Too soon for Toto Wolff to pick a favourite driver?

0:01This is a Global Player Original Podcast.

0:32Up to Speed.

0:38It's Will. It's Naomi. It's David. It's Jolie. Welcome to Up to Speed. And the gang's back. The gang is back. Has everybody got home? I think DC, you look like you're still in Miami. I am. I'm still in Miami. And the weird thing is, given that we were on the ground, you were doing your TV stuff, Naomi, I was doing mine, we never get the chance to sort of catch up because we're so busy delivering for our various networks. But did you enjoy your first race back? Yeah, I did definitely. I saw you on the grid actually, DC, for a quick moment. I think we had a chance to say hi, but I loved my first weekend back.

1:12It was great to get back out, feel like myself again, get back into things. But I must tell you, this is maybe TMI, but between my TV schedule and my pumping schedule, there was a lot to juggle for me. But I can safely say I got the milk back safely. Oh, God. Supermum. The things people don't realise. Unbelievable. And I thought the only milk chat I was going to have was at the Indy 500 this year, but there we go. Here I am to bring it to the Formula One world. No, but it was a great weekend. I actually started the weekend off by jumping in the car with Antonelli for a hot lap, which was my first ever hot lap with an F1 driver.

1:52And I don't know what you're like, DC, but I tend to think that all drivers don't enjoy the passenger seat. And I can tell you that that was very much the case for me. It was terrifying. Well, he went on to win the Grand Prix. So you had one of the best pre-seats in the house. Well, I can tell you that it's probably got to do with all the coaching tips I gave him on the lap that he went on to do so well. That'd be it. No, I'm kidding. I could barely say any words. I was so terrified. But it was... How tough is it for you guys as drivers? Yeah, to be a passenger. Because, like, you know where the braking points are.

2:25You know where the line is. You know where you'd be braking. You know where you'd be driving. Like, how hard is that? Because I've always wondered for a racing driver to sit alongside another racing driver doing a lap at speed. How much puckering is there around the lap? Because you guys are terrible passengers at the best of times, let alone on a hot lap. Well, look, listen, I think the one thing that's very different is obviously when you're in the driver's seat, you've got the steering wheel in your hands, you've got control of the pedal. So it's not just the fact that you're in control, which is the most obvious point, but also just that counter pressure that you have when you're in the passenger seat it feels like you're just going to be catapulted into the windscreen every second so you would have seen me I was like holding on to everything flying around in the car but also I don't know if it's just a new mum thing as well but I was just like please just get me back safely that's all I want and the walls are obviously like just staring at you everywhere on that track so it was terrifying for me.

3:20DC, I wonder if you remember, you actually drove me around in a hot lap in Poland in a buggy and I was terrified and I was screaming and he just did flinch and then they were waving the chequered flag and you just ignored him. We went around again and I was like, no, not again. Yeah, but you were right. You were right to be terrified because I remember it and I remember trying to use it as extra practice because I was racing against Carla Stein Sr and Matthias extra room and people that are really comfortable in buggies. But yeah, I think the bottom line is, Naomi's explained it well there, that one, that you don't have a physical hold on the car.

3:59And as a driver, you know when you're about to brake. So your senses are predicting the feeling you're going to get from the deceleration. And crucially as well, you're feeling the road. You're feeling the contact through your hands, which when you're sitting as a passenger, you just don't have the same feel at all. But I always sort of default myself into acceptance mode. And I work on the basis that they don't want to hurt themselves. So they're probably going to be fine. But that said, I don't know if you remember, many, many years ago, there was a driver, a Brazilian called Antonio Pisonia.

4:31And he managed to roll a standard Jaguar road car several times in the first corner in Barcelona with a journalist on board. Thankfully, they were all okay. You've just terrified me. It's his first day as the Jaguar race driver. And they launched that day. They took a bunch of journalists out on track. And Pitsonia thought that he could just break the F1 brake markers on the long straight at Barcelona. And turns the wheel in. And the journalist, he puts his hand up to the ceiling and just goes, nope. And he knew. And they just flew through the gravel track straight into the tyre barrier at the end, flipped over.

5:09and Pinsonia's still like white knuckling the steering wheel as everybody else is getting out of the car. And the onboard, you can find it on YouTube and he's just staring straight out of the windscreen like, oh my God, it was, yeah, absolutely incredible. Anyway. On that basis, you could probably say that my hot lap was very successful because we didn't roll, we didn't go off. Like everything went super smoothly. The funniest thing was just before I got in the car, I told Kimmy, I was like, listen, my life's in your hands. So like, let's take it easy. You know, just, you know, he was like, don't worry, Naomi, chill, chill, chill.

5:40And I was like, yeah, you chill on the throttle maybe. Yeah, you chill. You've just passed your driving test. But guys, listen, we talk about control. We talk about wanting to be in control. How much control has Toto Wolff got on the situation right now? Because he's got two drivers that won a world championship and he has one of them at the moment that is outperforming the other quite successfully. how on earth does Toto now face the season ahead of him? I mean, Will, you've got more than one child. How do you deal with having a favourite child? I feel like that's what it is. Everyone, you know, it's quite obvious that Kimi was Toto's protege.

6:24I see there was all those rumours last season or two seasons ago, someone's going to have to correct me here, about, you know, George's seat. Was it safe? if Max wanted to go, you know, the seat was there for him. Toto, you know, openly said I would, you know, have those conversations. He wasn't shying away from it. So is that pressure as well? Like how safe is George with his seat? Does that add more? We spoke about pressure on the last pod, how I feel like Kimi's got no pressure because he's just, he's a bonus right now to everyone, how he's performing. I say I wouldn't want to be Toto, but you do.

7:00You want the two best drivers. you know he's not complaining about the situation he's in shortly no look i think if i reflect back on my experience when i was at mclaren and i was seven years teammates with mika hackinen and i definitely had the feeling that he was more the the the chosen one and as it turns out he was a faster racing driver so ultimately he won a world championship or two more more accurately than than i did but it took a lot a lot of time me sitting with ron dennis going you you just feels that you're supporting him more and he was like no no no no and then after a few years I think I wore him down and he went yes look I he almost died in one of my cars and I stood there over his hospital bed and he was on ventilators and all the rest of it so I feel like a father to him because I'd never lost a driver before in one of my cars and as soon as I knew that truth I never thought about it again and I actually think my performance is picked up so I think an honesty is something that's really important.

7:54And there's no question that Kimi being the younger driver, that Toto is going to feel more fatherly towards him. So they've taken them on a journey from karting all the way to the point where he's just won three Grand Prix's in a row and it strengthened his lead in the Drivers' World Championship. And I read something where Toto made the comments about how they manage the future now that he not only has the world watching him, but the Italians are very passionate about their sports stars. So it's almost like, will he be able to have a normal life in Italy now? And I don't want to take him out of his homeland, but sometimes you need peace between the events because it takes energy to engage with everybody.

8:38And that's why drivers, once they get success, tend to be less accessible because they're needing to sort of save themselves to keep up the performances. So this is going to be a crucial and critical next few months in his life. And if he can maintain his energy and therefore maintain these levels of performance, he's not guaranteed world champion, but let's see how the other teams perform. But he certainly had the perfect start to this Formula One season. Well, just on your point there about Italy, as soon as I got out the car with him, I had one minute to get some questions in. And one of the questions I asked him was whether he was feeling more pressure on his shoulders from Italy or carrying this pressure for the whole team of Mercedes.

9:21And his answer was Italy, which surprised me. I thought that it would have been Mercedes. But I think what he clearly put out to me was that Mercedes are being very good about protecting him and making sure that they're alleviating some of that pressure because we know that he maybe suffered from that a little bit last year. Whereas Italy, obviously, they've got him and apparently Sinner that they're riding on the coattails up and hoping that they will do them proud. They're at the World Cup. Exactly. I think the Italy thing is fascinating. As Jolie touched on, Italy didn't make the World Cup this year, right?

9:53And that's one major facet of Italian sporting fanaticism out. Janniksen is doing really well in the tennis. Ferrari aren't where the Italian public would like them to be. And yet here is Kimi Antonelli leading the championship as a teenager. The pressure from the Italian press will be huge. And guys, Italy has not had a Formula One world champion since 1953. Okay, like they've been waiting a very, very long time for another world champion. So of course, the pressure is going to be there. The thing though that I'm really interested in dialing into is the pressure on Toto. Because he's been here before and it didn't work out brilliantly.

10:35If we look back to the Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg situation, when he had two number ones at his team, He allowed them to go racing. They made contact in Spain, handed the victory to Max Verstappen for his debut win. And we know that everything went kind of south from there. Nico Rosberg was a 2016 world champion and promptly quit the day that he was picking up his trophy. And to this day, there's disagreement or confusion over what actually happened in that post-race meeting. Lewis has been on the record and said, I'll only talk about it when my career is done. Some people think that Toto determined that day that one of them would be world champion and the other would have to hold on.

11:15And maybe it was Nico. And that's why there was so much fury when Nico walked away at the end of the season. I don't know. There are rumors. How does Toto approach this? Because if we look over the last two seasons, nobody was happy with the way in which McLaren approached having two competitive drivers in their fight for the World Championship. So what does Toto do? Does he back one horse? Does he back both and potentially have another Hamilton-Rosbog scenario? It's a really big and important question, particularly as we expect Mercedes to continue to be competitive throughout the year. Too soon.

11:46Well, look, I think, first of all, as you say, Toto will have learned a lot of lessons. from the Hamilton-Rosberg era, the one that we all saw come crashing down back in 2016. But I think he also put out a message saying that these drivers need to remember that they are not bigger than the team. And if anyone starts to think it's about them, he's going to correct that very quickly. And now I don't know about you guys, but as lovely and charming as Toyota comes across, he doesn't really give me the feeling that he's someone that you want to cross. So I think that he's going to be very, very clear with his drivers.

12:18And when it comes to Antonelli, he's obviously, as we've been saying, the youngest teenager to ever lead the Formula One World Championship, which also means he has a long career ahead of him. So I think that he knows he's got to keep Toto on side. I think it's probably a little trickier for George because there is this potential pressure around his seat. So does he play the game because he knows that that gives him more of a chance to maintain it should Max Verstappen become available? Or does he think, you know, does that little selfish driver, you know, characteristic come out and say, well, this is my one and only chance to win the World Championship potentially.

12:51So do I just go for it? There's no guarantees. There's no guarantees, are there, that Mercedes will still have the advantage next year, is what we talked about with McLaren last year. You know, you've got to take the opportunity when it comes. You can't just dismiss it. Listen, we spoke about it immediately after the race. It's how George reacts now that's going to tell us whether he's got a championship in him or not. Yeah, look, I think what's absolutely clear, the longer this continues, the more the pressure ramps up on George because he is more experienced, clearly a fast racing driver, won Grand Prix.

13:24and right now he's met a younger version of himself who's got complete sort of freedom everything's new and exciting hasn't sort of settled into this formula one lifestyle and with the same you know toys the baggage that comes with it you know boats and cars and all that kind of fun stuff um which are are distractions and you need some positive of distractions in life, but some of it will be just, you know, little niggling distractions. Just on that, do you know that he flew premium economy with his family, DC, out to Miami? Yeah, but that's just crazy, isn't it? I know he's only little, so therefore that probably feels like business class, but come on.

14:08There's certain things they can afford and comfort is one of them. And he was being bombarded on the plane, apparently. Yeah, well, of course he is. Non-stop photographs. Well, it's all new and exciting to them right now, but they will soon get fed up of people coming to the door. We saw it at the beginning of Charles Leclerc's career when the success started to come. He was having people ring his doorbell in Monaco because it's a small place and there's nothing to stop someone ringing your doorbell. It was new, wasn't it? It was not. No, no, I have a key. I can just enter. So, yeah, look, they will be dealing with all of this change, all of this expectation and how Toto manages that, how Kimi's father and mother manage that will determine, let's say, how they can help support Kimi to be what he is right now, which is an undistracted racing driver.

14:58Do we think Max is watching, you know, with really eager eyes, thinking, I want Georgia's seat? Well, yeah, I think, look, I think if things would have carried on the way that they were looking like at the beginning of the season, then maybe he would have been starting to think, OK, how do we make this work or can we make this work? because we know that they've been having conversations in the background. But things are looking on the up. And I know that Max has said on a number of occasions that if things are going well at Red Bull, he doesn't have any desire to leave. So I think the pressure is more so on Red Bull to make sure they do deliver and give him a car that he can win with so that he stays to the end of his contract.

15:34I think Max would more be licking his lips by looking back over 2025 and watching how McLaren imploded with a battle between their two teammates. and he very nearly nicked the title from both of them at the end. And that if something similar befalls Mercedes, and given the upgrades have worked really well for Red Bull and it looked like Miami was a huge step forward, is there the potential for Red Bull to, you know, swing in a counter-offensive and steal this thing from under their noses? That, for me, is the more fascinating quandary. Yeah, I think that Max actually, as a shoe-in, fits better to the Ferrari world than the Mercedes world.

16:13I know that they have this good relationship and I know that he's racing a Mercedes in the GT3 events that he does. But in actual, the freedom to be Max, I think, would be a more comfortable fit at Ferrari because you would just turn up, drive quickly, presumably win some races and then head home. Can you imagine Ferrari's comms team trying to tame Max's words? Goodness gracious me. No, no. No. Guys, there's another perspective in all of this, obviously, which is George. OK, and we've spoken a lot about Kimi and Toto. How does George respond to this? Because I saw a quote out of him today in which he sort of said, you know, if I'd been around, if I'd got to Formula One five years earlier, I'd probably have a couple of championships by now.

16:58and i fear a level of entitlement there that he thinks this should naturally be his or that he's starting to feel that you know maybe kimmy's come in and has overtaken him uh in pure performance and so there's that frustration in him of well i should already have been a chair i don't know there's just something that really it kind of how does that make sense what does he mean by that i think he means if he'd been with mercedes during their kind of glory days in the late 2010s, then because he beat Lewis when they were teammates, then maybe he might have beaten Lewis when Lewis was. And it's such a bite.

17:35I think that's probably going to come back to bite him in the ass, isn't it? I mean, let's focus on the now and let's just say, I don't think there's any room in this championship to be the kind of driver who only drives well on a clay court, as Toto put it, rather than like a hard tennis court. If you're going to say that, then start by beating your teammate right now. And I know that it was a bogey weekend. Yeah. And I know that it was a bogey weekend and I don't think we should build too much pressure on George either because this can happen and it's a long season ahead. And actually, I think George will be the driver who's more consistent, constantly delivering points.

18:07Whereas Kimi, you know, we have seen him make some mistakes. So that might work in George's favor. But yeah, I don't know. Maybe shouldn't have said that. if he'd made it to Formula One in 2014, he wouldn't have got a seat at Williams like he did in 2019 because they had Massa and Bottas and George isn't outperforming either one of them, which leaves him probably at a seat at Marussia or Caterham. And he wouldn't have got the Marussia seat because that was Bianchi, who was a Ferrari junior. Alexander Rossi was waiting in the wings for the other seat. Max Chilton was paying for that. And I don't think George had Max Chilton's money, which puts him in a Caterham.

18:42So he probably gets, what, half a season if that he's definitely not sliding into a mercedes seat at that time because you're not beating hamilton at his peak or rosberg so a couple of championships from where because he wouldn't have won them in formula e because way me would have absolutely destroyed him and verne would have destroyed him at their peak so he gets what lucky if he gets an lmp2 title maybe a couple of GT titles. God, there is no holding back with you, Will, is there? No, I just, I just, but I just, I don't like that level of entitlement. Yeah, well, I get it. Like, oh, if I'd been here five years earlier, I'd be a double world champion by now.

19:20Would you, really? I think, I don't think he would. I think let's give him the benefit of the doubt. I know it's, I mean, obviously it's, I don't think it was wise of him to say that. I agree with you on that, Will, because I think when you're in an intra-team battle, the pressure cooker that Formula One is, the level of that pressure is just so much higher and you don't want to get the media against you, right? When you start saying things like that, I mean, we saw it last year with Lando and him being so open about what he was dealing with from a mental perspective. Everyone jumped on that bandwagon and all of a sudden it became this huge thing and everything everyone was talking about and you've got suddenly way more eyeballs on you.

19:56Yeah. And it's like now the question, and it's for George, it's for Kimmy, it's for Toto. every single thing they say every single thing that they do every decision that toto makes every race result every practice and qualifying result that every driver has from now on is going to be poured over to such a ludicrous degree because they have the competitive advantage that they do um and i can only look back to last year with mclaren and that feeling from a certain section of the fan base that at a certain point in the year mclaren's favor turned away from oscar towards Lando and ultimately handed Lando a better opportunity of the title.

20:34Be that right or be that wrong, there's a huge portion of the fan base that believes that happened. How does Mercedes stop that from happening? And how does everybody react to suddenly now every one of those three is massively under the microscope? I mean, look, what we saw with McLaren actually two years in a row, but mostly last season, was great from a viewing perspective. I like that they didn't get involved in the racing and allowed them to do their thing on track as long as they didn't make contact. I know they made contact in Canada last year, but that was a genuine mistake. But it's tricky when you've got...

21:08Did they allow them though? All the papaya rules nonsense of you before me, except if it's me after you in a given instant. I didn't like... They micromanaged. And when you micromanage, it starts to look like manipulation. And that was the issue last year. And I think that's the issue a lot of fans had was that micromanagement. I pray that Mercedes don't instill any element or notion of team orders because it will just, you know, if they've got a competitive advantage, it will cock up all the enjoyment of the season if they throw team orders in on this. Yeah, I think the Mercedes have had the experience, just coming back to what you said earlier, with Nico and Lewis.

21:49And if they unofficially off track made a decision, we never really saw it verbalised when they were on track, which was the case with McLaren. And it definitely caused some concerns from the racing purists and from the fans of Oscar when some of the decisions were made there. So let's hope that they let them go on and race. You know, I think as a team, you can do more than give your drivers an equal opportunity. And then after that, it's about the drivers utilising the tools at the disposal, getting the best out of their engineer, the mechanics, the racetrack. I think that's what it should be.

22:29And that would be the purest world championship. I also think it's the competition that's going to somewhat dictate how they approach it. because if we start to have the likes of McLaren closing up or Red Bull, Max coming in there to steal some glory, it's going to very much change the game, right? Because as we saw with the McLarens, you've got two competitive drivers. They take points off of each other and Max on his own. It's just closing up that gap. So let's wait and see. It is very exciting. And I'm glad that we get to chat about it twice a week. And we're going to be right back after this break to talk about something else that's quite exciting that the FIA president has spoken about, has announced, I should say.

23:07So if you're not following us on socials, it's at UpToSpeedShow. We are very close to 50 ,000 subscribers on YouTube. So press that red button and get us there. And we'll be right back after this short break.

23:22Well, Mohammed Ben Salayim, the FIA president over the course of the weekend in Miami, has finally confirmed that Formula One will be returning to V8 engines in 2031. And if he has his way, 2030. He needs all of the teams and the manufacturers to agree to bring them back for 2030. But critically, he said he doesn't need agreement from anybody, not even the manufacturers, to bring back V8 screaming, roaring, fire-spitting, terrifying, powerful engines and get rid of hybrid nonsense in 2031. Listen, I've been on the record of saying this already. There's not a lot about Mohammed bin Salim's reign of terror that I am particularly a fan of.

24:11But this I am very much so because this returns us to something that the fans want, that the drivers want, and gets us out of, I mean, look, we've had so many discussions this year about the regulations, but they were always going to be a short-term regulation until this big one took place in 2030, 2031. And if it's a return to proper engines, the kind that you, were your bread and butter, DC, like, I am all for it. Sign us up. Yeah, well, look, here's where I see this. He clearly is taking a position right now to sort of deal with all of the negativity over the next couple of years. But there's this question that Formula One could have a naturally aspirated running on biofuels, because we're already there now.