Weekend Edition: Is Formula One in for a hollywood ending?

0:02Gabby:This is a Global Player original podcast.

0:05David Coulthard:All year long, McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have been fighting between themselves for the World Championship. It's so close, there's only 14 points in it. And then Max Verstappen sneaks up behind them and wins three of the last four Grand Prixs. And just like that, Red Bull could be about to pull off a comeback which is worthy of a drive to survive Hollywood film. Film.

0:26Gabby:Our guest today, 13-time Grand Prix winner David Coulthard, has history with both teams. He was World Championship runner-up with McLaren and became the highest-scoring British driver of all time while at Red Bull.

0:36David Coulthard:So with only five Grand Prix's to go, could Verstappen actually win his fifth world title? Do McLaren have a favourite driver? Should they? And what's the latest with Christian Horner?

0:46Gabby:Welcome to the Sports Agents.

0:56Gabby:The Sports Agents

0:57Mark:with Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman

1:02Gabby:David, thank you for joining us so we've got five to go and Piastri leads Norris by 14 and now Verstappen is just 40 points away who are you leaning towards and why?

1:16Mark:I feel that as you were asking the question there should have been dramatic or slightly scary music playing because it's the sort of Max Verstappen moment, isn't it? You know, as he looms closer. Well, look, a quick answer is you've got to always back the guy that's the head of the championship because it's his to lose. And Piastri, although the gap has wavered, he's still leading and he's in a good team and he's a good driver. And there's a lot of points still on the board. The point swing, though, which is where the dramatic music needs to be played is pretty scary. And it's kind of, you know, Red Bull-esque or Max-esque from a couple of years ago.

1:59Mark:But it's quite a late comeback, isn't it? It'd be a hell of a Hollywood ending if he manages to convert.

2:05David Coulthard:And McLaren has been the story of the season so far. So where has this come from with Red Bull? What's been going on with the car?

2:13Mark:Well, it's a development race. Every team has the target of bringing upgrades of some shape or form to every Grand Prix. It won't always manifest itself in like a front wing or a floor or something that's big and obvious. But I think that McLaren probably started to turn their heads towards 2026 earlier than maybe they would have thought, because you're running well and you've got a big points lead in the Constructors' Championship. And it looks like Red Bull are in turmoil. They've got a change of leadership. Max declared I think was it around Budapest he doesn't think he'll win another Grand Prix this year you know there was a lot of the power of propaganda probably saw a number of focus points shifting but Red Bull have been relentless, they've got a new team principal of course, not that he designs the car but there's a lot of people there that are still working to prove that they've still got it and they certainly appear to still have it

3:11Gabby:Just give us an insight into that then and how much a team is looking ahead to a new season where the technical side, is that right, in 2026 there are going to be some changes, how much they look that far ahead but how much they have to work in the present as well because that obviously affects the drivers and this swing. So how have McLaren sort of spent more time looking ahead rather than looking in the present?

3:40Mark:Well, in simple terms, I guess it's like any sports organization that has a current team and a current championship. And then you'll have your youth team that are simmering away in the sidelines where you're thinking maybe next season or maybe if, you know, are they good enough this season if the main striker or whoever gets hurt, that you give them a chance. So the truth of the matter is that you've got your mind on both because you have to. You can't really be 100 % just the here and now, because that'll be at the expense of 26. So it'll come down to sort of allocation of people. Let's say in general terms, if we just simplify and say that every big team has about 500 people in the design office.

4:25Mark:At the beginning of, I guess, going into this year, because 26 is a major regulation change, they wouldn't have had all 500 deployed on 2025. They would have a hundred of them. I'm just picking numbers, but they would have a number of them already doing long lead design for the following year. And you have a budget cap of$140 million. So that includes crash damage. So if your drivers start getting into a lot of crashes, it doesn't matter if you're Ferrari or whether you're Haas. You cannot go beyond your budget cap. Otherwise, you get fined not only in monetary terms, but you get restricted in the amount of wind tunnel time that you can do in any given year.

5:04Mark:So there's a big focus for any sports team to abide by the guidelines. Occasionally, some people get it wrong, but you pay a price for that. So it's a complex sport that doesn't have a simple answer to your question. But it's always about how you deploy your human resource. And you can imagine why McLaren felt pretty good about how they'd done that, because they won the constructors last year and they got out of the blocks this year looking brilliant.

5:32David Coulthard:And on the human side of it, McLaren have allowed Lando and Oscar to race. Are they going to have to abandon the beautifully named papaya rules?

5:42Mark:Yeah, having done nine years at McLaren and we did a couple of launch cars in what I always thought was just the orange colour of Bruce McLaren. but obviously how ill-informed I was that it's actually papaya. I'm not sure I'd really heard of too many papayas growing up in Scotland. But anyway, I wish they'd come up with a different name than papaya rules. How about they're a team, the drivers are employees of the team. I was an employee and therefore occasionally I was given team orders. Did I want it? No. Did I accept it? Yeah, because I'm an employee and ultimately there's got to be a boss, hasn't there?

6:20Mark:So I think the risk in trying to manage your drivers is you're going against the human nature, which is a driving force of why you employed them. Race drivers are particularly selfish individuals because, yes, you need a team and, yes, you drive for the team, but there can only be one winner. You don't win like a soccer team where they're first to live in and the support staff and the guys on the subs bench all feel part of that victory and get the medal. only one driver can win a driver's championship so your teammate's success is your failure and vice versa so they can try and manage and I think McLaren have done a brilliant job of winning the constructors this year but the crowd don't like it the fans don't like what feels like manipulated outcomes even though it's part of the rules when Lando went on the podium in Monza because they'd held station with Oscar on a pit stop the crowd were booing when Schumacher moved over to give Rubens Barrichello a place back because of something Rubens had done earlier in the year, the crowd booed.

7:23Mark:When Mika and I swapped places in Melbourne in 1998, there was outrage, understandably, because you tune into sport wanting to see a sporting contest and that gets complicated in Formula One. They can't now, can they,

7:41Gabby:throw all their eggs into one of their driver's baskets because having done it the way they've done it this season, they can't pick a number one with five races to go, can they? I mean, that would blow the whole thing apart for them as a team, surely.

7:58Mark:Yeah, I think the points between Oscar and Lando, it's just too tight. We saw Lando didn't finish in Zamboort in Holland because of a technical failure on the car. So technically that could have been 25 points. He wasn't leading at the time. but you think about it in terms of what's the maximum that you lost. So they're within a race win of each other. If the other one doesn't finish, they've just got to let them go racing. But isn't that great? Isn't that great for us as fans? Isn't that great for the fans? Because the racing gods will decide.

8:31David Coulthard:But do you think the way the land is lying at the moment, because he's done it so many times, Verstappen just knows how to close out a season? or, you know, obviously Lando's a little bit more experienced than Oscar. You know, is it about experience at this stage of a season, David?

8:48Mark:Yeah, I think you're absolutely spot on. The difference between Max and Lando, who's got more experience than Oscar. You know, Oscar's in his third full season of Formula One and he's got Mark Webber in his corner. Mark is a very experienced guy who has got all of the hunger and frustration of coming up short in the World Championship himself. but Max is just loving this because when he won his first world championship, I interviewed him the morning after and you can imagine what he was like the morning after, a little bit rough but he was very reflective as he sat there with his dad and went, we've achieved our goal.

9:26Mark:If we never win another Grand Prix or we never win another championship, we've ticked the box. Now he's got on to win another three he's a four-time world champion he found inner peace a long time ago whether whether he maybe sometimes looks a bit angry and and all the things that we know max is you know he lives his passion on the radio and on the racetrack but i think that inner peace is and experience is his superpower as we go into the final races but it's still advantage mclaren and they're two brilliant drivers you know I'm really impressed with how calm Lando has been in the face of quite some challenging races this year and Oscar we're going to find out more about

10:09Gabby:him as the the pressure ramps up when we get on to the next one the Mexican who would be favorite for that for you Max but then that that reduces the gap even more doesn't it yeah potentially

10:24Mark:Absolutely. McLaren could have put people off 26 on 25, and it may suddenly unleash some potential, maybe not in Mexico, but maybe in Brazil or the following races. Because McLaren have achieved the goal of winning the constructors. That's where the money is from the business point of view. But we all know, we remember who won the driver's championship. We don't remember really who won the constructors. it tends to go hand in glove, but they know the publicity. And if they were to lose the World Championship to Max, that would be so frustrating, annoying.

11:01David Coulthard:Especially the season that Red Bull have had off the pitch, so to speak, as well. And I've got to ask you a question about Christian Horner because I love the quote by Andy Cowell of Aston Martin, team principal and CEO. It looks as though Christian's ringing up pretty much every team owner at the moment. So April is the time that he can come off his gardening leave and return to Formula One after his sacking by Red Bull. Where's the smart money on where he'll end up?

11:28Mark:I don't doubt he's spoken to every single team because you know what every single team principal does during the year? They speak to every driver, even if it's just to destabilise them, just to go to them and say, by the way, you know, we'd pay you more money or, you know, you'd be better off with us. even if you don't really have space, there's nothing better than a little bit of flattery for the ego. And it just, it creates doubt. So that's one of the, you know, you both know well, because of your vast experience, it's not just about what you see unfolding on the sports field or in whatever that sporting event is.

12:03Mark:The politics behind the business of sport is constant. And it happens in back corridors and it happens in little meetings here and there. So I would expect Christian to you know he's still a relatively young guy he's certainly younger than me and I would expect him to pop up somewhere I just don't know where it is I hope it's somewhere headliner-y so we working with my television hat on well you know a bit like Lewis Hamilton going to Ferrari that was one of the biggest news stories of the beginning of the year it was brilliant it's got

12:34David Coulthard:a brilliant way of doing that F1 hasn't it it's got a brilliant way of doing it yeah but one of

12:38Gabby:the things you see across a whole range of sports as well is the desire for ownership not not to be an employee but to be an owner whether that you know football's a prime example of that whether that's you know Beckham in Miami Tom Brady with the with the Raiders or with you know Birmingham City with the right investment team he could presumably be an owner could he yeah well there

13:03Mark:there's an extra franchise available there's 11 teams on the grid next year cadillac in name are coming they're going to be based at silverson as a as an operation and that's great for another brilliant british story uh that so many of the formula one teams are based in the uk we're all a bit too polite and shy aren't we to really sing our own praises about how brilliant yeah brilliant our men and women are at designing and building race cars but uh anyway good there's going to be 11 teams, more cars, that gives more drivers opportunity and more action. And there is room for a 12. So the three of us could have a conversation offline, pull our vast resources, go and get some investors, and in two years' time, launch our own team.

13:45Mark:We could call it the sports agents Formula One, and then off we go and running.

13:51David Coulthard:We're quite papyrish ourselves here. But anyway, on that note, thanks so much.

13:58Gabby:I think I would be the junior partner in that. just to point out.

14:02David Coulthard:David, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time. Enjoy the rest of the season.

14:05Mark:Thank you very much. The Sports Agents.

14:11Andy Cole:The Sports Agents

14:12Mark:with Gabby Logan