Five weeks to fix F1?

0:02This is a Global Player original podcast. The FIA has known that this was going to happen and did nothing about it. Ollie's crash. An incident like this was bound to happen. Why did nobody see this? Where there's money, there's politics, where there's politics, there's power play. Everyone's got an agenda, right? They don't feel in control of the cars that they're driving. We've never seen that before. What they've created is a Frankenstein's monster. I don't know about you, but I think I can spot one person who's definitely fallen out of love. And that is Will Buxton.

0:49It's Will. It's Naomi. It's David. Welcome to Up to Speed. Well, after Ali Behrman's big crash in Suzuka, F1 are facing some big questions. Is there a safety crisis? What can be done about these new regs? There was a meeting before the race in Japan and there is going to be one in the coming weeks. But is the five week break enough time to get this all sorted? There is indeed. And before we get into that, though, I was with Julie in the studio a couple of days ago, and we were all over the Max Verstappen ongoing story, the frustration, the questions about whether he'll continue him sending a journalist out of the FIA press conference.

1:29So what do you guys think about all of that? I think you've got to take him at face value. You know, when he's talking about quitting and doing other things, you know, Max has achieved more than I think he ever thought he would in the sport. You guys spoke to him preseason. I think he was very honest with you guys. And ultimately, only you guys as professional sports people know what it is to sort of face up to that reality of when do I walk away? You know, when do I walk away from the thing that I love and go and pursue something else? I don't think he'll walk away from racing entirely. But will he walk away from Formula One?

2:01if he's not happy anymore? You know, he has issues with media. He has had for, you know, for a long time. We've all had run-ins with him over the years. I certainly have. You know, is there something performative in it from him? Potentially. But at the same time, there's clear frustration there. You know, with Max, I don't think there's any surprise. We've seen him say many, many times that if he's not enjoying what he's doing, the end of his Formula One career is near anyway. But every so often we get these sort of weekends with Max where he does face maybe a little bit more backlash than a usual weekend.

2:34And I think it really eats into him. You know, that paired with bad performance, the car not being competitive, the issue we have around the regulations and everybody criticizing the decision that he made to, you know, remove the said journalist from that written media briefing in the Red Bull hospitality. I think it was a tough weekend for him. And I think as a result of that, he's now coming out and, you know, reiterating how much he's not enjoying himself. But I think it's a culmination of multiple factors over a weekend that have just sort of built up and boiled over. But yeah, you can tell that he's obviously not a happy camper at the moment.

3:09You know, what's interesting for me is when we consider, you know, his decade long career in Formula One already, if he wanted to do a Lewis, he could keep going for another 12 years if he wanted to do a Fernando. But it just feels that they kind of did their majority of their career through what we'd call the more standard Formula One. You know, you had your internal combustion engine. Yes, we had a little bit of CARES and a little bit of DRS. But the way you accelerated towards the corner, as just a reminder for our audience, that's the thing that's causing him the frustration. that some of the mighty corners that we stood, I remember being at Eau Rouge as a young up-and-coming racer in 1990, watching Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansell go through Eau Rouge and their McLarens and their Williams and going, I just can't believe what I'm seeing.

4:00That may be a different story this year because of the need to harvest in those high energy corners. And I think that's where his frustration is coming over. So I'm sure part of it is sending a very strong message as one of the champion drivers. And the other part is just pure frustration. Yeah, I think nothing's going to send a message to the governing body and to the owners of the sport quite like your poster boy, your four-time champion Max Verstappen turning around and saying, not only do I hate these regulations, but I hate them so much that I'm going to leave behind the sport in which I am a four-time champ.

4:39I think one of the really interesting things is obviously we're now talking about it from a safety perspective rather than it being about just how the drivers race and whether it's down to them to use the deployment or simply relearning their craft. But you bring up a brilliant point, DC, which is you used to stand trackside and be in awe of what Formula One drivers were able to do. And it's that difference now where, particularly at a circuit like Suzuka, the difference between the great and the good was who could go that extra half a percent, who could go that extra percent and do the thing that the other drivers couldn't or didn't do.

5:21And now, and it was Fernando who said it over the weekend, he reckoned 50 % of the people working on his team could drive that car. So if you can drive a car, a Formula One car these days, you know, at about 75 % of your full capacity, then that gap between the great and the good no longer exists. And if the gap between the great and the good no longer exists, then why would a driver like Max find any joy in that anymore? Well, I guess the big void between competing in Formula One and competing in other championships is the salary. Let's be frank, you know, you're covering one of the biggest championships in America, and I'm sure they're well paid at the highest level, but it won't even scratch the surface of what a Max and a Lewis and Charles and those sort of guys are getting.

6:06So, you know, I wouldn't say any of them start out doing it for the money, but, you know, aircraft and boats and all the rest of it are expensive items to keep coming. So your lifestyle grows into the funds that you're earning. So that may be a sort of longer conversation than just, oh, I'm not enjoying this. DC, I think there was actually a term that you used in Monday's episode that I'd never heard before, but that was quite funny for those who sort of turn up to cash. What is it? Cash and collect? Click and collect? What was it? I can't even remember. Monday was so long ago. Cruise and collect.

6:41That was the one. Cruise and collect. It's just come back to me. I think there's certainly a number of drivers who maybe are at that phase in their careers, you say, that are OK with that. And Max is certainly not one of those. I think he's also probably earned enough money now to not necessarily need to cruise and collect anything anymore. But yes, I think there's a certain frustration for the drivers. And we've gone on and on about this already through testing, through the races that we've seen, that there's obviously a lot that needs to be fixed. And I think the FIA are very aware of that. I think Formula One are very aware of that.

7:13And the question now is what can be done and how quickly can it be done? Because they are not going to ignore what drivers like Max are saying. They don't want to lose the character that Max Verstappen is in the sport. They don't want to lose the interest of the fans. And so they have to respond in some way. And we know that they already made slight adjustments to qualifying in reducing how much the cars could recharge in a single lap. But what further changes can they make? And, you know, we were also talking at the beginning of the year about, you know, let's give it some time. It's a big set of regulation changes.

7:46And therefore, we need to wait to see what these cars can actually produce on track. Does it make it harder for them that we've been to, you know, of the three races we've seen so far, Melbourne, a track that doesn't lend itself to these, the new nature of these regulations? And same thing goes for Suzuka now. So is that playing into it a lot? You've got a situation now where you have to make changes because of the Behrman crash being the realization of the fears that the drivers were voicing right from the start of the year. It's no longer teams seemingly complaining because they don't have a competitive advantage or drivers complaining because they're not used to driving cars like this and they're having to relearn the way in which they drive.

8:23They're actually able now to come together under the auspices of safety and say, you have to ring the changes because this is dangerous. And it's just been proven. Everything we've been saying has now been proven. You know, because at the start of the year, it was it was pretty much a competitive argument. You know, Ferrari didn't want changes to the race start procedure because they developed an engine that was really good at doing the race starts. Mercedes probably wouldn't want changes made to the regulations because of how competitive their power unit is compared to everybody else's. now you've got you've got serious issues twofold one danger two and you you hit the nail on the head naomi entertainment um and this is a sport which has marketed itself as being you know the height of motorsport entertainment and if you lose both of those aspects or both of those are under threat then you have to ring the changes the question is how much can you change when so much time so much money has been thrown into these engines are you stuck with what you've got is it ultimately just going to west going to be you know software um modifications what what can you change yeah well the hardware is is there so uh it's a continuation of what we've had the last few years with the v6 turbo how the harness energy has obviously changed and the amount of energy they get each lap has changed but that can be downgraded that can be downgraded to to bring the engine into being a bigger player.

9:53The problem with that, of course, is, well, there isn't going to be a big gap in lap time between Formula One and Formula Two. And, you know, what has typically always been a sort of 10 to 8 second gap, and that is a significant step up. So it's obviously frustrating for us all because we're fans of the sport. We're, you know, we're ex-racers in the case of, well, actually, well, you've raced, as we've discovered in a previous episode. but you know we've all been behind the steering wheel we love competition we love racing and it actually feels is it just me or are the FIA actually being a bit more hand in glove with Formula One and the drivers than may have been the case in the past where it felt quite confrontational this is it you know we're the FIA you're the drivers we have the bigger hammer so get in line I think I think they've realized they've got to be because they're they're staring into the void.

10:50And if they don't work together, then it's their toast. The part that I don't really understand is, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, Will, and David as well, even more so, David, because, Will, I don't know if you would have been hearing the rumours in the paddock last year and even further than that, even further back. We had already been hearing a lot of rumours about these regulations being a big challenge and that once the teams were putting the data and the pieces together in the simulators that it wasn't reading very well. So actually, this is why earlier on in the season, I was sort of saying, I'm relatively relieved at the product that we're seeing on television, because I think I had very low expectations.

11:31My question, I guess, is when the FIA come up with these regulations alongside F1, do they have a correlation issue? Because obviously, no one, not F1, not the FIA, and none of the F1 teams are here to put on a bad show or a bad product, right? Everyone wants it to be a success, you know, in their hearts of hearts. So how do we end up in this position? And why are the teams not able to influence that earlier than what they have been able to? And I think that's your big issue right now, is the people who are going to be determining these changes didn't do anything to stop this from happening. I remember back as far as 2023, there were rumblings about how difficult this was going to be.

12:11And not just rumblings, Max, in an FIA press conference, went on the record and said the new cars for 26 look awful. We're going to have to be lifting on the straights. Downshifting on the straights is going to be a huge disparity between what we understand Formula 1 to be now and what Formula 1 will become unless we change path. One year ago, Fred Vassar went to the FIA and said, are you sure the regulations are supposed to be like this because race starts are going to be really difficult? And they didn't do anything to change it. And so Ferrari turned up with an engine that was good for the race starts.

12:40I question, you know, whether the right direction we'll be taking when the FIA has known that this was going to happen for years and did nothing about it. You know, the regulations were changed to try to appeal to new manufacturers to come in, new OEMs to come in, which they managed to do with Audi. Porsche ultimately said no. Ford came back. Honda came out. Brilliant. But then they said, we want to save money. So they just scrapped the MGUH and didn't bother to change the 50-50 split between electric and normal engine. And that's the biggest crux of the issue right now is that you're deploying faster than you can harvest.

13:17Why did nobody see this? You know, these are supposed to be the smartest brains that are coming up with this. And they've got a month now to fix this. So it's got to be a collaborative effort because working as they have done for the last couple of years is what has led us down the path to this. I think in fairness, just to play devil's advocate, in fairness to the FIA, if we go back to when hybrid first really became a thing in Formula One, it seems so obvious given there's so many hybrid road cars out there. But it was actually Renault at the time that went, if you don't go hybrid, FIA, we're pulling out of Formula One.

13:49And they were like, OK, we don't want to lose the manufacturers. So they did that. And then I don't want to be hard on Renault. They gave me my first ever victory and they were a great provider to Formula One for many, many decades. but it's fair to say they were not ever considered the best during the hybrid era and they've now closed that production facility down you know let's remind ourselves alpine are using a mercedes engine so that didn't work for them i think as you've just explained will there was definitely a need to to attract new manufacturers there's always been that risk that manufacturers come and go i think it was max the late max moseley who used to be the fia president many many years ago had constantly said that we have to protect against the will and the whim of manufacturers to come and go as it suits them as they have change of management you know somebody goes we're going formula one racing and then the next management comes in and go nope we're not doing that it doesn't suit our profile so it's not easy there's no question it's not easy but these are the best engineers in the world they must be able to find a solution that resolves some of the frustration and gives the fans what they want.

14:59The fans don't want to see drivers lifting and coasting. They want to imagine they are Harry Flatters all the way around the racetrack. One thing is for sure is that motorsport, whichever discipline you look at, has always been, and I suppose will always be, a very political environment. Everyone's got an agenda, right? And this is why we're hearing very different messaging coming from different parts of the paddock. Obviously, Mercedes are very happy with these regulations because they are currently dominating the sets of regulations. And others, obviously, a lot less happy. McLaren are starting to see the benefits of that Mercedes power units.

15:33And so they're probably going to slightly change their tune. DC, I guess I'd like to ask you a question on this. In your time when you were a driver in F1, how much of the messaging going out there was, you know, bearing in mind the sport as a whole, more so than everybody is only looking after their own back? You know, what was it like? uh ron dennis would say to me if there was an issue he'd go yeah say it was the engine and i'd have to hear this to norbert howe who was the motorsports boss uh at that time i don't recall him ever ever saying blame the car but i guess it goes to show even though they were a team it was two entities that were coming together to try and achieve success and i guess that's why ultimately mercedes bought their own team so they were never in a position where they would have to be subservient to a manufacturer i i don't recall all of the details a long time ago now but i suspect mercedes probably looked at buying into mclaren at one point and for whatever reason it never happened which is why they went off and did the the honda let's remind ourselves that honda effectively gave the race team to braun uh roth braun who'd been a designer at ferrari and benetton very successful they gave him a team because they went we don't know how to win in formula one And he then won the world championship with Jenson Button and then sold it to Mercedes-Benz and went, cha-ching, thank you very much, Honda.

16:55Where there's money, there's politics, where there's politics, there's power play. You will always have people trying to steal an advantage or engineer an advantage or just maintain an advantage for as long as they can. It's forever been the way in Formula One. Okay, I guess it's a good question. And, you know, at which point do we draw the line on what's more important with people's agendas and then safety in the sports? So when we come back, we're going to be discussing more around Oli's big incident in Suzuka and some of the safety concerns around these new regulations. In the meantime, make sure you are following us on socials at Up to Speed Show and comment, subscribe and like to make sure that you never miss an episode.

17:34We'll be back in a second.

17:39right so as i was saying just before the break where do we draw the line where do the teams draw the line on their own personal interest versus the safety concerns that we've seen because a lot of people are up in arms with regards to ollie's crash because they've been saying that they they had been saying that inevitably with the speed deltas and the super clipping and this issue we have around recharge and its unpredictability that an incident like this was bound to happen. And luckily it happened where it happened. Where do the teams draw the line on what's important and what changes can be made to resolve these issues?

18:13I don't think it should be down to the teams. When you leave it in the hands of the teams, there's always going to be vested interest. It has to come down to the regulator. It has to come down to the governing body. And they have to realise that they've made a misstep and they have to realise that what they've created is a Frankenstein's monster that nobody wanted. It's New Coke. They had a recipe that was the biggest selling thing in the world. They've changed the recipe and everyone hates it. You can't go back to the old recipe now. That's done. So you've ultimately got to adapt the recipe that you have.

18:41But how can you do that? Within the regulations, within what they've built, within what they've constructed, what are the changes that are in play that you can put onto these things? DC's already mentioned, maybe you just turn the whole thing down. Well, great. Okay, so then they're going to be going around even slower and the drivers are going to be even less happy. I think there's two things here. one is safety the other one is is how much responsibility do the drivers have in their own hands because right now they have no control over how they're deploying the energy when they're harvesting the energy and they want more control over that because at the moment they don't feel in control of the cars that they're driving when you can make a mistake and end up with a faster lap time because you accidentally recharged at a point you weren't doing before over a lap where you nail every single corner like you used to and you go slower you know the drivers are obviously unhappy with the way that these cars are driving and the way in which deployment and harvesting is taking it out of their control so you know you i think you've got ultimately you've got two you've got two things that you need to fix here and i don't know how you do both and and and that's going to be what's fascinating over the next month i've got to believe in the brain power of fia and the teams there there has to be a workable solution even if they ultimately end up with a little bit less power because they don't therefore harvest as much into the battery.

20:02I think that the fans would understand because this is still a Formula One car. They're still incredibly efficient through the corners. So that gap, let's say, between F1 and F2 could become a little bit closer. But getting on the ragged edge, being on the edge of adhesion at 180 miles an hour or 200 miles an hour through these monster corners that we revere that people that have never been to suzuka know 130r people have never been to spa know the name of eau rouge and the list goes on of the mighty circuits in the mighty corners we you know it's almost like a pilgrimage isn't it for families to go to those corners and remember the first time they watch a car go through them at high speed so that's the thing that i think we need to address as quickly as possible i think being on the edges is is absolutely right here dc because if i look back to australia and that quick change of direction you know out the back um by the by the lake was it 9 10 something like that yeah at night it used to be 11 12 didn't it now it's 9 10 um watching the f1 cars go through there this year it was thoroughly depressing because they were lifting or Certainly they were slowing down, having to slow down before that because of the harvesting and the super clipping.

21:24Watching the F2 cars go through there was awesome because they were on the edge and they were skitting about, struggling for grip. And that was maximum commitment. Were they slower lap times? Yes. Did they look more impressive? Yes. So I'm with you, DC. I'd take a decrease in overall power if ultimately it means that we're not going to get them having to lift off and not be at the limit, at the edge of what is achievable for them within that car. but it's just so depressing um and it's got to be depressing for the oems and for the engine manufacturers who've come in and thrown time and expense um at these at these engines that that ultimately this is the the mess that we're in because what do you what do you do do you put a do you put a sticking plaster on it this year and go for a wholesale change of engine including architecture for next year because you're not going to change the architecture this year no matter how long you've got no matter how much lead time because then you're going to have to completely redesign the cars as well so do you do that for 2027 and is there any point in doing that in 2027 when they've already said that they're going to be completely changing the engine regulations again in the early 2030s to maybe move back to V8s or V10s, run them on biofuel?

22:32Do they want to move that forward now to a 2028? And if they do that, what was the point in bringing these regulations in for 2026? That's why there's so much more. And it's why the whole thing is so mind boggling that we've got into this scenario. Well, Will, before you fall into an even deeper depression, we're getting into some of the wider effects of this new set of regulations. Obviously, some out there are calling qualifying a non-event. There is a bit of a debate on what the racing is like. Some people really hate it and others are saying, well, actually, there's a lot more on-track action.

23:12But are we in danger here of the F1 audience potentially falling out of love with the sport? Now, you know, as I mentioned, there was a meeting before Japan. And there's going to be another one with the big stakeholders, the engine manufacturers, the teams, the FIA and F1 coming up. I believe it's on the 9th of April where they're going to discuss further changes because they needed a few races again, as I said, to source the data to make those changes. Now, we have a question from a listener. His name is Senor Mart. And his question is, how likely is it that we're going to see substantial changes this season?

23:44And how quickly does F1 learn? F1 definitely learns very quickly. Whether they want to go and say, we're now going to take away a potential advantage from someone who's done a better job within these roles, I think that's unlikely. I think it would take a collective agreement between the manufacturers to go to the FIA and say, let's all do what potentially could be seen as the right thing in the short term to give us more lead time to know what to do in the future. And I guess what the difficulty is, we've come off the back of a brilliant Formula One, the whole grid regularly covered by less than a second.

24:27You know, we've never seen that before. We get so used to it being incredibly competitive. And now, you know, what is it, still a few seconds between the front and the back, you know, Aston Martin, Plum Last, should they be given an advantage and should Mercedes be penalised? That comes into another whole line of questioning. Yeah, I think also just to chime in on that, I think it's such a difficult position to be in and I don't envy them. Obviously, it's one that they've somewhat put themselves in. But again, as I said, I don't think anyone has gone into this with the intentions of making the sport a worse product.

24:59So we're in this position now and now they are in a place where they need to fix this. But there isn't a one size fits all solution, right? Like some solutions are going to work for some teams and others are going to, you know, not necessarily work for teams at all. So they ultimately have all of the data that they need. They don't need the F1 teams to come and, you know, sort of give them evidence. They've got that evidence. They know what the right decision is to make. And it's going to work for some and it's not going to work for others. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people up in arms.

25:27But when it comes to the question of whether the F1 audience is going to fall out of love for the sport, I certainly for one hope that the F1 audience is not as fickle as that and that they're going to, you know, give up on F1 after three races. They put out a statement along with the FIA saying that the intention was never to stick to these regulations 100%, right? There are growing pains that come with a huge regulation overhaul like the one we've had. And ultimately, they're going to be working towards fixing that. But how quickly can they get those things done? And how patient will the audience be?

25:57I do think when we're watching it at home, which I've been doing only this year, I've not been on track yet. I will be unleashed for Miami. Thank God. I'll be less out again. But watching it at home, I think what's really confusing is not understanding, you know, what the state of charge is for the cars. So we don't know which overtaking maneuvers are authentic versus others that are less authentic. It's difficult to really tell. So I think from the viewing perspective, there's also tweaks that can be done that aren't necessarily hardware or software related. I think the frustration comes in that, you know, when we got rid of DRS, racing was supposed to go back to being pure again.

26:33And now you have a driver that's using all their deployment overtaking. And they've got nothing left to defend. And so the other driver's just screaming back pass again. So the pass and the repass, what some drivers are calling yo-yoing, I think feels very fake because it's not, it's overtaking, but it's not what we'd understand a pass, you know, a kind of a gutsy, brave manoeuvre that is intentional. DC, I don't know about you, but I think I can spot one person who's definitely fallen out of love with F1. No, I haven't. And that is Will Buxton. No, no. But it's like, you know, it's like, you know, people need an intervention every now and then, you know.

27:16You've got to get your mates to sit around you and say, mate, you need to have a cold, hard look at yourself because you're not the same. And that's kind of what Formula One needs is a reality check right now. And I think the first three races have been a reality check for Formula One because they've gone down a path, which they did for, you know, the reasons that they did to bring you know new oems into the sport but have they sacrificed a bit of the soul of what the sport is in order to get them in i'd argue that they that they have but they recognize that and they've recognized that since race one and have said we're going to wait until the first few races are over before we decide what we're going to do brilliant and i'm all for that and listen i want formula one to be the biggest success that it can possibly be because it's great for formula one and it's great for international motorsport as a whole the bigger formula one is the better for international motorsport the world over full stop i love formula one i want to see formula one be a massive massive success what i don't want it to be is what it is now which feels contrived and false and and just a bit weird ultimately all the teams have and we know this the engine manufacturers have got the opportunity to to upgrade their engines throughout the year anyway if they're a percentage behind the the leading power unit provider so they've got to make their decisions on whatever changes they're going to make they have to make those decisions soon because the teams that are behind have to know what they are able to develop towards when they're able to put those developments in on their on their power unit so you know we can't just be sitting on our hands on this they've they've got to figure this out quick i think they will figure out but i think actually we should just put the record straight on one thing you still love formula one you will do season nine drive to survive we we can't we can't have an audience unsure who's going to be that person hey look you you can't get nine seasons into a show without having the very same basic things explained to you that were explained in season one i mean where would we be if i wasn't explaining how qualifying works let's be honest well that's a thing this year explaining how qualifying works this year is going to be very different because this year folks you drive around at 75 of your optimum pace well we can definitely tell um that will is a little bit sour he's not enjoying this um so dc i think you and i might need to be hosting that intervention with will i enjoyed japan i thought i really out of the three races so far this year japan was actually my favorite and i was watching that at like 2 a.m in alabama and it was it was good stayed awake for that it was great that's commitment the people have spoken will has spoken the drivers have spoken everyone is giving their opinions.

29:53And I think, as you say, Will, you know, F1 really do need to be paying attention to the driver's opinions, to the audience's opinions. And I think that they will be making changes ASAP. So we know we've got that meeting coming up. We have a five-week break. DC, what on earth do drivers get up to? I mean, this is a very impromptu five-week break. No one was expecting it. So how do they stay on target? Well, a number of them will have marketing requirements and requests. And if I, you know, enough about them, let's talk about me. In between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, I took and accepted an event, a conference in the Philippines, because it was actually quite a good way to fill the time between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.