Will Lando Norris be a one-time world champion?

0:01This is a Global Player Original Podcast.

0:30get the team back to the top and then we can take the gloves off and go fight again

0:44it's will it's naomi it's david it's joley welcome to up to speed well folks in all the excitement um over kimmy's success max threat into quit regulation changes all of that we haven't actually had a chance to talk about the reigning world champions, McLaren and Lando Norris. So that's what we're going to do today. How do we think Lando is feeling? Fifth in the championship. Certainly not with the dominant car that he had last season. Well, Lando's always been very open and honest about his feelings. I've seen multiple interviews of him coming out saying, you know, I'm an overthinker. He said, quote unquote, I'm not good at anything else in life.

1:23You know, he's very honest. He's a big advocate for mental health. And I love that we get to see such a raw, open side to him. And yeah, you're right. The headlines have been very much off of him this season. He's also a liar because he's brilliant at golf. I think that goes part and parcel with being a highly competitive athlete. You play your cards close to your chest. Don't let your opposition and competition know just how good you are. I think he'll be okay with it. I think for Oscar, it might be more difficult, although we know he came off the back of a strong weekend in Japan, because he's banked a world championship.

2:02He's banked not only the victories, the same as Oscar last year, the bonuses, the adulation, everything that that moment was in his mind's eye going to bring him, I'm sure it did. So I think he's now got a very nice glide slope back to a reality of, hey, how competitive is my car? I totally agree. I mean, I was just going to say, I think if anyone's going to not be feeling great, it's going to be Oscar because he didn't manage to clinch that title last year. Whereas Lando, yes, okay, they're not super competitive as it stands, but he achieved his childhood dream and then some. I mean, you know, most drivers dream to get to F1, then they dream to win a race and eventually, hopefully one day win a title and only so few get to do that.

2:46And he's joined that very prestigious list. So I don't think he's, you know, going back to his hotel every night and crying. I think he's pretty happy to have had that world title. And he's been very clear, as you said, Jolie, in terms of his, you know, mental health and all of that, that he's been very clear about, you know, sorting out the circle around him and reducing the noise as much as possible. I think if there's anything, I just think we turn the page so quickly, right? Like it feels like he's just become world champion. We've moved on from that without anything sort of having happened since Abu Dhabi.

3:18but I'm sure he would have done lots of partying and celebrating with the team and the family and all of that good stuff so maybe we feel like we've moved on too much but he's probably like my liver can't handle this anymore that's the thing though isn't it was an it was an incredibly quick off season there was no time to kind of rest reset come back and you know you speak to world champions guys who've been able to do it back to back guys who haven't and and I think one of the things that's fascinating is the amount that you have to put into a winning the championship and then b to come back and do that again the next year it's not just about you know repeating what you did the year before it's about raising your level competitively the next year but also there's now a ton more that you've got to do from a marketing perspective because you're the reigning world champion right you've got to go out and you've got to represent the companies that helped you to get there, the workload, the pressure that jumps on you at that point suddenly increases.

4:19Jackie Stewart was famous in saying that the most difficult thing to do is to win back-to-back titles because the pressure from all of those things just ramps up when you are the reigning champion. It's got to be incredibly hard. And I just wonder, I mean, whilst any driver would rather have a competitive car and go head to head against their teammate year in year on end. Is there any sense of relief that they're out of this pressure cooker? Because we know how demanding it can be when you're up against your teammate. Like we've seen it with Nico and Lewis and many other drivers that it's incredibly exhausting.

4:55I mean, Formula One is exhausting anyway with 24 races on the calendar. But to be head to head against your teammate, it feels like you get no rest at all. So I wonder if there's a sense of relief from that aspect that now they've just got to focus on performance for the moment. Nico, I think, is a great example of that. You know, it took so much out of him to win a world championship that he turned around over the winter and said, I'm never doing that again. I'm not. Yeah, I'm not putting myself through it. I'm not putting my family through it. Like, that's it. I'm done. I'm walking away. And then you have a massive regulation change on top of it.

5:30And it's not always easy to come back after a regulation change and prove to be competitive. In fact, there's a long list where it's been very difficult. Well, I know that you are the stats man for this. I reckon eyes closed. You've been waiting for this moment. This is it. I've been waiting all year ever since we launched this pod to go into stats and history. Guys, you're going to love this. All right. I've gone back over the last 30 years of Formula One history and every major technical regulation change. And don't worry, there's only four of them, really. If we go all the way back to 1998, and DC will enjoy this one, Williams had been the class of the field for the decade.

6:11But it was their first year without a win in 19 seasons in 1998. They dropped off form massively. It was the year when McLaren came to the fore, Mika won the title, DC took nine podiums with a victory amongst them. But the 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve finished the season in fifth place in 1998. We then roll forwards to 2009 and the next major regulation change. Huge change. Kurz was introduced. Aero was completely overhauled. It was the season of the double diffuser and Braun GP. And admittedly, the season owed more to Braun doing an absolutely stellar job and smoking the opposition to anybody really falling off.

6:56But that year, the reigning world champion was Lewis Hamilton, and he finished the season in fifth. Then we roll forward to 2014, debut of the turbo hybrid. Red Bull had dominated the last four seasons, Vettel taking four championships in a row. Guess where Sebastian Vettel finished in 2014? Fifth. And then we roll forward to 2022, last big regulation change. There was all the controversy at the end of 2021. Mercedes were the reigning team champions. Red Bull with Max Verstappen reigning driver champions. Mercedes got it totally wrong. Totally, totally wrong. Where did Lewis finish that year? Because Max finished as world champion again, but Lewis finished that season sixth.

7:47So minus four places on where he'd finished the season before, exactly like the reigning world champion in 98, in 09, in 14. Everybody lost four positions and arguably, and people will still argue that Lewis was world champion in 2021. So he fell down four places. And where does Lando Norris find himself now in the drivers world championship standings? Also in fifth. I like that correlation. What it does show is past performance, no guarantee of future success. I'm sure you all read that in the fine print with your investments. It's always been a tech sport, but even the sports aren't techie. I'm not a big football guy, but who was it that won the premiership one year out of nowhere and then almost bombed?

8:34Leicester. Well, you can tell them, Julie. So we have these sort of freak moments in sport, don't we? But I guess in motor racing, it's a lot more technology driven than anything else. And, you know, a big regulation change we knew was going to shake things up. But I think that the teams that are battling for a world title have to go later and longer in battling for that title. So it does naturally give those teams that have got, you know, world championship DNA, but maybe not for some time, an opportunity to start the development process much earlier. And I think that explains why Mercedes have come out so strongly with their engine and car package.

9:12I think there's been a number of examples, hasn't there, where drivers who have been very successful in the sport have won their world championships with some separation between them, sort of playing into this. When a title, then suddenly the team, for whatever reason, are not quite so competitive. I guess that trend got broken in the Michael Schumacher era because the reliability of the Ferrari at that time became so strong that they were always there or thereabouts. But yeah, I think certainly in my experience of this world of motor racing, not many people get the luxury of dominating over year on year.

9:50It only really is Michael and Lewis. And for the rest, well, Max had to make do with four in a row. Poor Max. Poor bastard. I think DC brings up a really interesting point, which is when a team is fighting for a world championship and there's a huge regulation change coming, the teams that aren't fighting for that world championship, they can realign their focus. They can look to the next year. They can put the work in on that because they're not having to develop a car that's fighting for a world title in that moment. And McLaren obviously, you know, came very close last season to missing out to Max.

10:27and they had to put the work in on 2025. So have they lost out a little bit on the run up to 2026? I was talking to the guys from McLaren earlier today and they said, obviously, you know, there was comments at the start of the year about the Mercedes power unit and needing to understand that a little bit more. But they've since sort of taken a look at the car and realized, you know what, guys, we've actually got a lot of work to do on the chassis side of things. And that pulls into, I think, what DC was saying about all of the focus in 25 being on 25 and perhaps not being able to put that same amount of work in as a Mercedes or a Ferrari on their car for 2026.

11:04So, you know, let's give them some time to pull it back. But it's fascinating, obviously, that Mercedes are leading the way in the Constructors' World Championship, both their drivers at the top of the Drivers' World Championship, and McLaren are using the same power unit. So I think it shows, again, the importance of track time, you know, and that every race weekend at the moment, ultimately is an extended test session. And Lando and Oscar, neither of them taking the start in China. The problem for Oscar taking him out of Australia as well before even making his way to the grid, that is going to have a knock-on effect on your knowledge base with the car and the changes that you need to ring with it.

11:42But I think this forced break comes at a great time for McLaren. And look, no one will want this less than Mercedes. And McLaren have been quite confident already, you know, heading into this break, saying we're coming with big changes, come Miami. So I think, you know, this five week period, are we going to get any insight into how much change happens, do we think, until Miami? Well, I was at an event in Monaco last Thursday with Charles Leclerc. He was being celebrated as a Monaco goodwill ambassador, which I think he's thoroughly deserved because I think he's a sort of Formula One ambassador, isn't he?

12:16He's very well liked. And I half jokingly said to him, I saw the interview with Fred, his team principal, stating that, you know, wait till you see Ferrari in Miami. And as if, you know, OK, Charles, we're looking to see you on the top of the podium in Miami. And he kind of nervously giggled. So I think they've obviously got some developments coming, but none of the other teams stand still as well. Let's look at Japan, though. You know, when that car works and when they're in the race, you know, Oscar had a little giggle about it when he crossed the line in second place. You know, he said, when we actually start these things, we're not that bad they could have won the race you know had they had they not is panic the wrong word um you know they they they they pitted lando um mercedes didn't react and then they put it oscar and they ultimately gave mercedes the track position and i feel they ultimately handed the race to mercedes in japan had they not done that could could oscar potentially have fought for the win?

13:19I think he might have been able to. They've got a good package when it's all working. I kind of looking at Lando and Oscar and I feel like they're on two completely different pages. I mean, they both didn't have the best start, but Oscar's come out of Japan. He said exactly what you said, Will, and he seems rather positive. Whereas Lando, it seems every opportunity is expressing how unhappy he is with these rules. He mentioned that when he overtook Hamilton, it was actually the battery auto deployed and essentially forcing him to overtake. He didn't have any control. And, you know, in every press conference, he's not as vocal as Max, but it doesn't seem like him and him and Oscar are on the same page.

14:03I don't know what you guys think on that. Yeah, it was interesting because when we came out of testing, Lando wasn't that negative about the regulations and he's very much changed his tune. But as you say, look, The things that we saw in Japan show that they are very quickly getting, you know, let's use our term, up to speed with things. And Rome isn't built in a day, right? Like, I think we know that there's going to be loads of growing pains with the regulations. There's going to be changes made to the regulations. And there's going to be incredible development throughout this season. And so I think we can't draw any conclusions at this point, and neither will they.

14:36I think, you know, some people who are McLaren fans might be slightly disappointed at the start of the season they've had. But Japan already showed that they're full of potential and they'll be closing that gap as quick as they can. Just a quick question. Maybe, Will, you might know on this. When it comes to sort of, you know, performance in the past, or let's take this past regulation set, for example, whenever teams like the first season was won by Rebel, they were allowed less wind tunnel time. Does that carry over through a new set of regulations? Do they still get that punishment? Yeah. Yes.

15:10Right. Right. OK, so then, you know, they're carrying that over as well over the last two years. They're getting less wind tunnel time and that's going to show that's going to have an impact on on track performance. And so it's going to take them a little bit more time to get back up to speed. I think the interesting thing at McLaren this year is if we take a look at both of the drivers, right, Lando has returned as the reigning world champion. The guys at McLaren are telling me that they feel like they've got the old Lando back. You know, last year he had to be very channeled, very focused, very kind of take himself out of himself a little bit.

15:43But now that he's proven he can win the world championship doing it his way and racing the way that he likes to race, that weight has kind of been alleviated. It's lifted from him and the old Lando is sort of back and they're absolutely loving that. similarly oscar has returned kind of determined to show again that he's stepped up that he's at you know a level where he can fight for for victories and for and for world championships which he proved last year but kind of redoubled in that this year and yet at the same time both of them are aware that they're not in a team that at the moment is the favorite and we've had this conversation dc over the course of this year on a number of these podcasts where i've said you know if you're not in the top team you have to work together as teammates um and mclaren told me you know today that one of the biggest things that they've noticed out of both lando and oscar this year is this willingness to work together to ride the bumps to get themselves back to a position where they are the number one team again so if you've got two drivers who can kind of put their differences to one side, put last year to bed and say, right, let's work together.

16:57Let's get the team back to the top. And then we can take the gloves off and go fight again. That's a real positive for the team. But as you say, it must be so frustrating for Oscar to have, you know, missed out on that opportunity. And there's still always, no matter how much you play for the team between drivers, going to be this internal battle of who's the top dog. And because those two drivers are as quick as each other, and they're very evenly matched, I think it's going to always be something that's sort of behind the closed doors we don't necessarily see, but they're going to be fighting to be number one, you know, in a space like that.

17:30And a big change for Oscar this year as well, that his manager, Mark Webber, isn't attending races with him like he was last year. DC, I know you know Mark really, really well. The nine-time Grand Prix winner. What do you know about that, about sort of the reasonings behind it and, you know, maybe how Mark feels about it or how Oscar feels about it? Yeah, well, I'm not fly-on-the-wall intimate, but what it feels like is that Mark and his wife Anne went all in to not only get Oscar on the Formula One grid, but get him on the Formula One grid, not with Alpine, which is where allegedly a contract could have sat.

18:10So they got him into McLaren, helped him through the initial phase of becoming a Grand Prix driver, and then got in the ring with him through what was a pretty, as we've just alluded to, a pretty public conversation as to whether McLaren's approach decided on by the CEO, by the board, by the team principal, was the right approach to, let's say, allow us to see racing. You know, because that's what it comes down to. None of us like to see one driver being told to move over. they have the right as they did to do exactly what they're doing team orders when i started in formula one were not allowed although they happened at a certain point the fia changed that to allow teams to make team team instructions for the benefit of the team so they didn't do anything other than the very best for mclaren but us as fans of the sport and and maybe me having lived through having to move over a couple of times for teammates didn't want to see too much of it but I think that having gone in the ring and or to use a Mark Webber expression, been in the trenches with Oscar through what was his first crack at a world title, I think there's an inevitable wanting to step back and let him get on with it because at the end of the day, no one can be in the car with the driver.

19:32No manager, whether it was Keke Rosberg with Mika Hakkinen, a former world champion who was in the ring with Mika or any other named manager, the driver still has to get out there and do their own thing. So I don't think Mark retired from frontline racing to suddenly be going to 24 Grand Prix's, you know, not holding the hand of Oscar, but guiding him through the good and the bad. So I think it's just a natural development into this new setup that he has where Mark and I are still involved. Whose side do you think called that more? Do you think that came from Mark or do you think that came from Oscar because he would be you know quite an intimidating figure in the garage and obviously of great success so which side did that come from do you reckon?

20:21Well as I mentioned I don't think Mark retired from Formula One and then from sports car racing to suddenly be traveling the world the way he does I think he's got a healthy appreciation of how lucky we are in in as ex-racers. You know, he's got a wonderful, wonderful life down under as well. So taking a bit more time and investing in family and in friends is probably at the forefront of that. So I'm going to guess rather than no factually that it'd be more driven by Mark. Like, do you think that that's the best case? Or is it quite good to have someone who's been there, who's done it, who's fighting your corner internally, who is, as Jolie mentioned, quite outspoken and who can play bad cop in situations where Oscar can just, you know, keep his head down and focus on what he needs to focus on and know that someone who's as knowledgeable and who's going to have his back as Mark will be there to fight the other, like, internal politics?

21:15Well, when I started my career, I was managed by a company called IMG, International Management Group, who didn't really have a lot of inside knowledge that's there on Formula One, although they did do some work with Prost, Senna, Schumacher. So they knew, let's say, the contractual side of things. But when I came out of that contract, I wanted someone that understood what understeer was, what overseer was, but also had the recognition of the team principals. So Martin Brundle, who did his last Grand Prix with Jordan, started to work with me. And we worked together for 10 years and it worked perfectly.

21:49And as much that I didn't have to explain what driving a Grand Prix car was. He knew he'd been there. He'd crashed the car. He'd been teammates with Schumacher. He'd been at Benetton, McLaren, Williams for a very brief moment. And Tyrell, he was very experienced in the paddock. So that was the value that I perceived in that. But Martin wasn't standing in the back of the garage talking to the engineers about setup. I would speak to him privately and bounce ideas. But I think that the bottom line is these guys have got to be able to do it on their own. Maybe not understanding the business of Formula One, but what they need to be is released and free to be what they are, which is racing drivers.

22:34The minute you start trying to give two things 100%, you're going to struggle because it's not possible. So I would always encourage any driver that was asking me or I was involved in in the future, just do what you're being paid to do, which is be fast behind the steering wheel. Don't get involved in all the politics and don't get involved in saving the planet. The planet, I think, should be saved, but I think it should be saved by someone else, not a race driver. DC, it's probably a question for Mark, but you know him really well. You mentioned there it's the manager's job to get involved in the politics side of it and allow the driver to race.

23:10Do you think there could have been an area last year where the perception that the team may have been favouring Lando over Oscar and Mark's own history of being on the other side of that and being the number two driver and Seb being favoured continuously through his time at Red Bull? that maybe Mark was a little too close to that kind of a scenario and that his own history might have come into that. And he would have fought, you know, not just as a manager normally would, but with some of that internal emotion that was still there from his own experience and not wanting his driver in Oscar to have to go through that as well.

23:52And I know it's probably an impossible thing for you to answer. And it's something that Mark, you know, we get the opportunity to ask him that, but you know him. So, yeah, well, I would say this and my my feeling is Mark wasn't too close. Mark was perfectly placed to know what it's like. And probably one of the reasons and I think it was Budapest, especially I was very sort of, you know, going to write to my local MP and complain about how the drivers were being managed out on track. is because I've experienced being asked to move over for your teammate. I know how difficult it is to get those victories.

24:31I know those victories are never going to appear on my CV because they're gone. You've given them away. And okay, you've been given the chance to be in a position to win by the team. But for someone to take that away, with the greatest respect to a team principal or an engineer or a mechanic, they haven't been out there hanging on the edge of adhesion at 180 miles an hour you know they are unbelievable professional members of the team but touch wood their life isn't in danger when they're out there in pursuit of trying to do their job when you've lived on the edge of in my generation we race in all weather conditions you couldn't see you kept going until you hit something you know now the world has evolved that races don't start because it's too wet.

25:21I lived through a very dangerous era. I lived through a period where my opportunity came because the greatest driver of that generation was killed. So let's say I think that we had a real feeling of how much it meant if one, you didn't crash and two, you were lucky enough to be in a position to win. It all feels a little bit, and this is me getting into a territory and Jolie, please, as the youngest member of the team, slap me back in place. It feels a little bit that it's, you know, it feels like everyone thinks their time will come. There's no guarantee your time will come. You know, this is still a dangerous sport.

26:01It's still technology driven. But I think that we've taken away certain elements of the anger, the hunger, the fight. You know, the drivers all appear to get along very nicely and they all travel together and they all compare. Look at my Ferrari, look at my Lamborghini. You know, it all feels a bit kind. And a part of that may well be because social media means it's impossible for them to celebrate their lives in public because someone's there with a phone camera. I agree with you. I think competition is always healthy. And I look at other sports and you don't want to go to a football game and feel like you're going to get hurt if you celebrate your goal.

26:40But you also you want to feel that rivalry. Rivalry is so important. you know rivalry fuels passion and drive and so many things so no I'm not going to say you're out of touch there I'm I'm with you on this one I have to say a very random point here I keep hearing people say up to speed so much I'll be watching a film and someone will use the line we've got to get up to speed and I'm like hey I got stopped I got stopped in B &Q two days ago I was buying paint for the new house. And someone lent over as we were looking at paint samples and said, really enjoying the new podcast with DC and Naomi and Joni.

27:18It's really, it's really good. We're really, really enjoying it. Anyway, enough, enough, enough. I'm patting ourselves on the back. Well, I hope they got a good paint sample. Well, in the meantime, we're going to take a quick little break. So while we do that, if you're not already following us on socials, please head over to your social media platforms and follow us at UpToSpeedShow. you can leave a comment, subscribe and leave a review if you can. We'll be back in a second to answer one of your questions.