esteban. What do you want from a race car in order to be quick? I think the most important is to have the confidence, you know, to attack the corners, you know, strong braking, no lockups, good front end, mid-corner you know if we have a car that's obviously you know good at that you can drive it around and be fast you know but if the car limits you especially on the front end side of things which is where we struggled a bit earlier this year that has improved massively towards the end of the year now but we've had that and we've you know struggled a bit to put the laps together at times um once you have a car that turns well you can perform but it's there's much more into that you know because Laura she has an eye also on what's overall happening in the session and for example you know when it's wet when it's starting to rain like Silverstone for example you know I'm gonna tell her if you see somebody going off let me know because I know I have to attack the corners and break at the point where it's dry and sometimes you have no warning you break you are the dry points but it's actually raining like 20 seconds ago you just go straight but if she tells me she sees what's happening around she gives me the right information and I can preempt that stay on track gain the positions and not have a drama so you know there's a lot that goes into it yeah so the conversation when he's out on track how many times a lap would you be talking to Esteban I kind of try to limit it to once it depends on the condition it depends you know is this a race where not much happens is this a race where he's fighting someone is it wet all these kind of things because normally you know once a lap you say okay this is how many laps to go but for example in a quali lap i would never dare to say anything if not you know somebody's literally spinning off in front of him or there's a yellow flag i think if i'd start talking to you more than once a lap you'd be like and always on a straight right yes that's that's the hard bit because sometimes gps is off sometimes you know you are trying to speak in the straight but it happens in the corners but there are times where normal situation wants a lap as Laura says but if it's you know something critical like brakes are you know over the roof there is an issue with the engine a critical thing or there is you know a critical decision to take on strategy you know we agree to talk as much as we we can because that's critical for our race so there are times where we must have talked like 25 30 seconds in a lap it has happened but you lose time doing that you know because you are not fully focused on what you are doing in front so you will lose two or three tenths by keeping on talking but if you gain 10 seconds or 15 on your overall race time or you finish a race well it's just a game let's wind the clock back i'm fascinated about this relationship between you two always new for both of you at the start of this year new job for you laura performance engineer in the past up to race engineer this year brand new team for you Esteban just how difficult were those opening weeks well you know what it was not easy for sure there was a lot to adapt but the transition has been incredibly smooth and that's also thanks to you know Laura's work um it didn't feel like you know Laura was new to the role it felt like she's done that for years you know already you know she knew exactly you know where to position me where to put me what what we needed to do what time of the work we needed to do and arriving in the first race on the melbourne track which is the hardest one on a wet weekend uh there i think you know even if the result was not exactly what we wanted i think for a first weekend like that both of us in the new role we've done pretty well um and yeah i mean we've done an enormous amount of work in the winter you know sasha and laura they came to my training camp as well we spent a couple of days there to discuss about things to just do like a team building you know type of event and we went caving you know managing stress and we put ourselves in ridiculous situations in purpose you know to just have some genuine reaction you know to things I'm not gonna tell you exactly all this is where she breaks yeah but it was hard for me too you know it was really really tough But, you know, in moments where we needed to perform on different exercises, well, we could see the real us, you know, at the time.

14:01And that was really good to be able to experience that before we actually started the things for real. Did he have you doing fitness stuff as well? Yeah, that wasn't the problem. The caving was much more interesting. I've never done it. It's scary. Is it? Yeah. If you're claustrophobic, don't do it, basically. Yeah. how different is race engineer from performance engineer um it's more different than i anticipated really because like from a performance engineer perspective you think oh the race engineer basically does kind of like supervises what i do and then you know deals with the driver but the the dealing with the driver part is is a huge part of of this whole job because you know you're not a car you're a person so i can't just say oh this is the setup you know i have to this is all the compromise you have to talk about everything you have different ideas like a lot of work goes into it and also the the managing of people aspect because like you know okay i i do a lot of work but like everybody in the factory or the aero engineers and you know now my performance engineer they do all the thinking and i just take the thoughts and put it you know into a funnel and then we decide what we do but all this is a lot of work because you have to listen to everybody you have to you know understand what they're thinking ask them questions it's just like you spend a lot of time not producing anything and i and really underestimate managing people yes i'm fascinated by you saying that you know esteban is not a machine he's a human being are we talking psychology here yeah of course like you know if if you come to a weekend and you're like you don't feel great you're in a bad mood and stuff of course i need to see this and i need to think about this you know like i can't just be like oh well he's in a bad mood whatever like some part of you also has to work on improving his mood and his outlook on the weekend how different are race engineers estepan i mean how different is laura to josh the guy you worked with last year at alpine that is interesting very different no they are very different in how they approach the job um yeah i think so but like anyone you know um at the end of the day you you learn with you know what experience you had before and then you build yourself with also the surrounding you have and it is very different here at Haas you know we have a lot more flexibility on things you know it's very different the environment and I think yeah Laura has a lot of say on a lot a lot of things basically that's that's happening and that's that's a very good thing because you know she's very modest and she says she just picks ideas from left to right but she has to put them together and sometimes there's not one idea there are 10 different ideas you know and you need to pick one, which is the best one.

17:01So, you know, we are very honest, you know, between us also, which is very good, you know, when I don't do the right job, you know, she's going to tell me together with Sasha. And that's also important. But when I don't think it's also right what we did, I will also say, but it's in the benefit of us all to improve for the next time. So it's difficult to compare, you know. but yes, like everybody, we are all very different in the way we work. But the important is to work on the leader areas that we can always do better. At least that's my thought. 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.

17:49And 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. And it works. Sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95 % more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs.

18:25That'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. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire?

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20:17Does it help, Esteban, if a race engineer has raced themselves? Does that help them get into your mindset? Not necessarily, no. No, I think the most important thing is, you know, how motivated and how hungry, you know, the people around you are. And Laura, she's one of the people that are the most motivated that I know. you know she's the hardest working engineer i've ever met you know she doesn't count hours um she she will be flat out until she has the point until she proves the point until she knows that's correct um but in the meantime you know when we don't do something correct she will reset and and try and do it do it differently for the next time but if you had a race engineer that had raced sometimes he will try and do the racing driver job which is not you know everybody needs to be at his place you know which is quite important yeah i think you'd have competing thoughts yeah exactly yeah so no i don't think so so laura do you just want information from him or do you want him to come out or do you want him to suggest solutions as well or is that your job that is my job it's not like he doesn't like to sometimes suggest solutions but like in in a perfect world you know he he just has to provide the information and i find the solution but also it helps like if then i have a solution and i present it to him then he has an an idea if if this is what he wants or not we're not that independent from each other we this is we need to talk to each other all the time it's just a revolving conversation I suppose I should ask have you raced uh no what did you ever want to as a child yes but as a child your push behind an idea is not that great if your parents aren't into that but I don't regret not having raced sometimes I would like to just do a lap somewhere just to feel all these things he's always telling me but I need to take you around the lap that would be nice in the car i can feel a pirelli hot lap coming on yeah that would be awesome actually actually i would love that yeah yeah not just to learn but just to experience it's actually crazy we haven't done that yet like we have we are so like head down into the work and yeah we need to make that happen laura you used to work for a gt3 team based at the nurburgring there were no laps of the nordschleife after work um no because i have a very modest car or i used to and that's even more fun yes but if you destroy that car you don't have a car anymore and also i don't think if you know but if you destroy like the barrier at the nordschleife you have to pay per meter and it gets very expensive well just don't crash but i've done One laps in the passenger seat in the wet in a Porsche GT2.

23:19That's not fun. Oh, my God. I thought I'm going to die. Yes, that's not fun. Laura, why motorsport for you? Just tell us a little bit about your journey. Listeners and viewers of the show know about Esteban's. We have the same child of the euro, do we? Michael Schumacher. Really? Oh. Yes. It's wholesome. Was it Michael Schumacher that brought you in? Yeah, because, you know, I'm German. you watch F1 in Germany as a child and Schumacher won seven world titles so you see him all the time you see him dominate and you know on television I mean I've never actually met him but on television he seemed like this wholesome really great guy so as a child you're just like oh this guy is great so yeah and I don't know my mom used to watch a lot of motorsport so I watched F1 every every week so the attraction was motorsport first then engineering second second or did they come together?

24:15Definitely motorsport first, because like until you actually enter motorsport, I don't think a lot of people have a lot of ideas what people actually do here, because from the outside, if you don't like look into it so much, if you don't listen to podcasts and all these things, it's just the idea is interesting. But then like after school, I was like, how do I get into motorsport? And then I realized, okay, I should, you know, either become an engineer or a mechanic or all these things so that's you know how the detail formed of it Esteban told a great story last time he was on the show about being at the French Grand Prix at Manicor I think you said 2006 dressed I think head to toe yeah in Michael Schumacher yes exactly yeah getting booed by Fernando's fans back then did you ever go to Hockenheim and watch Michael or any other race?

25:09I think, I don't know which year it was. I think it was 2004 Nürburgring. I think it was, I think Michael actually won that race. And yes, I went to that, but I went because I knew somebody who drove Porsche Super Cup and I was too young to go into the pit lane, which was very sad. But yes, I went to, I think, two F1 races in my life before I entered it as a job. and then as a job it was sports cars wasn't it and gt3 and and what was it like going to lemar tell me about those long distance races and how how different it is from a work point of view to what you're doing now so i still very much love endurance racing like you're saying that's easy now no it's very it's a very different difficulty in in a way it's obviously you have very different focus but I still love watching them now obviously like a 24-hour race you have to stay up 24 hours that's difficulty number one and then you know you have to set up a car for three different compounds for wet dry dark light all these things for three different drivers so I didn't enjoy that very much but also because not so much anymore or in the top categories but if you make a mistake or if something bad happens at the beginning of a 24-hour race you can fix it you can come back from it whereas here you know at the start if you lose three positions your race can be over so I enjoy the the fact that you can come back from somewhere how different is a sports car to set up to a Formula One car is it is it more basic do you have more or less tools for you to use on a sports car I think from a suspension point of view they're actually very similar it's not as like complicated because the packaging doesn't need to be so small and all these things but like from you know which things you can adjust it's very similar but then obviously of course the aero because like all the cars are the same and all these things you have much less tools to work with and then also you can't change anything the good thing about Formula One is if you after one race you say oh I think we should change this part you can actually just talk to the designers and it will happen so that's the enjoyable part about f1 that it's not a one make serious and you have a huge impact on the car next year the car in three races and all these things describe the sense of anticipation when a new part is coming to the car and i'm thinking most recently most recently in austin right we had we had the upgrade there just describe what it was like during the build-up and and how how you guys got on top of it i like that you describe it as a birthday present basically um i wouldn't say i i get excited about it because i'm very like realistic and you know they they will make a presentation and they will tell you oh we think it gains two points here three points there and stuff so I usually you know think about the worst I can expect because then she only believes it when she sees the performance gain on track basically which isn't I don't it's not because I don't trust you know the designers and all this stuff it's just like I really hate being disappointed so I always like go in with a slightly underestimation just to be sure that I don't stand there and I'm like oh great this this sucks I think this year because the car was was good this year, the whole year, you know, we weren't nowhere with the car.

28:46So the anticipation, I think, for an upgrade is less because, you know, it's going to improve, but where we are right now is actually okay. Whereas in years, you know, where you've struggled and your P20 the whole year, if you get an upgrade, you're like clinging onto it thinking this is going to change your trajectory basically. Hang on guys. I know you say, I know you say the car's been good all year, but I want to take you back to Melbourne, all right? Oh, please don't. You forgot something there, Laura. You two have only been working together for a month or two at the time. You're still getting to know each other.

29:20You're still getting to know the car. How tough was it to go to Melbourne? And I'm going to use the word struggle. It was a struggle, wasn't it? Yeah, it was so long ago that we forgot it. That's the good thing about F1. There's a race every week. But guys, what happened in the immediate aftermath of Melbourne? It was a reality shock, I think, for us all. After the first run, I remember thinking, yeah, that lap wasn't too bad. Where are we? P25. Yeah, we are basically last. Okay, that's very strange. And the car was doing very weird things in a way that we were not expecting. And yeah, at the time, I mean, I didn't say it to anyone.

30:04I kept it for myself, but I thought, shit, that's going to be a very long year. Laura probably thought the same, but we didn't say that to each other because we need to be at it. We need to improve the situation. We need to do everything we can to make that car work. So when we traveled to China, we had very little hopes, but that's still my best result of the year. That's the checkered flag, mate. P7, P7. Good job, guys. Super happy for you guys. Yeah, man, what a turnaround. What did you change for China? Well, we changed quite a lot, actually, of actual parts on the car. That was one big thing.

30:49We didn't change fundamentally, you know, a lot of things in terms of setup, but we kept digging and we improved massively our performance. and the car felt actually very good in China in comparison to how I was in Melbourne. And Laura, from an engineer's point of view, when you've had a really tough moment like you did in Melbourne, Esteban talks about digging, you did some digging. Where do you look? Our job is to describe what the problem is, to point out where the problem arises, how it affects him and all these things. and we just give that feedback to the design office and to the aerodynamicist and all this stuff and then they dig on their side where it comes from.

31:34So we look on the surface where the areas is where we're struggling but they look at the parts where it actually comes from. But from a setup point, of course, if you start the weekend with a car and you're terrible, you're obviously trying to salvage everything you can with setup. so yeah in Melbourne we we spent all night just trying to to solve the the situation if you took the car back to Melbourne now how much better would it be well we will see we will see very different sadly it'll be interesting you can't go back to a track and say yeah everything will be fine but it will be much better it will be much better I'm not going to say we will you know finish fifth and and fight with mclarens and red bulls but yeah we've come a long way since then a lot of understanding the cars dramatically change i think the aero consistency across parts and and how you know we've seen things this year and the amount of learning we've had yeah it would it would be a very different race weekend for sure how different are racing drivers Laura, you've worked with a few over the years.

32:48At Haas, I think Kevin Magnussen was the guy you worked with most as a performance engineer. And then I think at Le Mans, tell me if I'm wrong, Juan Pablo Montoya? He was on my team, but he wasn't on my car. He wasn't? Okay. But how different are drivers? And are Formula One drivers just a cut above? I had that question before, so your turn. So as Estevan said about race engineers, people are very different. So also, I don't think I've ever met two racing drivers who reminded me of another one. They're all very different. And I think because, you know, the bringing up the pressure and all this stuff, you become a very distinctive personality, which is, I think, the same for engineers and F1, really.

33:34I wouldn't really say that F1 drivers are a cut above. Sorry. What does that mean? like I don't think F1 drivers are so much better than drivers in in endurance racing and stuff like this it's just they were at the right place at the right time oh thank you no but like I think I think if you would have had one different turn in your life you would have ended up somewhere else and I think it's the same for a lot of drivers who drive endurance racing now and also there was drivers who were in F1 who then you know had a few bad races and then they're gone forever so I think you know like any racing driver who competes in a factory competitive world championship is an extremely good driver so I wouldn't make a difference there to be honest Laura's definitely a realist

34:30Laura where are the good ones better is it all about feel is it about feedback be nice I've never managed that I think there's two different best or good so either you have a driver who's very talented and has a very good feel and can just very well explain to you what's happening in the car to to help you make a decision or you have a driver who is talented enough but also works very hard also knows the car and how you know what you can change on the car and that driver will describe to you what's happening but also then have some suggestions in which direction you can go but for me the the best driver is obviously fast but also has very good feedback because without feedback like we we can't get anywhere how much sim work do you guys do as part of your preparation how key is that um so we i don't know if people know this but we don't have our own simulator in the factory so we we have a cooperation with ferrari on this so first of all we have to go to italy to go to the simulator and um as you know the the trackside engineering team we do all the races so basically i don't go to the simulator we we have like um you've been actually this year yes but i don't i don't go to all the sessions just because it's just too much i wouldn't be able to do the actual race event preparation then so what engineering team do you have around you when you're in marinella so i have the engineering team you know one one person works at us he's called marizio bocci um he's working there um you know for our team and we have the engineers of ferrari that are basically managing the sim but laura works with marizio at the team in Italy to basically send all the test items that she needs before we get to the track in FP1.

36:34So basically she will have a detailed report on every run that I will send her after the simulator day because she's prepped all the run plan and then she will know what's the best setup item that we should try or that we should use for the race weekend. Is it one sim day per race? pretty much yeah except the triples or the doubles like we we basically can't come back in between I've done that in the past but it's it's just too much because you need to recover after a race weekend or when you are you know in this part of the world you can't really come back to Italy in between um so yeah it's usually yeah one one same day before every race and after every race Can you join them virtually?

37:20We're trying that, but obviously on Teams or whatever, I'm there. But we have a very specific setup. So at the moment, it's not really possible. But as Esteban kind of described, I run a very tight ship of what's been done. So I don't need to put a lot of input into it during the day. Can you give me some examples? So we're going to Interlagos. we're going to try what i want to try this rear suspension i want to try this front suspension this ride height and then you put those into the sim and report back what works best basically yeah what's quicker yeah what's quicker what feels the best the simulator is always difficult to tell you know some stuff you need to be aware that the simulator will have some limitations compared to the track but the more you go the more you find out this basically but it's very good practice for us all it's also something that you know we've tested so we gave it our best there's no regrets you know once you get to the track and yeah i mean i will have a first feel of what this change could do basically and what's the correlation like between the sim and what you're feeling out on track but the more we go the better it is normally so the more both drivers have inputs post races is the better the problem recently with you know how it is in f1 is that you can't correlate a triple header plus prepare a double or triple unfortunately you don't have enough time so you will privilege your prep for the next weekend instead of developing your previous weekend to help next year you know so you do some correlation but not the whole thing and laura for you having io as as team principal but massive engineering brain in there has has he been a support to you like in my life in my job no no all of the above i don't know yeah of course like um at the beginning of the year um when when i had like a race engineering question he would be the the person to go to because my boss was also new to the team.

39:34So, you know, he was learning how we work, how modern F1 works, all these things. So, you know, I could ask him for a broad advice, but like if I needed something specific, yeah, I was the person I went to. 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.

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42:27And so guys, in conclusion, what's the biggest thing you've learned together this year? It's a very weighted question. I think for me, it's like, first of all, to never give up, which sounds very like boring, but it's like, it has like different aspects for me. It's like to basically not lose faith. you know if it's going badly for one weekend you know you always have to reset yourself and just say okay I'm learning this and next weekend you know it's going to be different and we're going to improve this and also during during a weekend if some you know if qualifying went badly often you still have a lot to play for in the race and I think that's also something you're good at like you'll be pissed off for a minute but like as soon as the next day comes you just sit there and you're Like, okay, now I worry about today and I don't worry so much anymore about yesterday.

43:24I've heard other people say that about Esteban, resetting. You're quite good at that. Thank you. Thank you. I'm good at resetting. Forget, I have bad memories, so I forget. For you, what's the biggest thing? You know what? That's something I found actually, you know, awesome is that we are very similar in the way we work and the way we think about things is that I was going to say exactly the same. So it sounds boring, but, you know, never giving up, you know, keeping on digging, keeping on being motivated for what's coming ahead because there can be an opportunity even if things don't go to plan.

44:01And we've shown that this year. We didn't have, you know, the best Saturdays at the time, but on Sundays we've came back and we've rise the whole weekend and we, you know, made ourselves forget, you know, the beginning of the weekend. We didn't forget it because we've put it on the side to try and see what we could have done better there. But by resetting and focusing on the actual moment, we've saved the weekend, the score points. And Ayao told me, you know, you will work with Laura next year because you guys are very similar in the way you're working and how hard, you know, you are working. And I was like, yeah, okay, we'll see.