August 9, 2022 • 39 mins
Another week, another midfield team that begins with an "A"! In this latest installment of Choosing Sides: F1, Lily and Michael discuss Red Bull's sister team AlphaTauri and what it even means to be a "sibling" to RBR. They also talk about the team's two very likable drivers, including fan-favorite Pierre Gasly and delightful (and ever off-the-cuff) Yuki Tsunoda. But at this point in both of their careers, these racers are facing a lot of questions — including how long they want to stay at team that'll perpetually be in Red Bull's shadow.
Special thanks to our guests: Ashley Kalita, Magnus Greaves, and Tatiana Calderon.
This episode was produced by Lily Herman and Senior Producer Yochai Maital. Sound Design by Yochai Maital. Mastering by Sela Waisblum. Recording at The Cutting Room Studios by Rob O'Leary II. At SI Studios, Max Miller is Executive Producer and Brannan Goetschius is Head of Audio. At iHeartRadio, Sean Titone is Executive Producer.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
That's right, but Dory, I'm hot, are rolling? Okay? Alright, Michael, Hi,
I have another little goody for you today. My gosh,
you always do such a good job with this, Lily.
Thank you. It is my pleasure. So do you want
to tell everyone what I have gotten here? So you
tell them what I did. So in my hand is
(00:23):
a nice cold, sugar free red Bull. This is actually
my preferred red Bull. There we go, so maybe team
or your preferred red Bull adjacent team, so we'll find
out true. Okay, I'm gonna crank this open. Let's see here.
It sounds sugar free, sounds sugar I would have been
(00:43):
able to tell that with sugar free. So today, as
we established with Alpine, we are we are comfortably in
the midfield at this point, we're in the middle of
our season. We're in the middle of the grid. That
does not mean, though, that these teams are boring or
that they've got nothing going on. So today's team middle
of the pack. I would say, Alpha Towery has got
(01:07):
real younger sibling who's got everything to prove and nothing
to lose energy. Well, are you a tennis fan, Lily, Yes,
for the sake of yes, anybody else a tennis fit.
Can I call this the Patrick McEnroe of the UH
Formula one? You know, John McEnroe, Grand Slam champion, super loud, boisterous,
(01:28):
got all the attention. Meanwhile, Patrick was pretty solid tennis
player as well. I had no idea there was a
Patrick adds color boom hit the theme from I Heart
Radio and Sports Illustrated Studios. This is choosing sides? Yes one? Wow? Okay,
(01:58):
so alpha towery. As we previously mentioned in our Red
Bull episode, they are the sister team to Red Bull.
The team nowadays is very very careful to call it
a sister team and no longer a junior team, so
they do not want to be seen as lesser than
at least in terms of public persona. But let's let's
back up a little bit back in the mid two thousands.
(02:19):
As we know, billionaires get bored, and when they do that,
they buy sports teams. So our friend Dietrich Mata, ships
founder of Red Bull, buys n F one team, names
it after Red Bull, and then, since he seemed to
have nothing else to do, he said to himself, what
what could I possibly want? Within a year of purchasing
this team, another one? Yes, so a year later or
(02:39):
within about a year, Dietrich purchases a Formula One team
called Minardi have stored on the grid. The two cars
are being pushed off the grid, so they got about
as far as the start finished line, which despite being
one of the not greatest teams on the grid, had
a humongous and very passionate fan base. He renames it
to a Rosso, which is the Italian phrase for Red Bull. Creative,
(03:04):
very clever. The original idea though, was that this Toro
Rosso team would be like a junior team to Red Bull.
So they were thinking, Okay, this can be a great
training ground for up and coming drivers. They can give
you know them a little bit of an area to
prove themselves. We can also kind of test people against
each other. And it's just great to have, you know,
four seats on the grid instead of two seats. So
(03:26):
currently with ten teams on the grid, Red Bull basically
controls the seats. It just feels to me like, if
you're gonna be in Formula One, you gotta be trying
to win. It's an interesting question with them of is
there a ceiling to how well Alpha TOWR is allowed
to do exactly because what would happen if Alpha TOWERI
consistently had drivers who beat Red Bull drivers and you
(03:47):
can be certain if you're on Alpha Tari you're like,
let's really throw a wrench in this ship and be
better than them. Exactly. Yeah, okay, So Toro Rosso is
the name of this team until two years ago or
to see sasons ago. So it's had a lot of
really iconic drivers who got their start through Red Bulls
Junior program and then we're funneled into Toro Rosso. So
even just speaking to some of them who were on
(04:09):
the current grid, we've got Sebastian Battles gets its moment
in the Sun. Sebastian facts all he's a crow Prix
winner for the first time. He's the youngest ever and
that's one of the greatest things I've ever seen in
crowl Prix racing. Current world champion Max for stepping please
welcome the rookie of the Year, the flying dutch Man
(04:29):
Jenna Ricardo from McLaren from Perth, Australia and I'm twenty
two years old. And then also Carlos Science. I think
it's my only chance of getting to Formula one seat.
So the interesting thing is that It doesn't mean that
when these drivers were on tour a Rosso that the
team necessarily did super well. They've often been somewhere in
the midfield, right, so whether that was a little bit higher,
(04:52):
like a sixth versus a seventh or eighth in the
championship standings. So why did they switch it to Alpha Tarot?
What is Alfa Tower? Yeah, so two seasons ago they
made a change. They got rid of the Toro Rosso
name that had been around for about fifteen years. And
the reason is very simple. Red Bull fun Fact has
(05:12):
a clothing line. It is called Alpha TOWERI and they
decided to use what's basically free advertising space to rename
the team, kind of like Alpine is a Renault brand.
Reno said, let's you have a better use for the
name of this team. And also it sounds cleaner and fresher.
Alpha Towery also, you know, has a little bit of
(05:33):
a different flavor than Toro Rosso. I mean in America,
being an Alpha is just it's not as appreciated like
it used to be. Sure that's has nothing to do
with their clothing line. I looked at the clothing line. Yes,
I have some photos for you. So what's really funny
about Alpha Tower is they do have professional models that
model out of the clothes, but then they'll randomly put
in various Red Bull and Alpha TOWERI drivers and team
(05:55):
members to model the clothing. And it's kind of funny
to watch these drivers, some of whom couldn't care less about.
They probably have to do this, yeah, exactly, it's like
contractually obligated. So here, so I have I have the
current as two Red Bull drivers Alpha Towery drivers, and
then a special appearance by a certain team principle. Well
I know who the team principle is. Christian Harner looks
(06:18):
like he's trying to be he's doing a Zoolander face.
Zoo Lander. Now the ones that are the models, I'm
gonna say, are down below. Oh all of them are drivers. Okay,
so we've got okay, sorry, tell me who we got here.
So up in the purple in the upper left corners
pere Ghastly, who I think works at the most like
(06:39):
he's really trying to to like the Tyra Banks smiles
it up. You're right then below him, you have Max
for stepping Poor Max, who you know does not want
to be there. He looks like he's looking for the exit. Exactly. Yeah,
like he's where is the exit out of this shoot
right now? Uh? Then you have Noda never quite know
(07:00):
what to do with Yuki because he's five two and
really tiny. For a while, they kept dressing him in beige,
like fully beige outfits, which doesn't look good on pretty
much anyone. To begin with. What is his nationality? He
is Japanese Japanese. It does seem like they don't know
what to do with him. Yes, and then his hair
cut is kind of flat, it's weird. I don't mind
(07:21):
the clothes, you know, clean. I think the lines they're
so expensive like these are it's unicloe but like three more? Yeah,
and what's fashion anyways? What's what's a three shirt a
fifty dollar shirt? I don't know. I think it's just
also like I don't know anyone who necessarily would be
like a, I need new clothing and I have seven
hundred dollars to spend, let me go to the Red
(07:42):
Bull fashion collection. It's similar to how Ferrari has an
atrociously ugly fashion slection. Again, this is my opinion. Now, okay,
al right, guys, I just wanted to remind you quickly
that this is an f one podcast whatever. Yeah, suck
my balls mate, slowly turning into part in the interruption. Yeah.
(08:02):
So so basically they in the early twenties switch over
to Alpha Towery and with this, yeah, they really start
to hammer home this whole idea of this is a
sister team. It's a separate entity. It's factories in Italy.
So yeah, So anyway back to a little bit of
their history. So when they were still tour rosso yeah,
they were, but until probably there were a bunch of
different like reliability issues at times. They had some really
(08:25):
rough years where you had drivers, you know, having to
retire the car in two thirds of races in some cases, Yeah,
due to issues with with the car and not with
necessarily the driver all the time. However, then it wasn't
until nineteen they actually start to move up the ranks
a little bit. They ended up finishing Pie six that year.
They then had another Piece six finished last season in
(08:46):
one and now generally, especially because there are some teams
that have have really had some some bad times, they've
kind of moved into being a comfortable midfield team nowadays,
or at least that's kind of what they're thought of.
The Other thing that I think Alpha Towery has tried
to beef up, especially since their rebrand and how they're
trying to both distinguish themselves from Red Bull while still
(09:07):
not pretending that they don't have a connection to Red Bull.
They actually have a really really fun digital presence. They
use the drivers really effectively. For example, on top of
the fact that they obviously use them in their marketing campaigns,
Pierre and Yuki, the two drivers do wear Alpha Towery
close to the track. They also make them do a
lot of like video challenges with the Red Bull drivers
five o'clock begun to meet here in the morning, of
(09:31):
course not. And then they also make them do challenges,
like they had them do a chopstick challenge I think
with like coffee beans or something. What are you doing?
Get out on my room now? Okay, close the door,
Alfa Tori, I think is trying to mimic the social
media um success of McLaren that was Ashley Khalita, an
(09:52):
f one Twitch streamer, And they do a really good
job posting the teammates Pierre Gasoline interacting and such, and
they definitely have chemistry and they definitely care about each
other and want to succeed in Formula One and do
well both of them, and they definitely cheer each other on,
so I think they definitely bring that relatability side. Maybe
(10:14):
it's not as strongly pushed on social media like McLaren
does with their team, but I really think pure Ghastly
and Yuki are onto something. My initial thought would be
that Alpha Towery is going for a younger market, but
Red Bull is already pretty young and Alpha Towery clothing
(10:37):
is too expensive, so I don't disagree with you. In
terms of Alpha Tauri this season, things are going not great.
They have had reliability issues with the car, as have
a lot of other teams on the grid. With the
new regulations. They currently as of the summer break, which
we're in right now, there's no races coming up for
(10:58):
a few weeks. They are currently in P eight. To
again contrast that they were in Peace six last year
when they finished the championship. So obviously, for a team
like Alpha Tawari that's spent a lot of time bouncing
around the midfield, they were hoping to maybe spend this
time moving up to best of the rest of us,
or at least really get in there, and instead they
unfortunately are almost relegating themselves to rest of the rest,
(11:22):
or or the worst of the rest. They're not quite
there yet, luckily, but it's not what they want. It's
that looking good. It's not the best yea. So who's
in charge of Alpha? Yeah, so they have this team principle.
He's been part of the Alpha Tari tour Rosso brand
for a very long times. Frands Tossed or Toast depending
on who you ask, Uh, he's he definitely has a
(11:45):
bit of a personality, but he's not always the central focus,
like someone like Christian Horn. Right, you're telling me his
name is French Toast, Yes, keep that in, please high
promise me that you'll keep it in. Or guy French Toast, Uh,
despite the name, does not have as much of a
presence to the extent. But I think it's because Christian
(12:06):
Horn or Helmet Marco from Red Bull or such big
personalities that's kind of hard to compete with them. And
then you have people like Total Wolf at Mercedes who's
also a presence. So there's a lot of midfield teams
where their actual team principles or head haunchos are not
as I don't know, they don't have as much of
a kind of following just because they're they're hanging out
or chilling or or whatever. I will say one of
(12:27):
one of the most interesting things about friends is back
in our French if we want to call him, that is,
back in two thousand seven. Uh, there was an American
F one driver at the time with the greatest race
car driver name of all time. It was Hi, guys,
I'm Scott Speed. Scott Speed. That's a great name. It
sounds fake, right, It's Scott Speed. And Scott Speed alleged
fifteen years ago that France had assaulted him over an
(12:50):
incident on the track. Speed claimed in an interview that
tossed grabbed him right below the neck on his fireproof
shirt and jerked him back and forth, let go and
then pushed him into a wall. So, of course Frances
Toast completely denies this whole story. And regardless of Scott
Speeds not having a correct time in their car in
(13:10):
the Tora Basso car, not driving fast, and so soon
after the incident, he is fired for low performance. And
of course his whole spin on this is that, you know,
almost conspiratorial idea that he hates them, it's terrible working
with them. He never wants to work with France toast again.
So with Scott he left the sport quickly. One could
say it was a speedy exit for that was what
(13:33):
we need, that was what we needed. But I will
say the overall I think good thing about alf A
towery is you know there are a team that's sort
of known to help funnel in champions right because we
have a Sebastian battle, you have a max for staff.
These other other guys going further back who are are
(13:54):
kind of in that similar boat. So I think if
you're if you're someone who wants to root for people
who could potentially do a lot in the future, they
can be sort of a great a great pick. And
also certain people, yeah, like to root for midfield teams
and don't want to give all that credit to the
guys at the top. Yeah. So, and it takes a
while to become comfortable racing at this level. I'm sure
(14:15):
Red Bulls sees Alpha Tower is a way to give
championship drivers who are very young experience exactly, and also
a good time to kind of see, okay, can you
handle any form of pressure of one without necessarily which
unfortunately have Red bull has been handing over the car
too early to someone unproven in there. They're kind of
mainstable drivers. So who are the drivers. We got French
(14:37):
Toast as the team principal. Who's driving the cars. We
have French Fry. We see number one um and we
have scar Go in the other seat. So yeah, we're
all good. We'll get into the Alpha TOWERI drivers right
after this short break. All right, we're back from our
break and we are diving right into the two drivers
(14:58):
at Alfa Towery. We have Per Ghastly and then we
have Yuki Sonoda, two very different drivers. They do get
along very well. So let's start with Pierre Ghastly. As
you can probably tell from a name like Pierre, he
is French, Verry French. So Pierre comes from a family
that has been in motor sports in somewhere or another,
not f one level, but his grandfather competed in carding.
(15:21):
His grandmother was actually a carding champion. Grandmother act feminism,
love to see it. His father dabbled in a number
of different motor sports, so we did like carding, rallying
and Durrance racing. So he's kind of jumped around. Pierre's
also the youngest he has I think four or five
half siblings who are older than him, so he's kind
of the the youngest of of the bunch. Basically, he
(15:44):
takes up carding, is successful, moves on to the junior formulas.
He ends up winning, so he's you know, he's well
on his way. He's also competing against drivers like Charlotte
Claire who is er Monico but obviously races a lot
in France, as well as estemont Ocon. They grew up
forty five minutes from each other growing up, They've they've
spent their their lives compete against each other just because
(16:04):
they're literally from the same area of France. So Pierre
makes his Formula One debut back in for Toro Rosso
what it was called then, and it ends up racing
full time for the team through He's looking good, he's
looking promising, you know, getting his his sea legs, so
to speak. He had a couple of very impressive qualifyings
(16:25):
in his first full season. He had a P four
and there, a piece six, a piece seven, So in
some cases he is out qualifying the machinery that he's
been given. Pierre ghastly, the young French, absolutely unbelievable. Fourth
position Now, granted, he would often lose places in the
(16:50):
actual race, you know, because the car just can't keep
that pace over an extended period of time. But the
fact that he everyone agreed he was way over qualifying
the car like what it should have been, which only
speaks to his talent. But as we know, for Red Bull,
this cataclysmic thing happens where Dania Ricardo surprises them by
not re signing, and as we know from that episode
as well, Dana ricardo leaving creates another sort of domino
(17:13):
effect of other things that end up happening, one of
which is that Red Bull didn't really have a successor
to Danna Ricardo at this point, but had also made
it very clear to everyone that Max were Stapping was
their guy, So it led to this this bizarre void
to be filled by his by his labsence. Also, Dania
Ricardo was a huge personality, as we've discussed, so they're
kind of trying to figure out what to do. This was,
(17:33):
you know, several years ago, Piers in his early twenties,
so they end up saying, hey, let's let's call him up,
despite the fact that you know, he'd only competed in
his second season of the sport, and unfortunately he ends
up crashing and burning spectacularly. You've got to say, only
one side of that garage is consistently delivering. At the moment,
Pierre Ghastly qualified six cents off his teammate, Ghastly finished
(17:55):
p eleven. There were a lot of races where Max
was lapping him. He just got absolutely walloped by Max.
And the standings, yeah, it was. It was bad. He's
gone to unlock that part of him that we know
is capable of bringing home better results. He ends up
only completing twelve races before Red Bull yanks him from
(18:15):
the seat and demotes him back down to the then
Toro Rosso team. That's humiliating, Yeah, really harsh. And on
top of that, a big issue that's come up since
then in retrospect is people feel like the car was
much more tailored to Max's strengths than Pierre's. So if
you're Pierre, you're a very talented driver, you just don't
drive like Max. So if you're in a car that
is not made for it is very much made for
(18:36):
your your biggest competitor, you know your teammate, you're really
setting someone up to fail Max is uh, you know,
he's a rocket ship and his whatever they call the
like all the fire and all the smoke that comes
out of the back of the rocket. It's too big.
Whatever's around just gonna get sucked up into Max, you know.
(18:58):
So I wouldn't want to drive under Max. So Pierre
is in this tough position. Obviously, it's devastating and humiliating
to be demoted, not just demoted in general, but halfway
through a season that's pretty pretty bad. And then to
make matters worse, he's back at Toro Rosso and his
best friend Antoine who Bear was a very promising driver
(19:18):
in Formula two. Antoine who Bear dies in a race
in Belgium. This is during also an F one race weekend,
so Pierre is there at the track. It's incredibly sad.
This is this is bottom. I mean, there's career abouttom
and then there's death. That's that's this is This is
a new level entangling personal and professional tragedy. In the
(19:40):
span of a few weeks, we lived in the same
flat full five years. We went to same school where
in the same classroom. Um, I've just known these guys
in so long. We've shared so many moments on track
and off track, especially um that yeah, honestly, I still
have believe it. He actually a really extensive personal essay
on the Internet and about the experience, but basically one
(20:01):
of the last conversations he had with Antoine was about
his emotion, and Antoine kind of told me, you'll keep going.
You're prove them wrong, like you've got this. So obviously
he's devastated that his friend has died, but also feels
really motivated. Interestingly, we actually talked to another driver for
this podcast, taughtinga Calderone. So she was Antoine's teammate when
this accident happened, and she said something very similar to
(20:23):
pire because I I sort of pose the question of well,
did did watching your teammate die make you fear racing
more or whatever? And her and here actually very similar
in terms of saying For me, it opened as well
in my mind, I respect what I do much more now, Um,
I don't. I'm not afraid of it. I think you
(20:43):
know that I was maybe not enjoying it as as
much as I should because because of the pressure that
I was putting myself. That reminded me that what the
most important thing is if unfortunately I and up dying
in an accident or whatever. I know that I'm doing
(21:05):
what I love most. You you have to be able
to to do what you love most to be happy,
and we'll see how much we we get to stay
in this world doing that. That's a beautiful delusional mind
that you need to be a world class driver. Driver. Yeah,
oh yeah, big time. So anyway, after this happens, he
(21:26):
does start to improve back at at then you know,
at Torboso Afatari uh and eventually actually in it's really
exciting Castle is in France for the Alpha Tsari. He
ends up winning his first ever Grand Prix. Is Alpha
Tari Pia Castle when is the Italian Grand Prix? Oh my,
(21:50):
oh my. Alpha Tari had a couple of podiums and
obviously points to their name, but this was their first win.
So this was a very big deal multiple front. It
wasn't an extra big because it was in Italy and
it was in their home Grand Prix, so it's just yeah,
it's just one of those feel good stories. Oh my god,
what did we do? Like he's like you can see him, like,
(22:12):
you know, pumping his fists and he's so excited. God, guys, again, God,
that was a beautiful moment. And I don't know anything
about this sport, but when they when they show you
the driver and you get to hear the audio of
(22:34):
when they win, it's just it doesn't matter if you
know anything or not. It's beautiful. Yeah, it's awesome for me.
The driver that gives me the most excitement is somebody
like a Pier Ghastly. You're hearing from Magnus Grieves, co
founder and publisher of Race Weekend. He always has the
potential to do better than anybody anticipates that he's going
(22:57):
to do given the car that he's in, and and
he seems to really appreciate a great result. And also
you want to see Pierre Ghastly get another chance on
a big team. If you want to just cheer for
somebody who could win, you're limiting yourself to a pool
of about four or five of the twenty drivers. You
(23:19):
need to understand the story of that person. You need
to understand where they're coming from, where they're trying to
get to because you need to be able to cheer
for somebody when they finished fifth and get as much
joy as somebody else finishing first. So Pierre, nice guy.
Everyone likes some that can't be the whole story, Lily.
He must he must have some controversy, He must have
(23:41):
some some dark secrets. The biggest problem with Pierre and
his career, so he's reached twenty six. It's basically middle
aged in the sport of f one, which is sad
to say and making me feel very old. Yeah. Uh,
And the problem he has is this, So obviously he
got promoted to the Red Bull seat, he tanked in
(24:01):
the Red Bull seat. Hellman Marco, the very brash advisor
and and kind of you know, person in charge of
all the driver development, has made it clear that Pierre
is most likely never going to get back in that seat.
So if you're Pierre, you're asking yourself, Okay, I'm stuck
on this sister team that's kind of the junior team
that basically has a ceiling to how well they're gonna do.
(24:24):
But I've also been a Red Bull driver my entire career.
Where can I go from here? So that's I think
what he's dealing with right now. And there's been a
lot of questions and speculation because yeah, he is kind
of stuck. If Pierre has self belief, which I think
he does, someone's going to pick him up. Also, funk
that guy who says he's never going to get in
a red Bull seat again. If he keeps winning races
at Alpha Torre, maybe he'll say, I don't want your
(24:46):
dumb red Bull seat. I want my Alpha Tori seat,
thank you very much, I will say to the team
loves Pierre like they are like one happy family with Pierre.
He loves the guys like everyone on the team, you know.
So it's like it's gonna be pain well when he
has to part with them. But hope, I think the
hope why a lot of people is that he ends
up somewhere better or where there's actually a career trajectory
(25:07):
that isn't just in a holding pattern, you know, perpetually
holding pattern, you know, perpetually perpetually holding pattern, perpetually perpetually.
So who's the who's this other driver? Other driver? We've
got Yuki Sonoda who two sophomore season. This guy is
not a tall man. He is barely not a boy,
(25:30):
and he is not tall. I don't want to sound
like short was a derogatory term, because it's not. But
he isn't tall even by F one standards. He is short.
So just to recap here, most drivers are between five
seven to five ten, usually five eight, five nine, maybe
uh in the tallest drivers or there's a couple who
are six ft six ft one, but they're very skinny
(25:51):
and kind of lanky. Allah Estabato con or a George Russell.
On the other end of the spectrum, I think the
next shortest drivers like five six, and then you've got
Yuki at five two, and he's so short to the
point where they actually had to like re engineer the
cars that his feet could could actually touch the pedals
because they basically, yeah, I'm excited to hear about this
(26:15):
guy because we haven't had a lot of non white
European men who drive a race car. Yes, and it's
been a little bit since they've had a Japanese driver
in particular, and I will say that there's a huge
Japanese fan base. For one, his assent to Formula one
has been very quick, which means he's been pretty good.
(26:35):
Ashley Khalita Again, so from I believe Japanese F four
to Formula one, I think it just took him over
three years. And when he arrived in twenty nine and
started racing around Europe. He had no knowledge of the
circuits which track information is everything. To the fact he's
been doing so well in the minimal amount of experience
quote unquote, he has comparatively to the other drivers on
(26:57):
the field with him, he had has placed very impressively
in my opinion, in addition to being a very talented
member of the Red Bull Young Driver Program. Something else
that's helpful is that at this point we've talked about
Honda before, and now Honda is the l O l
j K manufacturer and constructor of Formula One. They're in,
(27:18):
they're out, They're they're supplying engines, they're they're actually in
the sport. They're out again. So as of late they
have been supplying engines to to Red Bull, and so
Honda kind of says to Red Bull, hey, we're besties. Right,
there's a Japanese driver and we're a Japanese company, and
wouldn't it be great if you gave this seat to
(27:39):
this nice man who is from Japan. Uh And there
is there's always controversy whenever something like that happens, because
always other drivers who people wanted to see an F
one who did better than him, who then don't get
a seat and uh but yeah, so basically it does help.
You know, the stars aligned, so to speak, that Yuki
happens to be coming up through Formula two and does
(27:59):
well all at a time when a company like Honda
has a little bit of poll right, and it's with
the program that he's he's in, He's in Red Bull.
So so Yuki rookie season, it was a little inconsistent.
So his first race, his debut race and Formula one
he gets p nine. You need a fantastic race, fantastic
slow down, so he gets two points. It's very exciting.
(28:22):
Everyone's like, that's great. Yeah, However, he just starts having
a little bit of trouble. We have our first spina here.
Yuki Sonoda never been to this track before. He starts
spinning out a lot. He starts crashing quite a bit,
and some of this is expected with rookies, you know
what happens. I mean, it's impossible to go rookie season
without spinning out a couple of times or just getting
getting the feel for the car. You know, Formula one
(28:43):
cars aren't even the same as Formula two, right, Like
there's just such a big learning curve and make that
jump up, so that's expected to a certain extent. But
on top of everything else, yet he's kind of rude
on the radio to his race engineer during races, and
cursing a lot and and just being kind of rude.
So Yuki is definitely not the main character, which is unfortunate,
(29:04):
but I think but he's definitely I'm trying to think
of like relevant side characters that have taken over TV
shows and you're really like, wow, maybe they should be
the main character. And I really think that's that's Yuki
with the experience he has, and maybe he has had
a lack of consistency in one. However, he's definitely shown
plenty of moments where he can compete with the top dogs.
(29:26):
Is he forgive my ignorance on this? Is he speaking
English with his yes so that everyone has to speak
English when it comes to race communications? Yet I think
to keep everything standardized and yeah, you know, so they
can hear what the hell is going on exactly. Um,
And and on top of that that, yeah, he's talked
about this. He really struggled, especially in the pandemic. You know,
Japan had a lot of lockdowns and whatnot. Is very
(29:47):
hard to get back home, he dealt with a lot
of homesickness, and he's been away for a while from home,
and at this point, you know, he's twenty years old,
so he's been away from home for several years. Um,
you know, he he There's also he does speak English,
but there is somewhat of a language barrier. There's also
gonna be you know, barriers in terms of customs and
how different you know, the West does things versus the
East that he has to deal with. On top of
(30:08):
all this, he does have some issues with like discipline.
There's actually like a scene in Drive to Survive season
four when he makes his first appearance on the show,
obviously it's his first season where basically he's complaining about
having to just like run, like doing a normal training run,
and that's kind of just generally with them. He's even
joked about this how he's like, oh, I'd rather lie
down and like eat a sandwich then go exercise, which
(30:30):
you know, it kind of doesn't doesn't work for certain people,
but I will send the flip side. Yuki is a
very fun and wacky personality. He wears his heart on
his sleeve and it's brutally honest with the press. Is
that more sort of expectation from from helmet and did
he uh with a helmet? I got we got this
big this afternoon a BM, and I don't think it's
(30:53):
gonna be fun conversation between us sometimes the teams like
you can't you can't say that out out or or
even a lot of his dynamic with Pierre. Pierre is
almost like an older brother do Yuki, And half the
time Uki will say something inappropriate, not problematic, just inappropriate
or bizarre, you know, Pierce, like you can't do that,
like you absolutely need to be quiet. They probably put
(31:14):
him through endless media training and he's still going to
say what he's gonna say, and never necessarily always a
rude way, but just he'll just be really really upfront
with you have a good report, Yeah, they have a
very good report. I think it does help that Pierre
is so well established on that team and he is
the number one. But in the same sense, Yuki is
a rookie, right and he just came on. So I
think that there's not this feeling of resentment or whatnot
(31:38):
from from that dynamic. Quick break and we'll be back.
So that's that's alf a towery I would say for Pierre,
you know, I think Pierre's kind of getting this. This
reputation is like the comeback kid, right, like, really was
down of the dumps, had a lot of personal and
professional tragedy at the same time, and has not only
risen above it, but totally slayed the game in the process.
(31:59):
Pierre I like very very much. I love anybody who
gets pushed aside for some other new young hot shot
and he has to kind of get some grit, he
has some adversity in his past, true adversity death, and
then and then we've got Yuki. You know, I'm a
little bit afraid that Formula one sees Yuki as this
(32:20):
odd Asian entity that we don't know what to do with.
And even some of the videos it was kind of like,
look at him trying to do the funny thing, and
some of that might just be because he's so young
and they don't know what to do with, you know,
like it almost seems like gimmicky, a little alienating, Yeah, exactly.
(32:40):
So my hope is that Yuki kind of keeps his
head down and doesn't doesn't let that ship bother him,
and then just wins on the racetrack. I'm not. I don't.
I haven't seen enough to say that about from the one,
but it just feels like maybe they don't really know
how to embrace who he is yet. It's easy to
see the cute face as an American and Western we
(33:01):
see Japanese and we kind of like don't really know
what it means, and it's like, what is this thing
over here? But at the end of the day, it's like,
if he's a bad motherfucker in the race car, that's awesome.
I mean, like I says, racing has been a little consistent.
Somebodays he's brilliant. Other days, Yeah, he's crashing into a
wall multiple times on the weekend. But I think he
does bring a very different personality and kind of a
different different style about him. And he is, Yeah, he's
so young, like he was twenty when he came in, right,
(33:23):
he can barely legally drink in the US. So and
when you're a rookie and they say jump, you just
have to say how high? Especially in your team when
your teammate is pere ghastly who had just come off
a win, the first win on the team's history in
this like incredibly, you know, epic fashion, Like that's your teammate.
You gotta kind of roll with it a little bit
and and play into the fact that you know he's
(33:45):
the guy. How are you feeling about Alpha TWI, How
do you feel like? I like Alfa a lot. I
like the colors, I like the the logo. Their car
looks fast. You know. My least favorite part of Alpha
Torre is that they're part of Red Bull. Yeah, if
you told me this was a separate team, I'd be like,
I think I'm all in on this team. It's like,
I love my friend Paul. He's funny, he has a
(34:08):
good sense of adventure. He always makes me laugh. His wife,
you know what I mean. It's like it's like Alpha Tarry.
I just wish it would become its own thing. I
feel like if Alpha Towery started winning, winning, winning, Red
Bull would like secretly change up their wrench box so
it has the wrong tools or something. That's just like,
that's just how I feel about it. I wouldn't put
that above Christian Horner or Helmet Marko to do themselves.
(34:32):
I mean, if Yuki Sonoda is making half a million
a year and Max is making twenty five million, that
means in the organization, Max is seen as fifty times
the worth of Yuki. That's a huge difference. Yes, if
I was Yuki, I would crash my car into Max.
He's Yuki has done that with most of the growth,
but a little bit of a rookie season. I like
(34:55):
Alpha Tori, I like Alfa Tori. And and where where
do they act in your overall Where are they? I
would say they're top three from me? Is that interesting?
On the podiums? Yeah, Ferrari's still up there. I like Alpha. Um,
well it's Williams. Of course we haven't even talked. Was
gonna say, and we talked about Williams? No, no, no,
(35:15):
we haven't. But um yeah, I don't know. For some reason,
they're connecting with me. Yeah, watch the rubbing of the pants. Sorry,
who's this other person's voice that I only occasionally here,
not as often as YOHI. But yeah, so that's our
sound engineer, Rob. I know you were supposed to be
the only non F one person coming into the sport. Hilariously,
(35:37):
Rob was just you know, assigned to deal with us
in the studio technical. Yeah, but he has become a
massive F one fan over the course of this recording. Definitely, definitely, Rob.
You've had You've had some disagreements with some of Michael's opinions,
his driver opinions. Oh god, what is it? What is
this my Twitter page? All of a sudden, I like Estevan?
(35:59):
Who Why do you like est? I think he hasn't
had his time yet, and I think there's an opportunity
for him to have his time, and I think it'd
be cool to see. I strongly disagree with Rob, and
I think there's a reason that he works in the
audio booth and not sitting where I'm wait, So, who
do you not like? Rob? Checko? Really? How I've said
(36:25):
this before, but we connect with people for certain reasons.
And the thing that I love about Checko is he's
a father of three. Now, there is nothing more selfless
and humiliating than being a parent, you know, like you're
just constantly faced with your mortality and how unimportant your
personal life is. All of that is the opposite of
(36:49):
what it takes to be a Formula one driver. So
I just find that dichotomy so fascinating. That he probably
goes home and is the fifth most important person in
his house and then he goes to the race track,
and well, even though he's behind Max, he has to
act and behave and have the ego of I am
the best driver around this course. I find that fascinating.
I have no idea who this guy is in real life.
(37:10):
He could be a total prick. I don't know. And
there there's more. Dad's on the in the race track, right. Yeah,
we're gonna talk about a very exciting one next episode. Anyways, Rob,
turn your microphone off from now on. Okay, loud and clear.
Uh So, next time we're going on to the third
(37:30):
team in the midfield with an a name Aston Martin,
which I'm sure you will have thoughts and opinions just
by you know, the association with the name Aston Martin.
Aston Martin is one of my favorite teams to talk
about in the sense that at the beginning of the
season we talked about how F one is a billionaire's playground.
I would specify that that playground is mostly Aston Martin drama.
(37:51):
We're going to get into a lot of weight, yeah,
a lot of billionaires who have done a lot of
not great things. We've got a terrifying looking owner of
the team. We're going to really dive into this term
of page Driver that we've kind of thrown around. So yeah,
I mean everything that I've heard about Aston Martin on
the surface is ripe for some strong opinions. Yeah, if
you've ever wanted to eat the rich, you want to
(38:11):
eat Aston Martin. So so it's gonna be a great, fun,
very rich time to be had. Alright, anything else you
high before we I think we can wrap all right?
Thank you? Jumping in a lot. It's been a week, okay,
(38:38):
m hm, this has been Choosing Sides F one, a
production from Sports Illustrated Studios and I Heart Radio. The
show was hosted by Michael Costa and Lily Hermit. This
episode was produced by Lily Herman and our senior producer
Johai Mattel, who is also the sound designer at the
(38:58):
Cutting Room Studios. We recorded with engineer Robert O'Leary, mastering
by Sella Weiss Bloom. Max Miller is the executive producer
and Brandon Getchas is head of Audio at SI Studios.
I Heart Radio. Sean ty Toone is our executive producer.
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
(39:21):
Don't forget to rate and subscribe, and tell your friends
to choose a side that was kind of crazy. I like,
got it, I got enough. I'm I might start a
podcast tomorrow
That's right, but Dory, I'm hot, are rolling? Okay? Alright, Michael, Hi,
I have another little goody for you today. My gosh,
you always do such a good job with this, Lily.
Thank you. It is my pleasure. So do you want
to tell everyone what I have gotten here? So you
tell them what I did. So in my hand is
(00:23):
a nice cold, sugar free red Bull. This is actually
my preferred red Bull. There we go, so maybe team
or your preferred red Bull adjacent team, so we'll find
out true. Okay, I'm gonna crank this open. Let's see here.
It sounds sugar free, sounds sugar I would have been
(00:43):
able to tell that with sugar free. So today, as
we established with Alpine, we are we are comfortably in
the midfield at this point, we're in the middle of
our season. We're in the middle of the grid. That
does not mean, though, that these teams are boring or
that they've got nothing going on. So today's team middle
of the pack. I would say, Alpha Towery has got
(01:07):
real younger sibling who's got everything to prove and nothing
to lose energy. Well, are you a tennis fan, Lily, Yes,
for the sake of yes, anybody else a tennis fit.
Can I call this the Patrick McEnroe of the UH
Formula one? You know, John McEnroe, Grand Slam champion, super loud, boisterous,
(01:28):
got all the attention. Meanwhile, Patrick was pretty solid tennis
player as well. I had no idea there was a
Patrick adds color boom hit the theme from I Heart
Radio and Sports Illustrated Studios. This is choosing sides? Yes one? Wow? Okay,
(01:58):
so alpha towery. As we previously mentioned in our Red
Bull episode, they are the sister team to Red Bull.
The team nowadays is very very careful to call it
a sister team and no longer a junior team, so
they do not want to be seen as lesser than
at least in terms of public persona. But let's let's
back up a little bit back in the mid two thousands.
(02:19):
As we know, billionaires get bored, and when they do that,
they buy sports teams. So our friend Dietrich Mata, ships
founder of Red Bull, buys n F one team, names
it after Red Bull, and then, since he seemed to
have nothing else to do, he said to himself, what
what could I possibly want? Within a year of purchasing
this team, another one? Yes, so a year later or
(02:39):
within about a year, Dietrich purchases a Formula One team
called Minardi have stored on the grid. The two cars
are being pushed off the grid, so they got about
as far as the start finished line, which despite being
one of the not greatest teams on the grid, had
a humongous and very passionate fan base. He renames it
to a Rosso, which is the Italian phrase for Red Bull. Creative,
(03:04):
very clever. The original idea though, was that this Toro
Rosso team would be like a junior team to Red Bull.
So they were thinking, Okay, this can be a great
training ground for up and coming drivers. They can give
you know them a little bit of an area to
prove themselves. We can also kind of test people against
each other. And it's just great to have, you know,
four seats on the grid instead of two seats. So
(03:26):
currently with ten teams on the grid, Red Bull basically
controls the seats. It just feels to me like, if
you're gonna be in Formula One, you gotta be trying
to win. It's an interesting question with them of is
there a ceiling to how well Alpha TOWR is allowed
to do exactly because what would happen if Alpha TOWERI
consistently had drivers who beat Red Bull drivers and you
(03:47):
can be certain if you're on Alpha Tari you're like,
let's really throw a wrench in this ship and be
better than them. Exactly. Yeah, okay, So Toro Rosso is
the name of this team until two years ago or
to see sasons ago. So it's had a lot of
really iconic drivers who got their start through Red Bulls
Junior program and then we're funneled into Toro Rosso. So
even just speaking to some of them who were on
(04:09):
the current grid, we've got Sebastian Battles gets its moment
in the Sun. Sebastian facts all he's a crow Prix
winner for the first time. He's the youngest ever and
that's one of the greatest things I've ever seen in
crowl Prix racing. Current world champion Max for stepping please
welcome the rookie of the Year, the flying dutch Man
(04:29):
Jenna Ricardo from McLaren from Perth, Australia and I'm twenty
two years old. And then also Carlos Science. I think
it's my only chance of getting to Formula one seat.
So the interesting thing is that It doesn't mean that
when these drivers were on tour a Rosso that the
team necessarily did super well. They've often been somewhere in
the midfield, right, so whether that was a little bit higher,
(04:52):
like a sixth versus a seventh or eighth in the
championship standings. So why did they switch it to Alpha Tarot?
What is Alfa Tower? Yeah, so two seasons ago they
made a change. They got rid of the Toro Rosso
name that had been around for about fifteen years. And
the reason is very simple. Red Bull fun Fact has
(05:12):
a clothing line. It is called Alpha TOWERI and they
decided to use what's basically free advertising space to rename
the team, kind of like Alpine is a Renault brand.
Reno said, let's you have a better use for the
name of this team. And also it sounds cleaner and fresher.
Alpha Towery also, you know, has a little bit of
(05:33):
a different flavor than Toro Rosso. I mean in America,
being an Alpha is just it's not as appreciated like
it used to be. Sure that's has nothing to do
with their clothing line. I looked at the clothing line. Yes,
I have some photos for you. So what's really funny
about Alpha Tower is they do have professional models that
model out of the clothes, but then they'll randomly put
in various Red Bull and Alpha TOWERI drivers and team
(05:55):
members to model the clothing. And it's kind of funny
to watch these drivers, some of whom couldn't care less about.
They probably have to do this, yeah, exactly, it's like
contractually obligated. So here, so I have I have the
current as two Red Bull drivers Alpha Towery drivers, and
then a special appearance by a certain team principle. Well
I know who the team principle is. Christian Harner looks
(06:18):
like he's trying to be he's doing a Zoolander face.
Zoo Lander. Now the ones that are the models, I'm
gonna say, are down below. Oh all of them are drivers. Okay,
so we've got okay, sorry, tell me who we got here.
So up in the purple in the upper left corners
pere Ghastly, who I think works at the most like
(06:39):
he's really trying to to like the Tyra Banks smiles
it up. You're right then below him, you have Max
for stepping Poor Max, who you know does not want
to be there. He looks like he's looking for the exit. Exactly. Yeah,
like he's where is the exit out of this shoot
right now? Uh? Then you have Noda never quite know
(07:00):
what to do with Yuki because he's five two and
really tiny. For a while, they kept dressing him in beige,
like fully beige outfits, which doesn't look good on pretty
much anyone. To begin with. What is his nationality? He
is Japanese Japanese. It does seem like they don't know
what to do with him. Yes, and then his hair
cut is kind of flat, it's weird. I don't mind
(07:21):
the clothes, you know, clean. I think the lines they're
so expensive like these are it's unicloe but like three more? Yeah,
and what's fashion anyways? What's what's a three shirt a
fifty dollar shirt? I don't know. I think it's just
also like I don't know anyone who necessarily would be
like a, I need new clothing and I have seven
hundred dollars to spend, let me go to the Red
(07:42):
Bull fashion collection. It's similar to how Ferrari has an
atrociously ugly fashion slection. Again, this is my opinion. Now, okay,
al right, guys, I just wanted to remind you quickly
that this is an f one podcast whatever. Yeah, suck
my balls mate, slowly turning into part in the interruption. Yeah.
(08:02):
So so basically they in the early twenties switch over
to Alpha Towery and with this, yeah, they really start
to hammer home this whole idea of this is a
sister team. It's a separate entity. It's factories in Italy.
So yeah, So anyway back to a little bit of
their history. So when they were still tour rosso yeah,
they were, but until probably there were a bunch of
different like reliability issues at times. They had some really
(08:25):
rough years where you had drivers, you know, having to
retire the car in two thirds of races in some cases, Yeah,
due to issues with with the car and not with
necessarily the driver all the time. However, then it wasn't
until nineteen they actually start to move up the ranks
a little bit. They ended up finishing Pie six that year.
They then had another Piece six finished last season in
(08:46):
one and now generally, especially because there are some teams
that have have really had some some bad times, they've
kind of moved into being a comfortable midfield team nowadays,
or at least that's kind of what they're thought of.
The Other thing that I think Alpha Towery has tried
to beef up, especially since their rebrand and how they're
trying to both distinguish themselves from Red Bull while still
(09:07):
not pretending that they don't have a connection to Red Bull.
They actually have a really really fun digital presence. They
use the drivers really effectively. For example, on top of
the fact that they obviously use them in their marketing campaigns,
Pierre and Yuki, the two drivers do wear Alpha Towery
close to the track. They also make them do a
lot of like video challenges with the Red Bull drivers
five o'clock begun to meet here in the morning, of
(09:31):
course not. And then they also make them do challenges,
like they had them do a chopstick challenge I think
with like coffee beans or something. What are you doing?
Get out on my room now? Okay, close the door,
Alfa Tori, I think is trying to mimic the social
media um success of McLaren that was Ashley Khalita, an
(09:52):
f one Twitch streamer, And they do a really good
job posting the teammates Pierre Gasoline interacting and such, and
they definitely have chemistry and they definitely care about each
other and want to succeed in Formula One and do
well both of them, and they definitely cheer each other on,
so I think they definitely bring that relatability side. Maybe
(10:14):
it's not as strongly pushed on social media like McLaren
does with their team, but I really think pure Ghastly
and Yuki are onto something. My initial thought would be
that Alpha Towery is going for a younger market, but
Red Bull is already pretty young and Alpha Towery clothing
(10:37):
is too expensive, so I don't disagree with you. In
terms of Alpha Tauri this season, things are going not great.
They have had reliability issues with the car, as have
a lot of other teams on the grid. With the
new regulations. They currently as of the summer break, which
we're in right now, there's no races coming up for
(10:58):
a few weeks. They are currently in P eight. To
again contrast that they were in Peace six last year
when they finished the championship. So obviously, for a team
like Alpha Tawari that's spent a lot of time bouncing
around the midfield, they were hoping to maybe spend this
time moving up to best of the rest of us,
or at least really get in there, and instead they
unfortunately are almost relegating themselves to rest of the rest,
(11:22):
or or the worst of the rest. They're not quite
there yet, luckily, but it's not what they want. It's
that looking good. It's not the best yea. So who's
in charge of Alpha? Yeah, so they have this team principle.
He's been part of the Alpha Tari tour Rosso brand
for a very long times. Frands Tossed or Toast depending
on who you ask, Uh, he's he definitely has a
(11:45):
bit of a personality, but he's not always the central focus,
like someone like Christian Horn. Right, you're telling me his
name is French Toast, Yes, keep that in, please high
promise me that you'll keep it in. Or guy French Toast, Uh,
despite the name, does not have as much of a
presence to the extent. But I think it's because Christian
(12:06):
Horn or Helmet Marco from Red Bull or such big
personalities that's kind of hard to compete with them. And
then you have people like Total Wolf at Mercedes who's
also a presence. So there's a lot of midfield teams
where their actual team principles or head haunchos are not
as I don't know, they don't have as much of
a kind of following just because they're they're hanging out
or chilling or or whatever. I will say one of
(12:27):
one of the most interesting things about friends is back
in our French if we want to call him, that is,
back in two thousand seven. Uh, there was an American
F one driver at the time with the greatest race
car driver name of all time. It was Hi, guys,
I'm Scott Speed. Scott Speed. That's a great name. It
sounds fake, right, It's Scott Speed. And Scott Speed alleged
fifteen years ago that France had assaulted him over an
(12:50):
incident on the track. Speed claimed in an interview that
tossed grabbed him right below the neck on his fireproof
shirt and jerked him back and forth, let go and
then pushed him into a wall. So, of course Frances
Toast completely denies this whole story. And regardless of Scott
Speeds not having a correct time in their car in
(13:10):
the Tora Basso car, not driving fast, and so soon
after the incident, he is fired for low performance. And
of course his whole spin on this is that, you know,
almost conspiratorial idea that he hates them, it's terrible working
with them. He never wants to work with France toast again.
So with Scott he left the sport quickly. One could
say it was a speedy exit for that was what
(13:33):
we need, that was what we needed. But I will
say the overall I think good thing about alf A
towery is you know there are a team that's sort
of known to help funnel in champions right because we
have a Sebastian battle, you have a max for staff.
These other other guys going further back who are are
(13:54):
kind of in that similar boat. So I think if
you're if you're someone who wants to root for people
who could potentially do a lot in the future, they
can be sort of a great a great pick. And
also certain people, yeah, like to root for midfield teams
and don't want to give all that credit to the
guys at the top. Yeah. So, and it takes a
while to become comfortable racing at this level. I'm sure
(14:15):
Red Bulls sees Alpha Tower is a way to give
championship drivers who are very young experience exactly, and also
a good time to kind of see, okay, can you
handle any form of pressure of one without necessarily which
unfortunately have Red bull has been handing over the car
too early to someone unproven in there. They're kind of
mainstable drivers. So who are the drivers. We got French
(14:37):
Toast as the team principal. Who's driving the cars. We
have French Fry. We see number one um and we
have scar Go in the other seat. So yeah, we're
all good. We'll get into the Alpha TOWERI drivers right
after this short break. All right, we're back from our
break and we are diving right into the two drivers
(14:58):
at Alfa Towery. We have Per Ghastly and then we
have Yuki Sonoda, two very different drivers. They do get
along very well. So let's start with Pierre Ghastly. As
you can probably tell from a name like Pierre, he
is French, Verry French. So Pierre comes from a family
that has been in motor sports in somewhere or another,
not f one level, but his grandfather competed in carding.
(15:21):
His grandmother was actually a carding champion. Grandmother act feminism,
love to see it. His father dabbled in a number
of different motor sports, so we did like carding, rallying
and Durrance racing. So he's kind of jumped around. Pierre's
also the youngest he has I think four or five
half siblings who are older than him, so he's kind
of the the youngest of of the bunch. Basically, he
(15:44):
takes up carding, is successful, moves on to the junior formulas.
He ends up winning, so he's you know, he's well
on his way. He's also competing against drivers like Charlotte
Claire who is er Monico but obviously races a lot
in France, as well as estemont Ocon. They grew up
forty five minutes from each other growing up, They've they've
spent their their lives compete against each other just because
(16:04):
they're literally from the same area of France. So Pierre
makes his Formula One debut back in for Toro Rosso
what it was called then, and it ends up racing
full time for the team through He's looking good, he's
looking promising, you know, getting his his sea legs, so
to speak. He had a couple of very impressive qualifyings
(16:25):
in his first full season. He had a P four
and there, a piece six, a piece seven, So in
some cases he is out qualifying the machinery that he's
been given. Pierre ghastly, the young French, absolutely unbelievable. Fourth
position Now, granted, he would often lose places in the
(16:50):
actual race, you know, because the car just can't keep
that pace over an extended period of time. But the
fact that he everyone agreed he was way over qualifying
the car like what it should have been, which only
speaks to his talent. But as we know, for Red Bull,
this cataclysmic thing happens where Dania Ricardo surprises them by
not re signing, and as we know from that episode
as well, Dana ricardo leaving creates another sort of domino
(17:13):
effect of other things that end up happening, one of
which is that Red Bull didn't really have a successor
to Danna Ricardo at this point, but had also made
it very clear to everyone that Max were Stapping was
their guy, So it led to this this bizarre void
to be filled by his by his labsence. Also, Dania
Ricardo was a huge personality, as we've discussed, so they're
kind of trying to figure out what to do. This was,
(17:33):
you know, several years ago, Piers in his early twenties,
so they end up saying, hey, let's let's call him up,
despite the fact that you know, he'd only competed in
his second season of the sport, and unfortunately he ends
up crashing and burning spectacularly. You've got to say, only
one side of that garage is consistently delivering. At the moment,
Pierre Ghastly qualified six cents off his teammate, Ghastly finished
(17:55):
p eleven. There were a lot of races where Max
was lapping him. He just got absolutely walloped by Max.
And the standings, yeah, it was. It was bad. He's
gone to unlock that part of him that we know
is capable of bringing home better results. He ends up
only completing twelve races before Red Bull yanks him from
(18:15):
the seat and demotes him back down to the then
Toro Rosso team. That's humiliating, Yeah, really harsh. And on
top of that, a big issue that's come up since
then in retrospect is people feel like the car was
much more tailored to Max's strengths than Pierre's. So if
you're Pierre, you're a very talented driver, you just don't
drive like Max. So if you're in a car that
is not made for it is very much made for
(18:36):
your your biggest competitor, you know your teammate, you're really
setting someone up to fail Max is uh, you know,
he's a rocket ship and his whatever they call the
like all the fire and all the smoke that comes
out of the back of the rocket. It's too big.
Whatever's around just gonna get sucked up into Max, you know.
(18:58):
So I wouldn't want to drive under Max. So Pierre
is in this tough position. Obviously, it's devastating and humiliating
to be demoted, not just demoted in general, but halfway
through a season that's pretty pretty bad. And then to
make matters worse, he's back at Toro Rosso and his
best friend Antoine who Bear was a very promising driver
(19:18):
in Formula two. Antoine who Bear dies in a race
in Belgium. This is during also an F one race weekend,
so Pierre is there at the track. It's incredibly sad.
This is this is bottom. I mean, there's career abouttom
and then there's death. That's that's this is This is
a new level entangling personal and professional tragedy. In the
(19:40):
span of a few weeks, we lived in the same
flat full five years. We went to same school where
in the same classroom. Um, I've just known these guys
in so long. We've shared so many moments on track
and off track, especially um that yeah, honestly, I still
have believe it. He actually a really extensive personal essay
on the Internet and about the experience, but basically one
(20:01):
of the last conversations he had with Antoine was about
his emotion, and Antoine kind of told me, you'll keep going.
You're prove them wrong, like you've got this. So obviously
he's devastated that his friend has died, but also feels
really motivated. Interestingly, we actually talked to another driver for
this podcast, taughtinga Calderone. So she was Antoine's teammate when
this accident happened, and she said something very similar to
(20:23):
pire because I I sort of pose the question of well,
did did watching your teammate die make you fear racing
more or whatever? And her and here actually very similar
in terms of saying For me, it opened as well
in my mind, I respect what I do much more now, Um,
I don't. I'm not afraid of it. I think you
(20:43):
know that I was maybe not enjoying it as as
much as I should because because of the pressure that
I was putting myself. That reminded me that what the
most important thing is if unfortunately I and up dying
in an accident or whatever. I know that I'm doing
(21:05):
what I love most. You you have to be able
to to do what you love most to be happy,
and we'll see how much we we get to stay
in this world doing that. That's a beautiful delusional mind
that you need to be a world class driver. Driver. Yeah,
oh yeah, big time. So anyway, after this happens, he
(21:26):
does start to improve back at at then you know,
at Torboso Afatari uh and eventually actually in it's really
exciting Castle is in France for the Alpha Tsari. He
ends up winning his first ever Grand Prix. Is Alpha
Tari Pia Castle when is the Italian Grand Prix? Oh my,
(21:50):
oh my. Alpha Tari had a couple of podiums and
obviously points to their name, but this was their first win.
So this was a very big deal multiple front. It
wasn't an extra big because it was in Italy and
it was in their home Grand Prix, so it's just yeah,
it's just one of those feel good stories. Oh my god,
what did we do? Like he's like you can see him, like,
(22:12):
you know, pumping his fists and he's so excited. God, guys, again, God,
that was a beautiful moment. And I don't know anything
about this sport, but when they when they show you
the driver and you get to hear the audio of
(22:34):
when they win, it's just it doesn't matter if you
know anything or not. It's beautiful. Yeah, it's awesome for me.
The driver that gives me the most excitement is somebody
like a Pier Ghastly. You're hearing from Magnus Grieves, co
founder and publisher of Race Weekend. He always has the
potential to do better than anybody anticipates that he's going
(22:57):
to do given the car that he's in, and and
he seems to really appreciate a great result. And also
you want to see Pierre Ghastly get another chance on
a big team. If you want to just cheer for
somebody who could win, you're limiting yourself to a pool
of about four or five of the twenty drivers. You
(23:19):
need to understand the story of that person. You need
to understand where they're coming from, where they're trying to
get to because you need to be able to cheer
for somebody when they finished fifth and get as much
joy as somebody else finishing first. So Pierre, nice guy.
Everyone likes some that can't be the whole story, Lily.
He must he must have some controversy, He must have
(23:41):
some some dark secrets. The biggest problem with Pierre and
his career, so he's reached twenty six. It's basically middle
aged in the sport of f one, which is sad
to say and making me feel very old. Yeah. Uh,
And the problem he has is this, So obviously he
got promoted to the Red Bull seat, he tanked in
(24:01):
the Red Bull seat. Hellman Marco, the very brash advisor
and and kind of you know, person in charge of
all the driver development, has made it clear that Pierre
is most likely never going to get back in that seat.
So if you're Pierre, you're asking yourself, Okay, I'm stuck
on this sister team that's kind of the junior team
that basically has a ceiling to how well they're gonna do.
(24:24):
But I've also been a Red Bull driver my entire career.
Where can I go from here? So that's I think
what he's dealing with right now. And there's been a
lot of questions and speculation because yeah, he is kind
of stuck. If Pierre has self belief, which I think
he does, someone's going to pick him up. Also, funk
that guy who says he's never going to get in
a red Bull seat again. If he keeps winning races
at Alpha Torre, maybe he'll say, I don't want your
(24:46):
dumb red Bull seat. I want my Alpha Tori seat,
thank you very much, I will say to the team
loves Pierre like they are like one happy family with Pierre.
He loves the guys like everyone on the team, you know.
So it's like it's gonna be pain well when he
has to part with them. But hope, I think the
hope why a lot of people is that he ends
up somewhere better or where there's actually a career trajectory
(25:07):
that isn't just in a holding pattern, you know, perpetually
holding pattern, you know, perpetually perpetually holding pattern, perpetually perpetually.
So who's the who's this other driver? Other driver? We've
got Yuki Sonoda who two sophomore season. This guy is
not a tall man. He is barely not a boy,
(25:30):
and he is not tall. I don't want to sound
like short was a derogatory term, because it's not. But
he isn't tall even by F one standards. He is short.
So just to recap here, most drivers are between five
seven to five ten, usually five eight, five nine, maybe
uh in the tallest drivers or there's a couple who
are six ft six ft one, but they're very skinny
(25:51):
and kind of lanky. Allah Estabato con or a George Russell.
On the other end of the spectrum, I think the
next shortest drivers like five six, and then you've got
Yuki at five two, and he's so short to the
point where they actually had to like re engineer the
cars that his feet could could actually touch the pedals
because they basically, yeah, I'm excited to hear about this
(26:15):
guy because we haven't had a lot of non white
European men who drive a race car. Yes, and it's
been a little bit since they've had a Japanese driver
in particular, and I will say that there's a huge
Japanese fan base. For one, his assent to Formula one
has been very quick, which means he's been pretty good.
(26:35):
Ashley Khalita Again, so from I believe Japanese F four
to Formula one, I think it just took him over
three years. And when he arrived in twenty nine and
started racing around Europe. He had no knowledge of the
circuits which track information is everything. To the fact he's
been doing so well in the minimal amount of experience
quote unquote, he has comparatively to the other drivers on
(26:57):
the field with him, he had has placed very impressively
in my opinion, in addition to being a very talented
member of the Red Bull Young Driver Program. Something else
that's helpful is that at this point we've talked about
Honda before, and now Honda is the l O l
j K manufacturer and constructor of Formula One. They're in,
(27:18):
they're out, They're they're supplying engines, they're they're actually in
the sport. They're out again. So as of late they
have been supplying engines to to Red Bull, and so
Honda kind of says to Red Bull, hey, we're besties. Right,
there's a Japanese driver and we're a Japanese company, and
wouldn't it be great if you gave this seat to
(27:39):
this nice man who is from Japan. Uh And there
is there's always controversy whenever something like that happens, because
always other drivers who people wanted to see an F
one who did better than him, who then don't get
a seat and uh but yeah, so basically it does help.
You know, the stars aligned, so to speak, that Yuki
happens to be coming up through Formula two and does
(27:59):
well all at a time when a company like Honda
has a little bit of poll right, and it's with
the program that he's he's in, He's in Red Bull.
So so Yuki rookie season, it was a little inconsistent.
So his first race, his debut race and Formula one
he gets p nine. You need a fantastic race, fantastic
slow down, so he gets two points. It's very exciting.
(28:22):
Everyone's like, that's great. Yeah, However, he just starts having
a little bit of trouble. We have our first spina here.
Yuki Sonoda never been to this track before. He starts
spinning out a lot. He starts crashing quite a bit,
and some of this is expected with rookies, you know
what happens. I mean, it's impossible to go rookie season
without spinning out a couple of times or just getting
getting the feel for the car. You know, Formula one
(28:43):
cars aren't even the same as Formula two, right, Like
there's just such a big learning curve and make that
jump up, so that's expected to a certain extent. But
on top of everything else, yet he's kind of rude
on the radio to his race engineer during races, and
cursing a lot and and just being kind of rude.
So Yuki is definitely not the main character, which is unfortunate,
(29:04):
but I think but he's definitely I'm trying to think
of like relevant side characters that have taken over TV
shows and you're really like, wow, maybe they should be
the main character. And I really think that's that's Yuki
with the experience he has, and maybe he has had
a lack of consistency in one. However, he's definitely shown
plenty of moments where he can compete with the top dogs.
(29:26):
Is he forgive my ignorance on this? Is he speaking
English with his yes so that everyone has to speak
English when it comes to race communications? Yet I think
to keep everything standardized and yeah, you know, so they
can hear what the hell is going on exactly. Um,
And and on top of that that, yeah, he's talked
about this. He really struggled, especially in the pandemic. You know,
Japan had a lot of lockdowns and whatnot. Is very
(29:47):
hard to get back home, he dealt with a lot
of homesickness, and he's been away for a while from home,
and at this point, you know, he's twenty years old,
so he's been away from home for several years. Um,
you know, he he There's also he does speak English,
but there is somewhat of a language barrier. There's also
gonna be you know, barriers in terms of customs and
how different you know, the West does things versus the
East that he has to deal with. On top of
(30:08):
all this, he does have some issues with like discipline.
There's actually like a scene in Drive to Survive season
four when he makes his first appearance on the show,
obviously it's his first season where basically he's complaining about
having to just like run, like doing a normal training run,
and that's kind of just generally with them. He's even
joked about this how he's like, oh, I'd rather lie
down and like eat a sandwich then go exercise, which
(30:30):
you know, it kind of doesn't doesn't work for certain people,
but I will send the flip side. Yuki is a
very fun and wacky personality. He wears his heart on
his sleeve and it's brutally honest with the press. Is
that more sort of expectation from from helmet and did
he uh with a helmet? I got we got this
big this afternoon a BM, and I don't think it's
(30:53):
gonna be fun conversation between us sometimes the teams like
you can't you can't say that out out or or
even a lot of his dynamic with Pierre. Pierre is
almost like an older brother do Yuki, And half the
time Uki will say something inappropriate, not problematic, just inappropriate
or bizarre, you know, Pierce, like you can't do that,
like you absolutely need to be quiet. They probably put
(31:14):
him through endless media training and he's still going to
say what he's gonna say, and never necessarily always a
rude way, but just he'll just be really really upfront
with you have a good report, Yeah, they have a
very good report. I think it does help that Pierre
is so well established on that team and he is
the number one. But in the same sense, Yuki is
a rookie, right and he just came on. So I
think that there's not this feeling of resentment or whatnot
(31:38):
from from that dynamic. Quick break and we'll be back.
So that's that's alf a towery I would say for Pierre,
you know, I think Pierre's kind of getting this. This
reputation is like the comeback kid, right, like, really was
down of the dumps, had a lot of personal and
professional tragedy at the same time, and has not only
risen above it, but totally slayed the game in the process.
(31:59):
Pierre I like very very much. I love anybody who
gets pushed aside for some other new young hot shot
and he has to kind of get some grit, he
has some adversity in his past, true adversity death, and
then and then we've got Yuki. You know, I'm a
little bit afraid that Formula one sees Yuki as this
(32:20):
odd Asian entity that we don't know what to do with.
And even some of the videos it was kind of like,
look at him trying to do the funny thing, and
some of that might just be because he's so young
and they don't know what to do with, you know,
like it almost seems like gimmicky, a little alienating, Yeah, exactly.
(32:40):
So my hope is that Yuki kind of keeps his
head down and doesn't doesn't let that ship bother him,
and then just wins on the racetrack. I'm not. I don't.
I haven't seen enough to say that about from the one,
but it just feels like maybe they don't really know
how to embrace who he is yet. It's easy to
see the cute face as an American and Western we
(33:01):
see Japanese and we kind of like don't really know
what it means, and it's like, what is this thing
over here? But at the end of the day, it's like,
if he's a bad motherfucker in the race car, that's awesome.
I mean, like I says, racing has been a little consistent.
Somebodays he's brilliant. Other days, Yeah, he's crashing into a
wall multiple times on the weekend. But I think he
does bring a very different personality and kind of a
different different style about him. And he is, Yeah, he's
so young, like he was twenty when he came in, right,
(33:23):
he can barely legally drink in the US. So and
when you're a rookie and they say jump, you just
have to say how high? Especially in your team when
your teammate is pere ghastly who had just come off
a win, the first win on the team's history in
this like incredibly, you know, epic fashion, Like that's your teammate.
You gotta kind of roll with it a little bit
and and play into the fact that you know he's
(33:45):
the guy. How are you feeling about Alpha TWI, How
do you feel like? I like Alfa a lot. I
like the colors, I like the the logo. Their car
looks fast. You know. My least favorite part of Alpha
Torre is that they're part of Red Bull. Yeah, if
you told me this was a separate team, I'd be like,
I think I'm all in on this team. It's like,
I love my friend Paul. He's funny, he has a
(34:08):
good sense of adventure. He always makes me laugh. His wife,
you know what I mean. It's like it's like Alpha Tarry.
I just wish it would become its own thing. I
feel like if Alpha Towery started winning, winning, winning, Red
Bull would like secretly change up their wrench box so
it has the wrong tools or something. That's just like,
that's just how I feel about it. I wouldn't put
that above Christian Horner or Helmet Marko to do themselves.
(34:32):
I mean, if Yuki Sonoda is making half a million
a year and Max is making twenty five million, that
means in the organization, Max is seen as fifty times
the worth of Yuki. That's a huge difference. Yes, if
I was Yuki, I would crash my car into Max.
He's Yuki has done that with most of the growth,
but a little bit of a rookie season. I like
(34:55):
Alpha Tori, I like Alfa Tori. And and where where
do they act in your overall Where are they? I
would say they're top three from me? Is that interesting?
On the podiums? Yeah, Ferrari's still up there. I like Alpha. Um,
well it's Williams. Of course we haven't even talked. Was
gonna say, and we talked about Williams? No, no, no,
(35:15):
we haven't. But um yeah, I don't know. For some reason,
they're connecting with me. Yeah, watch the rubbing of the pants. Sorry,
who's this other person's voice that I only occasionally here,
not as often as YOHI. But yeah, so that's our
sound engineer, Rob. I know you were supposed to be
the only non F one person coming into the sport. Hilariously,
(35:37):
Rob was just you know, assigned to deal with us
in the studio technical. Yeah, but he has become a
massive F one fan over the course of this recording. Definitely, definitely, Rob.
You've had You've had some disagreements with some of Michael's opinions,
his driver opinions. Oh god, what is it? What is
this my Twitter page? All of a sudden, I like Estevan?
(35:59):
Who Why do you like est? I think he hasn't
had his time yet, and I think there's an opportunity
for him to have his time, and I think it'd
be cool to see. I strongly disagree with Rob, and
I think there's a reason that he works in the
audio booth and not sitting where I'm wait, So, who
do you not like? Rob? Checko? Really? How I've said
(36:25):
this before, but we connect with people for certain reasons.
And the thing that I love about Checko is he's
a father of three. Now, there is nothing more selfless
and humiliating than being a parent, you know, like you're
just constantly faced with your mortality and how unimportant your
personal life is. All of that is the opposite of
(36:49):
what it takes to be a Formula one driver. So
I just find that dichotomy so fascinating. That he probably
goes home and is the fifth most important person in
his house and then he goes to the race track,
and well, even though he's behind Max, he has to
act and behave and have the ego of I am
the best driver around this course. I find that fascinating.
I have no idea who this guy is in real life.
(37:10):
He could be a total prick. I don't know. And
there there's more. Dad's on the in the race track, right. Yeah,
we're gonna talk about a very exciting one next episode. Anyways, Rob,
turn your microphone off from now on. Okay, loud and clear.
Uh So, next time we're going on to the third
(37:30):
team in the midfield with an a name Aston Martin,
which I'm sure you will have thoughts and opinions just
by you know, the association with the name Aston Martin.
Aston Martin is one of my favorite teams to talk
about in the sense that at the beginning of the
season we talked about how F one is a billionaire's playground.
I would specify that that playground is mostly Aston Martin drama.
(37:51):
We're going to get into a lot of weight, yeah,
a lot of billionaires who have done a lot of
not great things. We've got a terrifying looking owner of
the team. We're going to really dive into this term
of page Driver that we've kind of thrown around. So yeah,
I mean everything that I've heard about Aston Martin on
the surface is ripe for some strong opinions. Yeah, if
you've ever wanted to eat the rich, you want to
(38:11):
eat Aston Martin. So so it's gonna be a great, fun,
very rich time to be had. Alright, anything else you
high before we I think we can wrap all right?
Thank you? Jumping in a lot. It's been a week, okay,
(38:38):
m hm, this has been Choosing Sides F one, a
production from Sports Illustrated Studios and I Heart Radio. The
show was hosted by Michael Costa and Lily Hermit. This
episode was produced by Lily Herman and our senior producer
Johai Mattel, who is also the sound designer at the
(38:58):
Cutting Room Studios. We recorded with engineer Robert O'Leary, mastering
by Sella Weiss Bloom. Max Miller is the executive producer
and Brandon Getchas is head of Audio at SI Studios.
I Heart Radio. Sean ty Toone is our executive producer.
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
(39:21):
Don't forget to rate and subscribe, and tell your friends
to choose a side that was kind of crazy. I like,
got it, I got enough. I'm I might start a
podcast tomorrow
Host
Michael Kosta
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