Is Toto Wolff trying to stop Christian Horner's return to F1?

0:02This is a Global Player original podcast. Controversy and consternation in the season opener in Australia, but Ferrari and Mercedes are puffing out their chests after locking out the top four positions.

0:17Max Verstappen:But were they potentially any sleeping giants, some that may come out in China to steal all of that glory? Yeah, we haven't seen the best of Max Verstappen. He had that crash out in qualifying and that sort of stealthy comeback. into the point in Melbourne. So let's keep an eye out for him. And later, who's the fittest driver? We're talking athletics before DC starts talking about Charles Leclerc. Love him. It's Will. It's Naomi. It's David. It's Jolie. Now let's get you up to speed.

0:51Max Verstappen:Up to speed.

0:57Max Verstappen:Well, DC, welcome back. I think you were on a flight to continue your tour. Where were you? Tell us. Yeah, sorry about that, guys. I headed off to New Zealand with my old teammate, Mika Hakkinen, seven years together as teammates. Well, OK, it sounds a little bit like the Scandinavians and the Scot go on tour. So by the end of it, are you guys a little bit fed up of each other? Or do you still enjoy seeing each other? Or do you just avoid each other in the evenings? Well, you know, I love Mika. I love the man. I've been through a range of emotions with him. I've seen him grinning like a Cheshire cat when he's won a world championship.

1:31I've seen him in tears of frustration when he's crashed the car. And as you all know, for different degrees in your journey of life, when you spend that much time with somebody, you don't have to do a small talk. So Meek and I can sit comfortably beside each other for 10 minutes and we don't have to say anything. And then we'll reach around and we'll say something. We'll engage for however long that takes. And then we'll sit in silence. That is true friendship. How rare is that though, mate? Like we all know that in F1, the first person you've got to beat is your teammate, right? Because they're the only person with the same machinery that you have.

2:07Does that friendship come after you've stopped being teammates or did you always have that friendship? No, no, it comes after. When you're teammates, we used to get in two separate cars from Monaco, go to the airport in the East, get in two separate planes, fly to wherever it was in Europe, up getting two separate cars to the racetrack then come and meet the engineers in the in the debrief sitting opposite each other that's how ridiculous competitive nature is but today we don't have that you know i i respect mika i think his achievements were amazing especially when you consider he came back from that near-death accident in 1995 the guy went toe-to-toe with Michael Schumacher and delivered the results.

2:54So I've got nothing but respect. Love that, mate. Love that. Well, it's a huge weekend for you. You're up for four Oscars at the weekend for the F1 movie. Are you feeling nervous? I mean, I love the fact you say I'm up for four Oscars. Just total honour to be a tiny, tiny weenie part of something that is up for four Oscars. That's absolutely crazy, you know. Best picture. Who'd have thought that? but yeah, can't wait, can't wait to watch been speaking to some of the gang who are heading out to LA this week for that, obviously a huge week for the movie industry huge week for F1 I've said it before, I'm really disappointed for the guys on cinematography that they weren't nominated, because I think that not only in what they did but how they did it, in terms of designing new technology that will be used in the future of filmmaking, I thought that I thought they really deserved a nod for that um but you know best film like best movie that's that's a that's a that's a crazy thing i mean brad putt is is he good at racing any good he's good at driving apparently from what the guys uh at carlin were saying who did all the driver training um because when the movie started filming the sag after a strike hit so brad went off and just drove f2 cars basically for six months um and they they reckon he would have been mid-grid in f2 which when you look at the quality of F2 is decent.

4:17So I've got my fingers crossed for an all-celebrity Le Mans team, including Patrick Dempsey, Brad Pitt, and I don't know, Fassbender. Will, you really know how to tap into the TikTok girls with that line.

4:34Max Verstappen:Thank you. Well, it's a big week for Formula One, guys. DC, I don't know, did we ever get your full recap of what you thought you were down under, you were on the ground for the team? What were the rumblings in the paddock after the race, certainly? I mean, the audience is very, very mixed in terms of what they felt about the race. Yeah, you know, I was in the passport line leaving Australia with a guy even older than me who was saying, I'm done with Formula One. I do six Grand Prix's a year. I've got, you know, all the Ferrari cars. I've got a RB17, which is a five million pound car coming to him.

5:11So this is a high-end customer and he's going, I don't want to see managers. I want to see racers. And I'm going, OK, I hear you, but let's give it some time. If I step back and look at it from my point of view, I really enjoyed the first few, you know, the opening laps of the Grand Prix. There was pass, there was repass. The drivers were figuring out how to use the tools at their disposal. And is that not always been the case? you know when when Cosworth came with the dfv it rewrote the rules of formula one anyone who didn't have an engine like that was like you know forget it so i think we we need to give it time the best drivers will always be able to utilize the tools i think there's some interesting tactics of mercedes have probably given their customers the information quite late why not you know they're not in the business of having mclaren win or their other customers so as we know in Formula 1 things change quickly let's have this conversation again in six months.

6:10I think that's a really sort of smart way to go about it DC. I think we said the other day you know one swallow does not a summer make but I think the reason that there's consternation, the reason that there's controversy is what we understand overtaking to be looked very artificial and in those opening laps they were really exciting and I was loving it right, I was really enjoying it but then I went back and re-watched it and watched the passes and i'm like how much of this is down to having to manage the battery and manage deployment and how much of it is you know balls out late braking car on edge and overtaking as we understand it to be because getting rid of drs this year was supposed to be we're going back to purity right purity of racing and that's going to be returned and what we got is something that's the polar opposite of that i mean we're one race in and if we look back what is it eight years to the last major engine regulation change in 2014 everyone was panning the sport everyone was saying it was lost everyone was saying it was a disaster and formula one found its way through and found its way to a really great period of of good racing and great championship fights so look i don't think it's the end of the world and i think it will found it find its way but if we're having to re sort of figure out what is overtaking as overtaking in inverted commas is that a deeper more sort of soul-searching question that Formula One needs to have?

7:35Here you go Will I've got another line for you when you're doing drive to survive overtaking is when you end up in front of the car that you were behind there you go buddy

7:45Max Verstappen:DC's coming for your job there's a line for you now I mean it is a sort of a very mixed feelings out there and I'm sure that F1 and all of the teams as well will be concerned not only about what the drivers are saying but also especially what the audience think I mean at the end of the day it's a spectator sport you want your spectators to love the product that you're putting out but here we are we've got what we've got and now we've just got to make lemonade with the lemons that we've got and i'm pretty sure as you say dc melbourne we know was somewhat of an outlier one of the worst tracks in terms of that harvesting deployment issue and it might get better but i don't think that we can prejudge what the rest of the season is going to look like off of one sort of sample of racing.

8:26Max Verstappen:Let's see what happens. And I think that the teams and F1 will be quite reactive. But yes, as you say, well, DRS was sort of also an aid for drivers to overtake. But I guess people think of F1, they think of high performance, they think of the drivers being on the edge, the cars being on the edge. And maybe this is taking steps backwards from that. So I get why the people, the audience have spoken and they're frustrated. But yeah, let's give it some time. Let's see how quickly F1 and the teams react to this issue. Look, Max has come out a big talking point. He obviously went from P20 to P6. He got himself driver of the day, which has to be one of my favourite interviews afterwards where he's told and he gives this very sarcastic like, yay, woohoo, as if he cares at all about winning driver of the day.

9:10But there's now a lot of discussion whether, you know, if he's a sleeping giant or not. I mean, what do we think? I think one person we probably didn't speak enough about over the course of the weekend and in our review was Isaac Hadjar and the job that he did in Melbourne, because we've spoken so much in the past about that second seat being cursed. Max Verstappen out in Q1, Isaac takes it all the way through to Q3, performs absolutely brilliantly, and then was racing well up near the front as well until his engine went back. So I think when you look at what Isaac was able to do in that car, when you look at how Max was able to fight his way through the field, do Red Bull have a package that is good?

9:51Yes. Is it good enough to compete with Ferrari and Mercedes? Time will tell. But I was very enthused by what I saw from Isaac as to the potential of what Max could have delivered if he too had made it through into Q3. So I think a lot of positivity.

10:03Max Verstappen:Yeah, Max driver of the day. I think he even said in one of his post-race interviews is that he doesn't feel that he did much of anything impressive out there. And he was just sort of passing the traffic, I think, is the term that he used. Obviously, Max, you're always going to give him credit, right? Not every driver can get through the field as quickly as he potentially can. But again, we're talking about this whole artificial overtaking. So how much of it was his pure talent? How much of it was him pressing a button or deploying that energy in the right moment? It's like we wish we would have seen more of what he was doing in the cockpit.

10:34Max Verstappen:I feel like the cameras focus very much on what was going on at the front. but yes I think Red Bull as a whole did a did a pretty good job throughout the weekend although we did see some pretty significant reliability issues I mean that issue that Max had in in qualifying locking the rear wheels is you know something that that is concerning particularly at such high speed I remember having a crash really high speed due to a rear locking issue and let me tell you it does not fill you with confidence as a driver to know that you might hit the brakes and all of a sudden the rear will lock. That's not a good feeling at all.

11:07Max Verstappen:And then Isaac's issue. Yes, he was racing at the front, but there was already a lot of messages going back and forth between him and the engineers about doing things differently in the cockpit because he was struggling with something which then ended up with being that engine failure that we saw. So are they potential sleeping giants? I don't know. It certainly looks like they have some issues that they need to iron out, much like a lot of the teams will. And China is a sprint weekend. So no time for the team to get on top of the things that they're doing out there. Yeah, no, I'm en route. I'm en route to China.

11:38And so we're going to get into that. And remember, a year ago, Lewis Hamilton got the victory, his only victory with Ferrari at that sprint. I mean, looking ahead to China, what really made me laugh is George said that he was flying with Lewis. And then he, you know, similarly to kind of what he did in Drive to Survive, he comes out with his lines. He was imitating Lewis, being like, oh, he's going to be asking me, saying your engine's so good, your compression ratio, It was illegal. And then the interviewer was like, what are you going to do, George? He's like, I'm just going to go to sleep. I'm going to ignore it.

12:08And he's such a wind up. But it's good to see. I love seeing that side of their personalities. I think it's great. I'm curious to know, when George goes on a plane with Lewis, does he keep his sunglasses on? Because a year ago, on the flight back to Europe, we all rushed to the airport normally on Sunday night. And George is there with his sunglasses on in the cabin. so I put my sunglasses on to talk to him and it was at that point he was like yeah maybe I should take these off

12:36Max Verstappen:take them off I wonder that's such a weird thing for him to do certainly because he wouldn't be wearing sunglasses for maybe the same reason you would be DC yeah well I'm hating my red eyes he's hating the fact he's famous I love the fact you held up a mirror to him and just went this is what you look like and he's like I'll take those off so good also in the headlines this week total wolf reportedly interested in buying the alpine steak that christian horner was reportedly interested in buying the battle continues unbelievable isn't it surely you can tell us what's really going on there in the background come on spill the gossip spill the beans here's the place to do it spill the tea let's go there's no question that christian has unfinished business in formula one and there was no question of course that alpine amongst some of the other more, let's say, back of the grid teams are, well, in fairness to Alpine, they got in the top 10.

13:36Well done, Pierre Gasly, that new relationship with Mercedes. So full credit to where they finished at the weekend. But let's say we know they have a group of investors who've invested not for the long term, they've invested for the gain. And Christian has pretty openly declared that he's got unfinished business. So I see that as a really interesting twist because, you know, Toto is a private equity guy before he was ever involved in Formula One. And if it's another opportunity to be part of a group that can buy in and ride the wave of growth that's there in Formula One. And there's no love lost as there between these guys.

14:16But I actually think it's a shame because let's say for Netflix and Drive to Survive, you've got Toto, who's best friends with Fred. You've got, you know, Zach, who is a customer team to Mercedes, although actually, Will, I'd be interested in your point of view when it comes to Andrea Stella talking about he doesn't feel happy with the service he's getting from Mercedes. Exactly. But before we get into that, they're all having a sort of love in, aren't they? We need the good, the bad and the ugly.

14:48Max Verstappen:On that point about the engines, I mean, you were mentioning at the top that Mercedes sort of don't have to and they're playing it politically to get that information to their customer teams as late as possible. I know, Will, obviously, in our last episode, you were saying that you didn't like the way that Aston came out and sort of bashed Honda so early. So what political move is this from Andrea Stella to come out and sort of, you know, call out Mercedes when Mercedes are the ones providing their engines? I mean, is that a tactical move? Is it a bad tactical move? Is this a conversation that should be being had behind closed doors rather than publicly?

15:22Max Verstappen:I don't know. It's all a bit of a mess. It's a mess, isn't it? It's a bold move. It's certainly a bold move because you can't imagine those conversations haven't happened behind closed doors in the offseason and leading up to Australia. So if they're making it public, then it feels like a bit of a last resort that, hey, we've paid for a service and we don't feel we're getting it. So we're going to make that public. I found that to be a very bold move and indicative of, you know, a discontent which probably isn't limited to McLaren, but probably extends to the other Mercedes teams if Andrea's coming out and saying it.

15:54Just add it to the list of people upset after Australia. You know, it's absolutely crazy. but DC you were saying like fair enough that they're holding back and you know Mercedes can do that but surely there's rules within you know when you're a factory team that there has to be accountability that they're held to no yeah there is absolutely and they have to supply whether you're Mercedes whether you're Ferrari whether you're RB maybe slightly different because they give Red Bull Racing and RB Racing, but you have to homologate and deliver in racing the same product to all the customer teams in racing.

16:36I think what Andrea Sella, if I can read between the lines and Will, you know, you've had your finger on the pulse of these guys. They only deliver something publicly if they really want to assert pressure. And what I understood from that is that Mercedes gave their customer teams a good product for winter testing. They then gave them the real product for Grand Prix racing and they were playing catch-up. Yeah, and it almost feels like they've been given the new iPhone but they haven't been given the instruction manual and they're trying to figure out what it does. And they're still working on the basis of their old Android or whatever.

17:17That's probably a terrible comparison. It's like DC trying to set up for the pod. Yeah, it's like DC trying to set up his phone for the podcast. That's what it is.

17:25Max Verstappen:it's exactly what it is give him a break give him a break he's down he's he's standing upside down right now give him a break i know he's got 75 wires and he's on a completely different time scale but at least he's here and not in the sky again this is you said are we going to get invited to dc's wedding he'll give us the wrong date and the wrong time uh given i'm laser focused on that you guys haven't been asked to do the speech yet i thought we all got that email i was begging to be best man, you know, but still in waiting. So we will see. We've still got some time. But yeah, it's just very bizarre.

17:59Max Verstappen:I mean, you could kind of argue that Mercedes need to understand the product before they send it out to their customers. And I guess that's why they were waiting to do that as late as they did. I don't think that there's a lot of tactical play that wouldn't be in their interest to harm their customers, because at the end of the day, like, you still want to provide a good service for your customers. But they put it to right the limit where they have to give them the same product that they have, which was just before the first event. And I think that maybe now going forward, hopefully that will be better when there are any tweaks and updates.

18:30Max Verstappen:But yeah, it's very interesting to see. I agree with you that by the time they're having to put this message out through the press, it signals a little bit of desperation. So wonder how long those conversations have been going on behind the scenes. But actually the original point though about Christian and Toto, you know, Toto used to have his shareholding in Williams, which he sold. I have to raise the issue of conflict of interest. And, you know, Toto, obviously, you know, Alpine have Mercedes engines this year. I do, I do, you know, most sports leagues in the world have conflict of interest clauses that you can't own majority stakes or I think, you know, stakes in some cases in multiple teams, but, you know, specifically to limit the issue of conflict of interest.

19:19So I find it a really interesting one that he would be allowed to do that and that the rules of the sport would allow him to do that. Is it not only linked to sort of managerial board level? Because, you know, we all have shares in Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault. We've discussed this offline, don't we?

19:40Max Verstappen:Did you buy us that? No, not yet. We're still collecting our coins, DC. We're still collecting our coins. I think as long as you're not in an influential position, probably just being a sort of, let's say, arms length investor is not an issue. But it does feel like it's a bit more than that that's being suggested. And obviously Red Bull owned two teams. So, you know, there clearly isn't that restriction in Formula One for, you know, people who are new to the sport and see it through the lens of other sports. You are able to have a controlling interest in more than one team in Formula One, regardless of how controversial that actually could be.

20:21Actually, can I just jump in on that? Because, hey, guys, did you see Arvid Lindblad going wheel to wheel with Isaac Hadjah? This was like, if they're both owned by the same company, and I experienced it when I was racing as well, they don't get involved. Wonderfully, they let them race. oh my goodness thank you racing gods that that's the case because he he got his elbows out how brilliant was he at the weekend i thought avid was super impressive over the weekend in australia the way that he approached the entire weekend you know we saw last year in australia a lot of the rookies kind of crumble under the pressure and watching avid's approach you know hearing how he spoke to the press and just the maturity within him i think he's a super impressive kid anyway but But to be so young, to score points on debut, to just approach the weekend and handle the pressure in the way that he did, I thought was immensely, immensely impressive.

21:18I feel like we should look forward now to the weekend, to the Chinese Grand Prix. Now, we did our predictions for the first race. DC, you weren't here when we discussed, but Naomi and I came out on top. So now what we're going to do is we're going to make it a habit. We're going to make it a bit of tradition. Oh, gosh. Pre-every race.

21:36Max Verstappen:We got it right once. We should have just parked and left it there like a Nico Rosberg. We're going to be doing predictions for every race. We're also going to be doing our wildest prediction. And on this episode, we are going to do our prediction for who we think is going to win the season and our wildest prediction. I'm sorry. This was not in the script, Jolie. I have not prepared it. Have you just invented this off the cuff because you did well in race one and you just want to totally embarrass us? I don't want a media trained answer. I want off the cuff. So we're going to start with, I think maybe let's start with our predictions for the whole season.

22:10So firstly, who do you think is going to win? Team driver. After one race? Yeah. And your wildest prediction, because if we do it after five races, what's the point? I'm going, I'm going, as I said, pre-season, George Russell for the championship, McLaren for the comeback team. I know that may sound weird when they won the world championship last year, but let's say they were a good half second off in Melbourne. they're going to be pushing Mercedes later in the year. So that's your wildest prediction? Yeah, and Will to win an Oscar.

22:44Okay, I can go next. I think George to win alongside Mercedes. And then my wildest prediction is for Audi to be the top of the midfield. I mean, it's obviously unlikely because Haas are looking great. You know, Vicarb are looking great as well. But this is wildest prediction. DC, I saw your face there, but let's remember, but it's got to be wild. We want people to be like, what? Oh, to hell with it. Charles Leclerc to be champion. And wild, wild guess will be, I'll make the same prediction I made for Australia, Cadillac to score points.

23:20Max Verstappen:Obviously, I'm going to agree with most of you. George Russell for world champion, I would say, with Mercedes. I think that's not going to come as much of a shock. It's hardly a wild prediction. But then for wildest prediction, I'm kind of split between two thoughts. I'm split between Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad start rubbing wheels because they want that seat at Red Bull, which we don't know is up for grabs. Hadjah's doing a great job. But I think the two of them are going to be fighting each other to be top dog at RB. So that's going to be worthy of watching. Or alternatively, Fernando Alonso leaves because things are not shaping up at Aston.