F1 Explains: how driver managers do deals - with Carlos Onoro Sainz

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1:27Get in there, Lewis. What a way to do it, mate. But Fernando Alonso's career is one of what-ifs. Several times he moved away from teams just before they became competitive. Of course, drivers don't always choose to move teams. That's where driver managers come in. They help drivers make the best move available, but also help manage their lives, their schedules, their time. You've got questions about how that all works, and we've got a manager to answer them. Welcome to F1 Explains.

2:08Hello, everybody. We have got news about our next live show at the British Grand Prix later in the episode. But hello, my name is Christian Hugill. Welcome to F1 Explained. And our focus today is exploring the role of an F1 driver manager. They're the people who help F1 drivers cope with their hugely busy lives. They're also the dealmakers who engineer moves from one team or another. Of course, athletes move teams in lots of sports, but the F1 driver market is different because there are so few race seats. There are only 22 Formula One drivers. Compare that with more than 500 registered players in the NBA, more than 1 ,600 in the NFL, more than 1 ,200 at the FIFA World Cup this summer.

2:50So competition for those 22 seats in F1 is obviously fierce. That's where managers come in, my friends. They are a mix of advisor and agent, someone the driver trusts to make decisions on their careers. Sometimes the person the driver trusts the most is actually a relative. Lewis Hamilton's dad Anthony was his manager for many years. And Carlos Sainz' manager is his cousin, Carlos Honoro, the ideal person to answer your questions on driver contracts and organizing a driver's life. Carlos, firstly, a very warm welcome to F1 Explains. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us here in Barcelona.

3:31What must be a busy weekend for you? Well, first of all, thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be here with you guys. And yeah, it's a busy weekend for us, but also a special one. So always good to be here in Barcelona. And you are, as we said in our intro, you're Carlos's older cousin, I believe, if I have the family tree correct. So my first question normally, I think, with a driver manager might be, how did you get to know the driver? But of course, you must have known Carlos from a very young age. Pretty much since he was born. So that makes it easier in terms of how we met, let's say.

4:04yeah we since we were kids really we've always had a very close relationship i think our family and i think this is a lot with to do with spanish culture that we stick together a lot and family is a big thing in our culture and and yeah i've always been next to carlos obviously i followed his entire career from from the sidelines let's say when he was coming up the ranks and And I ended up here working with him, which is great. So we know how you got to meet him. And I read a brilliant article about you, an interview you did for the Formula One official website. I believe it was last year. It's really good.

4:41Actually, we're going to put the link to that in the description of this episode in case anyone else wants to read it, too. And I believe from that that you did when you were young a degree in some form of business related degree. So that's, I guess, where the sort of management side of your career has come from. Yes, correct. I've always been a massive motorsport fan, obviously growing up and watching Carlos Sr. racing in rallying and then obviously Formula One in our home. I think even before Fernando started winning races, I think we were one of the few households in Spain that was watching Formula One every single weekend since I can remember.

5:22So I've always been into motorsport and had a lot of passion for it. But from a study point of view or from a work point of view, it was never really discussed that I would end up working with Carlos. So I did my degree in business, studied in uni in Spain. And after that, I went on to work in a big four, one of the consultancy firms for four years, then moved again. but always based on finance or finance with real estate nothing really to do with motorsport so there must have been a point where the conversation happens where you said to this young racing driver and your cousin and he looked at his older cousin who's got all this businessy and managementy and financey experience how did the conversation happen yeah this this all started in december 2016 so carlos had already finished his second season in F1 already.

6:21He already had a team of people working with him, but I think that together with Carlos Sr., they both decided that they needed someone to be more hands-on on a daily basis and someone that could also, you know, stay with Carlos closely and that had also that maybe business background that could help. And yeah, that's when they had an internal conversation between them and then once they out of the list of names that they were discussing mine came up and they offered me the opportunity and obviously I went back home slept on it one night and obviously the next morning I was already confirming that I would love to work with with Carlos.

7:06Always sleep on it that's good advice that's something my dad always taught me always always sleep on a decision but still you make that decision and here you are all these years later explain what the role is and I'm imagining you could answer this question all day but broadly speaking summarize the role of being driver manager for Carlos Sainz it's funny because the way that I've found it easier to describe in my job is everything that has to do with a Formula One driver except driving the car you leave that bit to him that's the best summary that I can do of it but no but I would like to say that because there are very few Formula One drivers in the world.

7:44I think that each driver has his own setup in terms of his internal team. So I cannot speak for all the managers of the other drivers in F1 because each one might do different roles and different stuff. It's not like there's a standardized management role within F1. Some drivers have one manager and a lawyer, one comps people and a lawyer, a manager that does everything in in my particular case i think i am involved in in pretty much everything i would say and not only the the sporting side but also the commercial side the comms even personal stuff that i help carlos obviously with his daily life away from the truck so i'm pretty much involved in in everything um and then obviously we've got a team of people like this specialized people for social media, comms, lawyers, fiscal advisors, all that stuff.

8:46But in the end, I like to see myself a bit like a director of the orchestra. But every decision is made by Carlos, ultimately. In modern Formula One, these drivers are their own big brands now. I think one of the things that surprised me most when I started working in the sports, because I was a fan growing up, but now I'm working in it, was just how busy they are, how much travel, the time in the simulators the time at the factory i guess they must need somebody to like you somebody like you to to do things that we don't even think about like admin of bank accounts making sure they've got a food schedule that you know these drivers would have to do life admin that we all know if we're busy with work how difficult that life admin can be and boy are these guys busy the the schedule the full schedule of a formula one driver is insane uh i actually have a summary of the summary of the schedule so that I can check it with Carlos quickly.

9:42Because if we go into the detailed one, that goes pretty much minute by minute. If you see the schedule, for example, of a Grand Prix weekend, it's insane the level of detail that it gets. So that's why we have like a broader calendar where we see things quicker when I check it with him. But yeah, if you start adding up 24 race weekends, plus the testing plus other tests that you can do with TPC cars or older cars. Then you start adding all the marketing days that you need to do for the team, marketing days that you need to do for personal sponsors, interviews. And obviously, these guys are still athletes.

10:27And one of the main things that you need to put into the calendar is some time to recover and also train, which is super important. Absolutely. And I'm asking the question conscious that we do only have a half an hour interview based on your previous answer, but what does a typical Grand Prix weekend look like for you? And I'm imagining it's busier here at Carlos's home race. Yeah, correct. I guess that he's got two home races this year. Nowadays, I think that a race week starts on a Wednesday normally with marketing activities that happen either at the track or close to the track whether it's a filming studio or some place in the city center with with a sponsor or just filming or shooting then thursday is when we come to a track for the first time the day starts early with a lot of interviews a lot of engineering meetings and then we also reserve a like an hour or an hour and a half for exercise at the end of the day normally Carlos you will see him nowadays cycling a lot around the track yes but if it's not cycling we would go back to a hotel or find a gym and do do obviously a bit of of training on the Thursday afternoon then Friday starts always with a good breakfast and mobility exercises and then we come to a track and Fridays are more straightforward normally unless it's a sprint weekend that gets a bit more hectic but like in barcelona here which is a normal normal race week it's more about the engineering stuff let's say that all the comms and the commercial stuff is ticked away on thursday and from friday onwards is more based on on the performance side of things you still do or carlos does meet and greets interviews things like that but it's let's say that all of that part is done primarily on Thursdays.

12:23I usually run the track in the evenings at race weekends. I can't at the moment. I've got an Achilles injury. But still. Here we go with the excuses. Yeah, this is it. I know, I know. That is why I'm not a top-level athlete. But there are three drivers you always see running the track in the evenings. Oli Behrman. Cycling the track, I should say. Oli Behrman, Valtteri Bottas, and Carlos Sainz. You always see them. The little cycling club. You always see those three bombing in the laps. Yeah. how do you make sure that Carlos hasn't got too much to do because you mentioned how busy it is I guess it's up to you to find that line yeah there's obviously after many years working with him I think I do understand the do's and don'ts that he prefers and I know more or less the gaps that he doesn't mind being busier and the gaps that he normally needs to be left alone and not do anything.

13:19Having said that, I do a lot of the work on the background, working with the team on the schedule and whoever is involved in the schedule. But then I also make sure that he gets a look at it before I finally confirm anything so that he's happy. And normally we tend to agree, but there must have been times where I miss something and he points it out and then we reorganize a bit the whole schedule. but that's more or less how it works. I appreciate there'll be things you don't want to share with us and of course don't share those things but are there any non-negotiables, things that you've learned that are things that Carlos really likes or really doesn't like when you're setting up those sorts of schedules?

14:01There is one thing which is between FP3 and Quali, you don't put any interviews or any meet and greets with sponsors or anything. That's a golden rule that I can share with you guys because I'm pretty sure that every other driver will also ask for that in their schedule but between fp3 and quali that's a bit of a sacred time for carlos for him to either eat and relax in his room or eat and go to see his engineers so it's just for him and for performance we've spoken a lot about at race weekends in just a couple of moments we're going to talk about away from the track away from race weekends but you mentioned that you've got that degree in business podcasting is a big business too which is why we must go for a commercial break.

14:56We're back to Carlos Honoro in a moment, but now I want to tell you about our next live show at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. We'll be on the main stage in the F1 fan zone on Saturday morning at 10.20 with special guest, the 1996 Formula One World Champion, Damon Hill. Of course, British Grand Prix winner, F1 legend, huge character and personality. I'm a big fan of Damon Hill. Can't wait to do a live show with him. Our first live show with Damon, I think. That'll be fun. If you'll be there, send us a question for Damon. We might be able to make you part of the show. F1explains at F1.com, please, is the email address.

15:30F1explains at F1.com. Saturday the 4th of July 10.20 at the British Grand Prix If you're not there you'll hear the show right here very soon afterwards All the details are in the episode description And by the way Get this F1 Explains fans If you're at Silverstone on the Thursday of the British Grand Prix there's another event you can go to I'm calling it Producer Chris Live This isn't a joke F1 sometimes invites people who work in the sport to do things on a stage at a race and they've asked producer Chris to talk about making podcasts. And why wouldn't they? This is excellent for the producer Chris brand.

16:09It really is. I'm hoping I can be his agent. So that's the drivers in stage on Thursday the 2nd of July at 2.30 in the afternoon. Obviously 2.30 in the afternoon. 2.30 would be a bit of a graveyard slot if it was the morning, wouldn't it? I have a quote here from producer Chris. He says, I'm not expecting anyone to come, but it'd be nice to see you if you do. Banners are encouraged. Autographs and selfies are available afterwards. I'm slightly worried he's letting this get to his head. So for that reason, that's enough of live show news. Let's get back to the episode.

16:38Welcome back to F1 Explains. I'm Christian Hugill, and this week we are discussing the role of driver managers with Carlos Sainz driver manager, Carlos Honoro. Carlos, we've spoken a lot before the break about what happens at the track and on race weekends. How much contact do you have with Carlos away from the track? Because there must be some downtime, but equally, we've mentioned how busy they are. so how much communication do you have with Carlos away from race weekends it's a good question and I think there's no straight answer because I think it it depends a bit on on whether we are in between races or not or if there's the summer break or the winter break so it does change a bit I would say not daily because I also give him some space to breathe I cannot be all over him on a Monday after a race, for example.

17:27That's a bit of a day where we know it's for him to reset and recharge batteries after the entire race weekend. But apart from Monday, yeah, I would say daily we still, even if it's not a call, we do WhatsApp quite a lot and he likes to be aware of everything that is going on around his life. So, yeah, we're pretty much, maybe daily is too much, but every couple of days for sure we are in touch. We were talking before we started recording that we'd had a real flurry of emails around the role of driver managers. F1 Explains at F1.com, by the way, if you're listening, would like to send us a question.

18:06I speculated that possibly one of the reasons we'd had this influx was because you played a role in the last series of Drive to Survive. And we're aware a lot of our listeners love Drive to Survive, which is fabulous. We welcome people into F1 in any way. a massive part of why you popped up so much was um a certain move where carlos moved from ferrari to williams because a certain lewis hamilton moved to ferrari which let's just say shock up the formula one world how did you navigate that when it first comes into you you must think okay we've we've got a lot to do here just talk us through how that was handled yeah i think well first when we learned about it, it was a shocker.

18:46That's no secret. And I think that Carlos has explained that many times in a lot of interviews, that it came as a bit of a shock. And I think it also caught everyone a bit by surprise because we all thought that Luis had a contract with Mercedes. And I don't know his contract, but for sure there were some sort of clauses there to exit the contract, or that's my understanding of the situation. so nobody was expecting that move and so at the beginning as i said a bit of a shocker but then the following day you already start um like i always say like setting out the the chess board and and placing all the pieces and starting to to think of what can happen and the different strategies and who you need to talk to and in what order because it's not the same thing to speak to this team first if you don't have information from that other team so before you start picking up the phone and doing meetings and so on we like to do as a team also with Carlos Sr because he's also very present in when it comes to F1 contracts to have a good sit down and a good chat and discuss about it and how we're going to go about the strategy basically of how we're going to face the situation and from there you start organizing meetings and trying to get as much info as possible.

20:09It's been widely reported that Carlos had other options other than just Williams and of course he would do he's a race winner he's a phenomenal Formula One driver what we saw in Drive to Survive was a lot of you talking to the likes of James Vowell's team principal of Williams where of course he signed for forgive my question but how much of what we saw on Drive to Survive was completely real of course being a television program sometimes things will be shot for the purpose of telling a story and that's that's completely understandable but were you right early on going out to talk to other teams when it became obvious that Carlos was you know going to be moving were you chatting to James how how do you manage all of that yeah conversations were constant let's say since February up until he signed the contract because the way I see it is that our job as his management team is not to decide for him is to put all available options on top of the table with the best contract possible in each case.

21:09And ultimately, he's the one that decides what he wants to do with his future. And if he wants my opinion, I would give it to him. But in my head, my role is just to make sure that I've done my job in the sense that I've explored every single thing that can be explored and negotiated every single comma of a contract. to put it in front of him and he can take the best decision with the best information. If you'll allow me a little personal observation, I've been a fan of Formula One since the 90s. I've been working in it for three or four years now. I don't remember a more amicable driver move than Carlos leaving Ferrari and going to Williams.

21:52Of course, there have been tense conversations along the way. I'm not naive to that. But I also then think back to a moment in Abu Dhabi at the end of last season where McLaren had just won the Constructors' Championship and I was stood outside McLaren and Carlos came in and I took a picture and put it on social media that Carlos had come in to congratulate Lando to congratulate the team it went wild on social media with people saying isn't that lovely of Carlos that doesn't strike me as coincidence that there seems to be that warm relationship with Ferrari with McLaren another one of Carlos's former teams am I right is that something you've tried to do with Carlos and his career with sort of not burning bridges and keeping options open maybe for the future?

22:30Yeah, 100%. I think that that is a bit the way we go about things as a team. When I say as a team, I'm including obviously Carlos himself, of course, but also Senior, again, because I think that there's a big role played by all three of us together when it comes to F1 contracts. And I think that the philosophy has always been the same since day one, which is to be straightforward with everyone to be honest about what we're doing not to play stupid games that can then turn back on you and Carlos has a way of going about the sport and the way he works with team that in the end it leaves I don't I don't want to put it as leaving a door open for the future but it is true that every time he has left a team he has done it in a in a way where he's left good relationships, good bridges.

23:29And that brings value in the end for the career of an athlete. And Carlos has been very intelligent in doing so. And I think that the way we've been going about contracts from our point of view has always been the same and with that straightforward philosophy. I've got a couple of questions from our listeners. I mentioned the email address, f1explains at f1.com. A couple of questions on this from Chris in Canada. Hi, Chris. Chris says,

24:24before the 2024 season had even started. He'd still got another year to do with Mercedes. Chris goes on to say, why can drivers sign with a new team while still under contract with a current one? Has this always been the case in F1? Or is this more of a modern day thing? Love the podcast and learning about all the different things from people so closely involved in the sports. Thank you very much, Chris. That's a lovely question. Great question, isn't it, Carlos? Yeah, good question. Yeah, I think it's an interesting one. and I think that it's my answer is a bit the same as when I said that every driver has their own structure and their own team when it comes to contract wow there's a million things you can put in a Formula One contract so there's no one contract that looks the same as the other and depending on the situation and and the power of negotiation that you might have one year to the other, which might change, you are able to introduce clauses that in other scenarios you are not allowed to.

25:25And the same goes for the teams. There's no real standard contract, I would say. Maybe for some clauses, of course, there are. But the juicy part of the contracts, let's say, are always different and will always depend on the situation that the driver is at in that moment. And I think, to add on, if I may, to answer Chris's question a little bit from my perspective, and please do correct me if I'm wrong, you know more about this than me, but also it depends on cultures of different sports. I'm a big soccer fan, big football fan. You, more often than not in that case, see a, I nearly said driver, a player being bought out of a contract.

26:05And for example, somebody joins Barcelona to join Real Madrid, that would be a controversial one. But that happens then. There's not too much of an advance notice. But in Formula One, it's always just worked a bit differently. the culture of the sport is a little bit different where people tend to nowadays it's quite rare isn't it that a driver gets to the end of the season it tends to mean if they don't know what they're doing at the end of one season they're probably not going to be there in the next one there are exceptions to that but it i think it's just the culture of this sport isn't it that it tends to work a little bit further in advance oh of course i i think there are two things obviously the way the sport works as you said is one of those factors and then i think that it's the how everyone wants to go about it.

26:47It's true that, obviously, I have no clue about other sports because I've only been involved in F1 so far. But when you look at the movies from Hollywood and they picture an NFL player or a baseball player getting sat down in front of the GM and telling him you are going to be transferred and the player has no clue about it. I don't know if that happens like that or not. My experience of working in football, it really does happen like that. It really does. My experience is working. We have a lot of American listeners. My experience is working in soccer. Don't shout at me, English people, or football.

27:22I don't know about NFL and American football, but yeah, that is definitely how it works in English football. That could never happen here. There is, at least in our case, there is no way or there's no universe in which I would go to Carlos and say, oh, by the way, next year you're driving for this team. Congrats. That doesn't work like that. Exactly. No, no. I think in our particular case, Carlos is informed along the way of every conversation, of every negotiation, even though he might not be part of it because obviously he has to race. Yeah, he's got an important job, isn't it? And the contracts are discussed throughout the season.

28:04So he needs to be focused on the racing, of course. but that doesn't mean that he's not informed of every step that would that we are taking and he's very much part of the strategy and the next steps that that we are taking so in f1 i don't think it works like other sports and i don't know i cannot speak obviously for other drivers but i know that carlos likes to be informed yeah of course he likes to be part of it it's his career it's his ultimate decision so the better informed he is the better decision he can take. We had a really similar question actually from Nell from Cumbria in the UK. She said, are drivers allowed to speak with their new team and be involved with plans for the future before they join or are they shut out of conversations both sides to stop other teams learning potentially important information?

28:51I guess there is an element of keeping talks confidential but it sounds like from what you're saying Carlos that you know your Carlos in this situation would be aware of those talks. It's a good question because you do need to understand the project of the team that you are in theory moving to before you take that decision. So when you're speaking to teams, they definitely need to explain to you what's the plan, what's their strategy, how do they see their team evolving in the upcoming two, three years. So they do need to share that information with you because if not, how am I going to choose that team if I have no clue of what they're thinking for the future?

29:35But at the same time, they are wary that you might not sign for them, so they cannot give out too much information. So it's a fun game where you need to read between the lines a bit as well and make the most of what each team is telling you to then obviously make the decision. And of course, another part of Nel's question, Carlos, was about once that contract is signed, you know, once Carlos has signed for Williams but is still racing for Ferrari, how much is he involved in conversations with Ferrari? Because there might be certain information that they don't want Williams to know for the following season.

30:11Can they talk with other teams at that point? It's a minefield, isn't it? It's a very good point, actually. And it's a bit of a weird situation, really, because you're racing for a team until December, but you know already since the summer break that the following year you're going to be in another team. So I think that at least what Carlos does is ultimate respect for the team that he's driving for until the end of his contract. so in the case of 2024 he gave absolutely everything for Ferrari until the last race and the last checkered flag does the team hide certain information for the driver?

30:59I guess they do because they would not disclose absolutely everything of what is being planned for the following season to a driver that is leaving at the end of the year but it's also in their interest that that driver performs until the end of the season so again it's a fine line between keeping the relationship as open as possible so that the performance is there at the highest level but also trying to keep the key points or the secrets for the following season Carlos I appreciate you're a busy man we've just got a couple more then we'll let you go but I'm I'm fascinated by the dynamic of working within your family I think I know a lot of people who are very very close with their family but maybe working with them constantly might be a bit too far families can bicker families can have arguments how is having the family dynamic with a working relationship in I think that the biggest conversation that we had before I joined Carlos's team is that the golden rule was that the difference between when we are working and we are at home has to be massive.