Calum Nicholas: Building Elite Cultures, Verstappen’s Winning Formula and The Power of Marginal Gains

0:00A Rayo original podcast. I don't think we've seen anyone who's naturally more talented at driving a race car. When Max Verstappen won the championship in 2021, the cameras were trained on him. They did not focus on the man who had just changed the right wheel at the most important pit stop of Max's life. Probably the thing I miss most is that adrenaline rush, you know, that pre-pit stop buzz. That man spent 13 years, 233 races and seven straight Pit Stop Awards being the reason why the car kept winning. We realised in the garage that this is our time to shine. Callum Nicholas is a former senior engine technician at Red Bull Racing.

0:43And in 2025, he left the pits to become an ambassador for Red Bull and launched his book about his career, Life in the Pit Lane. There are hundreds of thousands of people that set out to do things that I've done. You could essentially say it's against the odds, right? We'll learn from him what it takes to succeed in a high-performance team. We understand what we do can provide a marginal gain to winning. How Callum overcame barriers to achieve the greatest accolades in F1. I only put my success down to be willing to do whatever it took to succeed. And how to know when enough is enough and you need to call time on something you love doing.

1:19And I remember putting the phone down like almost in tears and looking at my suitcase and honestly, man, I was so close. I was so close to just saying f*** it

1:36Callum my brother thank you for coming in mate absolute pleasure mate how are you? mate I'm good you know it's got weather back to a reasonable place you look like you've been in the garden sometimes I've been doing too much actually I used to see my arms I got sunburned on the golf course sunburned straight away so the question is everyone asks you about the secret of your success but I want to understand and what have you learned from success? Okay, look, I think firstly, it's very flattering to be at the, you know, top of the pinnacle of racing. I always consider myself slightly below the middle, right?

2:06For real? Yeah, yeah, I feel like, look, I find that the most competitive people and the most successful people that I know are their own harshest critics, right? So I will always do that to myself and I know that people will see it slightly differently and I'm okay with that. In terms of like things I've learned, And I think the first thing for me is that I never set out to go and win Formula One World Championships. That was never the goal, right? I left school. I was a mechanic. I got made redundant. And I was basically just like, well, how can I go and carry on working on cars and it not be a nine to five?

2:43Because that's what I've always feared. It's been my biggest fear is the nine to five in the same place. And then I got the opportunity to discover racing. And then from that point on, it was just about small goals. Right? I said to myself, I want to go and work in Formula One. Right? I said, I want to... Wait, wait, wait. You said small goals and then you put Formula One in the same sentence. They are in that, like, I said to myself, these are really basic goals. Like, I didn't know what I was going to do in the sport. I knew I was going to be a mechanic of some sort, but I didn't know what that would entail.

3:11I was like, I just, I want to go and build fast race cars. Right? And then it grew and it was like, oh, actually, I want to be on a pit stop crew. Then it was, I want to be on the best pit stop crew. Right? And before you know it, you've surmounted all these small goals. And then you look at it as a big picture and you're like, actually, this is quite a cool, successful career. So I think the first thing I learned is that actually looking at the smaller picture sometimes can be really helpful. You know, you don't burden yourself with, oh, I've got this huge ambition and I need to get to here immediately.

3:40You know, look at the step by step and appreciate it for what it is. And then the other thing that I say that all of the things that I learned on my way to Formula One were what gave me the skills to thrive in it when I got there, right? And I think a lot of the time people say, I want to go and work in Formula One. You don't realize the skill set required to work in Formula One until you've done all the junior motorsport and all of the other little, you know, horrible bits, right? Almost. So that was the other thing I learned was to look at the small things, focus on those and do the work that's right in front of you right now.

4:15And that will lead you to a path to success. Because a lot of people don't realise you've got to earn your stripes in certain things. They just feel, if I believe it, it will happen automatically. But that manifestation needs a lot of work before you get to that point, right? That's it. And sometimes, you know, it's like, do you know what, actually? I was watching 8 Mile the other day, right? And there's a line in 8 Mile that I love where he's having a bad time of it. And he says to his mate, you know, sometimes you just got to stop living up here and start living down here. And that's what it was at the beginning, right?

4:43I got made redundant. I went back to college as like a 21-year-old. I'm studying with kids that are all like 16, 17. I felt like I was proper like down at the bottom again. I was driving around racetracks, sleeping in my car at racetracks in car parks. But now I look back on all that stuff and I'm like, if I hadn't done all of that, like there's no way I would have had the same success later on. So how did you get through those moments? Because sitting as the oldest student in a room, thinking about the redundancy, thinking about the aspirations and how far those were how did you maintain the energy to keep going forward i kind of i have a tendency to be able to pick out even the smallest little silver lining right so for example i went back to college i realized that all these kids are like 16 17 i should be you know i should have started on that path then i felt like i was behind but then i realized that actually i'd come to college because this was where race teams come to find apprentices.

5:41And as a 21-year-old, I knew more about life and what I wanted. And it was easier for me to commit to my goals. You know, there aren't many 16-year-olds who know what they want to do in life, right? Or at least have the willpower and the determination and the straight thinking. Trust me, I've got one in my house, yeah. Yeah, to go pursue them, right? And that's how it should be at 16, right? But I was at 21. So I took that silver lining as actually I'm an advantage here, right? And I should be able to outperform all these people and be the best in my college. and therefore those opportunities will come my way first.

6:11And so that's kind of what I've always done, right? And it was the same thing when I, often people ask me about being one of very few black people working in motorsport. And the thing that I always say about that was that I didn't realise, right? When I decided I was going to embark on my journey, I didn't realise that that was the case, right? And then once I was there, it was like, okay, fine, right. It's a bit weird. I haven't worked out why, yeah, at this point in my life, I didn't know why no black people worked in Formula One or in motorsport in general. And I said to myself, well, okay, well, I'll just be the first then.

6:44So like, this is it. It's just about finding those little silver linings. And I think sometimes you almost do it by lying to yourself. But it's what, you know, that's what you call a rationalization, right? Rationalization is a lie you tell yourself to make yourself feel better. Have you always been that optimistic? It's not necessarily about optimism. It's more, I more look of it as like survival, right? you know before i discovered and decided i was going to be a mechanic i worked as building site labor i drove forklifts in milk factories um and a lot of those jobs i absolutely hated and i said to myself well it's your choice you can do this which you're going to really enjoy or you can go back and do that for the rest of your life you know and that was the choice i had to make for myself right so all those negative things set um flaws for where you wanted to build up and go to exactly and i look at all those those things now and i say look you know i i could end up back doing that stuff and I'll find a way to make that work for me as well it's more it's more about survival than optimism I remember working with Lord Sugar and seeing him function at the rate he did and achieve the things he did it changed the way that my brain worked it changed my view of what was possible because I wasn't as optimistic as you right I was always a chancer I'd get involved in stuff but I was like oh why is this happening blah blah but working with Lord Sugar I realized how much control I had over stuff.

8:02And actually he changed my perception of time. The things he could get done in 24 hours just changed my perception of time. Did you have a similar thing working within the Red Bull environment where you changed what was possible? Yeah, I mean, do you know what? More than anything, I notice it now that I'm not racing, right? I think, you know, I kind of grew up racing, always part of a race team in some sense. And, you know, motorsport, things have to move quickly, you know. In Formula One, the difference between you getting an upgrade out for this race or the next one could be a championship. You know, that could be 25 points it costs you that you didn't have your upgrade at this race.

8:37So you have no choice. If you want to compete, if you want to beat your competitors, you have no choice. And then when I moved away from the race team and started doing this role, essentially I work for our marketing and our comms and our HR departments. And within the team, that attitude is still the same, that culture of just getting things done, right? But all the stuff I do outside of it now, and when I deal with other businesses, I get frustrated quite quickly, right? Like I have this, I have this real thing, like when I see like inefficiencies, like whether they just be like human things or, you know, like they just, I like, I really, really struggle.

9:13Give me an example. Airports. Airports are one of my biggest things. Like as someone who uses like 40 airports a year, right, getting in an airport queue and seeing someone wait until they get there to go, oh, do I have to take my belt off? Oh, I've got to take my shoes off I'm there like losing my mind and now I and I you know to get over this and family holidays were the biggest thing when I started you know doing family holidays and I'm so used to efficiency through an airport right this is not a tourist destination right this is a means to where we're going right and I had to just tell myself to just relax man it is what it is a family holiday you've got time and now I take that same thinking when I see other stuff in life that just annoys me I say to myself, airport.

9:59It's just like the airport. Just relax, man. Just relax. People are not going to work in that way where they're just super efficient all the time. So take me into the culture where it was about super efficiency, where everything was about milliseconds and competing with other people. How did it make you up your game working for somebody or with somebody like Max? Well, I mean, Max in himself is a whole nother thing, right? And I'll talk about it, but I think one of the other realizations was that when I joined Formula One, there were like two or three different tiers of what Formula One really was.

10:34So I joined Marussia. It was my first job in Formula One, really small team, 200 people. And my first week in the factory, I found out that we had no brake cleaner to clean anything. And we were on stop from every supplier. And I was like, this doesn't feel very Formula One. And then, you know, like three years later, joining Red Bull in 2015, I got on campus and I just realized it was a whole nother world. This is the level. This is the level. And the culture of the team is that regardless of what you do on that campus in Milton Keynes, whether you're a race mechanic, engineer, designer, facilities, marketing, HR accounts, everybody's driven by this one goal, which is that we understand what we do can provide a marginal gain to winning.

11:17And that's it. That's the end of it, is that everything you do is a marginal gain to winning. and being around a culture like that, you just want to make sure you contribute, right? So like when I joined Red Bull, I'd come from a small team. They'd already won four world championships with Sebastian Vettel. And I arrived like, wow, you know, like the pressure is on for me to contribute to this culture. And it's the same thing. And it runs throughout the team, throughout every single person. And then Max in himself is just, sometimes he's just another world, right? Like, especially being an environment where I worked with so many ridiculously competitive people, people who will do whatever it takes.

11:59And then somehow Max manages to have an attitude towards it where he's just a little bit more. And it's almost like hard to describe, like how can you be even more competitive than all these people that are already out here doing this? But he absolutely is. And then when you're in an environment with him, especially in the garage, it spurs you on, right? You see what he can achieve and what he's willing to do to achieve it. And naturally, you're like, well, I have to match that. I have to match that intensity. I have to match that work rate, that effort. So it gets the best out of everyone in the garage.

12:35You've worked with Max Verstappen for a number of years. And of course, he's one of the best drivers out there, right? Just how good was he? I don't think we've seen anyone who's naturally more talented at driving a race car. now to be a champion in Formula One takes more than that and you know but what we saw from Max from the moment he joined the paddock was in terms of raw speed and skill is something that we probably haven't seen right you know when you look at past champions and you know you look at Seb, Seb was a great race driver but actually part of him winning championships was that he understood the engineering and he worked so hard that's not to say Max doesn't work hard because he does and that's why he's learned to do all these other things well but i think what always stood out to me and i think to everyone in the paddock that was this is 16 17 year old who is just doing things with a car that people didn't think were possible right and then when i think about max i often think about the the amount of rules that have had to have been changed because of max discovering things that other people weren't doing right you know and i think when you become that influential on a sport that that's what makes you great and how does that impact you as a member of his team well like i said it's kind of once you get over the awe of it all and you stop just watching him do these amazing things it then just makes you think well how can we get better to make sure we're giving him even more tools to go and beat people with and how was he with the team in terms of interaction directly with the team mate i think that's it's probably the thing people see the least of but for me it's probably my favorite thing about Max.

14:16Max, when he arrives in the garage at the beginning of a weekend and you're all there working, build the car, he'll walk around the garage and he will not ask you about how the work's going. He won't ask you how the car's looking, how the work's going. He'll ask you how you are. How's the family? How's the little one getting on at school? You know, if you've got enough sleep, how are you coping with the time difference? Like he's a human first, right? And I think that's probably the thing that he gets the least credit for. because you don't see that it doesn't come across does it? he gets the least credit for it but I think for those working in the garage it's probably one of the things that's appreciated about him most

14:58so I love the fact that you talk about it being unifying that the culture was all about making him better right? well it's about making us better you know we compete for two championships obviously the drivers is often the one that gets the biggest applaud it but you know the constructors championship that is that is very much ours as a team right and that's that's what we want to win in fact you know we won our won that first drivers championship of max in 2021 and then in 2023 we went and broke all of these different records in formula one but actually 2022 is the one i'm most proud of because it was my first constructors championship so you know that that other title matters just as much you know and all of the people like you know we're over 2 000 people on campus you know so when people watch formula one and you see the 60 people that are at the circuit just because that's the regulation if we could take everyone we take it we'd take everyone but those are the rules you can only have 60 operational personnel and it's a really small snapshot of all the people that are working to make it happen and how do you deal with that pressure then?

16:00Because yes, there's two titles, but it's always on. Once the season starts, it's go, go, go, right? How do you deal, particularly coming from outside of the bubble and then walking in and realizing, well, where's everyone else? And then you've got the culture to meet up to. How do you deal with that pressure? Well, I mean, I think, you know, if you were to walk in it right at the sharp end, it'd be a real struggle. I think for me, it's very much been like a frog in slowly boiling water. You know that. that's basically what it is i got in and i was like oh this is cool everyone's so welcoming i fit right in here and then slowly slowly before it you've become this competitive beast right where like you know and i say this all the time i race my daughter up to bed every night there's a race up the stairs i don't care if she's crying i'm trying to win yeah right like this is it right and then this is what happens to you you sort of just get sucked into this culture um but it's look, I think the other thing in particular about Red Bull is they have a bit of a thing of throw you in the deep end.

17:01When I first joined the team and then I took on the role of senior power unit assembly technician, which sounds extravagant, essentially I assembled engines. I put them together, got them ready to go in the car. What do you mean? It is extravagant. Come on, this is no small thing. No, it's not that it's a small thing, but I remember taking on that job and I'd never done engines before. In fact, originally I didn't apply for the job when it came up and it was one of my chief mechanics that said to me, oh, if you want to get back to the racetrack, you need to go and apply for that job. He's like, you know, you don't know when these opportunities will come up again.

17:33And I was like, I've never done engines. And he goes, well, you can read an engineering drawing, can't you? I was like, well, yeah. And he goes, well, you can build anything then. You can build a gearbox. You know, like we always say about that old Royal Navy advert of if you can fix this skateboard, you can do the bike and then you can do the Apache gunship helicopter or whatever it is, right? And I think it's very similar with motorsport. Once you can read and understand an engineering drawing, and then you can carry out the procedures, you can build anything. Did you need that encouraging word?

18:02I needed it. I needed it. I needed it. At the time, I had it in my head. I was like, look, I'm a rear-end mechanic. I do gearboxes, rear suspension. That's my world. I don't do anything else. And Joe, he was our chief mechanic. He forced me to go and apply for it. And it was a good job I did. I did the job for 10 years. So, you know, it's another one of those opportunities. in the team about driving each other forward, right? Like I was, at that time, I was quite comfortable. I was happy with the progress I was making and I wouldn't have made that leap that year had I not been forced sort of by Joe and the culture of the team in that if you're ready, we need you.

18:37And is that what you think was the differentiator for you and Red Bull was that culture? Yeah, look, I say when Marussia went into administration, I applied at every single F1 team. I wrote to them, I emailed them, I made calls. a couple of them I pretty much showed up on the doorstep with CVs because I just needed a way to stay in the sport and Red Bull were one of the first teams to sort of respond and I call it like a bit of a stroke of luck in life as a sort of the way that Red Bull are suited me anyway like I was the rebellious kid I'm not particularly good at taking orders if I think I know better and Red Bull is a culture especially the race team they pretty much have an attitude of give people the tools they need and let them get on with what they're good at right like we don't really have a culture of this is the way you have to do things this is the way we do things everyone has to conform to this and did you believe that straight away because i think when i've seen that said in similar organizations in a corporate sector people are very cautious about living up to that because like well is it a trap are they going to try and catch me out yeah i mean i think that part of it becomes quite apparent like i think within a month of working there I kind of understood that in different areas of the company you just have people who are really really good and they're given the freedom to go and be good and lead their teams to do the same um that wasn't really that that sort of shone through pretty much straight away one thing that I did have to learn um and and it took me a moment was that something that I don't think is the same at any other team certainly it's not something I've experienced in any big business yeah um it's probably quite common in small businesses but in big businesses is I've never met a group of people who become so close, like to the point where like they, you know, they know each other's personal lives, right?

20:25Now, when I started at Red Bull, it was, you know, an intimidating environment to work in or to arrive at. And I said to myself, right, Callum, just do the job. Just do the work. Don't focus on anything else or anything else that's going wrong. And in all my time there, that first year was the only time where I had a performance review that was like slightly negative. and basically what my chief mechanic said to me goes, Cal, you're doing all the work. You're a great mechanic, but you haven't gelled with this team. And I didn't really get it at the time. I didn't really get it. I was like, what do you mean?

20:54We talk to each other, we get on, we have a laugh. Say hello. And I realized that all of these other people, like they're friends outside of work and their families are friends outside of work and they've become like this really like close knit unit. And it took me a while to just sort of relax enough to realize that and embrace it. and then many more years till I realized how important it was to succeeding right so one of the things that Red Bull I think have always been really good at is employing the correct personalities for each role especially on the race team you know you talk about that select 60 people that you're allowed to take away racing those people are going to spend the best part of 200 days a year together right they're going to see more of these people than their own families their own friends.

21:39And therefore those personalities that you hire in those roles become so much more important. And this is something that I say now when I talk to young kids about careers and they ask me about the skills they need. And I say, you know, one of the things I try and encourage them to focus on is their soft skills. The things that you wouldn't necessarily consider putting on a job application, but in Formula One are so important. And I say to them in your friend group now, you've got the joker you've got the the person that plans all your stuff you've got the person that makes sure everyone gets home safe at the end of a night right and all of these kind of soft skills one that can communicate and settle feuds all of these things are skills that are absolutely key working in this environment when it's high pressure you need personalities to make it work so that was probably the biggest thing that i learned and a lot of us we don't get told that these transferable skills are valuable because it's all through the root of qualifications yeah getting letters after your name.

22:33It's not about the stuff that may come innate to you as a human being. That is actually the things that get you rewarded in the workplace. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, Formula One especially, you know, when I first got into the world of motorsport, it was this really, like, elitist thing. Formula One teams were pretty much only higher people with degrees from Russell Group universities, right? That was the standard. None of them came from outside of the UK. And it's, I mean, it's been great to watch that change, you know, and I think as team... sort of learned that these these things these soft skills are more important and that's sort of been part of why we've we've we've begun to become more diverse in the sport you're a huge advocate of making that more so right yeah for sure look i think one of the things for me was that when i discovered racing it was purely by chance right i got the opportunity to go to a grand prix it was the british grand prix in 2009 and i got the chance to see it up close and you're And that was the moment for me that was like, I can go and do that.

23:32So then it occurred to me much later on when I was like, well, so few people get these opportunities that they just haven't had that spark. So, you know, some of the work that I do now with Red Bull as a global brand ambassador are the projects like STEMX, which I love, where we go to schools and give them a taster of what Formula One careers are like. And our talent academy where we've got, you know, graduates and apprentices, that's the work I really enjoy now. And all of that is about sort of diversifying the sport, the more people you reach, the more people from different backgrounds are going to take an interest in it.

24:04And interest was one of the biggest things I think that Formula One and motorsport in the UK really, really struggled with. And I remember from my own experience when I first decided that this is what I was going to do. And I'm mixed race. My dad's half the family are black, mostly in East London. Where from? I was born in Newham, so he's from East London but Dominican heritage and uh I remember and I and on the other side of my family my mum's side of the family I went to school in North London predominantly white Jewish school and I remember very vividly when I decided that this was what I was going to go do for a career and I spoke to my school friends who knew me very well obviously spent all this time with me and they said oh cow you're going to be great at that you know you're a competitor you're going to love that and then when I'm talking to like my my cousins and my dad's side of the family and my friends if you know from from different cultures and they would sort of look at me like what like and i remember and i had this i had this really like weird thing that i held on to for a long time though my one of my best friends at the time he said to me cow they ain't gonna let you in right just based on where you came from just based on you know the fact that his and i and i got i didn't get it at the time i remember being really angry with him and then later on i kind of got it in that his perception of the sport was that whenever he puts it on the telly there are no black people working in the paddock and the only person that we had in the sport was Lewis Hamilton and in 2009 he was being racially abused by fans right so this was this was the thing I kind of had to forgive him later on for having this perception um but you know it took me many years to sort of get around that and understand it and do you think because I've I've I've felt or had similar conversations with people where I feel that they are sharing their own fears and putting them onto me rather than thinking about what's best for me they're thinking about what's best for them is that a similar situation or was it do you feel they were truly trying to be protective um i think for them it was it was really just a complete lack of understanding that there these were even opportunities that were available right i think it was that that that time in the sport formula one had this thing of like the only place you would even see jobs advertised were in the back of Autosport magazine, right?

26:17And all the job ads used to say the same thing, requires relevant experience. And like, what does that even mean, right? So I think it was just one of those things that like, it just not reached a load of people. And also, I think Formula One had this sort of attitude, well, we're Formula One. If you want to work here, you come and find us, right? So it just, so many people were shut off from the sport. And, you know, it took a lot of growth for the sport itself for the audience to get bigger and then naturally people want more information about careers you talked about your first entrance someone gave you a chance right someone gave you the opportunity take us back to that time talk about the opportunity and what you did to make that a good decision that they made well it was a bit it's a bit of a weird story right so i was working as a number two mechanic at small gp3 team yep explain to people what that means so gp3 is well the equivalent of what formula 3 is now so obviously we have formula 1 we consider it the pinnacle of single seater racing and then the the feeder series or the ladder to formula 1 consists of formula 2 formula 3 f4 right um so i was working at formula 3 team as a number two mechanic and kind of out of the blue i got a phone call from the team manager at marussia dave o 'neill and it was a weird one so at the time at status the team were doing some downsizing, right?

27:37They'd made some redundancies and this and that and the other. And I got this call from Dave O 'Neill saying, Cal, would you come and interview for a factory-based position? And who was Dave at the time? So Dave was the team manager at Marussia Formula One, right? And he said, would you come and interview? And I was like, well, yeah, yeah, of course. I remember putting down the phone afterwards. I arranged to go for an interview the next day. I remember putting the phone down afterwards and thinking, what a weird phone call to get on a Tuesday afternoon, right? Like it kind of completely came out of the blue.

28:03I hadn't submitted CVs, hadn't done anything. and it was sort of my first lesson about the importance of networking right because like I said at the time I had this attitude to just focus on the work in front of me don't worry about anything else that's going on and it was kind of my first sort of insight into how important networking could be because one of the people that had been made redundant from status who was the sort of the chief engineer and team manager at the time he was best friends with Dave O 'Neill so when Dave had said oh we're looking to fill this position he'd gone oh well I know a guy that might be interested so that was that was a lesson for me and then you know I got this opportunity I went and interviewed and you know walking into your first Formula One factory as you know I'd only been out of college like two years maybe a year and a half walking into your sort of first F1 factory was mind-blowing right like it's a Formula One car in the lobby okay admittedly it was the one that was at the back of the grid it was a V8 Formula One car in the lobby and this was an opportunity for me to get my first sort of taste of it all um so that was an incredible experience and actually i'm really grateful for the fact that marussia wasn't this big team right i think the joy of and we don't really have that anymore in formula one because of the nature of the sport anymore all of the teams to a certain extent are biggish teams you know but you have to be to enter really yeah exactly but you know for marussia we were very much like you know 200 odd people competing against teams of 700 odd people at the time um but it was really important you I worked in a three-man department at the time of sub-assembly.

29:35Now, sub-assembly, just for some context, in every Formula One team, sub-assembly is the department that essentially builds every assembly. So all of the parts that get designed, machined, and then they come through to sub-assembly to create these installations. And then at the circuit, the mechanics are a bit like an end user. You know, glorified quick fit, as we were. You'll be getting a couple of emails later. Yeah, exactly. You become like, you're like an end user. And sub-assembly departments, they're the ones that construct all of this stuff. So for me, at Mauritius as a learning place was amazing.

30:10Because A, we were a really small department, so you were busy all day, every day. And like there were weeks when the race team was home and we were turning around the cars where you'd be there like till 1am every night of the week to just get everything done and out the door. And then, you know, you'd make it up on the weeks that were off and it was swings and roundabouts. but it was just an opportunity for me to get to learn like so many different components on the car. Everything from pit stop equipment, wheel guns to, you know, axles and bearings and gearboxes and all of this. Your exposure was mad.

30:38So the exposure was insane, right? So that was, it was a great first experience, right? What a place to learn. And admittedly, the pressure was much lower because we kind of understood we were competing for 18th. Yeah. We, you know, we're just trying to beat Caterham every single week. That's how it was. Just beat the green team. Yeah. And that's how it is. But yeah, that was a great start for me, you know. And then I kind of felt like it all began again at 2015 when I arrived to this massive Red Bull campus. So have you done the same for others? Because that one conversation, the power of networking, changed your life essentially, right?

31:13Yeah. Have you been able to do the same thing for anyone else? Well, look, I think one of the things I'm quite proud of in what I do now, and I had a bit of a moment in 2024, which is my last season on the race team. and we were in Qatar and I was approached by two people that worked for another team for one of our competitors, two black guys. And they came over to me in the paddock and they said to me, Cal, I just wanted to introduce ourselves, blah, blah, blah. And we wanted to speak to you because I wanted you to know that you were a big part of inspiring me to take on a job in Formula One.

31:43So like those moments for me now are like the top. That's like as good as the feeling can get. And you're now the ambassador trying to drag more people into the industry. That's the goal, right? Is to sort of, you know, I think on the one part, you know, I talk to the team's partners, talk to them about what we do and give them that sort of insight from someone who's been in the trenches. But on the other hand, it's largely about talking about the sport we love, right? And as much as I would love to employ every single great person at Oracle Red Bull Racing, at the same time, when I talk to people about careers, I say, you know, take the opportunities everywhere, right?

32:20Look for opportunities everywhere. We'd love to have all of you. but you know you need to make sure that you're also hedging your bets and doing what you can because all of these teams provide great opportunities even if it's somewhere that you start now getting your foot in the door in formula one's the most important thing and you say to lots of people it matters more about getting the best out of people rather than the processes and systems what do you mean by that well firstly in that so some teams take the philosophy of that if i design a process and a procedure i can get anyone to do this job by following that process and procedure.

32:52Give me the way I choose and I can get them to do the rest. Well, the thing about that as a theory is, yes, okay, technically, if you write a good enough procedure, anybody who half knows mechanical work can follow it and get the job done. That's all very well and good, but it doesn't leave you with a lot of flexibility, right? When things don't go to your perfect plan, which in Formula One, they don't. They don't every day, they don't. But the other thing is about value, right? Your value as, you know, one of the things I remember being asked in my interview when I first joined Red Bull was, where do you see yourself in five years?

33:26The old classic question. And actually my answer to it was really simple in that I didn't really care about my job title. All I wanted to know was that I was an asset to the team, right? And that the team will fight for me because I'm an asset to them, right? And it's the same thing. I think if you have this thing where you break everything down into a process and procedure, it's very hard for people doing that work to feel appreciated, right I think the freedom to get on with it yourself and know that you're your biggest critic and that you are going to deliver for the team it gives you a much greater value as a person you don't feel like a number clocking in in the morning you have some autonomy um you have the ability to call a shot when you need to call a shot and that's how it goes and that autonomy it's it's a it's a huge thing for you personally but is that the thing that helps you get over the fact that everybody does want to talk about the formula one driver rather than the constructors who are doing the things behind the scenes yeah a little bit of that and you know also the other thing was pit stops right so i think you know we chased pit stops for a long long time chasing world records championships you've got you done that we did it we did it we did it was all good but i think the reason that we were so focused on that was because we realized in the garage that this is our time to shine yeah right you know a pit stop can make or break a race right and this is where we contribute um you know during that sunday grand prix is that we we go out there for hopefully two seconds or less right and there and that's you know and that's where we shine and i think those are those are the important things i think you know as a business say to people you need to give people who might not necessarily have the opportunity to appreciate how important their job is you need to give them those moments where they can shine that's a great example for what would work in any type of organization.

35:11Yeah, absolutely. What other things from an F1 context, because you've seen it at the pinnacle and at the beginning, what things do you think in terms of practices work well taken from F1 into corporate environments? I think one of the other big ones that always stands out to me is sort of the lack of hierarchy. Now, obviously you have structure as a business. We have a team principal. We have team leaders, managers, engineering, this, that, and the other. But within Red Bull, I've always found that it sort of gets washed away a little bit in terms of the actual relationships, right? Like I know that you can go and approach our chief engineer, you know, or someone who's chief of the track side and you can only have been at the team for six months.

35:53But if you spot something that you think is a good idea and can make us faster, no one is going to have a problem with you taking that straight to this office. Now they might sit down and tell you, oh, look, mate, this is why this doesn't work. But no one's ever going to have a bugbear about, oh no this should have gone through the proper channels like the proper channels they don't matter in this they don't it doesn't matter in this context the old the result is what's important and us like i said making these marginal gains so i think that's one of the things that i think can translate really well into other businesses i think that's hugely important because all too often things get hampered by managers who don't want to look bad so they hold down information forgetting the big picture is if we win we all win right and that's what you have in the heart of F1.

36:34Yeah, this is it, man. I think, you know, once you sort of take away those barriers to people and give people that freedom to say, well, I've got this great idea. I'm just going to go and see what this person thinks because they're the person who'll know. I think breaking down those barriers is a really powerful tool.

36:55So you talk about all the different roles that are possible within F1. Yeah. Somebody watching this, seeing you, hearing the stories, hearing the travel and the annoyance of airports, how do they get into F1? Because I still don't know how to do that. And I look at it as quite elitist still. Yeah. Okay, so when I started out, I would have told you that there are essentially only two paths into Formula One. One is the one that I took, which is work your way up through lower tier motorsport as a mechanic. And then the other one is if you want to go and do something like engineering or strategy or data or all of these other things, the only other route is university, right?

37:35You need to go and get a good engineering degree in university. And then I used to say that the thing that transpires across both of these, whether you take the degree route or the route that I took, is that you still need to find time to participate in motorsport whilst you are learning. Oh, so you did that? So this is the thing for me, right? when I was at college, every free day, every free weekend, I would find an opportunity to go and get involved with any team that would have me. And that was how I ended up sleeping in my car at racetracks, right? I was working for free, but I was building a network and I was building experience.

38:09And I used to, and I still say the same thing, no matter which one of those two paths you take, you need to do that. Now, Formula One and its growth over the last sort of, well, let's say seven eight nine ten years it's changed dramatically right there's so many jobs that exist now that didn't exist then um global brand ambassador being one of those right these jobs did not exist in 2011 you know um so what i say to people now is actually i think the best thing that you can do especially because i get this question a lot from kids that are still like 14 15 years old they want to know what they should study in school.

38:47And actually my answer to them now is that if you love racing, the best thing that you can do is study what you're good at and what you enjoy, right? And pursue those things. Now you might find that those things, you know, and I'll tell you in school, I did A-levels in English literature and theatre studies. I studied nothing remotely close to engineering at all. It helps me now in this job. It didn't necessarily help me in that job, right? but what I did have was that passion of racing and that's why I pursued it. Now what I say to people now is if you do that, if you work out what you really enjoy and what you're good at, you will be able to find a way to relate that to modern Formula One and you can go and work in Formula One doing what you want to do.

39:32You don't necessarily have to look at the industry and say these are the jobs that are there, what route do I have to take to one of these jobs? You can say this is what I love, how can I apply that to Formula One and I almost guarantee you will find away so it becomes more of a vocation you have to prove and then you can follow it and this is and it's the same and honestly to things people like for example things that people don't know we have formula medicine right so formula medicine are a group of doctors who travel the world with the f1 circus looking after personnel in the paddock right now some of these are really highly qualified doctors who do the job for very little money and some of these are people who have trained because they want to go and do formula medicine so they've learned specifically about this type of medicine but these are the things that you can do and things that didn't exist before so I say that if you're at that age and you're thinking what do I do to go and work in Formula 1 first discover what it is you love and then work out how you go and take it to racing One of the things about the love of work it's quite easy to work with brands that are performing so the Nikes of the world the Red Bulls when they're winning what do you do when the tide turns ever so slightly and things aren't going in that same direction how do you still have the same motivation to turn up and do the best i mean for me with red boys it's easy just because it's it's ingrained in me now right like you are yeah like that's the family that you know that's always going to be the goal so from that perspective it's it's quite easy i think look especially in competitive sport the idea that you are always going to be on top is a myth right especially in formula one right things change way too quickly for you to stay on top forever right that's why when you have seasons like 2023 you're like this is incredible how are you managing to do this right now for us this year we you know at rebel we've had a tough start to this year right but we also understood that we took on a massive challenge you know the first year the first time in formula one history that anyone other than a car manufacturer has decided to build an engine for formula one you know and in the last four years we've drawn we've designed we've manufactured we've tested and now we are racing our own engine right so regardless of whether you have a tough start you say well actually look at what we've taken on and let's find where we're going and make this work as a positive thing and i think if you're passionate about what you do it doesn't the performance in itself whilst you always want to win it doesn't matter you know the journey like a bit like i said my own journey to formula one taught me everything i needed to thrive when i got there it's the same thing you know when i joined red in 2015.

42:052015 was one of our worst seasons in the team's history, right? And we spent many years battling Mercedes to get to that point in 2021 where we could actually compete for a championship. And I'm so grateful for all of those years, all of those tough years where all it was was lessons every week. Every week it was just lessons, new lessons, right? And then you have to sort of accept that if you get to the end of it and you achieve it, you're going to appreciate the tough times so tell us about the rivalry in f1 how much did competition motivate you and the team it's the only reason we're there right like um i think you go back to 2005 when red bull joined the sport and everybody thought oh look this is red bull they're just here to party and have a good time and then a few years later you did no partying and have no good times well we we work hard play hard right that's the the ethos of the company if you like is work hard play hard but But what runs through everything we did, and when Dietrich decided to take on this project of founding a Formula One team, it was for the love of racing.

43:05It wasn't for the marketing opportunities are amazing in Formula One. They're great, even better now than then. But the reason he did it was because of his love and passion for racing. And in that is natural competition. And it flows through the whole business. We're only interested in employing people who are built to win. and that's why you joined Formula 1 in the first place this is it for me I often say to people there were times in my career where I could have gone and done way less hours and way less stress and earned more money I was there because I loved racing and I loved winning and that's it so one of your big passions and ambitions is to make the world of F1 more diverse that's one of the things you're taking on and I think your representation by being there obviously has the impact people come up to you and they say how you've impacted them what are the things that you still want f1 to achieve that you are pushing for do you know what right and it's actually formula one to give them their credit you know and obviously and i always credit lewis hamilton when we talk about this because lewis really was the sort of impetus to get this conversation started and actually even look at the fact that we have barriers to the sport but f1 are doing a really good job and you know it's noticeably changed even in that small selection of people in the paddock, diversity is improving.

44:27Among the team's factories, it will have improved even more so. So for me, it's more about motorsport as a whole, right? Because I know still that when you go and see junior formula racing and grassroots racing, we are still struggling to attract people from many different backgrounds. And when we talk about diversity, it's easy to think about, oh, you know, you want people of color or this, that and the other, but it's more than that. You know, we talk a lot about neurodiversity, right and how and especially you know i did an amazing piece with formula one management recently called untold stories where we i talked to one of our engineers about this and having teams of neurodiverse people um are they are a performance benefit huge right performance benefit like and you can and actually it's a really easy one to sort of explain to people because in formula one engineering is just about solving problems i want this result i need this to get to this result.

45:23Now, if I employ 10 people, all from the same places, all went to Russell Group universities with similar degrees, and I pitch a problem to them, the chances are that group of people are going to give me maybe two, three solutions as to what I can do. Whereas if I have a group of people from all over the world, different genders, neurodiverse, different backgrounds, socioeconomic background, as a way that we solve problems, it teaches us how to solve problems, I might get eight, nine, ten different solutions as to how to solve this problem. And that is a performance benefit. Because the sooner I find the best solution, the quicker I can implement it and beat my competitors.

45:59So that's the way that I always look at that. And I think that Formula One is doing a really good job of it. It's getting there. It's not perfect. We've got a long way to go. Bear in mind, this is a conversation we've probably been having for five years. I think we're waiting to see that trickle down. And it's a weird one because in the one hand you're waiting for it to sort of trickle down to lower level motorsport to then inspire people to start down here and work their way up again right so it's it's almost a double-edged sword in that you're you're kind of waiting for one thing to happen whilst trying to inspire the growth to go the other way but that's that's where we're at and we just gotta keep we just gotta keep pushing amen well i wish you continuous success one of the big things i love is that how sexy you look on your book look at this this this raving picture looking off into the distance how many pictures did it take to get that one cost me a load of money to buy that

46:53but i'm i love the fact that you've put into words now part of your journey because you you gloss over because you're quite modest around world records doing stuff in unbelievable i don't at home by the way okay fine i tell my missus about it every day okay so just here okay we've just met so it's okay right but looking through the book one of the things i really enjoyed when I did this was actually the introduction and I'll read you something right it says to Isabella I hope that you can understand why dad was away so often and that you find inspiration to do what you love with your life everything is possible with persistence and hard work always believe in yourself why was that important for you to write that I look I I've had the great pleasure of working with like a lot of young people lately and I kind of see them I kind of see in their eyes that they they're watching opportunities disappear um I don't know what that world is going to look like that world of employment for my daughter when she gets to that age I kind of just wanted her to have something to remind her that she can achieve it against the odds right like you know there are hundreds of thousands of people that set out to do things that I've done um you could essentially say it's against the odds right um but i i only put my success down to be willing to do whatever it took to succeed and i kind of wanted her to have something that she can look at and go well yeah i'm just going to be willing to do whatever i can to succeed did you always believe in yourself that's a good question um i think i always believed in my ability to succeed i there were days where i did think to myself what the fuck am i doing here tell me about one of those I mean, you know, Japan 2014 was a tough one.

48:40It was when Joel Bianchi had his accident, unfortunately one that he didn't recover from. And I kind of remember that day and sort of the weeks that followed being like, what are we doing here, man? We're building race cars to fly around circuits and people are dying in them, right? And I think I was like, was I 22, maybe 23 at the time when that happened? And that was a tough one. And that was probably when I had the most doubt about like, can I just do this every week, right? And then, you know, later on, Brazil 2024, I had a similar thing. I always, I don't want to upset any of my Brazilian fans.

49:18I always hated going to Sao Paulo. Not because, it's a great racetrack. I bet you, make sure you carry out this. The only reason that I didn't like it was that it was always my daughter's birthday. right so it meant that for years like i you know bella's eight this year i've probably been around for four of her birthdays right and i remember brazil last year it'd been tough it's always like the third leg of a triple header so you're already in your third week away and i called bella on the saturday morning um to wish her a happy birthday and spoke to her and i remember putting the phone down like almost in tears and looking at my suitcase and honestly mate i was so close I was so close to just saying fuck it I'm just gonna go and pack my case and I'm done right so there have been moments where I've been like what am I doing here but I think I I think in terms of me being able to achieve my goals I think I've always been fairly confident that if I was willing to do the work I could achieve it yeah man so how do you compartmentalize I find it really difficult I do here so for example I know my son is off to Croatia yeah he competes for karate, I won't be there because I've got work.

50:27I'll get a message, I'll get a video, but I won't be there. And that's frustrating. It's hard. But I also know what I'm doing is for them to do more than I could have ever done, right? And so I can compartmentalise that in my head. How do you do that? I mean, it was pretty much the same thing. It got harder as Bella got older. Like when Bella was born, I got my two weeks paternity leave. actually to be fair to Red Bull they gave me about three and a half weeks but you know and then I was back racing right and it was tough and I think when Bella was really young it was a lot easier for me to say I'm doing this for her right A that I want her to grow up and be able to look at her parents and say that they were a success and I can strive to achieve the same also that you know paying the bills keeping everyone fed and watered this is the reality of it all and then that got harder and harder right now because it's not just bella it was also you know my partner phoebe while i was away racing phoebe was giving up huge chunks of her life yeah um and i think it was it was easy when i was still trying to get those those championships you know like by this point my last two goals were winning a driver's championship winning a constructors championship i'd done all the other stuff um and then once that happened and we got through 2022 and we're into 2023 and obviously the season's going great.

51:52I'm having a great time. We're racing, but I'm still leaving Bella every single week. It became harder for me to justify being a way to do those things that I said I was doing, right? If I'm telling myself I'm a way to pay the bills and to achieve great stuff, I'm doing those things anyway. And then with the book and other opportunities to go and earn money, I kind of got to the point where, look, I can earn good money and be at home for my kid, right? So that's where the attitude changed, is that as long as I can still provide and do what I need to, it wasn't a sacrifice for me to stop racing.

52:26It was like, actually, no, this has given me the freedom to spend time with Bella. Even last year was the first time in Bella's life I went trick-or-treating with her in Halloween. And it's crazy, right? Like for a seven-year-old. And I was there, I remember it was pissing down with rain. It was absolutely chucking it down last Halloween. And we were walking around and I had a smile on my face. And this is it, man. This is what it's about. So I think it's one of those things like your goals, much as your goals change as you progress, also what you need from work and employment changes. So you've subsequently moved on from the pit lane.

52:59Yep. You're now in your ambassadorial role. Yep. What was the moment that you realised that enough was enough? I've got to do something else. Again, it was another one of these where I had to have a bit of a push, right? I was a bit of a, I was being a bit of a wimp about it all, really. Like, you know, I'd done the book. We were out here doing social media. that was going well um going doing some broadcasting and all of this stuff i'd kind of put all the pieces into place for a fair while and i was just sort of teetering on the edge of do i just make the leap and it was scary right it was it was a scary thing for me um you know this is the first time in my life that i've worked for myself it's the first time of my adult life that i've not been part of a team.

53:42And it was really scary. And then I was, you know, we were about two weeks out from the book being published. I was working in the factory, it was Feb, and I was building a car for the dyno and I got a text from our head of comms saying, Callum, have you got 10 minutes? And I was like, oh no. I was like, what have I done? What have I said? I'm in trouble. I've done that. And I remember walking across the campus to the marketing office to go and see him thinking, I can't even think what I've done. I haven't done anything. What have I done? The only thing I could think about was it's going to be about the book, right?

54:14But they'd had the book since like September. I was like, someone would have said something about it right now, right? And then I got to this meeting and basically they offered me this opportunity, you know, and he said to me, look, Cal, I know you've been going out doing this other stuff. You're really good at it. We feel like as a team, we need someone for this role. We're looking for someone to take on this role. Do you fancy it? and the first thing I said to him was that, first thing I said to him was that, okay, fine, but can I just serve my notice period? Which would have taken me up to the August break.

54:46And he said, well, no, we need someone for the role now. And I was like, well, you're going to have to swing that by the race team because I'm not going in to tell the chief mechanic that I'm pissing off to do marketing and social stuff while you're about to start a season. So they swung that, I stayed out of it. And then, yeah, but it was that push that sort of I needed. and also because they made me that offer it gave me the the safety of staying part of the team because I think that was my biggest fear yeah right this fear of sort of losing my identity and being on the outside of something you'd been on the inside something so big and prestigious this is the thing that it was it was a massive fear and there were still things literally like the day after I signed the contract to switch jobs and then the following day I realized that my like Like everything on campus is fingerprint controlled, all the doors.

55:35And I realized that the day after I signed that contract, my fingerprint no longer got me into the technical areas, right? Like obviously all the other areas of the campus, I'm fine. But the technical areas, design offices, like I can't just go and wander around those places on my own anymore. And that hurt. It hurt. But unfortunately, it's kind of, it's a part of the regulations, with the financial regulations. You have to have this clear divide between your technical areas and your marketing. So I understood it, but it was even that, those little things, man, like the fear was real. So yeah, Red Bull kind of, again, gave me the push to go and do something else.

56:08And God, am I glad they did. And how do you rebuild after that? Because essentially, I can't even imagine the buzz. I've had the privilege of walking in pit lane. I can't imagine the buzz that you must feel, the adrenaline rush of leading up until a race. Actually, in the moment, the pit stops. Yes, we smashed up everybody else and then going back afterwards, right? Because it's competitive, right? Let's be clear. you talk about Lewis, but they were your competitors, right? Yeah, yeah. I have this clear divide as well. Like I have a really clear divide. There's the pit lane line and everything on this side of it, we are mortal enemies and we will fight to the death.

56:43But everything on this side of it, and this is, you know, why I'm always so happy to try and sort of speak about the great job that Lewis has done because everything this side of the pit lane line is everything else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you've gone from that dopamine rush. Yeah, yeah. And then now you're watching out and you can't even get through the door with a fingerprint. How do you deal with, how do you rebuild after that? Because essentially you're doing an amazing job still now as an advocate, but do you miss the old days? I get to see a lot of my old colleagues quite frequently and they always say, you know, you're missing us yet.

57:19And to be honest, my answer is really quite honest about it is that the two things I miss is them, right? And that team thing. And then the other thing, probably the thing I miss most is that adrenaline rush, you know, that pre-pit stop buzz. And to be fair, like it's Sundays. I miss Sunday mornings. So like I was a bit of a creature of habit on Sunday. I'd get to the track, I'd have breakfast, I'd answer any emails, blah, blah. And then I'd have a really quite specific routine that would start from our morning pit stop practice. So I'd do our morning pit stop practice and I'd get in the zone, right?

57:55I got the adrenaline starting to build. I feel like it's flowing right especially when pit stops are going well like everything's flowing this is great I'm up and then my routine sort of starts from there so I take a moment I go and get my race suit on I go for a cigarette and a can of Red Bull and then I used to go and sit on the pit wall with all my colleagues and we all do this thing and the team still do it now where a lot of them will go and sit out in the pit lane on the pit wall just for like 10 minutes before we go to the grid right and that was sort of the calm before the storm sit there have a chin wag feel like i was at ease with the pit lane like you know you and me we're going to get on today this is going to be great i do a little bit of that you know um sort of like my my affirmations my pre-race affirmations um and then go to the grid and then that's when the adrenaline just like really starts to build and there are some races where like it propagates you yeah like there are some races with like especially with crowd atmosphere and the one that always comes to mind is zanvoort obviously a stronghold of red bull in the netherlands the max support is insane but also like the promoter of that race they did such a great job from the first one where they just seem to have the crowd going all week yeah yeah right and then those few minutes before the safety car leaves the grid and before we send the cars the formation lap they used to get the whole crowd like on like one chant on one thing and mate you used to stand there and you could feel the goose bumps underneath your race suit like it was so i missed that buzz right and i and i still do miss it and actually the first race that I was back in the garage since taking on the new role was was Vegas in 2025 and it was all going fine I was having a great time I was walking around the paddock seeing all my mates having a wonderful time not working and then the race started and I I was sat at the back of the garage and it was again I was fine everything was fine I was fine with it um and then it was when they went out to do pit stops and I had a radio on in the garage So I heard their initial call.

59:50They get a call that will say pit stop imminent. So you know it's going to be in the next lap or so. And that was when I started to get the FOMO. That's when it started to hit me. And then it was watching them go out. They got their 15 second call. And I was just watching it. And I was sat on the toolbox, but I was holding my phone. And by the end of it, I must have been gripping my phone so tight that I'm surprised it didn't bend in half. And then one of our marketing staff, she said to me, this is killing you, isn't it? and I was like, you have no idea, man. This is killing me. Would you go back if you had a choice?

1:00:21I couldn't go back to do all of it. It's everything that comes with it, right? And especially like things like pit stops. For F1 mechanics, pit stops are our side hustle, right? Like you have your main job, right? That takes up 90 % of your time. Even if you get that, they don't see that, do they? Yeah, pit stop cruise is a side hustle. You don't have to do it. You don't get paid more for it. It's one of those things. So as much as I love that, it's the whole thing of it. I love to go and get involved in a race again as a mechanic. But the 24 races a season, I'm over it. So what would you say to the person who's at that point of their career, they're at the pinnacle, they've done everything that they can within the role, and they're having to confront that conversation of enough is enough.

1:01:04Because you've had that, and you've been on the other side with the FOMO breaking up the radio, but you've still gone on and built a great career. So what are you saying to that person that gives them a bit of encouragement? I think it's one of those things, and I think I was in a similar place in that I'd done that role, for nearly 10 years as the PU technician trackside. And actually, one of the kind of issues I had is that in order to move up, let's say I wanted to move up the company, it probably would have meant leaving the circuit and spending more time in the factory. And as I said at the beginning, I've always had this sort of morbid fear of a nine to five.

1:01:37So it was then about sort of just pivoting and finding something else that I loved. And I love this job that I do now, right? Talking about the sport I love, telling people about careers, giving them this information. I love it. So I guess what I'd say to those people is that there are many ways for you to love this sport and many things for you to do in it. And I think it's not necessarily like, I don't look at it now as giving up one role. Like I don't look at it as giving up my role on the race team. I just think of it as pivoting and doing more, right? And new things. And like I said, it was scary at the beginning, but also it's the best decision I've made since I made the decision to join Red Bull.

1:02:14Amen. And your desire for more diversity, speak to the person who's thinking they're a woman, they're neurodiverse, they're from different ethnic backgrounds, and they're thinking, will I fit in? Is this for me? Will they be acceptable? What's your message to them? I think my message for them, especially in motorsport, is that whilst from an outsider's perspective, it often can look like this really unhospitable, you know, environment, I think the thing that I've carried through with me through my whole career is actually you will be amazed how much love is in the paddock among the people working there and the one thing that you know keeps us all together you know and I don't just mean within one team but one thing that sort of connects the whole paddock is just a desire to compete and win and and push boundaries and do new do new things and i think if you share that you should be you can be assured that you're welcome you've talked about the pressure of formula one right um the anxiety the culture making sure everybody is focused on the one thing how do you prepare yourself as an individual for that pressure um you learn as you go um like i said about being thrown in the deep end like it's easy for me to sit here now and talk about dealing with pressure and anxiety and all of that stuff.

1:03:39I learned it on the fly, mate. You know, like my, I'll tell you my first ever pit stop, my hands were shaking 10 minutes before it. They were shaking 10 minutes after it. And in fact, if anything, it's the failures that have helped me to not worry about it, right? And not have that anxiety, right? I know what happens when it goes wrong. I know the consequences. And I've also, I've done it enough times that I know I can bounce back. And unfortunately, this is just something that you will learn each time that you fall short. I say to people, you can't be scared of failure, right? Because often it's fear of failure that will hold you back more than a failure itself, right?

1:04:19So for me, like I say, I remember all the bad pit stops I've done, every single one of them, hardly remember any of the good ones, right? Because the good ones didn't matter. I didn't learn from anything yeah i got the result i wanted and they mattered in that sense but like for me personally as someone dealing with pressure and anxiety that the good ones don't really teach you anything other than you go oh yeah i can do that which is great you can right but i think i think for me in terms of um in terms of actually learning to cope yeah with pressure and anxiety i think it's just one of those things that you will learn over time if you stick at it resilience is key essentially right don't be afraid of falling flat on your face it will happen at some point in your career you will look stupid at some point in your career you will make a terrible mistake at some point in your career and if you're lucky you'll have a team around you that will help you scoop it back up right but you know you'll either learn the easy way or the hard way but the important bit is that you learned so i think i think when it comes to dealing with those environments don't expect that people already in them expect you to know it all already right like when when i get the opportunity to go and work with our apprentices or anyone else with the company or you introduce someone new to a pit crew i don't expect them to be totally comfortable you know while we're doing this i don't expect anyone to walk out in their first pit stop in a live pit lane and be like oh yeah this is going to be absolutely fine it's probably not see but that's that's tough for me because I think back to working with Lord Sugar after the show.

1:05:51And I know he has huge high expectations of everybody in the team. He expects the people in the team to earn their seat because that's why they're there. It's not for everybody. It's very similar to a Formula One team, right? Everyone's seat is secure based on the skill that they deliver. And I'd come in as this wet behind the ear guy off the win in the show. I was crapping myself. I'm telling you because I was so worried about being the one person who was going to let everything go. who was going to make the mistake when everyone else was perfect. And the thing that got me through was that realising everybody wasn't perfect.

1:06:24Actually, people did make mistakes. People were at a level where they were still learning and developing. But coming from the outside, I didn't see that. And I never wanted to let him down, right? Was that similar for you with Max? Yeah, I mean, I think especially with Max, it's one of those things. And when we talk about this, I talk about the 23 season. Because when you're on that run of nine, ten victories in a row, you just don't want to be the person that makes that mistake. You don't want that gun to break in your hand. And bear in mind, you know, I've been doing the job best part of 10 years by this point in 2023, right?

1:06:54The best part of it, I've been a race mechanic for 10 years. And you still have that thing of, you know, that season, I triple checked everything, right? Like, you know, probably more so than 2021 when we were really fighting for a championship. Obviously, you're always making sure you're doing a good job. But I think in 2023, the added pressure of everybody in this business is doing an incredible job. Because it's not just the driver, it's not just the engineers, not just us in the garage. It is all of it. To win world championships in that fashion, everything needs to come together. So in 23, you very much had this thought of everyone's doing a great job here.

1:07:31I don't want to be the one that screws it up. Yeah, but in that moment, you didn't take it for granted. You increased the workload. You increased the things you were going to do. you stepped it up to another level yeah absolutely even if it was unnecessary work i feel like it gets to that point where if it just gives me the peace of mind to know that i've done something twice so there's even less chance of it being wrong i do that all the time i'm like i do more work so i don't no one can ever tell me nothing yeah there's also that you see what i mean yeah no one can tell me nothing and it's also quite satisfying like you know when you get an email from i don't know a department in the office saying oh we're trying to do this for a project do you think that we could find out this information?

1:08:07And you just reply with, here's all the information. Here's all the information. I don't expect to hear from you again. But it's true. I think I need the confidence of having done the work. Yeah. Because that reduces the fear. Yeah. Because I know I've done this. I know I've checked it. And I've done it again. People really frustrate me when they assume they could just walk in and miraculously it will happen. Yeah. You've got to do the work. Like, and also like, I'm a ahead of time person. Yeah, yeah. And it's very much a key skill for any of the technicians in F1. On a Sunday morning, to be honest, even on a Saturday morning, my work for that race weekend should have been done.

1:08:44All of my free time now is stuff I can get ahead of for the next week. So when people see me having a coffee in the paddock and chilling out, and they go, haven't you got work to do? And I'm like, well, yeah, but I did most of it last week, and that's how I like to operate. I give myself leeway ahead of time. And before you go into that adrenaline rush pre-drinking the Red Bull kind of moment, how are you packaging or compartmentalizing the emotions that you're feeling? Anything that could have happened before? Do you know what I mean? Because you've got to switch that all off and just focus on the top.

1:09:15What do you do that gets you in that mindset? It's a difficult one that. And actually, traditionally, especially when I first started, I wasn't very good at it. I think for a lot of people when you're very passionate about something I'm very passionate about the desire to win so you take things personally and I remember quite a few years ago sending an email back to the factory about something I really wasn't happy with and Jonathan Wheatley coming to see me about it our team principal and he goes, Cal, look, you've written this email all the points you're making are perfectly valid but it's so emotionally charged and sometimes you need to learn to just take the emotion out of it and look at the bottom line and the facts, right?

1:09:59And that was just something I learned over years. And what I discovered with pit stops was that actually, when I'd been doing it for long enough, the motor skill was autonomous. Just kicked in. Yeah, yeah, it's autopilot. I mean, to the point where I didn't pick up a wheel gun for 12 months. And then at the beginning of this year, we were making a piece of content with the pit crew. And I jumped back in and first pit stop, straight back on the pace, hadn't even touched a wheel gun in 12 months, because the motor skill is autonomous, but where the difference is, is up here. And I say this in my book, in that probably the bigger decider on my pit stop performance was my mental state, right?

1:10:34And it took me ages to learn that. But now that's not necessarily means that my mind had to be empty of all distractions or whatever. Like I could be pissed off. I've just learned how to channel that anger into performance, right? So whether you be, you know, happy, sad, having a great time enjoying the adrenaline or you're just angry about something if i'm angry about something it's going to be impossible for me to shake it off before i go out into the pit lane so instead i just learned to channel it into a way where i go i'm going to go out there and show you right and that's it you know and and actually i think to a certain extent it was something that jonathan taught me you know was was and i thought jonathan was really good at getting the best out of people in that sense in that even if it meant he had to annoy me a little bit he knew that that was how to get the best out of me all right so a couple of closing questions right so quick fire don't think overthink them just say the first thing that comes to your mind right your book life in the pit lane your journey into f1 what's the lesson that you would have on repeat from it i think it would just be that there are an unbelievable amount of opportunities out there no matter where you start out right like when i think where i started out as a mechanic you know and I describe it in that book as it looked like someone's shed with a sign on it.

1:11:53This is how small this garage was. So the thought that I was coming home on the bus every day, up to here in black grease and oil, to being able to travel the world and build the fastest race cars on the planet and now get to go out and represent thousands of people as part of the business. I would just say that the thing is that if you focus on what's in front of you right now and know that you can keep building, there really isn't anything you can't achieve. Amen to that. What's one core belief that you've had to reconsider? That where you're from defines you, right? Like I think I, firstly, I accept that I was raised in a relative amount of privilege, but I've had the opportunity to travel the world.

1:12:41And within that, I've met people that came from places you wouldn't believe and have achieved incredible things it's humbling right like yeah like and i and i whenever i and i talked to some of these incredible people and i just say to myself god man if you'd been given the opportunities that i had you might be running the world right like so you know these the way you where you start is not going to define you if you're willing to do. And I mean whatever it takes, man. You know, like to the extreme, you know, 50 Cent and his get rich or die trying. That's just a mindset, right? I'm willing to do whatever it takes to succeed.

1:13:21To win. To win. Amen. Take me back to a good time. What's the one moment in your life that you'd want to relive? Oh, wow. Actually, it'd be my first ever race. so my first ever race um i bunked off of college to get it i bunked off of college and i walked around the paddock i asked every team if i could come and work for them for free they all said no and then the first opportunity i got was this really small father and son team small honda integra brick car 24 hour i like i said i slept in my car i ran tires back and forth to the dunlop tent in the rain um at the time i was like this is crazy what is going on here i'm I've got no money I'm wet I'm soaking I'm freezing I'm in Silverstone car park and I've slept in the car and I've slept in the car and I would love to go back and do that weekend again Amen I'd love to go back doing that weekend with the knowledge of where it would ultimately lead and you'd just see me with the biggest smile on my face I can see it now I can see it my brother Callum Mate thank you so much man it's been a real pleasure thank you what an incredible conversation we just had with Callum here are the three things that I want you to take away from our conversation.

1:14:33First, setbacks are inevitable. How you deal with them is the most important thing. Resilience is built out of the knocks that you've encountered and how you overcome them. Next, it was when the stakes are high, the work rate has to be higher. Success doesn't happen automatically and sometimes you have to put free time to work in more than anybody else. And lastly, wherever you are on your journey, remember, enjoy that moment because sometimes we miss the importance of learning from the early stages of our career and that learning is sometimes the cornerstone for your whole career. An amazing conversation and if something from this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone that you know who wants to rework their career or their life.

1:15:17And don't forget to like and subscribe for more conversations just like this one. See you next time.

1:15:30This was a Rayo Original Podcast.