August 16, 2022 • 42 mins
It's time to dive into a true billionaires' playground! This week, Lily and Michael unpack the bizarre history of Aston Martin (or as it's been known in recent years, Force India, Racing Point Force India, and Racing Point). They talk about the Richie Richies who've made this team what it is today and the strange 2022 Aston Martin driver lineup of Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll. However, because Seb announced his retirement after this year last month, Lily will also introduce Michael to the concept of silly season — a wacky time in the F1 calendar year that's unfolding right as this episode airs.
Special thanks to our guests: Nicole Sievers and Kate Lizotte.
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):
All right, Michael, Yes, for this episode. Admittedly I wanted
to get you like caviar or something, but perfect. I
know the problem that was, I was like, how can
I possibly expense this to like my boss, my boss's boss,
and like the accounts payable team. So I got you
a very expensive pastry called a key line baby bunt.
(00:21):
Oh I love I always get key line pie. So
I got you an expensive looking Wow, that is expensive looking, right,
ladies and gentlemen, let me describe this to you. It
looks like the crown that the queen would wear, and
then shoved in the middle are three fresh raspberries, only
the best. Thank you for this. Okay, So this is
(00:41):
because Aston Martin is the team today, as Marmes the team.
There's a metaphor in this somehow that they are the
key line baby bunt of the courage. I don't know.
If there's too many things in a in a pastry again,
that's that's a good metaphor for them. Actually, yes, too
much in a pastry? Yeah, okay, great, I'm gonna have
a bite, go for it. Yes, please tell me how
it is. Mm hmm. Let me see if I can
(01:04):
chew real close to the micro SMR. Yes, there's some
nice lime. There's some nice sweetness which feels good in
my mouth. Something that's not the first time I've said
that today, And it feels like they need to decide
what this pastry is. It's too many things at once. Yes,
(01:29):
from my Heart Radio and Sports Illustrated Studios, this is
choosing sides. One Wow, Wow, today's team, asked in Martin.
I feel like they are a less than in contradictions.
(01:51):
They're a new team, but they're also kind of historic
and have a really storied name behind them. There are
a team that tries to be calm on the surface
and cool and collected, but then they've got a chaotic backstory.
And then they've also got two drivers who could not
be more different in terms of background and race history
and just I think general demeanor as well. So on
(02:13):
top of being this lesson in contradictions, we're gonna be
talking about just piles and piles of money, much of
it illegally obtained. So we've got a lot of drama.
If white collar crime is your thing, this is the
episode for you. We've got. We've got another episode where
there's a real, a real high point in the Daddy
(02:33):
issue Mount Olympus right like, we're reaching that peak again.
It's been a little while since we've had someone with
this this level of Dad's stuff going on, so plenty
to get to today. So first and foremost, Michael, when
I say Aston Martin, what what comes to mind for you?
James Bond, of course, I think that's it. There, touched
(02:59):
and asked Martin, you know, I don't. I don't know
if I've ever ever seen one other than on TV.
I think I'm in a similar boat. I don't think
I've just certainly never driven one or come close to
driving one. I don't think I'm rich enough to even
like be in the presence of one. So when I
heard that Aston Martin had a team on Formula One,
I assumed that they would be a championship team. The
(03:21):
assumption makes sense, it is not correct, which is fun
less than in contradiction exactly like, it just feels like
it should be a number one team. So let's let's
learn about it. Let's let's talk Aston Martin. So they
are a car manufacturer found in a very much associated
with with British culture, and obviously a luxury brand, as
(03:42):
we discussed obviously known for being the car of James Bond,
and it's also the vehicle of choice for certain members
of the British royal family apparently. I think it's like
Prince Charles who like demands to be driven around in
Aston Martin that runs on can you believe this separates
English white wine? God? Yeah, I know, so Asta Martin
(04:05):
in f one. The year is they entered exactly, That's
exactly how James Bond says it. Yes, nailed the accent.
So they enter, they use their own engine and their
own chassis, and they failed to score a single point.
So things are not looking great, but they say, hey,
(04:26):
we'll give it the old college try again, go into
the nineteen sixty season. Again score zero points. So at
this point they say, nope, we're done. We're not doing
this again. It's kind of humiliating and we're this luxury
brand and we're not winning, and like it's just not
good for us, right, So they leave and they proceed
to not touch Formula one for over sixty years. Yeah,
(04:49):
they really had some humble pie there. Yeah. So they
said no, thank you, j K, goodbye for for a
very long time. So they don't show up again until
the start of season. However, part of ASTI the fun
of Aston Martin isn't necessarily the Aston Martin team of today.
It's the collection of people who have made up a
version of this team under different names. So we're gonna
(05:12):
have to like back up before we go forward. As
we've discussed with Formula one teams, they get they change
hands a lot, right, Different people buy them, they sell them,
they change the brand when they get bar or sold.
They randomly change the brand, even if the same people
own it. This is very common in Formula one because
(05:35):
starting a Formula one team from scratch is just outrageously expensive,
even more so than just buying one with all the
people already attached, the factory and all of that stuff.
So the year is two thousand seven, and there are
two businessmen who are interested in buying an F one team.
One of them is an Indian businessman. The main character,
the protagonist of this part of the story, the biggest,
(05:56):
most flamboint example of the rich and the powerful the
high life, is none other than doctor j Malia or
Malia depending on who is talking. What are you a
fake one? Oh? So you just just like an honorary
degree or something yeah, yeah, Well I look like a
(06:16):
doctor and a Dutch businessman named Michael Mole who's less
of a of a character. But VJ is a massive,
if one fan. He really wants to bring He has
this vision of bringing an Indian presence to the sport.
He's just a massive personality. He's got lots of opinions.
He's very flashy. Is I have a BMW pull around occasionally,
(06:39):
one makes do with whatever one can find or get.
My favorite fun fact is that he's called an India
King of the good Times because he has this uber
extravagant lifestyle, has all these houses, spends all this money
even on the team. Is kind of known for being
a little bit ostentatious and their first two seasons at
Force India are a little bit dicey, but the team
(07:00):
starts scoring points in two thousand nine, they start to
rack up a few podiums. Victory for that man VJ
of India and the team that he has wanted to
own his whole life and really excitedly by the kind
of mid you're going into seventeen. They actually have two
years where they finished P four and the constructors Forest
(07:21):
India Force India so everything's looking great. People at the
fact that sometimes an underdog comes through and does the business. Yeah,
I think that's what makes formula one all about interesting.
It also shows that the small budget you can results.
Here's what's going on behind the scenes. So, yeah, we're
at seventeen. Our friend VJ here, you're probably wondering how
(07:44):
does he have all this money? And that's a question
lots of people want the answer to. So if we're
going even all the way back to he starts to
get into some financial trouble back in India. People are
looking at finances realizing that some things aren't adding up.
A lot of little, tiny things are starting to come
to the surface. In VJ suddenly picks up from India
(08:07):
and moves to Britain have information he was getting eleven
pieces of baggage eleven pieces of onboard baggage. Coincidentally, that
move coincides with Indian law enforcement and other agencies starting
to come after him to try and arrest him for
white collar financial crimes. There were seventeen Indian banks trying
(08:29):
to collect the equivalent of one point to billion dollars
in loans that VJ had taken out to gain stakes
in over three dozen companies worldwide. Have politicians allowed Jamalia
to get away? Have the politicians of India deliberately turned
a blind eye to what has been happening for the
last four years? Now looking good? And then it gets
(08:49):
to a point too, because he did this with you know,
around the globe, there are now dozens of agencies all
over the world looking into him for money laundering and
financial fraud, among many other charges. Right now, things are
flying at me fast and furious. My passport has been devoked.
I don't know what the government is going to do next.
(09:09):
This is all sort of like I said, building up
all of this explode. Has lost control of his FoST
India Formula one team. This has left him devastated. So
that's our guy, VJ. Thank you VJ for the the
fun white collar crime rich people. They're not really that rich.
They're just good at like moving money around until somebody
(09:31):
calls him out on their ship exactly exactly. So that's VJ.
So he sort of exists our story at this point.
So this starts to take us to present day leadership
because you know, there's this consortium investors that that buys
the team, saves them and the guy who's leading the
charge of this group of rich people for the Richie
rich of the richie riches is a Canadian fashion and
(09:54):
retail billionaire named Lawrence Stroll, which already just sounds like
a ch person. Name Stroll doesn't sound fast either, does it. Yeah.
What's also funny is his last name is actually stru Leovich,
and he changed it so that it would sound less
kind of like foreign and his family immigrant family, So
he changed it to make it sound a little more
imposing and a little more business. Ee, you're going to
(10:16):
change your name, change it to like one the race
Lawrence Formula one champion. We will be referring to him
for the rest of this episode as Daddy Stroll, and
he will soon see why. I'm going to show you
some photos of Lawrence Stroll so you can get an
idea of what we're dealing with. Here. Hold on, okay,
here is Lawrence Stroll. Okay, Lawrence Stroll. Three pictures, long face,
(10:43):
long face, white hair, white beard, big deep china, like
a caricature. And you know, Drawer would have a field
day with this guy's face. He would need like legal
paper because it needs to be so long. And then
the in the middle picture, there's a one and who's
very beautiful life. She looks like she's about eighteen years old.
(11:04):
Lawrence Stroll gives off this super villain kind of vibe
you like want him to have, like a fluffy white
cat and like sitting a chair just like petting the cat.
That's the way you you just picture. This is Kate
Lazzutte and Nicole Seevers. They are co creators of Two
Girls One Formula Honestly, like, I really just appreciate the
energy he's bringing to Formula one. I think he knows
(11:27):
the part that he plays and he plays it really well.
He doesn't try to be liked by anyone. He's like,
I'm here to make this the best business that I can.
And Formula one is a business. Everyone should keep that
in mind for all decisions made about this sport. How
did Daddy Stroll make his money? So he owns a
bunch of different like fashion conglomerates in Canada and kind
(11:48):
of owns all these different fashion houses there and some
retail stuff. Yeah, and as you can tell, he's a
very imposing guy. Um, he's very forceful. He makes his
opinion known, he makes he make sure you're aware that
he is the team owner who has a lot of money. Uh,
and he's been known to butt heads with quite a
few members of leadership over time. All right, so he
steps in to save Force India and uh, let me
(12:14):
guess he's not so perfect either. So he has a
son named Lance, and Lance is like, you know what, Dad,
I want to be a Formula one driver. So, prior
to this whole Force India racing point conundrum, driver Lance
is saying to daddy's stroll, yeah, I want to drive
(12:34):
an F one. You know he did okay. We'll get
it more into Lance's history in a little bit, but
he did okay in the junior formulas. So he's like,
I want to drive an F one. And so his
dad goes to a little fan favorite team called Williams
and says, hey Williams. Again. This is like he's like,
you guys really are not doing well financially. I have
some money for you, like a lot of money. Like
(12:55):
I think it's eighty million dollars worth of money or
something to that effect. It wouldn't be great if I
could give you that money. If Lance were to show
up in that seat, that seems so this actually a
perfect introduction to a term that you've you've heard me
use but not really go into. It's called page driver.
So there's a lot of discussion over who and what
(13:17):
is a page driver, But at the very least everyone's
in agreement that if, especially if like a family member
or or you use kind of personal connections to guarantee
a lot of money to a team to get a
seat like that's a page driver. So obviously in Formula
one you do need to still have the requisite number
of super license points like there are. You can't just
have anyone who's rich by a seat. But still you
(13:39):
might have some drivers who normally wouldn't be under consideration
for seats because someone you know is guaranteeing on their
personal behalf a seat on the on the grid, usually
their concessions made for them and things like that. So
lands Stroll comes into Formula one very much a pay
driver under the thumb of his father Daddy Lauren, is
(14:00):
Yuki at Alpha Tory considered a paid driver. He's not,
though there's a couple of cases like Yuki where there
are some other influences that sort of help their case.
But I think people, especially again, there's a lot of
debate over where this is tight because I have certain
friends who do say, like these eight drivers are paid drivers,
or it's also not someone who's necessarily rich, like you
(14:21):
can be a rich person who still gets into F
one on your own merit and doesn't have a parent,
you know, saying I'm gonna give eighty million dollars to
a team to get you a seat. Everyone is in
agreement though that land Stroll is a paid driver. Like
everyone's debating Yuki or another guy Joe Guan You who
has some connections to some Chinese maybe Chinese government or business.
But everyone's an agreement. Landstrole is a paid driver through
(14:42):
and through. It's just such a rough way to start.
No one gives you any respect, right exactly exactly, and
he does have a rough go of it. Williams is
doing terribly at this point, really in the toilet, and
it just keeps going downhill. And so Lauren said, all right,
fuck it, I'm buying my own team for Lance um
and so then he buys racing Point. Lance becomes every
Sing eight driver and you know, the rest is kind
of history. But this past year they have become not
(15:06):
this past year, last year, yeah, before sorry, they're all
blending together. Um became Aston Martin and so now they're
this iconic green color. I love the color palette one. Anyway,
Daddy Stroll takes over the team or gets, you know,
some ownership of the team after rebranded to just Racing Point.
They dropped the whole Force Indian name for a variety
of obvious reasons. And yeah, Daddy Stroll takes the helm.
(15:29):
His son Lances in one of the two seats. The
other seat is our buddy Chucko, who keeps popping up
to Checho. Actually, the bulk of his career was spent
at Force India slash Racing Point, so he was there
for like an next seven or eight seasons between all
their different names. So he's he's seen a lot. So
as Lance made a podium or anything he has, Yeah,
we'll get into Lance. It's a little more complicated. Yeah.
(15:52):
So so this Racing Point iteration of the team ends
on a high note. They do get p four in
the Constructor's Championship, so we're like, okay, you know, it's
pretty good. Yeah, yeah, and uh, here's then what Daddy
Stroll continues to enter the story again and again. Uh,
Daddy Stroll buys a sixteen point seven percent stake in
(16:12):
Aston Martin around this time. He kind of uses that
steak to help get the team to be the brand,
you know, the name behind NF one team, not just
a sponsor. So then starting with one, they become Aston Martin. Okay,
so that's the history. What does the team look like now? So?
Aston Martin is definitely a midfield team. They finished in
(16:34):
p seven in the standings and they have really been
struggling in two with the new regulations. You haven't told
me one thing about this team that's likable so far.
Why are we still talking about it? Can we move
on to the next team? I will say, I think
you're gonna like the first driver on this team we're
going to talk about it better not be Daddy Stroll's kids.
(16:56):
It's Lands, no kidd gets, not Lance quick break and
we'll be back. So we're gonna actually talk about a
driver who has come up quite a bit over the
season so far. Name a Lot. Yes, we got Sebastian Vettle. Yeah,
so we finally get to dive into two. Seb he
has called seb opted on the grid. So so so Bus
in fact an icon, a legend in Formula one. He
as we've already discussed, he's a four time world champion,
(17:18):
got all four of those championships, yeah, in a row.
He's really been a stalwart. I mean he's been there
for a decade and a half. He's only thirty four
now as of this recording, so he's he's old and
yet young for for the sport of F one experience too. Yeah,
and and also comes from some more humble beginnings. He
didn't come for money. His dad was actually a carpenter
(17:38):
and he's German German driver Sebastian Petal. He started krting
just recreationally at the age of three, but started taking
it more seriously around you know, late elementary schools around
eight ish, and he became part of this really primitive
Red Bull junior team. He really started to quickly distinguish
himself in in kind of senior krding and then these
(17:58):
junior open wheel aracing categories, and finally in two thousand
and six he is called up to the BMW Souber
team before very quickly jumping over to Toro Rosso now
known as Alpha TOWERI. So, um, what is interesting is
said could be a little bit of noxious, right very brash,
very hyper competitive, especially when he's young. He is still
(18:19):
to this day the youngest Formula One driver to win
the world title. I think he beats Max by like
X number of days and months or whatnot. He was
one of the youngest everyone his first one at twenty three.
So you had a guy who had a lot of
money and power and fame at a very young age.
He's this young kid who suddenly, you know, is catapulted
in this very alpha male team of Red Bull. He
(18:40):
was a guy they had to make a rule. He
used to do donuts after winning championships. We'll get on
top of the car and do the big you know,
like yell with the arms and the fists in the air.
So definitely a showy guy, not particularly like externally humble.
Uh yeah, But in his younger years kills the game.
Four years wor world championships. He hits a little bit
of a slum uh the year after his fourth championship,
(19:03):
so in he makes the move to Ferrari and and
he does do well. He finishes P three in the
championship Driver's Championship one year he gets two P two
finishes behind Lewis Hamilton's though it's not necessarily super close
because Mercedes, as we know, is really on a tear
with their bajillion Constructors Championships and Driver's Championships, and when
(19:26):
we talked about this a little bit in the Ferrari episode,
but they decided they want to move in a different direction.
The big drama is that they basically announced at the
start of the season that they are not going to
keep seb after that season, which I think everyone would
agree was a real kind of pr strategy nightmare. I
love you and I want to be with you, but
we're going to break up in a year. Yeah, in
(19:47):
like nine more months, and we're in this you know,
this super expensive, high stakes sport where you could die
at any time, but like we're done, so like yeah
so and surreal also like it isn't in fact me,
it is you. He then ends up choosing to go
to be about to be renamed Aston Martin team starting
(20:08):
why keep Sebastian Vettle around? Why keep an older driver
around if if it's not really winning over and over again.
So one of the things that's really great about seven
this was even said about him when he was a
younger driver. He's very good at the technical aspects of
the sport, and it's been said that he can take
the team through how he felt at every corner, every turn.
(20:30):
He remembers when something malfunctions or how it felt or
he didn't like this call or that, so he can
have he has like perfect recall of all of this
stuff and knows how to talk about it in engineering terms. Again,
not every driver can do that, and even Lance has
sort of joked not Daddy Stroll, but the Sun. Lance
has joked about like, yeah, suddenly are our debriefs after
races are like two hours long? Because Seb can literally
(20:51):
remember and he's like, I didn't even think of half
the stuff. And Seb can remember all of it and
can can like feel the car as he's talking about it.
So that's that's for teams, right, how much feedback that
is if you have a driver who can speak your language,
and how that can help just the team, you know,
years after he leaves because they have all of this
data from him. I could see that being very valuable.
He also can be a very entertaining driver to watch
(21:13):
when he's really on it or or in it. Um
I'd say to personality wise, this is where Seb's kind
of done a one eighty, or I think the public
perception of Seb has done a one eight. You know,
like I said, he was really kind of brash. It's
not fun when someone's winning all the time, as you've
said about Mercedes and Red Bull and even Ferrari at times,
and so Seb Sep was always kind of you know,
(21:33):
he'd be a little bit of prankster, a little bit
of a jokester in interviews, but in in his his
middle age, like in his thirties, Uh, it's it's definitely
come across differently. So now, for instance, he is married,
he does have three kids, and he really is like
the king of the dad joke. He's also interestingly very
much into compartmentalizing his personal life and his professional life.
(21:57):
So he has yeah, he has a wife and three kids.
They have not been seen on the track in years.
In fact, his son was born like three years ago.
We still don't know his name. He's never come to
a race and said Mary like his high school sweetheart.
And then on top of that, you know, he's the
other driver other than Lewis who's starting to really be
known for activism. So in particular, he is very into
talking about environmentalism and I'll show you some photos in
(22:20):
a second. Uh. He always comes in on the to
the track. Most drivers drive in, you know, in some
sort of like the Ferrari drivers come in Ferrari's the
acid Martin. You know, Lance comes in an Aasid Martin said,
bikes into Yeah, so he kind of has this, you know,
also a normal bike, you know, and and he'll stop
and take photos of people on the way in and
has his helmet. He's like dad, yeah, very very yeah. Um.
(22:42):
He also after Silverstone last year, after the race, he's
obviously exhausted. He actually went up in the stands and
picked up litter and so there's now been a movement
of fans who pick up litterate races after job. On
top of that, he is very supportive of the LGBTQ
community and actually or like the you know, the rainbow
(23:02):
flag on his helmet in a Middle Eastern country. To
make the point. Yeah, it's almost like we've watched Sebastian
grow up. Yeah. Seb's got all the likability for this team.
Yeah he he really his back must hurt from having
to carry the likability factor exactly. It is difficult to
be Sebastian vettal this is I love it. I love
(23:25):
the story. I love the cocky kid who was excellent?
Now who's picking up litter in the track? It's a
beautiful story. Yeah, this is very likable. Yeah right, very likable.
I hereby announced my retirement from Formula one by the
end of the twenty two season. Probably I should start
with a long list of people to think now, Oh
(23:47):
my god, I was I liked I liked him, you
really really liked he was a cool guy. Man. I
love this sport. It has been central to my life
since I can remember. I mean, he's not dead. Being
a racing driver has never been my soul lead entity.
So he joined Instagram to announce his retirement after never
having social media, in a video where it looks a
(24:07):
little bit like a hostage crisis situation. I'm Sebastian, father
of three children and husband to a wonderful woman. Very
close up, black and white. But he said he wants
to spend more time with his family and there are
a lot of social causes that he wants to put
more of his energy into. I believe there's still a
race to win. Farewell and thanks for letting me share
(24:29):
the track with you. I loved every bit of it
and may we all not be judged by our first
Instagram video poorsa. But people are obviously very sad and
(24:51):
it's kind of the end of an era with him leaving.
We wish him the best. But unfortunately Michael Costa down
to only nineteen drivers to choose from. This is a b.
This is a big loss and affects the trajectory of
this podcast. But we will adapt and we will make
it be a strength of ours. Yes, how very motivational.
(25:26):
So he sebs out. So then what does that mean?
There's an empty seat, right there is? And so we
get to talk about something called silly season in real
time slide whistle that was actually really excellent. I had
no idea where you were going with us. YOHI is impressed,
as I'm a clown. I'm essentially a clown. So okay.
(25:50):
So silly season is a phrase we hear not just
in F one, but motorsports and just in news in general. Basically,
F one silly season typically takes place during the summer,
the August summer break, which sure enough, Seve announces retirement
right before the last race prior to the break, and
so here's what has transpired. There are multiple threads here.
(26:11):
Let me first interrupt unbelievably fun entertaining that this sport
has something called silly season. No no, no, no, no
no no. Yes, these men in the carbon fiber death
tracks stopped. It's excellent. It's excellent. I love it. So
(26:35):
what do we have to expect from silly season? We
have got the greatest game of musical chairs going on.
I'm gonna try and take you through this. And for
all the listeners who are big F one fans, remember
that Michael is new. So I'm trying to break the
strong simple So Seb announces his retirement the following day,
(26:55):
So that is then August one, at four am Eastern
time in the US, the news breaks from Europe that
our pal, the pettiest man alive whom I love for,
Nando Alonso from Alpine, is moving to Aston Martin one failed,
which leaves an open seated Alpine. Yes, so Alpine has
(27:19):
a very talented young driver in their kind of driver
development program named Oscar Pastri. Oscar. There's a lot of
hype around him. He won Formula three his very first
year competing in it. So that lower formula the same
in Formula two, and very few drivers are able to
do that. So there's a lot of questions around, is he,
(27:42):
you know, a generational talent? What's the deal with Oscar?
He has just completely moved up these ranks so quickly.
Unfortunately for him, last year there was no seat for
him on the grid, so he we spoke about that.
He kind of got shafted a little bit exactly, and
it's pretty well known. While he kind of goes along
with all the Alpine promo stuff, he wants to be driving.
(28:04):
So so a day after in Fernando Alonzo announces Hey,
I'm moving to ask Martin peace out. Alpine puts out
a statement saying, great news. Oscar Piastre, the guy you
all wanted to see in this seat is an Alpine.
Isn't that lovely? We have solved this very simple issue.
It seems pretty simple to me. But it's not called
(28:25):
simple season, is it, Lily? It is not, Michael, You
are correct, silly season. People notice within a couple of minutes, hey,
Oscar is not posting anything to his social media, and
then sure enough he puts out the most iconic tweet
(28:46):
of all time, where He says, I understand that without
my agreement, Alpine f One have put out a press
release late this afternoon that I am driving for them
next year. This is wrong, and I have not find
a contract with Alpine for I will not be driving
for Alpine next year. Holy sh it. Yes, not just
(29:09):
we haven't figured out the agreement. It's not officially signed,
but I am not driving for them. He brought the
hammer down. WHOA how could this be? How can they
be on such different planets? So that's a great question,
to which I say, no one really knows, and everyone's
asking the exact same questions right now. How can this be?
(29:30):
How did none of these contracts get vetted or figured
out before all these big public announcements. What seems to
be happening currently Oscar when he put out those feelers,
one of the teams he has been cozying up to
at least his management has is McLaren again. Silly season, rumors, drama, intrigue.
No one actually knows. So as of now, we don't
(29:51):
know who is in the second Alpine seat for next year.
We don't know what's going on with Oscar Piastri's career.
What's up for grabs at this point on the grid. Yes, well,
here's what's officially up for grabs. With seat at Alpine,
we'll talk about Alfa Romeo shortly. Their rookie driver Joe
Guan Yuki Sonoda still doesn't officially have an extension one
(30:15):
of the seats at Williams. Your favorite team, Danda Ricardo,
who technically should have a seat, could potentially not have
a seat. I think everyone's over Daniel Ricardo A hot take.
This is difficult for the athlete. I mean they're really
driving race by race. They don't even know what's next year.
They don't even know where they'll be exactly. Yeah, so
(30:36):
they're trying to prove themselves in this back half of
the season if there isn't a contract in the works.
So yeah, so we are in the height of silly season. Meanwhile,
Sebastian Battles just drinking on my tie with his feet up. Gone.
You guys can have it polishing his trophies. He does
(31:01):
have three kids. He's probably a little bit vacation. You
know what, he may come back, give us a quick
break and we'll be back. So who's the other guy?
And I know his name, but it's it's Daddy stroll son. Yes,
(31:23):
Kenny race. Can he drive? He can? Okay, so that
is very important. Yes, again he's just a dipship that
can't drive and is playing off Dad's money, then I'm angry.
But if he can, if he can drive, it's different.
There have also been worse pay drivers in history. So
Lance Stroll is who we're talking about here. He's in
his early twenties. Um. I wouldn't go so far as
(31:44):
to say that Lance is polarizing. He's just kind of there.
He's not even a driver you love to hate like,
he's just kind of there. Um. He does have some
racing chops like he he did, you know, do well
in the junior formulas. Again, it's not like he was
in tenth place and then got this seat. Um. And
he has, Yeah, he won a Formula four championship, of
(32:06):
Formula three championship in those junior categories. Um. And to
date he has gotten three podiums in Formula one and
a pole position. So you know, he doesn't know how
to drive. And and yes, we can debate. You know,
some of those races are a little funky, but again
that's the sport, right, like that's you show up and
you never know what's gonna happen. No one wants to
root for the kid that's like dad bottom entrance into
(32:30):
the tournament. But if he just wins, everybody will stop
saying that. Yeah, you know, it's like he's like it's
like he's just having enough results for us to not
like go there all the way. Yeah, and he does
have a couple of brilliant moves here and there, even
if it's on a podium, you know. So he's also
has made some real blusters of error, you know, so
(32:51):
it's like the blunders have been there. It's not looking
where he's going. He completely shut. He's hard to root
for are he's already root for it, But he's also
hard to like truly despise. Yeah, there's not he's on
a villain for instance. Personality wise, he's not getting up
on other drivers, and some of them really have treated
him with some some like disrespect over the years. What
(33:20):
you're not necessarily sympathetic, but you're like, Okay, that's kind
of shitty, you know, like, yeah, I think it's almost
I think you agree, Like we're sometimes to not have
any feeling about someone. It's like in comedy If the
audience loves you, great. If they hate you, they at
least we're paying attention and and we're responding to you.
But when they're on their phone, you're kind of like,
I don't even know how you feel about me. That's
(33:41):
agree way to put it. Yeah, people are on their
phone when Lance comes around. Maybe Lance needs to get
out of his dad's shadow and go race for somebody
else if they'd have him, because then then we might
actually see his personality. I don't know, honestly, pretty nice
guy all things considered. I think he gets a bad
rap because his dad is a role supervillain billionaire. This
(34:01):
is Nicole seevers once again. Landstroll early on was a
little bit of a whiner and you're like, oh, daddy's money, right, Um,
But I think he's really grown into his role Asmarin
in F one. And so there's a lot of conversation
around paid drivers now and people often feel like paid
drivers don't deserve their spot in Formula one. And you know,
(34:21):
I think we used to hold this same opinion. But
if they can continue to do really well and prove
themselves in the sport, then what does that really say
about the term paid driver? Anymore. Again, this is a business,
and it costs hundreds of millions of dollars to run
a team every single year. You need money and you
need to pay people salaries, um. And not everyone can
(34:42):
win the championship every year. So I don't think that
the paid driver terminology should be used as negatively anymore. Um.
And so that's why I am becoming a Landstroll apologist.
The question, though, is what he get on a colamp
without without Addie Stroll And the answer is no, no,
(35:04):
All right, JOHI has a strong opinion on this one. Well,
he likes Yuki, who basically got on the team because
of Honda entrance. So stop slandering you. So I would say, interestingly,
there are people who are kind of at least intrigued
by Aston Martin. If I had to sum up like
the pitch for Aston Martin, there's a lot of hope
(35:24):
that you know, you have certain midfield teams like let's
say Alpha TWI, right, we know they're never going to
be able to like beat Red Bull because that would
be a cataclysmic event for Red Bull. You kind of
know that Alpha Towery has has you know, there's a
question of the ceiling for Alpha Tawi right as you
know their midfield team, they're going to be a midfield team.
I think there is hope that Aston Martin because they
do a lot of money, and even if they're struggling
right now, there is a hope that they can be
(35:46):
a little less stagnant. Right Why couldn't they take off? Yeah, exactly.
So so if you want a team, you're like, hey,
there can be a little more, a little bit more
of like a Russian Roulette situation here, and like we
don't know what's going to happen, but in a good way.
They have They have the brand name. You know. That's
what's so helpful because someone like me who's so new
to the sport, I just recognized the name right away,
(36:07):
unlike Alpine or Williams we still don't know or the
other team so I can't remember. No. Yeah, like it's
a memorable brand. There's a lot of experimentation going on,
and I think that that's really intriguing at the very
least about Astin Martin as a team. There was quite
a few people were they were just kind of asked,
you know, aside from like the championship winners, everyone can
make a case for a Mercedes a red Bull, like
who else on the grid, especially like Midfield are you
(36:29):
excited about? And Aston Martin was one where this yeah,
this point kept coming up of you know, hey, they
there's potential there. It's a question if they're gonna, you know,
rise to that potential. But there's more, there's more there
to be kind of unpacked or on earth than with
certain other teams that are maybe midfield or in the
back of the pack. I mean, my pitch for Lance
is I bet you there's more there from a personality
(36:52):
and a depth standpoint if he can ever get out
of Dad's shadow. Now he may not even have of
a car if it wasn't for Dad, So that's complicated exactly.
But I want every man or woman to become their
own person outside of their parents. So that would be
me rooting for Lance saying, hey, dude, go walk the
(37:15):
Pacific Crest Trail away from his family and become this
man that that we is somewhere buried deep inside him.
Do you want you want like therapy for I want
therapy and I want him to like throw metaphorical punches
at at his dad and say like I'm my own man,
and you know, like, but that's not gonna happen. Okay,
So first of all, yeah, how are we feeling about
(37:38):
Aston Martin entering the mix with all the other teams,
because now we have talked about I think seven teams
now out of the tents, so we're we're two thirds
of the way there. Well, green is my favorite color.
We didn't even talk about this. You were wearing a
green shirt right now? Do you have an Aston Martin
car on your computer? Can see? This is not my team.
This is not my team. But um uh, I do
(38:02):
like Sebastian Vettle very much, and I love the brand
name Aston Martin a lot and that that car is
awesome looking. That is sweet. It's like forest green. It's
like it's a beautiful, beautiful car. So uh wow, that
thing looks fucking fast. Um so I like him. Now
(38:24):
they're my team now, but this is not my team
and that's Daddy's problem. That's that's your fault, dad, Daddy Stroll.
But also VJ didn't help either. I don't like him like,
but it's just like this team. Yeah, theah the billionaires
playground personified between these different rich guys. It is amazing
(38:44):
how much diversity and personality we've had with all these teams.
I don't don't. I'm not saying diversity and anything else,
but you know, you think, okay, rich people, how many
different stories can there be? There's a lot of the stories.
There's a lot of different stories, and that is fun
and fascinating. And at the end of the day, you
(39:05):
start here and you finish here, and who gets there first.
It's it's cool. So so overall here and we'll ask
Rob for his opinion too. In some case, shit about
Rob and YOHI can I get a curtain up on
this thing so we don't have to see him? So
we're okay. Like I said, we're two thirds of the
way through. Where are we at in terms of let's
start with teams? All right? So I'm gonna say Ferrari
(39:27):
and Alpha Tory right now are my two favorite teams.
Not nuts And I don't like Red Bull. Get the
ship out of my face, Lily. I'm gonna have to
move to the weird Red Bull flavors if there was
another one, so the bull bile will not strike again, okay,
And then driver wise, I know there's more drivers to
to talk about. I like George Russell I like Checko
(39:48):
and I dig Pierre too. Does that answer some questions?
That does Rob? How are we feeling after asking just
let me just turn my headphones off. Our opinions are
actually lining up. School on the teams, I think those
are my top two teams as well. Drivers, we have
a tiny bit of a difference. Who are you vibing with?
(40:11):
Definitely the Clerk, Yes, I think he's like going to
be a big winner. It's just it's so interesting to
learn more. But I think the Clerk and espan Ocon
are my favorite drivers. I just love this entire, very
chaotic podium for you, you're top. Is there an Alfa
Romeo team? I've always loved that brand. We'll get to Alfromyo.
(40:34):
But before Alfa Romeo, the team we were talking on next,
come on it is william No idea what they are, Yeah,
absolutely no idea. It's been teased the entire season, but
we're going to talk about Williams, which one of the
most storied brands on the Grid. Story team, a lot
(40:56):
of wins, a lot of triumphs. They have fallen on
hard times and are trying to claw their way back
up the grid. But it is it is going to
be a long, arduous process. I will say they are
one of the most wholesome teams on the grid. They've
had some intriguing drivers as of late, and I think
that amongst a lot of the teams, I think Williams
(41:17):
fans are some of the most diehard, passionate people. I think.
I think it's one thing to cheer for a Red
Bull or Mercedes, but imagine cheering for a team that
didn't score points for several years after being a team
that used to win championships. Those are real fans. Yeah,
So Williams is our next episode. Awesome, Thank you, Lily,
thank you. This has been Choosing Sides f Y, a
(41:41):
production of Sports Illustrated Studios and I Heart Radio. The
show was hosted by Michael Costa and Lily Hart. This
episode was produced by Lily Harman and our senior producer
hi Mi Taal, who also did the sound design at
the Cutting Room Studios. We are recorded by engineer abo' leary,
the second mastering by Cello Weisblu. Max Miller is the
(42:05):
executive producer and Brannan get Us his head of audio
at s I Studios. At I Heart Radio, Sean Titone
is our executive producer. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, where wherever
you get your podcasts, don't forget to subscribe to us
and leave a review. And if you want more F
(42:28):
one goodness, follow us on Instagram at Choosing Sides. F
What
All right, Michael, Yes, for this episode. Admittedly I wanted
to get you like caviar or something, but perfect. I
know the problem that was, I was like, how can
I possibly expense this to like my boss, my boss's boss,
and like the accounts payable team. So I got you
a very expensive pastry called a key line baby bunt.
(00:21):
Oh I love I always get key line pie. So
I got you an expensive looking Wow, that is expensive looking, right,
ladies and gentlemen, let me describe this to you. It
looks like the crown that the queen would wear, and
then shoved in the middle are three fresh raspberries, only
the best. Thank you for this. Okay, So this is
(00:41):
because Aston Martin is the team today, as Marmes the team.
There's a metaphor in this somehow that they are the
key line baby bunt of the courage. I don't know.
If there's too many things in a in a pastry again,
that's that's a good metaphor for them. Actually, yes, too
much in a pastry? Yeah, okay, great, I'm gonna have
a bite, go for it. Yes, please tell me how
it is. Mm hmm. Let me see if I can
(01:04):
chew real close to the micro SMR. Yes, there's some
nice lime. There's some nice sweetness which feels good in
my mouth. Something that's not the first time I've said
that today, And it feels like they need to decide
what this pastry is. It's too many things at once. Yes,
(01:29):
from my Heart Radio and Sports Illustrated Studios, this is
choosing sides. One Wow, Wow, today's team, asked in Martin.
I feel like they are a less than in contradictions.
(01:51):
They're a new team, but they're also kind of historic
and have a really storied name behind them. There are
a team that tries to be calm on the surface
and cool and collected, but then they've got a chaotic backstory.
And then they've also got two drivers who could not
be more different in terms of background and race history
and just I think general demeanor as well. So on
(02:13):
top of being this lesson in contradictions, we're gonna be
talking about just piles and piles of money, much of
it illegally obtained. So we've got a lot of drama.
If white collar crime is your thing, this is the
episode for you. We've got. We've got another episode where
there's a real, a real high point in the Daddy
(02:33):
issue Mount Olympus right like, we're reaching that peak again.
It's been a little while since we've had someone with
this this level of Dad's stuff going on, so plenty
to get to today. So first and foremost, Michael, when
I say Aston Martin, what what comes to mind for you?
James Bond, of course, I think that's it. There, touched
(02:59):
and asked Martin, you know, I don't. I don't know
if I've ever ever seen one other than on TV.
I think I'm in a similar boat. I don't think
I've just certainly never driven one or come close to
driving one. I don't think I'm rich enough to even
like be in the presence of one. So when I
heard that Aston Martin had a team on Formula One,
I assumed that they would be a championship team. The
(03:21):
assumption makes sense, it is not correct, which is fun
less than in contradiction exactly like, it just feels like
it should be a number one team. So let's let's
learn about it. Let's let's talk Aston Martin. So they
are a car manufacturer found in a very much associated
with with British culture, and obviously a luxury brand, as
(03:42):
we discussed obviously known for being the car of James Bond,
and it's also the vehicle of choice for certain members
of the British royal family apparently. I think it's like
Prince Charles who like demands to be driven around in
Aston Martin that runs on can you believe this separates
English white wine? God? Yeah, I know, so Asta Martin
(04:05):
in f one. The year is they entered exactly, That's
exactly how James Bond says it. Yes, nailed the accent.
So they enter, they use their own engine and their
own chassis, and they failed to score a single point.
So things are not looking great, but they say, hey,
(04:26):
we'll give it the old college try again, go into
the nineteen sixty season. Again score zero points. So at
this point they say, nope, we're done. We're not doing
this again. It's kind of humiliating and we're this luxury
brand and we're not winning, and like it's just not
good for us, right, So they leave and they proceed
to not touch Formula one for over sixty years. Yeah,
(04:49):
they really had some humble pie there. Yeah. So they
said no, thank you, j K, goodbye for for a
very long time. So they don't show up again until
the start of season. However, part of ASTI the fun
of Aston Martin isn't necessarily the Aston Martin team of today.
It's the collection of people who have made up a
version of this team under different names. So we're gonna
(05:12):
have to like back up before we go forward. As
we've discussed with Formula one teams, they get they change
hands a lot, right, Different people buy them, they sell them,
they change the brand when they get bar or sold.
They randomly change the brand, even if the same people
own it. This is very common in Formula one because
(05:35):
starting a Formula one team from scratch is just outrageously expensive,
even more so than just buying one with all the
people already attached, the factory and all of that stuff.
So the year is two thousand seven, and there are
two businessmen who are interested in buying an F one team.
One of them is an Indian businessman. The main character,
the protagonist of this part of the story, the biggest,
(05:56):
most flamboint example of the rich and the powerful the
high life, is none other than doctor j Malia or
Malia depending on who is talking. What are you a
fake one? Oh? So you just just like an honorary
degree or something yeah, yeah, Well I look like a
(06:16):
doctor and a Dutch businessman named Michael Mole who's less
of a of a character. But VJ is a massive,
if one fan. He really wants to bring He has
this vision of bringing an Indian presence to the sport.
He's just a massive personality. He's got lots of opinions.
He's very flashy. Is I have a BMW pull around occasionally,
(06:39):
one makes do with whatever one can find or get.
My favorite fun fact is that he's called an India
King of the good Times because he has this uber
extravagant lifestyle, has all these houses, spends all this money
even on the team. Is kind of known for being
a little bit ostentatious and their first two seasons at
Force India are a little bit dicey, but the team
(07:00):
starts scoring points in two thousand nine, they start to
rack up a few podiums. Victory for that man VJ
of India and the team that he has wanted to
own his whole life and really excitedly by the kind
of mid you're going into seventeen. They actually have two
years where they finished P four and the constructors Forest
(07:21):
India Force India so everything's looking great. People at the
fact that sometimes an underdog comes through and does the business. Yeah,
I think that's what makes formula one all about interesting.
It also shows that the small budget you can results.
Here's what's going on behind the scenes. So, yeah, we're
at seventeen. Our friend VJ here, you're probably wondering how
(07:44):
does he have all this money? And that's a question
lots of people want the answer to. So if we're
going even all the way back to he starts to
get into some financial trouble back in India. People are
looking at finances realizing that some things aren't adding up.
A lot of little, tiny things are starting to come
to the surface. In VJ suddenly picks up from India
(08:07):
and moves to Britain have information he was getting eleven
pieces of baggage eleven pieces of onboard baggage. Coincidentally, that
move coincides with Indian law enforcement and other agencies starting
to come after him to try and arrest him for
white collar financial crimes. There were seventeen Indian banks trying
(08:29):
to collect the equivalent of one point to billion dollars
in loans that VJ had taken out to gain stakes
in over three dozen companies worldwide. Have politicians allowed Jamalia
to get away? Have the politicians of India deliberately turned
a blind eye to what has been happening for the
last four years? Now looking good? And then it gets
(08:49):
to a point too, because he did this with you know,
around the globe, there are now dozens of agencies all
over the world looking into him for money laundering and
financial fraud, among many other charges. Right now, things are
flying at me fast and furious. My passport has been devoked.
I don't know what the government is going to do next.
(09:09):
This is all sort of like I said, building up
all of this explode. Has lost control of his FoST
India Formula one team. This has left him devastated. So
that's our guy, VJ. Thank you VJ for the the
fun white collar crime rich people. They're not really that rich.
They're just good at like moving money around until somebody
(09:31):
calls him out on their ship exactly exactly. So that's VJ.
So he sort of exists our story at this point.
So this starts to take us to present day leadership
because you know, there's this consortium investors that that buys
the team, saves them and the guy who's leading the
charge of this group of rich people for the Richie
rich of the richie riches is a Canadian fashion and
(09:54):
retail billionaire named Lawrence Stroll, which already just sounds like
a ch person. Name Stroll doesn't sound fast either, does it. Yeah.
What's also funny is his last name is actually stru Leovich,
and he changed it so that it would sound less
kind of like foreign and his family immigrant family, So
he changed it to make it sound a little more
imposing and a little more business. Ee, you're going to
(10:16):
change your name, change it to like one the race
Lawrence Formula one champion. We will be referring to him
for the rest of this episode as Daddy Stroll, and
he will soon see why. I'm going to show you
some photos of Lawrence Stroll so you can get an
idea of what we're dealing with. Here. Hold on, okay,
here is Lawrence Stroll. Okay, Lawrence Stroll. Three pictures, long face,
(10:43):
long face, white hair, white beard, big deep china, like
a caricature. And you know, Drawer would have a field
day with this guy's face. He would need like legal
paper because it needs to be so long. And then
the in the middle picture, there's a one and who's
very beautiful life. She looks like she's about eighteen years old.
(11:04):
Lawrence Stroll gives off this super villain kind of vibe
you like want him to have, like a fluffy white
cat and like sitting a chair just like petting the cat.
That's the way you you just picture. This is Kate
Lazzutte and Nicole Seevers. They are co creators of Two
Girls One Formula Honestly, like, I really just appreciate the
energy he's bringing to Formula one. I think he knows
(11:27):
the part that he plays and he plays it really well.
He doesn't try to be liked by anyone. He's like,
I'm here to make this the best business that I can.
And Formula one is a business. Everyone should keep that
in mind for all decisions made about this sport. How
did Daddy Stroll make his money? So he owns a
bunch of different like fashion conglomerates in Canada and kind
(11:48):
of owns all these different fashion houses there and some
retail stuff. Yeah, and as you can tell, he's a
very imposing guy. Um, he's very forceful. He makes his
opinion known, he makes he make sure you're aware that
he is the team owner who has a lot of money. Uh,
and he's been known to butt heads with quite a
few members of leadership over time. All right, so he
steps in to save Force India and uh, let me
(12:14):
guess he's not so perfect either. So he has a
son named Lance, and Lance is like, you know what, Dad,
I want to be a Formula one driver. So, prior
to this whole Force India racing point conundrum, driver Lance
is saying to daddy's stroll, yeah, I want to drive
(12:34):
an F one. You know he did okay. We'll get
it more into Lance's history in a little bit, but
he did okay in the junior formulas. So he's like,
I want to drive an F one. And so his
dad goes to a little fan favorite team called Williams
and says, hey Williams. Again. This is like he's like,
you guys really are not doing well financially. I have
some money for you, like a lot of money. Like
(12:55):
I think it's eighty million dollars worth of money or
something to that effect. It wouldn't be great if I
could give you that money. If Lance were to show
up in that seat, that seems so this actually a
perfect introduction to a term that you've you've heard me
use but not really go into. It's called page driver.
So there's a lot of discussion over who and what
(13:17):
is a page driver, But at the very least everyone's
in agreement that if, especially if like a family member
or or you use kind of personal connections to guarantee
a lot of money to a team to get a
seat like that's a page driver. So obviously in Formula
one you do need to still have the requisite number
of super license points like there are. You can't just
have anyone who's rich by a seat. But still you
(13:39):
might have some drivers who normally wouldn't be under consideration
for seats because someone you know is guaranteeing on their
personal behalf a seat on the on the grid, usually
their concessions made for them and things like that. So
lands Stroll comes into Formula one very much a pay
driver under the thumb of his father Daddy Lauren, is
(14:00):
Yuki at Alpha Tory considered a paid driver. He's not,
though there's a couple of cases like Yuki where there
are some other influences that sort of help their case.
But I think people, especially again, there's a lot of
debate over where this is tight because I have certain
friends who do say, like these eight drivers are paid drivers,
or it's also not someone who's necessarily rich, like you
(14:21):
can be a rich person who still gets into F
one on your own merit and doesn't have a parent,
you know, saying I'm gonna give eighty million dollars to
a team to get you a seat. Everyone is in
agreement though that land Stroll is a paid driver. Like
everyone's debating Yuki or another guy Joe Guan You who
has some connections to some Chinese maybe Chinese government or business.
But everyone's an agreement. Landstrole is a paid driver through
(14:42):
and through. It's just such a rough way to start.
No one gives you any respect, right exactly exactly, and
he does have a rough go of it. Williams is
doing terribly at this point, really in the toilet, and
it just keeps going downhill. And so Lauren said, all right,
fuck it, I'm buying my own team for Lance um
and so then he buys racing Point. Lance becomes every
Sing eight driver and you know, the rest is kind
of history. But this past year they have become not
(15:06):
this past year, last year, yeah, before sorry, they're all
blending together. Um became Aston Martin and so now they're
this iconic green color. I love the color palette one. Anyway,
Daddy Stroll takes over the team or gets, you know,
some ownership of the team after rebranded to just Racing Point.
They dropped the whole Force Indian name for a variety
of obvious reasons. And yeah, Daddy Stroll takes the helm.
(15:29):
His son Lances in one of the two seats. The
other seat is our buddy Chucko, who keeps popping up
to Checho. Actually, the bulk of his career was spent
at Force India slash Racing Point, so he was there
for like an next seven or eight seasons between all
their different names. So he's he's seen a lot. So
as Lance made a podium or anything he has, Yeah,
we'll get into Lance. It's a little more complicated. Yeah.
(15:52):
So so this Racing Point iteration of the team ends
on a high note. They do get p four in
the Constructor's Championship, so we're like, okay, you know, it's
pretty good. Yeah, yeah, and uh, here's then what Daddy
Stroll continues to enter the story again and again. Uh,
Daddy Stroll buys a sixteen point seven percent stake in
(16:12):
Aston Martin around this time. He kind of uses that
steak to help get the team to be the brand,
you know, the name behind NF one team, not just
a sponsor. So then starting with one, they become Aston Martin. Okay,
so that's the history. What does the team look like now? So?
Aston Martin is definitely a midfield team. They finished in
(16:34):
p seven in the standings and they have really been
struggling in two with the new regulations. You haven't told
me one thing about this team that's likable so far.
Why are we still talking about it? Can we move
on to the next team? I will say, I think
you're gonna like the first driver on this team we're
going to talk about it better not be Daddy Stroll's kids.
(16:56):
It's Lands, no kidd gets, not Lance quick break and
we'll be back. So we're gonna actually talk about a
driver who has come up quite a bit over the
season so far. Name a Lot. Yes, we got Sebastian Vettle. Yeah,
so we finally get to dive into two. Seb he
has called seb opted on the grid. So so so Bus
in fact an icon, a legend in Formula one. He
as we've already discussed, he's a four time world champion,
(17:18):
got all four of those championships, yeah, in a row.
He's really been a stalwart. I mean he's been there
for a decade and a half. He's only thirty four
now as of this recording, so he's he's old and
yet young for for the sport of F one experience too. Yeah,
and and also comes from some more humble beginnings. He
didn't come for money. His dad was actually a carpenter
(17:38):
and he's German German driver Sebastian Petal. He started krting
just recreationally at the age of three, but started taking
it more seriously around you know, late elementary schools around
eight ish, and he became part of this really primitive
Red Bull junior team. He really started to quickly distinguish
himself in in kind of senior krding and then these
(17:58):
junior open wheel aracing categories, and finally in two thousand
and six he is called up to the BMW Souber
team before very quickly jumping over to Toro Rosso now
known as Alpha TOWERI. So, um, what is interesting is
said could be a little bit of noxious, right very brash,
very hyper competitive, especially when he's young. He is still
(18:19):
to this day the youngest Formula One driver to win
the world title. I think he beats Max by like
X number of days and months or whatnot. He was
one of the youngest everyone his first one at twenty three.
So you had a guy who had a lot of
money and power and fame at a very young age.
He's this young kid who suddenly, you know, is catapulted
in this very alpha male team of Red Bull. He
(18:40):
was a guy they had to make a rule. He
used to do donuts after winning championships. We'll get on
top of the car and do the big you know,
like yell with the arms and the fists in the air.
So definitely a showy guy, not particularly like externally humble.
Uh yeah, But in his younger years kills the game.
Four years wor world championships. He hits a little bit
of a slum uh the year after his fourth championship,
(19:03):
so in he makes the move to Ferrari and and
he does do well. He finishes P three in the
championship Driver's Championship one year he gets two P two
finishes behind Lewis Hamilton's though it's not necessarily super close
because Mercedes, as we know, is really on a tear
with their bajillion Constructors Championships and Driver's Championships, and when
(19:26):
we talked about this a little bit in the Ferrari episode,
but they decided they want to move in a different direction.
The big drama is that they basically announced at the
start of the season that they are not going to
keep seb after that season, which I think everyone would
agree was a real kind of pr strategy nightmare. I
love you and I want to be with you, but
we're going to break up in a year. Yeah, in
(19:47):
like nine more months, and we're in this you know,
this super expensive, high stakes sport where you could die
at any time, but like we're done, so like yeah
so and surreal also like it isn't in fact me,
it is you. He then ends up choosing to go
to be about to be renamed Aston Martin team starting
(20:08):
why keep Sebastian Vettle around? Why keep an older driver
around if if it's not really winning over and over again.
So one of the things that's really great about seven
this was even said about him when he was a
younger driver. He's very good at the technical aspects of
the sport, and it's been said that he can take
the team through how he felt at every corner, every turn.
(20:30):
He remembers when something malfunctions or how it felt or
he didn't like this call or that, so he can
have he has like perfect recall of all of this
stuff and knows how to talk about it in engineering terms. Again,
not every driver can do that, and even Lance has
sort of joked not Daddy Stroll, but the Sun. Lance
has joked about like, yeah, suddenly are our debriefs after
races are like two hours long? Because Seb can literally
(20:51):
remember and he's like, I didn't even think of half
the stuff. And Seb can remember all of it and
can can like feel the car as he's talking about it.
So that's that's for teams, right, how much feedback that
is if you have a driver who can speak your language,
and how that can help just the team, you know,
years after he leaves because they have all of this
data from him. I could see that being very valuable.
He also can be a very entertaining driver to watch
(21:13):
when he's really on it or or in it. Um
I'd say to personality wise, this is where Seb's kind
of done a one eighty, or I think the public
perception of Seb has done a one eight. You know,
like I said, he was really kind of brash. It's
not fun when someone's winning all the time, as you've
said about Mercedes and Red Bull and even Ferrari at times,
and so Seb Sep was always kind of you know,
(21:33):
he'd be a little bit of prankster, a little bit
of a jokester in interviews, but in in his his
middle age, like in his thirties, Uh, it's it's definitely
come across differently. So now, for instance, he is married,
he does have three kids, and he really is like
the king of the dad joke. He's also interestingly very
much into compartmentalizing his personal life and his professional life.
(21:57):
So he has yeah, he has a wife and three kids.
They have not been seen on the track in years.
In fact, his son was born like three years ago.
We still don't know his name. He's never come to
a race and said Mary like his high school sweetheart.
And then on top of that, you know, he's the
other driver other than Lewis who's starting to really be
known for activism. So in particular, he is very into
talking about environmentalism and I'll show you some photos in
(22:20):
a second. Uh. He always comes in on the to
the track. Most drivers drive in, you know, in some
sort of like the Ferrari drivers come in Ferrari's the
acid Martin. You know, Lance comes in an Aasid Martin said,
bikes into Yeah, so he kind of has this, you know,
also a normal bike, you know, and and he'll stop
and take photos of people on the way in and
has his helmet. He's like dad, yeah, very very yeah. Um.
(22:42):
He also after Silverstone last year, after the race, he's
obviously exhausted. He actually went up in the stands and
picked up litter and so there's now been a movement
of fans who pick up litterate races after job. On
top of that, he is very supportive of the LGBTQ
community and actually or like the you know, the rainbow
(23:02):
flag on his helmet in a Middle Eastern country. To
make the point. Yeah, it's almost like we've watched Sebastian
grow up. Yeah. Seb's got all the likability for this team.
Yeah he he really his back must hurt from having
to carry the likability factor exactly. It is difficult to
be Sebastian vettal this is I love it. I love
(23:25):
the story. I love the cocky kid who was excellent?
Now who's picking up litter in the track? It's a
beautiful story. Yeah, this is very likable. Yeah right, very likable.
I hereby announced my retirement from Formula one by the
end of the twenty two season. Probably I should start
with a long list of people to think now, Oh
(23:47):
my god, I was I liked I liked him, you
really really liked he was a cool guy. Man. I
love this sport. It has been central to my life
since I can remember. I mean, he's not dead. Being
a racing driver has never been my soul lead entity.
So he joined Instagram to announce his retirement after never
having social media, in a video where it looks a
(24:07):
little bit like a hostage crisis situation. I'm Sebastian, father
of three children and husband to a wonderful woman. Very
close up, black and white. But he said he wants
to spend more time with his family and there are
a lot of social causes that he wants to put
more of his energy into. I believe there's still a
race to win. Farewell and thanks for letting me share
(24:29):
the track with you. I loved every bit of it
and may we all not be judged by our first
Instagram video poorsa. But people are obviously very sad and
(24:51):
it's kind of the end of an era with him leaving.
We wish him the best. But unfortunately Michael Costa down
to only nineteen drivers to choose from. This is a b.
This is a big loss and affects the trajectory of
this podcast. But we will adapt and we will make
it be a strength of ours. Yes, how very motivational.
(25:26):
So he sebs out. So then what does that mean?
There's an empty seat, right there is? And so we
get to talk about something called silly season in real
time slide whistle that was actually really excellent. I had
no idea where you were going with us. YOHI is impressed,
as I'm a clown. I'm essentially a clown. So okay.
(25:50):
So silly season is a phrase we hear not just
in F one, but motorsports and just in news in general. Basically,
F one silly season typically takes place during the summer,
the August summer break, which sure enough, Seve announces retirement
right before the last race prior to the break, and
so here's what has transpired. There are multiple threads here.
(26:11):
Let me first interrupt unbelievably fun entertaining that this sport
has something called silly season. No no, no, no, no
no no. Yes, these men in the carbon fiber death
tracks stopped. It's excellent. It's excellent. I love it. So
(26:35):
what do we have to expect from silly season? We
have got the greatest game of musical chairs going on.
I'm gonna try and take you through this. And for
all the listeners who are big F one fans, remember
that Michael is new. So I'm trying to break the
strong simple So Seb announces his retirement the following day,
(26:55):
So that is then August one, at four am Eastern
time in the US, the news breaks from Europe that
our pal, the pettiest man alive whom I love for,
Nando Alonso from Alpine, is moving to Aston Martin one failed,
which leaves an open seated Alpine. Yes, so Alpine has
(27:19):
a very talented young driver in their kind of driver
development program named Oscar Pastri. Oscar. There's a lot of
hype around him. He won Formula three his very first
year competing in it. So that lower formula the same
in Formula two, and very few drivers are able to
do that. So there's a lot of questions around, is he,
(27:42):
you know, a generational talent? What's the deal with Oscar?
He has just completely moved up these ranks so quickly.
Unfortunately for him, last year there was no seat for
him on the grid, so he we spoke about that.
He kind of got shafted a little bit exactly, and
it's pretty well known. While he kind of goes along
with all the Alpine promo stuff, he wants to be driving.
(28:04):
So so a day after in Fernando Alonzo announces Hey,
I'm moving to ask Martin peace out. Alpine puts out
a statement saying, great news. Oscar Piastre, the guy you
all wanted to see in this seat is an Alpine.
Isn't that lovely? We have solved this very simple issue.
It seems pretty simple to me. But it's not called
(28:25):
simple season, is it, Lily? It is not, Michael, You
are correct, silly season. People notice within a couple of minutes, hey,
Oscar is not posting anything to his social media, and
then sure enough he puts out the most iconic tweet
(28:46):
of all time, where He says, I understand that without
my agreement, Alpine f One have put out a press
release late this afternoon that I am driving for them
next year. This is wrong, and I have not find
a contract with Alpine for I will not be driving
for Alpine next year. Holy sh it. Yes, not just
(29:09):
we haven't figured out the agreement. It's not officially signed,
but I am not driving for them. He brought the
hammer down. WHOA how could this be? How can they
be on such different planets? So that's a great question,
to which I say, no one really knows, and everyone's
asking the exact same questions right now. How can this be?
(29:30):
How did none of these contracts get vetted or figured
out before all these big public announcements. What seems to
be happening currently Oscar when he put out those feelers,
one of the teams he has been cozying up to
at least his management has is McLaren again. Silly season, rumors, drama, intrigue.
No one actually knows. So as of now, we don't
(29:51):
know who is in the second Alpine seat for next year.
We don't know what's going on with Oscar Piastri's career.
What's up for grabs at this point on the grid. Yes, well,
here's what's officially up for grabs. With seat at Alpine,
we'll talk about Alfa Romeo shortly. Their rookie driver Joe
Guan Yuki Sonoda still doesn't officially have an extension one
(30:15):
of the seats at Williams. Your favorite team, Danda Ricardo,
who technically should have a seat, could potentially not have
a seat. I think everyone's over Daniel Ricardo A hot take.
This is difficult for the athlete. I mean they're really
driving race by race. They don't even know what's next year.
They don't even know where they'll be exactly. Yeah, so
(30:36):
they're trying to prove themselves in this back half of
the season if there isn't a contract in the works.
So yeah, so we are in the height of silly season. Meanwhile,
Sebastian Battles just drinking on my tie with his feet up. Gone.
You guys can have it polishing his trophies. He does
(31:01):
have three kids. He's probably a little bit vacation. You
know what, he may come back, give us a quick
break and we'll be back. So who's the other guy?
And I know his name, but it's it's Daddy stroll son. Yes,
(31:23):
Kenny race. Can he drive? He can? Okay, so that
is very important. Yes, again he's just a dipship that
can't drive and is playing off Dad's money, then I'm angry.
But if he can, if he can drive, it's different.
There have also been worse pay drivers in history. So
Lance Stroll is who we're talking about here. He's in
his early twenties. Um. I wouldn't go so far as
(31:44):
to say that Lance is polarizing. He's just kind of there.
He's not even a driver you love to hate like,
he's just kind of there. Um. He does have some
racing chops like he he did, you know, do well
in the junior formulas. Again, it's not like he was
in tenth place and then got this seat. Um. And
he has, Yeah, he won a Formula four championship, of
(32:06):
Formula three championship in those junior categories. Um. And to
date he has gotten three podiums in Formula one and
a pole position. So you know, he doesn't know how
to drive. And and yes, we can debate. You know,
some of those races are a little funky, but again
that's the sport, right, like that's you show up and
you never know what's gonna happen. No one wants to
root for the kid that's like dad bottom entrance into
(32:30):
the tournament. But if he just wins, everybody will stop
saying that. Yeah, you know, it's like he's like it's
like he's just having enough results for us to not
like go there all the way. Yeah, and he does
have a couple of brilliant moves here and there, even
if it's on a podium, you know. So he's also
has made some real blusters of error, you know, so
(32:51):
it's like the blunders have been there. It's not looking
where he's going. He completely shut. He's hard to root
for are he's already root for it, But he's also
hard to like truly despise. Yeah, there's not he's on
a villain for instance. Personality wise, he's not getting up
on other drivers, and some of them really have treated
him with some some like disrespect over the years. What
(33:20):
you're not necessarily sympathetic, but you're like, Okay, that's kind
of shitty, you know, like, yeah, I think it's almost
I think you agree, Like we're sometimes to not have
any feeling about someone. It's like in comedy If the
audience loves you, great. If they hate you, they at
least we're paying attention and and we're responding to you.
But when they're on their phone, you're kind of like,
I don't even know how you feel about me. That's
(33:41):
agree way to put it. Yeah, people are on their
phone when Lance comes around. Maybe Lance needs to get
out of his dad's shadow and go race for somebody
else if they'd have him, because then then we might
actually see his personality. I don't know, honestly, pretty nice
guy all things considered. I think he gets a bad
rap because his dad is a role supervillain billionaire. This
(34:01):
is Nicole seevers once again. Landstroll early on was a
little bit of a whiner and you're like, oh, daddy's money, right, Um,
But I think he's really grown into his role Asmarin
in F one. And so there's a lot of conversation
around paid drivers now and people often feel like paid
drivers don't deserve their spot in Formula one. And you know,
(34:21):
I think we used to hold this same opinion. But
if they can continue to do really well and prove
themselves in the sport, then what does that really say
about the term paid driver? Anymore. Again, this is a business,
and it costs hundreds of millions of dollars to run
a team every single year. You need money and you
need to pay people salaries, um. And not everyone can
(34:42):
win the championship every year. So I don't think that
the paid driver terminology should be used as negatively anymore. Um.
And so that's why I am becoming a Landstroll apologist.
The question, though, is what he get on a colamp
without without Addie Stroll And the answer is no, no,
(35:04):
All right, JOHI has a strong opinion on this one. Well,
he likes Yuki, who basically got on the team because
of Honda entrance. So stop slandering you. So I would say, interestingly,
there are people who are kind of at least intrigued
by Aston Martin. If I had to sum up like
the pitch for Aston Martin, there's a lot of hope
(35:24):
that you know, you have certain midfield teams like let's
say Alpha TWI, right, we know they're never going to
be able to like beat Red Bull because that would
be a cataclysmic event for Red Bull. You kind of
know that Alpha Towery has has you know, there's a
question of the ceiling for Alpha Tawi right as you
know their midfield team, they're going to be a midfield team.
I think there is hope that Aston Martin because they
do a lot of money, and even if they're struggling
right now, there is a hope that they can be
(35:46):
a little less stagnant. Right Why couldn't they take off? Yeah, exactly.
So so if you want a team, you're like, hey,
there can be a little more, a little bit more
of like a Russian Roulette situation here, and like we
don't know what's going to happen, but in a good way.
They have They have the brand name. You know. That's
what's so helpful because someone like me who's so new
to the sport, I just recognized the name right away,
(36:07):
unlike Alpine or Williams we still don't know or the
other team so I can't remember. No. Yeah, like it's
a memorable brand. There's a lot of experimentation going on,
and I think that that's really intriguing at the very
least about Astin Martin as a team. There was quite
a few people were they were just kind of asked,
you know, aside from like the championship winners, everyone can
make a case for a Mercedes a red Bull, like
who else on the grid, especially like Midfield are you
(36:29):
excited about? And Aston Martin was one where this yeah,
this point kept coming up of you know, hey, they
there's potential there. It's a question if they're gonna, you know,
rise to that potential. But there's more, there's more there
to be kind of unpacked or on earth than with
certain other teams that are maybe midfield or in the
back of the pack. I mean, my pitch for Lance
is I bet you there's more there from a personality
(36:52):
and a depth standpoint if he can ever get out
of Dad's shadow. Now he may not even have of
a car if it wasn't for Dad, So that's complicated exactly.
But I want every man or woman to become their
own person outside of their parents. So that would be
me rooting for Lance saying, hey, dude, go walk the
(37:15):
Pacific Crest Trail away from his family and become this
man that that we is somewhere buried deep inside him.
Do you want you want like therapy for I want
therapy and I want him to like throw metaphorical punches
at at his dad and say like I'm my own man,
and you know, like, but that's not gonna happen. Okay,
So first of all, yeah, how are we feeling about
(37:38):
Aston Martin entering the mix with all the other teams,
because now we have talked about I think seven teams
now out of the tents, so we're we're two thirds
of the way there. Well, green is my favorite color.
We didn't even talk about this. You were wearing a
green shirt right now? Do you have an Aston Martin
car on your computer? Can see? This is not my team.
This is not my team. But um uh, I do
(38:02):
like Sebastian Vettle very much, and I love the brand
name Aston Martin a lot and that that car is
awesome looking. That is sweet. It's like forest green. It's
like it's a beautiful, beautiful car. So uh wow, that
thing looks fucking fast. Um so I like him. Now
(38:24):
they're my team now, but this is not my team
and that's Daddy's problem. That's that's your fault, dad, Daddy Stroll.
But also VJ didn't help either. I don't like him like,
but it's just like this team. Yeah, theah the billionaires
playground personified between these different rich guys. It is amazing
(38:44):
how much diversity and personality we've had with all these teams.
I don't don't. I'm not saying diversity and anything else,
but you know, you think, okay, rich people, how many
different stories can there be? There's a lot of the stories.
There's a lot of different stories, and that is fun
and fascinating. And at the end of the day, you
(39:05):
start here and you finish here, and who gets there first.
It's it's cool. So so overall here and we'll ask
Rob for his opinion too. In some case, shit about
Rob and YOHI can I get a curtain up on
this thing so we don't have to see him? So
we're okay. Like I said, we're two thirds of the
way through. Where are we at in terms of let's
start with teams? All right? So I'm gonna say Ferrari
(39:27):
and Alpha Tory right now are my two favorite teams.
Not nuts And I don't like Red Bull. Get the
ship out of my face, Lily. I'm gonna have to
move to the weird Red Bull flavors if there was
another one, so the bull bile will not strike again, okay,
And then driver wise, I know there's more drivers to
to talk about. I like George Russell I like Checko
(39:48):
and I dig Pierre too. Does that answer some questions?
That does Rob? How are we feeling after asking just
let me just turn my headphones off. Our opinions are
actually lining up. School on the teams, I think those
are my top two teams as well. Drivers, we have
a tiny bit of a difference. Who are you vibing with?
(40:11):
Definitely the Clerk, Yes, I think he's like going to
be a big winner. It's just it's so interesting to
learn more. But I think the Clerk and espan Ocon
are my favorite drivers. I just love this entire, very
chaotic podium for you, you're top. Is there an Alfa
Romeo team? I've always loved that brand. We'll get to Alfromyo.
(40:34):
But before Alfa Romeo, the team we were talking on next,
come on it is william No idea what they are, Yeah,
absolutely no idea. It's been teased the entire season, but
we're going to talk about Williams, which one of the
most storied brands on the Grid. Story team, a lot
(40:56):
of wins, a lot of triumphs. They have fallen on
hard times and are trying to claw their way back
up the grid. But it is it is going to
be a long, arduous process. I will say they are
one of the most wholesome teams on the grid. They've
had some intriguing drivers as of late, and I think
that amongst a lot of the teams, I think Williams
(41:17):
fans are some of the most diehard, passionate people. I think.
I think it's one thing to cheer for a Red
Bull or Mercedes, but imagine cheering for a team that
didn't score points for several years after being a team
that used to win championships. Those are real fans. Yeah,
So Williams is our next episode. Awesome, Thank you, Lily,
thank you. This has been Choosing Sides f Y, a
(41:41):
production of Sports Illustrated Studios and I Heart Radio. The
show was hosted by Michael Costa and Lily Hart. This
episode was produced by Lily Harman and our senior producer
hi Mi Taal, who also did the sound design at
the Cutting Room Studios. We are recorded by engineer abo' leary,
the second mastering by Cello Weisblu. Max Miller is the
(42:05):
executive producer and Brannan get Us his head of audio
at s I Studios. At I Heart Radio, Sean Titone
is our executive producer. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, where wherever
you get your podcasts, don't forget to subscribe to us
and leave a review. And if you want more F
(42:28):
one goodness, follow us on Instagram at Choosing Sides. F
What
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