April 15, 2026 • 46 mins
Formula 1 has gone through several major cultural shifts over the past decade, from its acquisition by Liberty Media in the mid-2010s to the 'Drive to Survive' boom that followed a few years later during the pandemic. But there's a major cultural event that doesn't get talked about as frequently and yet really helped bring the sport's current cutthroat capitalist era to new heights: The 2023 phenomenon that Lily has dubbed WAGageddon.
For this episode, Lily is joined by Kate Byrne, one half of the podcast and brand Two Girls 1 Formula, to explain why some people care so much about professional athletes' romantic partners and how following them can actually explain a great deal about what's happening in the paddock.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yo, Hi, Lily, what do you have for us today?
Lily Herman (00:02):
We are going so far out of your wheelhouse.
Yochai (00:06):
You keep assuming you know what my wheelhouse is. But okay,
let's hear it.
Lily Herman2 (00:10):
Let me back up.
Lily Herman (00:11):
I know you keep up with like f on media
and all of that. I know you're not as familiar
with the social media side of F one, but I
feel like every media outlet, every TikToker, substacker or whatever.
Every week they're announcing we've entered a new cultural era
of F one, and they're like, yes, it's now because
drivers are more interested in fashion. It's because Dorito's is
(00:34):
an official savory snack partner of the Grid. It's because
Charleclair is in a Pokemon commercial for the twenty twenty
six Super Bowl, and all of that is great. However, However,
those people are all wrong. The moment that is a
real harbinger of what's to come in F one, the
real before and after of this sports cultural ascension actually
(00:57):
took place back in twenty twenty three, and it was
a moment that I at the time dubbed Wagageddon. God yeah,
roughly half a dozen drivers on the Grid broke up
with their long term partners the Wags, the wives and
girlfriends in rapid succession. There was a very very intense
(01:21):
turnover of the F one Wags grid, a silly season,
if you will, of the Wags grid at the time,
the Wags grid, the Wags grid, there's a separate, invisible
grid outside of the normal F one grid, and I
would say that that completely changed the culture of the sport.
Yochai (01:37):
It's a big, clean, big claim. I'd love to hear
you make this argument.
Lily Herman (01:40):
Here's what I will say, though, I do need some
help making this argument, and while you are a delight
to work with you, Hi, unfortunately I do not think you.
Are the person to help me with this. That's fair.
This is a grid you did not know about until
thirty seconds ago. So I have brought in a person who,
like me, has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Wags grid.
Out further Ado, let me bring in none other than
(02:04):
Kate Byrne, who is one half of Two Girls, One Formula,
and as you recall, Nicole Severs, the other half of
Two Girls, One Formula, was on our show a few
episodes ago. Okay, so without further Ado, let's get into
this Wag's takeover.
Lily Herman2 (02:19):
Welcome to the show.
Kate (02:21):
Kate, thank you so much for having me biggest honor
of my life.
Lily Herman (02:25):
I would like to point out that, unlike Nicole, your
first Formula one love was Charlotte Clair.
Kate1 (02:31):
It was actually Kimmy reichen In.
Lily Herman2 (02:32):
Oh no, did I forget this?
Kate1 (02:33):
The first race, the first F one race that I
ever watched was Austin twenty eighteen, and that is when
Kimmy reichen In won And that was the last race
that he ever won for Ferrari, my god, and I
was watching it and he just didn't give a fuck
that he won that race, Like he was on top
step at the podium and everyone's celebrating, and he just
like didn't.
Lily Herman2 (02:54):
Give a fuck.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
It doesn't change my life.
Kate1 (02:57):
And I said, that energy is incredible. I love him honestly.
That's I weighs really nicely into what we're talking about
today because it's his wag situations.
Lily Herman (03:06):
Oh you just you asked the golden question? Yo, hi, Kate,
who is who is the wife? I should say the
second wife? Am I correct?
Kate1 (03:13):
The second wife second wife of Kimmy Raikon is Minto
reiken in My Queen, the Ultimate Wag, the Ultimate F
one Wag. She ruled that Paddock like nobody's fucking business.
She is an icon. She's everything to me.
Lily Herman (03:34):
One of my favorite Mintu moments is she showed up
for Kimmy's final race of his final F one season
wearing a custom two piece purple protest set, which has
not left my mind in the years since she.
Kate1 (03:46):
Was the Queen of the Wags, and nothing has been
the same sentence her.
Lily Herman2 (03:52):
Departure everything after that it did.
Lily Herman (03:56):
I don't like to say that, yo, hi, tell me
what is your experience with the Wags, because we went
over them a little bit in choosing sides, But I
feel like I never got to see the extent.
Lily Herman2 (04:05):
Of your wag dum, your wag fandom.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah. So, I mean before every episode, I really try
and sort of come prepared. I try to really dive
in and come learned about the topic at hand. I
was going to do that for this episode as well,
And as soon as I sort of dipped my toe,
I quickly realized that this topic is just so huge
that I didn't really know where to start.
Kate1 (04:27):
Yeah, it's a bit of a deep pool for just
a toe dip.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
I'm really coming a clean slate here, a clean slate,
But I'm also a sponge. I'm ready to learn. Ready
to learn.
Lily Herman (04:37):
So, Kate, you and I have privately talked over the
years about the various catalysts of.
Lily Herman2 (04:44):
Cultural shifts and F one.
Lily Herman (04:45):
So obviously everyone says, okay, liberty media takes over F
one in the mid twenty tens, that's a shift. There's
more openness from the grid and the paddock drivers are
now encouraged to post on social media as our teams,
which was not the case under Bernie eccleston for the
decades before that. You then see people say, yes, drive
to survive when it takes off, particularly the start of
(05:06):
the pandemic, that's the big cultural moment. But I would
argue that the cultural moment that comes about around the
time when all of these wags leave the grid and
then a new batch of wags very quickly come in,
that that is the big The big shift.
Kate1 (05:21):
I would agree with that wholeheartedly.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Is wags. Like, can I say, let's say, I am
a wag? Is that like a profession? Is that like
a like my name is Johia, I'm a wag. I
mean I couldn't be a wag.
Lily Herman (05:32):
But it's interesting you say that because that's kind of
the crux of what's happening today of when when do
these women go from being you know, just the partner
who maybe you like her style and you enjoy seeing
her in the paddock from time to time to these you know, professionalized,
commodified parts of the grid. But yes, I guess you
could maybe be a wag.
Kate1 (05:48):
You know, Hi, Well they have TV shows.
Lily Herman2 (05:50):
Yeah, yes, that's a profession, I would say.
Speaker 6 (05:54):
So.
Lily Herman (05:54):
For the purposes of this episode, I figured I'd break
this whole Wag's universe down into three parts.
Yochai (06:00):
I really appreciate that, Lily. I love when things are
broken down into three parts. Just something for you to
know about me.
Lily Herman (06:06):
Okay, So the three parts for you, YOHI to make
this easy on you.
Lily Herman2 (06:09):
We have a.
Lily Herman (06:10):
Brief history of sports wags in general, a brief history
of F one wags because they did not just suddenly
appear with Wagageddon and then wagagedon itself and the impact,
the fallout, all the things that came with it.
Lily Herman2 (06:25):
But I will start with part one.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Okay, I'm ready.
Lily Herman2 (06:27):
Our journey begins in two thousand and two, when it.
Lily Herman (06:30):
Is believed that the first recorded use of the term
wag was in a May nineteenth issue of the Sunday
Telegraph in the UK. It was never guaranteed that the
wives and girlfriends, or the wags as staff at the
Jermira Beach Club call them for short, would get along.
Missus Beckham's tongue, for one, had previously run away with itself.
And yes, the Missus Beckham in question, Miss Victoria Beckham
(06:53):
of passen Beck's.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Fame, Victoria Beckham, I knew that, so I actually do
have some knowledge.
Lily Herman (06:59):
Well, so our journey actually starts nowhere near a single
motorsports circuit. We are instead temporarily heading over to the
sport known here in the States as soccer. Interest in
the partners of various soccer players or footballers, as our
European counterparts would say, dates back to at least the
nineteen fifties, and in that case, the long serving England
(07:22):
captain Billy Wright was married to a popular singer at
the time named Joy Beverly, and she was in a
sister trio known as the Beverly's How Fun, How Clever Women.
Speaker 7 (07:30):
In the fifties, what in the stereotype a straight jacket
have we refused to be blowing? We wanted to be daring,
we loved being daring, but it was nomal we want
to say, we wanted to be normal and say and
with it.
Lily Herman (07:46):
And by the late nineteen sixties there was a different
England captain named Bobby Moore. His first wife Tina and
him were known as this very stylish golden couple in
the press.
Speaker 8 (07:56):
Photographer start wanting him to take photographs of me and
the other wives. So that was the beginning of the
ning the third Yeah, from the first time, I think
football moved from the back page to the front page.
And also they defeatus on the wives and their families,
so we start to get a little bit of recognition.
Lily Herman (08:12):
However, the first real incident where romantic partners of soccer
players start to become more of a headline is in
nineteen seventy during the World Cup in Mexico, where the
manager of England's team, a guy named Sir alf Ramsey.
Hell of a name, alf Ramsey, He started to publicly
express concern about the team's cohesion because of the presence
(08:37):
of certain wives and girlfriends of a couple of different players.
It all came to a head when England lost the
quarterfinal to West Germany, and that loss was largely attributed
to the goalkeeping lapses of Peter Bennetti, and people said
that his pre match nerves were brought upon by rumors
(08:58):
that were circulating about alleged behavior by his wife, Francis Francis.
And then the interest in wags as we know them
as this kind of cultural identity, and as this brand
really goes into overdrive in the late nineties and early
two thousands with a certain couple whom I mentioned earlier,
that would be.
Speaker 7 (09:14):
I'd like to start by, oh, I have to raise it.
Speaker 9 (09:17):
That doesn't happen often.
Lily Herman2 (09:18):
I'd like to start by congratulating.
Speaker 10 (09:22):
Oh my god, I didn't.
Speaker 11 (09:23):
Even mean.
Lily Herman2 (09:26):
David and Victoria Beckham.
Lily Herman (09:27):
Of course, when they started dating, they were David Beckham
and Victoria Adams, known as Posh Spice in the Spice Girls.
And the interesting thing I will say about them, which
seems really quaint given what we know about wags and
how couples like to be a brand nowadays, is that
they were one of the first to really really seize
for themselves, this idea of we have more interests than
(09:49):
just what you know us.
Speaker 11 (09:50):
For I realized that you were really famous straight what.
Speaker 9 (09:57):
It was when he first starty going out.
Lily Herman (09:59):
We made a thing at Victoria was quoted as saying
that she and David had so many wider interests fashion makeup.
I mean, you think, yeah, football's great and singing's great,
but you've got to look at the bigger picture. So
these two were really going for it, and not just
in their respective professions that everyone knew them for.
Yochai (10:15):
Victoria, do you want to tell us what we're doing today?
Speaker 7 (10:18):
Today we're here at Vogue and we are shooting a
Coffer story celebrating the rich and inspiring history of one
of the most enduring star icons of all time, me
Joy Beckon.
Lily Herman (10:34):
The other, one note I will make about soccer in
the UK and wag culture is that during this time
late nineties early two thousands, it does start to make
a lot of headlines because coaches, players, other people are
starting to be grumpy in the tabloids in the press
about the wags. So one famous example is that the
then captain of Manchester United, Roy Keane, started lashing out
(10:56):
at various wags during the team's very rough two thousand
one two thousand and two season, where he was telling
tabloids and media and press that these women had like
very lavish lifestyles and cared too much about press attention
and that was part of the.
Lily Herman2 (11:09):
Issue, he claimed.
Lily Herman (11:10):
And then he grouped this in with some of his
teammates becoming too obsessed with fame and fortune like their
partners were. And then this all came to a head
when soon after this terrible season he leaves become the
manager of a team called Sunderland, and he again goes
to the press and starts complaining that he's having difficulties
signing players for a city in Northeast England because players
(11:31):
wives and girlfriends don't want to move away from London
or any team that would help them be based around London.
Lily Herman2 (11:38):
And his quote, which this is very misogynistic, was.
Lily Herman (11:41):
That if they don't want to come to Sunderland because
their wives want to go shopping in London, then it's
a sad state of affairs. Unfortunately, that is what is
influencing a lot of footballer's decisions. Priorities have changed for
footballers and they are being dictated by their wives and girlfriends.
Kate1 (11:55):
How it happens, Yeah, God forbid, a woman has an
opinion exactly, Bro, you just were a bad team and
they didn't want to come Sorr.
Lily Herman (12:03):
You know, so that was just a short introduction to
wags culture that has been going on for decades. But
let's get to your neck of the woods, Kate, and
talk about the F one wags specifically in the years
leading up to Wagagedon in twenty twenty three.
Lily Herman2 (12:17):
So this is part two of Wagagedon.
Lily Herman (12:24):
So the wags back then, in like the sixties seventies,
a lot of them did stuff like timekeeping on the
grid and were seen as like a vital part of
the culture. So just a fun fact there. In the
nineteen sixties, there was a model named Nina Wrint who
was married to the driver Yo can Rent. He's actually
the only F one driver to win the championship posthumously
because he died in nineteen seventy and then won the
(12:46):
nineteen seventy World Drivers' Championship. Oh my gosh, I know,
very very depressing. Benita Wrint, very very attractive model who
was around the paddicle up. There's a lot of if
you start googling wags from the nineteen sixties and seventies,
her photo comes up a lot. Were these women were
just kind of like a round which was cool, like
we're just kind of part of the experience and part
of the culture. Similarly, I will say Jackie Stewart, the
iconic F one driver, his wife Helen, an actress, was
(13:09):
also known for being a very stylish staple of the grid.
I will also mention another fun fact, which is that
in nineteen sixty two, the wives of five prominent F
one drivers came together and created something called the Women's
Motor Racing Associates Club informally known as the Doghouse Owners Club,
where they actually offered support to women whose partners or
(13:30):
spouses were killed in racing accidents or were severely injured.
So I do think that this is an interesting way
to show that wags. I think there's this idea that
they're just meant to be seen and not heard, or
to not really participate in a culture, and this is
just a great example that proves otherwise.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
In an organization that still exists to this very day.
Lily Herman2 (13:47):
It does.
Lily Herman (13:47):
It has changed mission and a little different.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
But yeah, not as many widows to support.
Lily Herman (13:52):
That is an incredibly morbid way to think about it.
But yes, you are correct, Yohai. All right, So to
head into the period where I think people start paying
attention a lot to the f one Wags the late
nineties and early two thousands, and I think no one
encapsulates this better as Michael and Corina Schumacher.
Kate1 (14:08):
Yeah, they're just incredibly attractive. Their vibe is just like
hot and stylish and like, I don't know, you just
see any photos from that back then and you're like,
why do people not dress like this anymore? Yeah?
Lily Herman (14:21):
They have very classic style, very very of the time,
but still very classic. She's has like long, beautiful blonde hair.
Lily Herman2 (14:27):
Oh yeah.
Lily Herman (14:28):
Michael Schumacher will say I once got in a fight
with someone over if he's a brunette or a dirty blonde,
and I lean towards dirty blonde. But that's like a
different conversation for a different podcast episode. But yeah, like
they were this eight couple. I follow a lot of
like nostalgia accounts on Instagram, and they always come up,
like nostalgia accounts from the nineties and early two thousands
just love Michael and Karina Schumacher. And I do think
too that they are a perfect example of having a
(14:51):
very different image when he's with her, or their kids
are involved, or you knows, there's cute photos of him
with Mick his son who would eventually race an F
one as an adult. You know him him like carrying
bick around the paddock. But then that's in such start.
Contrast to Michael Schumacher, the racer right, who's very aggressive,
very intense, is known for some of the most controversial
(15:11):
moments in the sport's history.
Lily Herman2 (15:13):
What is he up to?
Speaker 8 (15:14):
He's stole me down the pate lane presumably look at him,
Look at him.
Speaker 6 (15:18):
He's saying, I'm getting to the Stewart.
Speaker 8 (15:20):
See James, James, can you can you in line? He's
going to copod He's got to have it out with
David colpob.
Lily Herman (15:26):
So it's interesting how the wags can offer a different
side of these men. So this takes us to almost
the era of F one that we are in twenty
twenty tens.
Lily Herman2 (15:37):
This is the end of Bernie eccleston's reign.
Lily Herman (15:41):
Inter Bernie, he's still very anti social media. As we
start to see different social media.
Lily Herman2 (15:48):
Sites come online.
Lily Herman (15:49):
He does not want there to be any kind of
public fodder more than necessary about his drivers or teams,
let alone the people they're dating.
Lily Herman2 (15:58):
I will say, during this time.
Lily Herman (16:00):
Though, there are still a couple of like ancient texts
as far as blogs and social media accounts from back
in the day of that whole era. So, for instance,
there's a blog that I love called the Pitwalk that
was around in like twenty seven to twenty thirteen, and
that was one of the first instances I ever saw
someone trying to track down where Sebastian Vettel's then girlfriend
(16:20):
Hannah got the scarf that she's wearing in one of
the few photos people have of her in the paddock.
And it's like this fascinating mystery of this, like anonymous
blogger going down this rabbit hole trying to like discuss
this scarf, so like people were making do with what
they had, and my point being people have always been
interested in what these women are doing. This takes us
to Liberty Media buying F one in the.
Lily Herman2 (16:41):
Mid twenty tens exit Bernie.
Lily Herman (16:45):
Bernie is no more as far as F one ownership
is concerned, and Liberty media isn't really talking about the
wags at first, but they are.
Speaker 6 (16:53):
There a new girl named Minto.
Kate1 (17:07):
So we have Minty Reichenan, you have Hannah Vettel, who
you were just talking about. You have Carlo Science who
was dating Lisa Herne is Charles Leclair. What is Giada?
Lily Herman (17:19):
Giadis his like high school girl friend.
Lily Herman2 (17:23):
Basically, essentially that you.
Kate1 (17:24):
Had George Russell was dating Nick Diavrees's sister, right.
Lily Herman (17:28):
Ye Saychelle debris am I correct.
Speaker 10 (17:32):
Debreez.
Lily Herman2 (17:33):
And then you had Max de Laura sand.
Kate1 (17:36):
Luck, Yeah, de Laura sand Lick Pierre dating Katerina one.
Lily Herman2 (17:41):
Yeah, cat one, cat one, Caterina one.
Kate1 (17:46):
And then my favorite is that you have Danny Caveat
dating Kelly p K.
Speaker 10 (17:54):
And that's the best one.
Kate1 (17:55):
And those who don't know, Kelly p K is the
mother of Danny Fiat's daughter, Penelope, and she is also
the mother of Max Verstappen's daughter with the most beautiful
name in the world, Lily, Yes.
Lily Herman2 (18:10):
The best name of all time.
Lily Herman (18:12):
Lily was famously Max were staff and took Daniel Kibiet's seat.
Speaker 10 (18:17):
And then his woman.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Shit man, some people have it rough, yeah, sh some people.
Lily Herman2 (18:26):
We'll be right back and we are back, Okay.
Lily Herman (18:32):
What would you say would be the unifying factor of
these various wags of this era, right, this kind of
post liberty media time, but pre Wagageddon era.
Kate1 (18:43):
They all felt very fan fiction romance novel. Female main
character centric, like just a normal girl. Your girl next
door is dating the big superstar, you know what I mean.
Like these were girls that were in school or that
like normal jobs, or had known the driver since high
(19:04):
school into like was a flight attendant. Like girls that
were very like quote unquote normal and private. Very few
of them were putting things out on social media or
talking about their relationship. I think that's the big thing. Yeah,
Max's girlfriend Dellara was like in school, and Giata was
a student that Charles had dated forever, and like, so
(19:27):
I feel like everyone was just very normal.
Lily Herman (19:29):
There's something very almost like a normcore aspirational feeling to them,
where yes, you were aware that most of them were
very wealthy and came from from very rich backgrounds, but
also like they would wear Zara to the grid and
like bizarre of at all Zara and then the Shean,
which I wouldn't say that's great but but but still
you could you could find and buy Shean compared to
(19:51):
some of the stuff you see Wags wearing today, right,
Like there's something yes, nice to know that you know,
these accounts that for instance, follow the Wags fashion would
be like, oh yeah, she go this dressed Zara. It's
like I could technically afford that, you know, this like
twenty five dollars dress compared to a ten thousand dollars bag.
Kate1 (20:08):
Yeah, exactly. It was like if you know, you know,
the people that cared about the Wags cared about the Wags,
and if you didn't, you didn't have to know anything
about them. This was also, I feel like the beginning
of F one content creation really and people coming onto
the scene and so like Nicole and I started and
we cared about the Wags and so we would post
(20:31):
about them. But a lot of people were like mad
at us that we were posting about them because they
were like, you shouldn't care about them, they're not the drivers,
and like you shouldn't care about their girlfriends, and we
were like, let us live. But then you did have
accounts that were like my girl wags f one, Like
wagf one, I miss her Elle wherever she was. You're happy,
(20:53):
uh as Lily would say, I hope she's well, No,
I really earnestly hope she has well.
Lily Herman (21:00):
But yeah, this wags f one account she was everything.
Kate1 (21:02):
She was everything, and so I feel like, yeah, it
was like if you wanted to go looking for stuff
about the Wags you could, and they were like more
accessible and approachable, and like these Wags accounts were so new,
and like the Wags would talk to them and be like, oh, yeah,
you know, I got this at Zara. Yeah, it was
like the underground. It was like F one underground, Like
(21:24):
we're talking about the Wags.
Lily Herman (21:25):
I remember Wags F one you step Up blog and
Charlotte Seene did an interview with WAGSF one on the
Charles Senna is Charlotte Clair's ex girlfriend or girlfriend at
the time, And I can't imagine that happening. Now, Yeah,
you have this almost quaint F one Wags grid and
as you're saying, it's a little bit underground if you know,
you know, if you want to follow these women or
whatever's going on with them or their outfits or whatnot,
you can And if you don't. It's not like mainstream
(21:46):
media of any form is covering them. They're not even
really mentioned on broadcasts like you might see them, but
they were not labeled by like, you know, some sort
of title card in a broadcast. They were just kind
of there. You would understand if you knew, right, and
the other things I was going to mention about this era,
the f one grid has been getting progressively younger over
the decades, but particularly in recent years. So you do
(22:07):
have younger drivers who are obviously probably not going to
be a settled down as someone who is like in
their thirties and forties. And they also have younger and
much more social media savvy fans who are paying attention
to what's going on and like who they're following, and
like who's tagged and stuff, so that that starts to
become part of the culture. The other thing, which I
know you you loved this at the time, is that
(22:28):
the pandemic brings a lot of drivers changing their relationship
with fans. So of course we have drivers like Lando Norris,
Charlotte Clair hopping on like live streams constantly.
Lily Herman2 (22:39):
If someone sends in a single five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Donation or we have saw the ones earlier, ten K,
I would shave the chat all my hair off, let
me have a look, and I will officially be.
Speaker 8 (22:53):
What are we going to play?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Boldo? Naris good, I'm good to go.
Lily Herman (22:57):
Now let's go. We famously have your your boys charl
in a banana costume.
Speaker 11 (23:05):
Oh my.
Lily Herman2 (23:06):
One particularly memorable live stream.
Kate1 (23:09):
Everything about that time period is so nostalgic. For me,
it was amazing. It was it was the best time
to be a live.
Lily Herman (23:17):
And you even have like some of the driver's girlfriends
like make appearances in different ways. Like Charlotte was like, like,
didn't she buy a subscription on Twitch because he wasn't
opening the door for her. He had locked her out
by accident, and so she got on to then be
like Charlotte locked out, So we had to like hop
off the stream.
Speaker 12 (23:31):
My girlfriend, My girlfriend is on Twitch telling me to
open her the apartments.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Wait a second, Ah, They're like.
Lily Herman (23:44):
To your point, this is these women feel very real,
right like this this feels like a normal situation that
would happen and not you know, a multi bazillionaire F
one driver and his like hot Monaco girlfriend.
Lily Herman2 (23:54):
Like like going about their lives.
Kate1 (23:56):
Right.
Lily Herman (23:56):
So, at long last, with all of this historical context
in place, we have arrived at the twenty twenty three
wagaged in which actually I will say begins to slowly
gain steam the previous fall and winter of twenty twenty two.
And this kicks off that fall when Lando Norris breaks
(24:16):
up with his girlfriend of about a year Luisa Barrossa
Olivera what a name.
Lily Herman2 (24:21):
They break up very, very suddenly.
Lily Herman (24:22):
She'd been the Paddock like only a couple weeks prior,
and of course, you know, everyone's like, oh, that's a bummer.
But also Lando is what twenty one twenty two years
old at this point, like, you know whatever, the first
big domino to fall. Of course, December sixth, twenty twenty two,
your man Charlotte Clair and his girlfriend of three years,
Charlotte Cena announce that they are breaking up.
Yochai (24:44):
What do you mean they announced, like they held the
press conference announcing their breakup or something.
Lily Herman (24:49):
So they did the very influencer public figure thing nowadays
of putting out matching his and hers breakup statements.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
I guess I find that oddly mantic.
Speaker 10 (25:00):
Actually, Sure, that day is just seared into my memory.
Lily Herman (25:12):
I'll never forget yeh, Hi, I'm sure you remember where
you were on December sixth two.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
I'm curious how they feel about these choices, they think
they made the right decision, if any of them have
any regrets?
Lily Herman (25:27):
You know what? This feels like a topic that Charlotte
Clair should explore in his music, in his classical music.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Sure, the song about Charlotte.
Lily Herman2 (25:40):
Maybe he's written one and we just don't know.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah, we all have these like you know, what if
moments in our lives that we just keep going back
to the old fork in the road.
Speaker 9 (25:52):
It's that old fork in the road, so taking us back.
Lily Herman (26:04):
December six, twenty two, charl and Charlotte announced their breakup
in joint Instagram stories, And I think as we were
kind of spelling out here, Charlotte to me is the
perfect example of a post drive to survive, but pre
waga get in partner to a driver because she's in school,
she's working an internship to become an architect.
Lily Herman2 (26:24):
Is still yeah, wearing.
Lily Herman (26:25):
Zara to the grid. Her style is a little off
kilter sometimes, which I personally find relatable, Like you know,
it's like it doesn't look picture perfect all the time.
There is something that that feels, I think a little
more connected or grounded than with a lot of She.
Kate1 (26:39):
Was very like familiar, like everyone knew a Charlotte.
Lily Herman (26:43):
Yeah, and I think it's interesting too. I did go
through some of my old engine failure editions and there
was this enormous backlash when towards the very end of
day Riley, Yeah, she starts so she's dating Charlotte. This
is fall like September of twenty twenty two, so only
a couple months before they announced their breakup. He does
some sponsored content with the beauty brand Sunday Riley from
(27:04):
in the Paddock, And there was so much backlash to
this notion of this young woman who's again in her
early twenties, just at all connecting her influencer career to
her famous driver partners, right, and that is just such
a foreign concept just three years later that anyone would
be this upset.
Kate1 (27:22):
It's so sad because I'm like, Charlotte, you were just
ahead of your time. Yeah, she was kind of the
influencer wag guinea pig.
Lily Herman2 (27:31):
Yeah, I feel Yeah.
Lily Herman (27:32):
So they break up, the dominoes start to fall with
wagged in So yeah. To list the other couples that
break up, and this is again in rapid succession, you
have Carlo Science at the time at Ferrari, he was
with his partner Isa Arnaz for was it like five
or six years they break up. She was, yeah, a
fashion publicist who also had quit her job to get
into more influencing and to become a podcaster, but also
(27:55):
was a very consistent member of the Wags. Grid came
to the Paddock newm times a year, so she was
and she had like fun, laid back.
Lily Herman2 (28:03):
Preppy style. I liked.
Speaker 10 (28:04):
I liked her look I miss her.
Lily Herman2 (28:06):
Yeah, me too.
Lily Herman (28:07):
And then we have Estebon Ocon and Alana Barry, another
staple the Paddock together for half a decade. They met
on vacation actually, and Elena didn't believe Estebon when he
said he wasn't like a racing driver. Fernando Alonso breaks
up with his partner of a year, Andrea Schlager, who
was also and still is like an F one journalist,
which they were like in the Paddock, which sounds like drama,
(28:28):
definitely the basis of a romance novel somewhere. Lancetroll had
been with his girlfriend, a model named Sarah Pagley Roli,
for about a year and a half to two years.
Lily Herman2 (28:37):
They break up.
Lily Herman (28:38):
She also in a in petty fashion if I remember correctly,
came back to the Paddock but with a different Wag
and was just hanging out with her.
Lily Herman2 (28:44):
But they were definitely broken up.
Kate1 (28:45):
Her and they also had a dog together. They got
a dog together.
Lily Herman2 (28:48):
Yeah, this is.
Lily Herman (28:49):
Getting very weird, Like, Okay, even if this entire series
of events had nothing to do with like a cultural
shift in f one and what came next and whatever, Like,
it is just wild that all of the drivers broke
up with their for the most part, like long term
girlfriends in a matter of months.
Kate1 (29:04):
Yeah.
Lily Herman (29:05):
And then also I'm not surprised that they maybe had
romantic interests in other people or that people were trying
to get with them, but like all then showed up
by the fall, almost all of them had new publicly
had new girlfriends, new partners. Yeah, and what would you
say was the difference between that old crop of girlfriends
and the kind of the current WAGS grid so to speak,
because many of these women who they got together with
(29:26):
three years ago are still around.
Kate1 (29:28):
Yeah, it's very much where the like first batch of
Wags were all very like normal, the second coming of
the Wags was very much more social media online pre
known people know who they are as individuals, not just
(29:51):
because they're associated with this driver. So it kind of
feels like when someone starts getting famous, they're like, oh,
I kind of have I like pick of the letter.
Lily Herman (30:02):
So yeah, so to your point, we now have a
Wag's grid that is starting to become I would say,
like a little more homogeneous, and it's weird to talk
about like this grid pre wag again as being diverse.
I wouldn't necessarily say that, but I think you had
many different people who had slightly different stuff going on.
Lily Herman2 (30:22):
We're interested in different things. I also feel like we
kind of heard.
Lily Herman (30:26):
Random fun facts about those women because drivers would let
it slip. Not not in a bad way, but just
we're a little more casual and we're not They were
still media trained at that point, but not worried about
anything they said ending up everywhere. Hence the yeah, the
twitch quartet, these guys live streaming. But I think of
the fact that, for instance, like Carlos signs in an
interview he did around like twenty twenty one or twenty
(30:47):
twenty two.
Speaker 11 (30:47):
I've sometimes started to listen some Yah in the mornings
just yes.
Lily Herman (30:53):
Really where he mentioned that like Lisa got him into
jazz music.
Kate1 (30:57):
Cindly with my girlfriend, I woke up, she put some
jazz in the morning and we were doing breakfast and
coffee and everything with some judge in the background, and I.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Said, no, not bad, not bad, send me the playlist
did try.
Lily Herman (31:10):
Yeah, And that's just like a fun it's a fun fact,
right that we don't kind of hear about those those
sorts of things in the same way anymore.
Kate1 (31:17):
They were all just so much more private that anytime
we got like a little crumb of information about their relationship,
it was like such a treat.
Lily Herman (31:25):
Yeah, things weren't as curated either.
Lily Herman2 (31:28):
In general.
Lily Herman (31:28):
Yes, I feel like nowadays as well, all the women
have alo yoga partnerships that they put online. All of
them are doing something with road Hailey Bieber's skincare makeup
beauty brand. But to bring this all together, we've gone
through this like history of wags in general, history of
wags in the F one grid. What we get to
pre this weird moment where all these drivers break up
(31:50):
with girlfriends and then proceed to get new ones very
soon after, is that you have these women that are yes,
wealthy and maybe come from like a very limited number
of backgrounds and circums, but still have a couple of
different things going on. They're a little more aspirational, a
little more grounded. They seem a little bit more like
you and me. And then with the flip of a switch,
in a matter of months, brand new Grid, still very wealthy, women,
(32:12):
but almost all of them are either influencers, Instagram models,
actual models. The clothes get more expensive, the Instagram feeds
get much more curated, the brand deals become much more
plentiful and probably way more expensive behind the scenes, and
it's all just a little like everything's gotta be real,
(32:34):
a little boring.
Kate1 (32:34):
Everyone's wearing beige, so much beige. Everyone's wearing beige.
Lily Herman (32:39):
Nowadays with this explosion of media around F one. I'm
not talking about F one media, Like you have these
women working with stylists nowadays to get these hard to
find archival pieces to wear to the grid. That that's
a far cry from Charlotte Sna showing up just three
years ago in like Zara or like a Shian dress
and some sandals, some Gladia sands because the European women
(33:01):
loved gladiator sandals even just a few years ago, and
then like calling it a day.
Lily Herman2 (33:06):
Yeah, it feels like you.
Lily Herman (33:07):
Have more and more women now where there is more
of a pressure to show up, you know, dressed to
the nines.
Kate1 (33:11):
They're dressing like on theme, like they're dressing for wherever
the race is, Like yeah, it's it's it's definitely more
of a show now, yeah, and.
Lily Herman2 (33:22):
I think it goes along too.
Lily Herman (33:23):
I've thought a lot too about both Charlotte Claire and
Alexander Stemlu as well as Pierre Ghastly and kik A
gum as his girlfriend. They both with them in rapid succession,
adopted dogs less than a year into dating. But I
think of how quickly the dogs became fixtures of the grid.
Right and now the idea that like f one is
writing literal articles for its website about like Leo the dog.
(33:45):
You know how you've been watching the sport for decades.
I can't imagine Bernie ecclestone being cool with that and
being like, yeah, write an article, you know, for our
sport about a driver and his girlfriend's dog, with the
girlfriend like in.
Lily Herman2 (33:56):
Photos with the dog in this article, Like could.
Lily Herman (33:58):
You see that, Yohai? Even ten fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
I can see him like just kind of like walking
along and seeing the dog in the paddock and just
kind of like kicking him out of the way.
Lily Herman (34:07):
Ye I was gonna say, I saw I could see
him like hunting the dog.
Lily Herman2 (34:09):
I couldn't see him.
Lily Herman (34:10):
I mean, like, oh, this is a great marketing op.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
The fuck let a dog in here?
Lily Herman (34:14):
Yeah, Like he'd be pissed, and he'd probably then like
have have words with Charyl over it. And I guess
my overarching thing with wagg agedin is I feel like
it's the perfect example in this very short period of
time where every job, so to speak, on the Grid
almost becomes professionalized, including the wags right, like they are
now seen as extensions of the drivers in this very
(34:34):
formal professional way.
Kate1 (34:35):
Everyone becomes a part of the brand. It almost felt
like who gets the role of girlfriend in this in
my brand?
Lily Herman2 (34:43):
Oh for sure.
Lily Herman (34:43):
And I think a lot too about how in the
world of like romance media, particularly romance novels, there's a
trope called normal person famous person right where like, yes,
I mean, it's like the movie The Prince in Me right,
where this normal college student ends up with a prince.
He's secretly a prince. He's trying to pretend he's a
normal guy. He can't because he's very princes and so
they end up dating, et cetera. But I think in reality, though,
(35:04):
the idea of being a quote unquote normal person who
dates one of these drivers, particularly at this point in
F one history, would be so intimidating and bizarre and
just so otherworldly that I think I'm not surprised that
women who maybe are already exposed to this through Instagram
influencing or modeling or maybe quite frankly want that life,
(35:25):
find themselves in closer proximity of these drivers, and maybe
these drivers would see that actually as a more attractive
trait at this point in their careers and lives.
Kate1 (35:33):
Like, she gets it exactly, She's familiar with it. It
doesn't bother her.
Lily Herman (35:37):
Yeah, knowing that that your girlfriend can maybe handle it
in a way that some others, not that they were
weak or anything, but just a lot Like it's just
I mean, we have this whole podcast episode about wags
and we're being nice, but it's interesting to me that
by the end of twenty twenty three, the F one
Wags grid is completely different. The big question I have
here is why do you think this matters? Like why
do you think covering or following the wags matters? And
(35:58):
seeing this trajectory pre in post Wagageddon, well, I think it.
Kate1 (36:02):
Really solidified who the new fan base of F one is.
Prior to Wagga Geddon, female fans weren't really taken seriously.
I mean, I still don't think They're totally taken seriously,
but much more so now. Once Waggygeddon happened and all
these new relationships came, f one as a business started realizing, Okay,
(36:25):
these women have something that we don't. These women have followings,
but they are also not confined by the red tape
of F one because they are their own people. We
saw it first with Carmen Montero Munt for George Russell.
She became essentially an employee of Mercedes. She was like
their spokesperson. She was in all of these different like
(36:48):
brand deals, she was in their content. She was really
like humanizing the team. So I think the institution of
F one started realizing that these girlfriends and wives were
not just people. They were assets to the sport and
to like the brands of the sports, the teams, and
the drivers as individuals too.
Lily Herman (37:08):
I can see on the screen that Yohi is having
an epistol. I can see the cogs turning for Yohi.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
All of this really makes me sort of if I
step back and I think about all this conversation big
picture here, there's something I sort of ironic about this
whole story. Liberty media comes in and buys f one
and they're like, how do we make this sport more popular?
It's been stagnant for a while after being you know,
under Bernie Ecosten's guard for a long time. And the
(37:38):
sort of the mechanism they come up with is like
humanizing it and getting everybody to know more about the
drivers using drive to survive and social media. And it worked.
They became it became much more popular. The drivers became
more popular. But as a consequence of that, they realized
that they are now kind of a product. Yeah, and
(37:58):
they aligned they align themselves with that, shedding themselves of
theirs high school sweethearts, and now the prism that we
have of them is much more curated, dare I say fake?
It makes podcasts like the podcast we produce here that
much more important to be able to show a more
real and round picture of these flawed, yet interesting human
(38:23):
beings that man for some reason want to risk their
lives going around in circles for our enjoyment, and we
appreciate that they do.
Lily Herman2 (38:31):
That was beautiful.
Lily Herman (38:32):
That was actually that was beautiful beautiful.
Lily Herman2 (38:34):
I was gonna say too.
Lily Herman (38:35):
You basically described the there's a term the authenticity trap,
right of like people doing all this stuff, especially on
social media, to seem more and more quote unquote authentic.
But then at a certain point, Yeah, there's a tipping point, right.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Right, I mean it's kind of ironic that, like I'm
thinking back to, you know, like drivers of the past,
like you know, your Jaime Hunts and your Nikki Laudas
or whatever. You only got to hear them talk when
a journalist would come up and interview them a microphone
to their faces. Much more on the face of it,
curated and controlled. But there's something more direct and authentic
(39:08):
about how they came across in some ways than when
the driver himself has the phone just recording himself or
his girlfriend or whatever and getting money for it because
you know, some brand told him to take a video
of himself lathering himself with some cream or another.
Lily Herman2 (39:24):
That is correct, They are doing a lot of lathering.
You are correcting.
Lily Herman (39:29):
Before we pause for some ads, I want to remind
you that we are a growing show and we need
your help. Rate and review no grip on Apple, Spotify
or wherever you listen to podcasts, and don't forget to
click that follower subscribe button while you're at it. Okay,
see you after the break, we're back. Let's return to
the show. Do you hid anything else that you want
to add?
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Just two things that I'm thinking. In general, I'm really
hoping to see sometime in the not too distant future
a female driver on the grid for like a million
different reasons. But now I like, I have another reason.
I'm really curious to see how what would we a
hab I guess, a husband and boyfriend.
Lily Herman2 (40:09):
A soap the significant other.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Significant other end partner would be pal Yes, what is
Pagan Park?
Kate1 (40:16):
Partners and lovers?
Speaker 1 (40:17):
How would that work on the grid? And then the
other thing that I'm thinking. My f one feet is
pretty much dominated by people talking about tire degradation, So
Lily opened me up a little bit to like looking
at the at the grid from an astrological point of view,
and I do find myself wondering what was going on
with the stars and the cosmos during this Wagageddon period,
(40:41):
whether it was in the stars or there there was
somebody could foresee it, maybe take avoiding measures.
Kate1 (40:47):
I know, I'm wondering who was in their Saturn return
or who was like entering their Saturn return at this time,
if any of them, And.
Lily Herman2 (40:54):
Now YOHI knows what that means after.
Lily Herman (40:56):
We did this episode on astrology of the grid. Incredible thing,
incredible insights from no. Actually, both your points are excellent, Yo, hi,
and I love this idea of like yet like imagine
a world in which Susie Wolf, who we will be
discussing on a future episode, does end up on the
F one grid somehow still ends up married to you know,
Mercedes team principal Total suddenly pal, He's a have a
(41:19):
soap a pal?
Speaker 1 (41:20):
That wouldn't that be amazing?
Lily Herman2 (41:21):
Yeah?
Lily Herman (41:22):
I will also add we do have to consider the
fact that there are no openly queer drivers on the
F one grid, and what if there was a day
where there was an openly queer driver who had a
same sex partner. We could also have a hab or
a soap or a pal on the grid that way,
and I think that would bring some some much needed
complexity and ass to the to the grid.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Are there any bachelors on the grid currently? Like, anybody
not spoken for at the moment?
Lily Herman (41:49):
Oh, let me let me put the list. You're high
right now. Lewis Hamilton is reported to be very casually
seeing his longtime friend Kim Kardashian.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
I mean, Lewis isn't a problematic age already where it's
like what's wrong, what's wrong with you?
Lily Herman (42:04):
It's problematic, but it's definitely kind of like, okay, you're
in your forties.
Lily Herman2 (42:06):
He has said that.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
It's problematically Lily. If I told my wife my four
year old friend has never been in a long term
serious relationship, he's like, he sing, there red flags.
Lily Herman2 (42:16):
Let's not forget.
Lily Herman (42:17):
But he has this Hamilton dating Nicole Scherzinger from a
moment of the Pussycat dolls on and off for what
was it, like seven eight years, from like twenty two
thousand and seven to like twenty fifteen or something like that,
I remember in correctly correct.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
So that's your like way to tell me, No, it's
not a red flag that he on and off dated
somebody for seven years exactly. Yeah.
Lily Herman (42:35):
I answer your question though, YOHI it's really hard to
know who's an actual bachelor these days among the drivers
who are publicly labeled single, because a lot of them
have gotten much more secretive about who they're seeing and
what they're doing, especially as the sports popularity is ramped up,
and they also are aware that there are accounts in
people following this.
Lily Herman2 (42:54):
Type of news right.
Lily Herman (42:56):
There's even been some some rumors that have circulated in
recent years that some of these drivers are making the
people that they are seeing or dating sign NDA's to
avoid yeah, leaks about their romantic or personal lives.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Send some lawyer papers with the flowers.
Lily Herman2 (43:12):
It's not romantic like the his and her breakup statements
that you that you thought was cute.
Yochai (43:18):
Where where is that like zero fox energy of like
the you know, the like James Hunts and the like
Nikki Laudas and of the past.
Lily Herman2 (43:26):
Yeah, to that point.
Lily Herman (43:27):
One thing that I think has gotten a little bit
lost in our current era of F one, and I
mentioned this actually I think in our episode with with Mikayla,
is that we're missing some flirty energy on the grid,
Like we need to bring mild horniness back to F one,
We need to make motorsports sexy again.
Lily Herman2 (43:45):
And that is, in fact, is what is missing at the.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Moment, Amen amen Co sign I learned so much today, really,
thank you both so much. I really I feel like
I learned a lot.
Lily Herman (44:00):
Okay, So, looking forward three years since the events of Wagageddon,
the F one Wags grid is an entirely different place
than it once was. So these women aren't just a
niche interest for a small subset of very online f
one fans. They are now central fixtures of what's happening
in the paddock and are covered by major media outlets,
big social media accounts, and even Formula one and its
(44:22):
teams themselves. I would also say that Wagageddon was never
just tabloid fodder, because to me, it represents this big
watershed moment for the sport where every single piece of
Formula One, including the personal lives of its competitors, becomes
part of a publicly commodified entertainment product. So, for example,
we're living in a time when someone like Charlotte Clair
(44:43):
isn't just trying to raise his ferrari, which is already
enough of a struggle, while hawking some watches or jets
or whatever on the side with his sponsors. Formula one
is now covering his recent marriage to Alexandra saintemlu now
Alexandra Leclair on its website, right next to news about
team personnel changes and power unit regulations.
Lily Herman2 (45:03):
Is that a good or bad thing? Well, I will
let all of you be the judge of that.
Speaker 6 (45:08):
Hi girl Louisa.
Speaker 12 (45:13):
She laughed like summary, Charlotte Danston is a smile, but
none of them could stayley.
Lily Herman2 (45:24):
That's our show for today.
Lily Herman (45:26):
We'll see you on April twenty ninth, ahead of the
Miami Grand Prix, where we'll be diving into the thorny
topic of women in Formula one and the progress of
the EFLN Academy.
Speaker 11 (45:35):
I look back twenty years, which is how long. Thank
God my prayer has lasted so far, and I'm disappointed.
Lily Herman (45:48):
No Grip is hosted by me Lily Herman and produced,
edited and sound designed by Johai Metal. Max Miller is
our executive producer. We get additional production support from Poldo
Special thanks to Ben Riskin at Room Tone at iHeart Shantitone.
Lily Herman2 (46:01):
Is our executive producer.
Lily Herman (46:03):
Be sure to give this show a five star rating
and review. Wherever you're listening. You can follow me at
Lily K Herman on Instagram and subscribe to my F
one culture newsletter at Engine failuref one dot com. You
can follow us at No Grip Podcast on Instagram and
TikTok
Yo, Hi, Lily, what do you have for us today?
Lily Herman (00:02):
We are going so far out of your wheelhouse.
Yochai (00:06):
You keep assuming you know what my wheelhouse is. But okay,
let's hear it.
Lily Herman2 (00:10):
Let me back up.
Lily Herman (00:11):
I know you keep up with like f on media
and all of that. I know you're not as familiar
with the social media side of F one, but I
feel like every media outlet, every TikToker, substacker or whatever.
Every week they're announcing we've entered a new cultural era
of F one, and they're like, yes, it's now because
drivers are more interested in fashion. It's because Dorito's is
(00:34):
an official savory snack partner of the Grid. It's because
Charleclair is in a Pokemon commercial for the twenty twenty
six Super Bowl, and all of that is great. However, However,
those people are all wrong. The moment that is a
real harbinger of what's to come in F one, the
real before and after of this sports cultural ascension actually
(00:57):
took place back in twenty twenty three, and it was
a moment that I at the time dubbed Wagageddon. God yeah,
roughly half a dozen drivers on the Grid broke up
with their long term partners the Wags, the wives and
girlfriends in rapid succession. There was a very very intense
(01:21):
turnover of the F one Wags grid, a silly season,
if you will, of the Wags grid at the time,
the Wags grid, the Wags grid, there's a separate, invisible
grid outside of the normal F one grid, and I
would say that that completely changed the culture of the sport.
Yochai (01:37):
It's a big, clean, big claim. I'd love to hear
you make this argument.
Lily Herman (01:40):
Here's what I will say, though, I do need some
help making this argument, and while you are a delight
to work with you, Hi, unfortunately I do not think you.
Are the person to help me with this. That's fair.
This is a grid you did not know about until
thirty seconds ago. So I have brought in a person who,
like me, has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Wags grid.
Out further Ado, let me bring in none other than
(02:04):
Kate Byrne, who is one half of Two Girls, One Formula,
and as you recall, Nicole Severs, the other half of
Two Girls, One Formula, was on our show a few
episodes ago. Okay, so without further Ado, let's get into
this Wag's takeover.
Lily Herman2 (02:19):
Welcome to the show.
Kate (02:21):
Kate, thank you so much for having me biggest honor
of my life.
Lily Herman (02:25):
I would like to point out that, unlike Nicole, your
first Formula one love was Charlotte Clair.
Kate1 (02:31):
It was actually Kimmy reichen In.
Lily Herman2 (02:32):
Oh no, did I forget this?
Kate1 (02:33):
The first race, the first F one race that I
ever watched was Austin twenty eighteen, and that is when
Kimmy reichen In won And that was the last race
that he ever won for Ferrari, my god, and I
was watching it and he just didn't give a fuck
that he won that race, Like he was on top
step at the podium and everyone's celebrating, and he just
like didn't.
Lily Herman2 (02:54):
Give a fuck.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
It doesn't change my life.
Kate1 (02:57):
And I said, that energy is incredible. I love him honestly.
That's I weighs really nicely into what we're talking about
today because it's his wag situations.
Lily Herman (03:06):
Oh you just you asked the golden question? Yo, hi, Kate,
who is who is the wife? I should say the
second wife? Am I correct?
Kate1 (03:13):
The second wife second wife of Kimmy Raikon is Minto
reiken in My Queen, the Ultimate Wag, the Ultimate F
one Wag. She ruled that Paddock like nobody's fucking business.
She is an icon. She's everything to me.
Lily Herman (03:34):
One of my favorite Mintu moments is she showed up
for Kimmy's final race of his final F one season
wearing a custom two piece purple protest set, which has
not left my mind in the years since she.
Kate1 (03:46):
Was the Queen of the Wags, and nothing has been
the same sentence her.
Lily Herman2 (03:52):
Departure everything after that it did.
Lily Herman (03:56):
I don't like to say that, yo, hi, tell me
what is your experience with the Wags, because we went
over them a little bit in choosing sides, But I
feel like I never got to see the extent.
Lily Herman2 (04:05):
Of your wag dum, your wag fandom.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah. So, I mean before every episode, I really try
and sort of come prepared. I try to really dive
in and come learned about the topic at hand. I
was going to do that for this episode as well,
And as soon as I sort of dipped my toe,
I quickly realized that this topic is just so huge
that I didn't really know where to start.
Kate1 (04:27):
Yeah, it's a bit of a deep pool for just
a toe dip.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
I'm really coming a clean slate here, a clean slate,
But I'm also a sponge. I'm ready to learn. Ready
to learn.
Lily Herman (04:37):
So, Kate, you and I have privately talked over the
years about the various catalysts of.
Lily Herman2 (04:44):
Cultural shifts and F one.
Lily Herman (04:45):
So obviously everyone says, okay, liberty media takes over F
one in the mid twenty tens, that's a shift. There's
more openness from the grid and the paddock drivers are
now encouraged to post on social media as our teams,
which was not the case under Bernie eccleston for the
decades before that. You then see people say, yes, drive
to survive when it takes off, particularly the start of
(05:06):
the pandemic, that's the big cultural moment. But I would
argue that the cultural moment that comes about around the
time when all of these wags leave the grid and
then a new batch of wags very quickly come in,
that that is the big The big shift.
Kate1 (05:21):
I would agree with that wholeheartedly.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Is wags. Like, can I say, let's say, I am
a wag? Is that like a profession? Is that like
a like my name is Johia, I'm a wag. I
mean I couldn't be a wag.
Lily Herman (05:32):
But it's interesting you say that because that's kind of
the crux of what's happening today of when when do
these women go from being you know, just the partner
who maybe you like her style and you enjoy seeing
her in the paddock from time to time to these you know, professionalized,
commodified parts of the grid. But yes, I guess you
could maybe be a wag.
Kate1 (05:48):
You know, Hi, Well they have TV shows.
Lily Herman2 (05:50):
Yeah, yes, that's a profession, I would say.
Speaker 6 (05:54):
So.
Lily Herman (05:54):
For the purposes of this episode, I figured I'd break
this whole Wag's universe down into three parts.
Yochai (06:00):
I really appreciate that, Lily. I love when things are
broken down into three parts. Just something for you to
know about me.
Lily Herman (06:06):
Okay, So the three parts for you, YOHI to make
this easy on you.
Lily Herman2 (06:09):
We have a.
Lily Herman (06:10):
Brief history of sports wags in general, a brief history
of F one wags because they did not just suddenly
appear with Wagageddon and then wagagedon itself and the impact,
the fallout, all the things that came with it.
Lily Herman2 (06:25):
But I will start with part one.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Okay, I'm ready.
Lily Herman2 (06:27):
Our journey begins in two thousand and two, when it.
Lily Herman (06:30):
Is believed that the first recorded use of the term
wag was in a May nineteenth issue of the Sunday
Telegraph in the UK. It was never guaranteed that the
wives and girlfriends, or the wags as staff at the
Jermira Beach Club call them for short, would get along.
Missus Beckham's tongue, for one, had previously run away with itself.
And yes, the Missus Beckham in question, Miss Victoria Beckham
(06:53):
of passen Beck's.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Fame, Victoria Beckham, I knew that, so I actually do
have some knowledge.
Lily Herman (06:59):
Well, so our journey actually starts nowhere near a single
motorsports circuit. We are instead temporarily heading over to the
sport known here in the States as soccer. Interest in
the partners of various soccer players or footballers, as our
European counterparts would say, dates back to at least the
nineteen fifties, and in that case, the long serving England
(07:22):
captain Billy Wright was married to a popular singer at
the time named Joy Beverly, and she was in a
sister trio known as the Beverly's How Fun, How Clever Women.
Speaker 7 (07:30):
In the fifties, what in the stereotype a straight jacket
have we refused to be blowing? We wanted to be daring,
we loved being daring, but it was nomal we want
to say, we wanted to be normal and say and
with it.
Lily Herman (07:46):
And by the late nineteen sixties there was a different
England captain named Bobby Moore. His first wife Tina and
him were known as this very stylish golden couple in
the press.
Speaker 8 (07:56):
Photographer start wanting him to take photographs of me and
the other wives. So that was the beginning of the
ning the third Yeah, from the first time, I think
football moved from the back page to the front page.
And also they defeatus on the wives and their families,
so we start to get a little bit of recognition.
Lily Herman (08:12):
However, the first real incident where romantic partners of soccer
players start to become more of a headline is in
nineteen seventy during the World Cup in Mexico, where the
manager of England's team, a guy named Sir alf Ramsey.
Hell of a name, alf Ramsey, He started to publicly
express concern about the team's cohesion because of the presence
(08:37):
of certain wives and girlfriends of a couple of different players.
It all came to a head when England lost the
quarterfinal to West Germany, and that loss was largely attributed
to the goalkeeping lapses of Peter Bennetti, and people said
that his pre match nerves were brought upon by rumors
(08:58):
that were circulating about alleged behavior by his wife, Francis Francis.
And then the interest in wags as we know them
as this kind of cultural identity, and as this brand
really goes into overdrive in the late nineties and early
two thousands with a certain couple whom I mentioned earlier,
that would be.
Speaker 7 (09:14):
I'd like to start by, oh, I have to raise it.
Speaker 9 (09:17):
That doesn't happen often.
Lily Herman2 (09:18):
I'd like to start by congratulating.
Speaker 10 (09:22):
Oh my god, I didn't.
Speaker 11 (09:23):
Even mean.
Lily Herman2 (09:26):
David and Victoria Beckham.
Lily Herman (09:27):
Of course, when they started dating, they were David Beckham
and Victoria Adams, known as Posh Spice in the Spice Girls.
And the interesting thing I will say about them, which
seems really quaint given what we know about wags and
how couples like to be a brand nowadays, is that
they were one of the first to really really seize
for themselves, this idea of we have more interests than
(09:49):
just what you know us.
Speaker 11 (09:50):
For I realized that you were really famous straight what.
Speaker 9 (09:57):
It was when he first starty going out.
Lily Herman (09:59):
We made a thing at Victoria was quoted as saying
that she and David had so many wider interests fashion makeup.
I mean, you think, yeah, football's great and singing's great,
but you've got to look at the bigger picture. So
these two were really going for it, and not just
in their respective professions that everyone knew them for.
Yochai (10:15):
Victoria, do you want to tell us what we're doing today?
Speaker 7 (10:18):
Today we're here at Vogue and we are shooting a
Coffer story celebrating the rich and inspiring history of one
of the most enduring star icons of all time, me
Joy Beckon.
Lily Herman (10:34):
The other, one note I will make about soccer in
the UK and wag culture is that during this time
late nineties early two thousands, it does start to make
a lot of headlines because coaches, players, other people are
starting to be grumpy in the tabloids in the press
about the wags. So one famous example is that the
then captain of Manchester United, Roy Keane, started lashing out
(10:56):
at various wags during the team's very rough two thousand
one two thousand and two season, where he was telling
tabloids and media and press that these women had like
very lavish lifestyles and cared too much about press attention
and that was part of the.
Lily Herman2 (11:09):
Issue, he claimed.
Lily Herman (11:10):
And then he grouped this in with some of his
teammates becoming too obsessed with fame and fortune like their
partners were. And then this all came to a head
when soon after this terrible season he leaves become the
manager of a team called Sunderland, and he again goes
to the press and starts complaining that he's having difficulties
signing players for a city in Northeast England because players
(11:31):
wives and girlfriends don't want to move away from London
or any team that would help them be based around London.
Lily Herman2 (11:38):
And his quote, which this is very misogynistic, was.
Lily Herman (11:41):
That if they don't want to come to Sunderland because
their wives want to go shopping in London, then it's
a sad state of affairs. Unfortunately, that is what is
influencing a lot of footballer's decisions. Priorities have changed for
footballers and they are being dictated by their wives and girlfriends.
Kate1 (11:55):
How it happens, Yeah, God forbid, a woman has an
opinion exactly, Bro, you just were a bad team and
they didn't want to come Sorr.
Lily Herman (12:03):
You know, so that was just a short introduction to
wags culture that has been going on for decades. But
let's get to your neck of the woods, Kate, and
talk about the F one wags specifically in the years
leading up to Wagagedon in twenty twenty three.
Lily Herman2 (12:17):
So this is part two of Wagagedon.
Lily Herman (12:24):
So the wags back then, in like the sixties seventies,
a lot of them did stuff like timekeeping on the
grid and were seen as like a vital part of
the culture. So just a fun fact there. In the
nineteen sixties, there was a model named Nina Wrint who
was married to the driver Yo can Rent. He's actually
the only F one driver to win the championship posthumously
because he died in nineteen seventy and then won the
(12:46):
nineteen seventy World Drivers' Championship. Oh my gosh, I know,
very very depressing. Benita Wrint, very very attractive model who
was around the paddicle up. There's a lot of if
you start googling wags from the nineteen sixties and seventies,
her photo comes up a lot. Were these women were
just kind of like a round which was cool, like
we're just kind of part of the experience and part
of the culture. Similarly, I will say Jackie Stewart, the
iconic F one driver, his wife Helen, an actress, was
(13:09):
also known for being a very stylish staple of the grid.
I will also mention another fun fact, which is that
in nineteen sixty two, the wives of five prominent F
one drivers came together and created something called the Women's
Motor Racing Associates Club informally known as the Doghouse Owners Club,
where they actually offered support to women whose partners or
(13:30):
spouses were killed in racing accidents or were severely injured.
So I do think that this is an interesting way
to show that wags. I think there's this idea that
they're just meant to be seen and not heard, or
to not really participate in a culture, and this is
just a great example that proves otherwise.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
In an organization that still exists to this very day.
Lily Herman2 (13:47):
It does.
Lily Herman (13:47):
It has changed mission and a little different.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
But yeah, not as many widows to support.
Lily Herman (13:52):
That is an incredibly morbid way to think about it.
But yes, you are correct, Yohai. All right, So to
head into the period where I think people start paying
attention a lot to the f one Wags the late
nineties and early two thousands, and I think no one
encapsulates this better as Michael and Corina Schumacher.
Kate1 (14:08):
Yeah, they're just incredibly attractive. Their vibe is just like
hot and stylish and like, I don't know, you just
see any photos from that back then and you're like,
why do people not dress like this anymore? Yeah?
Lily Herman (14:21):
They have very classic style, very very of the time,
but still very classic. She's has like long, beautiful blonde hair.
Lily Herman2 (14:27):
Oh yeah.
Lily Herman (14:28):
Michael Schumacher will say I once got in a fight
with someone over if he's a brunette or a dirty blonde,
and I lean towards dirty blonde. But that's like a
different conversation for a different podcast episode. But yeah, like
they were this eight couple. I follow a lot of
like nostalgia accounts on Instagram, and they always come up,
like nostalgia accounts from the nineties and early two thousands
just love Michael and Karina Schumacher. And I do think
too that they are a perfect example of having a
(14:51):
very different image when he's with her, or their kids
are involved, or you knows, there's cute photos of him
with Mick his son who would eventually race an F
one as an adult. You know him him like carrying
bick around the paddock. But then that's in such start.
Contrast to Michael Schumacher, the racer right, who's very aggressive,
very intense, is known for some of the most controversial
(15:11):
moments in the sport's history.
Lily Herman2 (15:13):
What is he up to?
Speaker 8 (15:14):
He's stole me down the pate lane presumably look at him,
Look at him.
Speaker 6 (15:18):
He's saying, I'm getting to the Stewart.
Speaker 8 (15:20):
See James, James, can you can you in line? He's
going to copod He's got to have it out with
David colpob.
Lily Herman (15:26):
So it's interesting how the wags can offer a different
side of these men. So this takes us to almost
the era of F one that we are in twenty
twenty tens.
Lily Herman2 (15:37):
This is the end of Bernie eccleston's reign.
Lily Herman (15:41):
Inter Bernie, he's still very anti social media. As we
start to see different social media.
Lily Herman2 (15:48):
Sites come online.
Lily Herman (15:49):
He does not want there to be any kind of
public fodder more than necessary about his drivers or teams,
let alone the people they're dating.
Lily Herman2 (15:58):
I will say, during this time.
Lily Herman (16:00):
Though, there are still a couple of like ancient texts
as far as blogs and social media accounts from back
in the day of that whole era. So, for instance,
there's a blog that I love called the Pitwalk that
was around in like twenty seven to twenty thirteen, and
that was one of the first instances I ever saw
someone trying to track down where Sebastian Vettel's then girlfriend
(16:20):
Hannah got the scarf that she's wearing in one of
the few photos people have of her in the paddock.
And it's like this fascinating mystery of this, like anonymous
blogger going down this rabbit hole trying to like discuss
this scarf, so like people were making do with what
they had, and my point being people have always been
interested in what these women are doing. This takes us
to Liberty Media buying F one in the.
Lily Herman2 (16:41):
Mid twenty tens exit Bernie.
Lily Herman (16:45):
Bernie is no more as far as F one ownership
is concerned, and Liberty media isn't really talking about the
wags at first, but they are.
Speaker 6 (16:53):
There a new girl named Minto.
Kate1 (17:07):
So we have Minty Reichenan, you have Hannah Vettel, who
you were just talking about. You have Carlo Science who
was dating Lisa Herne is Charles Leclair. What is Giada?
Lily Herman (17:19):
Giadis his like high school girl friend.
Lily Herman2 (17:23):
Basically, essentially that you.
Kate1 (17:24):
Had George Russell was dating Nick Diavrees's sister, right.
Lily Herman (17:28):
Ye Saychelle debris am I correct.
Speaker 10 (17:32):
Debreez.
Lily Herman2 (17:33):
And then you had Max de Laura sand.
Kate1 (17:36):
Luck, Yeah, de Laura sand Lick Pierre dating Katerina one.
Lily Herman2 (17:41):
Yeah, cat one, cat one, Caterina one.
Kate1 (17:46):
And then my favorite is that you have Danny Caveat
dating Kelly p K.
Speaker 10 (17:54):
And that's the best one.
Kate1 (17:55):
And those who don't know, Kelly p K is the
mother of Danny Fiat's daughter, Penelope, and she is also
the mother of Max Verstappen's daughter with the most beautiful
name in the world, Lily, Yes.
Lily Herman2 (18:10):
The best name of all time.
Lily Herman (18:12):
Lily was famously Max were staff and took Daniel Kibiet's seat.
Speaker 10 (18:17):
And then his woman.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Shit man, some people have it rough, yeah, sh some people.
Lily Herman2 (18:26):
We'll be right back and we are back, Okay.
Lily Herman (18:32):
What would you say would be the unifying factor of
these various wags of this era, right, this kind of
post liberty media time, but pre Wagageddon era.
Kate1 (18:43):
They all felt very fan fiction romance novel. Female main
character centric, like just a normal girl. Your girl next
door is dating the big superstar, you know what I mean.
Like these were girls that were in school or that
like normal jobs, or had known the driver since high
(19:04):
school into like was a flight attendant. Like girls that
were very like quote unquote normal and private. Very few
of them were putting things out on social media or
talking about their relationship. I think that's the big thing. Yeah,
Max's girlfriend Dellara was like in school, and Giata was
a student that Charles had dated forever, and like, so
(19:27):
I feel like everyone was just very normal.
Lily Herman (19:29):
There's something very almost like a normcore aspirational feeling to them,
where yes, you were aware that most of them were
very wealthy and came from from very rich backgrounds, but
also like they would wear Zara to the grid and
like bizarre of at all Zara and then the Shean,
which I wouldn't say that's great but but but still
you could you could find and buy Shean compared to
(19:51):
some of the stuff you see Wags wearing today, right,
Like there's something yes, nice to know that you know,
these accounts that for instance, follow the Wags fashion would
be like, oh yeah, she go this dressed Zara. It's
like I could technically afford that, you know, this like
twenty five dollars dress compared to a ten thousand dollars bag.
Kate1 (20:08):
Yeah, exactly. It was like if you know, you know,
the people that cared about the Wags cared about the Wags,
and if you didn't, you didn't have to know anything
about them. This was also, I feel like the beginning
of F one content creation really and people coming onto
the scene and so like Nicole and I started and
we cared about the Wags and so we would post
(20:31):
about them. But a lot of people were like mad
at us that we were posting about them because they
were like, you shouldn't care about them, they're not the drivers,
and like you shouldn't care about their girlfriends, and we
were like, let us live. But then you did have
accounts that were like my girl wags f one, Like
wagf one, I miss her Elle wherever she was. You're happy,
(20:53):
uh as Lily would say, I hope she's well, No,
I really earnestly hope she has well.
Lily Herman (21:00):
But yeah, this wags f one account she was everything.
Kate1 (21:02):
She was everything, and so I feel like, yeah, it
was like if you wanted to go looking for stuff
about the Wags you could, and they were like more
accessible and approachable, and like these Wags accounts were so new,
and like the Wags would talk to them and be like, oh, yeah,
you know, I got this at Zara. Yeah, it was
like the underground. It was like F one underground, Like
(21:24):
we're talking about the Wags.
Lily Herman (21:25):
I remember Wags F one you step Up blog and
Charlotte Seene did an interview with WAGSF one on the
Charles Senna is Charlotte Clair's ex girlfriend or girlfriend at
the time, And I can't imagine that happening. Now, Yeah,
you have this almost quaint F one Wags grid and
as you're saying, it's a little bit underground if you know,
you know, if you want to follow these women or
whatever's going on with them or their outfits or whatnot,
you can And if you don't. It's not like mainstream
(21:46):
media of any form is covering them. They're not even
really mentioned on broadcasts like you might see them, but
they were not labeled by like, you know, some sort
of title card in a broadcast. They were just kind
of there. You would understand if you knew, right, and
the other things I was going to mention about this era,
the f one grid has been getting progressively younger over
the decades, but particularly in recent years. So you do
(22:07):
have younger drivers who are obviously probably not going to
be a settled down as someone who is like in
their thirties and forties. And they also have younger and
much more social media savvy fans who are paying attention
to what's going on and like who they're following, and
like who's tagged and stuff, so that that starts to
become part of the culture. The other thing, which I
know you you loved this at the time, is that
(22:28):
the pandemic brings a lot of drivers changing their relationship
with fans. So of course we have drivers like Lando Norris,
Charlotte Clair hopping on like live streams constantly.
Lily Herman2 (22:39):
If someone sends in a single five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Donation or we have saw the ones earlier, ten K,
I would shave the chat all my hair off, let
me have a look, and I will officially be.
Speaker 8 (22:53):
What are we going to play?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Boldo? Naris good, I'm good to go.
Lily Herman (22:57):
Now let's go. We famously have your your boys charl
in a banana costume.
Speaker 11 (23:05):
Oh my.
Lily Herman2 (23:06):
One particularly memorable live stream.
Kate1 (23:09):
Everything about that time period is so nostalgic. For me,
it was amazing. It was it was the best time
to be a live.
Lily Herman (23:17):
And you even have like some of the driver's girlfriends
like make appearances in different ways. Like Charlotte was like, like,
didn't she buy a subscription on Twitch because he wasn't
opening the door for her. He had locked her out
by accident, and so she got on to then be
like Charlotte locked out, So we had to like hop
off the stream.
Speaker 12 (23:31):
My girlfriend, My girlfriend is on Twitch telling me to
open her the apartments.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Wait a second, Ah, They're like.
Lily Herman (23:44):
To your point, this is these women feel very real,
right like this this feels like a normal situation that
would happen and not you know, a multi bazillionaire F
one driver and his like hot Monaco girlfriend.
Lily Herman2 (23:54):
Like like going about their lives.
Kate1 (23:56):
Right.
Lily Herman (23:56):
So, at long last, with all of this historical context
in place, we have arrived at the twenty twenty three
wagaged in which actually I will say begins to slowly
gain steam the previous fall and winter of twenty twenty two.
And this kicks off that fall when Lando Norris breaks
(24:16):
up with his girlfriend of about a year Luisa Barrossa
Olivera what a name.
Lily Herman2 (24:21):
They break up very, very suddenly.
Lily Herman (24:22):
She'd been the Paddock like only a couple weeks prior,
and of course, you know, everyone's like, oh, that's a bummer.
But also Lando is what twenty one twenty two years
old at this point, like, you know whatever, the first
big domino to fall. Of course, December sixth, twenty twenty two,
your man Charlotte Clair and his girlfriend of three years,
Charlotte Cena announce that they are breaking up.
Yochai (24:44):
What do you mean they announced, like they held the
press conference announcing their breakup or something.
Lily Herman (24:49):
So they did the very influencer public figure thing nowadays
of putting out matching his and hers breakup statements.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
I guess I find that oddly mantic.
Speaker 10 (25:00):
Actually, Sure, that day is just seared into my memory.
Lily Herman (25:12):
I'll never forget yeh, Hi, I'm sure you remember where
you were on December sixth two.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
I'm curious how they feel about these choices, they think
they made the right decision, if any of them have
any regrets?
Lily Herman (25:27):
You know what? This feels like a topic that Charlotte
Clair should explore in his music, in his classical music.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Sure, the song about Charlotte.
Lily Herman2 (25:40):
Maybe he's written one and we just don't know.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah, we all have these like you know, what if
moments in our lives that we just keep going back
to the old fork in the road.
Speaker 9 (25:52):
It's that old fork in the road, so taking us back.
Lily Herman (26:04):
December six, twenty two, charl and Charlotte announced their breakup
in joint Instagram stories, And I think as we were
kind of spelling out here, Charlotte to me is the
perfect example of a post drive to survive, but pre
waga get in partner to a driver because she's in school,
she's working an internship to become an architect.
Lily Herman2 (26:24):
Is still yeah, wearing.
Lily Herman (26:25):
Zara to the grid. Her style is a little off
kilter sometimes, which I personally find relatable, Like you know,
it's like it doesn't look picture perfect all the time.
There is something that that feels, I think a little
more connected or grounded than with a lot of She.
Kate1 (26:39):
Was very like familiar, like everyone knew a Charlotte.
Lily Herman (26:43):
Yeah, and I think it's interesting too. I did go
through some of my old engine failure editions and there
was this enormous backlash when towards the very end of
day Riley, Yeah, she starts so she's dating Charlotte. This
is fall like September of twenty twenty two, so only
a couple months before they announced their breakup. He does
some sponsored content with the beauty brand Sunday Riley from
(27:04):
in the Paddock, And there was so much backlash to
this notion of this young woman who's again in her
early twenties, just at all connecting her influencer career to
her famous driver partners, right, and that is just such
a foreign concept just three years later that anyone would
be this upset.
Kate1 (27:22):
It's so sad because I'm like, Charlotte, you were just
ahead of your time. Yeah, she was kind of the
influencer wag guinea pig.
Lily Herman2 (27:31):
Yeah, I feel Yeah.
Lily Herman (27:32):
So they break up, the dominoes start to fall with
wagged in So yeah. To list the other couples that
break up, and this is again in rapid succession, you
have Carlo Science at the time at Ferrari, he was
with his partner Isa Arnaz for was it like five
or six years they break up. She was, yeah, a
fashion publicist who also had quit her job to get
into more influencing and to become a podcaster, but also
(27:55):
was a very consistent member of the Wags. Grid came
to the Paddock newm times a year, so she was
and she had like fun, laid back.
Lily Herman2 (28:03):
Preppy style. I liked.
Speaker 10 (28:04):
I liked her look I miss her.
Lily Herman2 (28:06):
Yeah, me too.
Lily Herman (28:07):
And then we have Estebon Ocon and Alana Barry, another
staple the Paddock together for half a decade. They met
on vacation actually, and Elena didn't believe Estebon when he
said he wasn't like a racing driver. Fernando Alonso breaks
up with his partner of a year, Andrea Schlager, who
was also and still is like an F one journalist,
which they were like in the Paddock, which sounds like drama,
(28:28):
definitely the basis of a romance novel somewhere. Lancetroll had
been with his girlfriend, a model named Sarah Pagley Roli,
for about a year and a half to two years.
Lily Herman2 (28:37):
They break up.
Lily Herman (28:38):
She also in a in petty fashion if I remember correctly,
came back to the Paddock but with a different Wag
and was just hanging out with her.
Lily Herman2 (28:44):
But they were definitely broken up.
Kate1 (28:45):
Her and they also had a dog together. They got
a dog together.
Lily Herman2 (28:48):
Yeah, this is.
Lily Herman (28:49):
Getting very weird, Like, Okay, even if this entire series
of events had nothing to do with like a cultural
shift in f one and what came next and whatever, Like,
it is just wild that all of the drivers broke
up with their for the most part, like long term
girlfriends in a matter of months.
Kate1 (29:04):
Yeah.
Lily Herman (29:05):
And then also I'm not surprised that they maybe had
romantic interests in other people or that people were trying
to get with them, but like all then showed up
by the fall, almost all of them had new publicly
had new girlfriends, new partners. Yeah, and what would you
say was the difference between that old crop of girlfriends
and the kind of the current WAGS grid so to speak,
because many of these women who they got together with
(29:26):
three years ago are still around.
Kate1 (29:28):
Yeah, it's very much where the like first batch of
Wags were all very like normal, the second coming of
the Wags was very much more social media online pre
known people know who they are as individuals, not just
(29:51):
because they're associated with this driver. So it kind of
feels like when someone starts getting famous, they're like, oh,
I kind of have I like pick of the letter.
Lily Herman (30:02):
So yeah, so to your point, we now have a
Wag's grid that is starting to become I would say,
like a little more homogeneous, and it's weird to talk
about like this grid pre wag again as being diverse.
I wouldn't necessarily say that, but I think you had
many different people who had slightly different stuff going on.
Lily Herman2 (30:22):
We're interested in different things. I also feel like we
kind of heard.
Lily Herman (30:26):
Random fun facts about those women because drivers would let
it slip. Not not in a bad way, but just
we're a little more casual and we're not They were
still media trained at that point, but not worried about
anything they said ending up everywhere. Hence the yeah, the
twitch quartet, these guys live streaming. But I think of
the fact that, for instance, like Carlos signs in an
interview he did around like twenty twenty one or twenty
(30:47):
twenty two.
Speaker 11 (30:47):
I've sometimes started to listen some Yah in the mornings
just yes.
Lily Herman (30:53):
Really where he mentioned that like Lisa got him into
jazz music.
Kate1 (30:57):
Cindly with my girlfriend, I woke up, she put some
jazz in the morning and we were doing breakfast and
coffee and everything with some judge in the background, and I.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Said, no, not bad, not bad, send me the playlist
did try.
Lily Herman (31:10):
Yeah, And that's just like a fun it's a fun fact,
right that we don't kind of hear about those those
sorts of things in the same way anymore.
Kate1 (31:17):
They were all just so much more private that anytime
we got like a little crumb of information about their relationship,
it was like such a treat.
Lily Herman (31:25):
Yeah, things weren't as curated either.
Lily Herman2 (31:28):
In general.
Lily Herman (31:28):
Yes, I feel like nowadays as well, all the women
have alo yoga partnerships that they put online. All of
them are doing something with road Hailey Bieber's skincare makeup
beauty brand. But to bring this all together, we've gone
through this like history of wags in general, history of
wags in the F one grid. What we get to
pre this weird moment where all these drivers break up
(31:50):
with girlfriends and then proceed to get new ones very
soon after, is that you have these women that are yes,
wealthy and maybe come from like a very limited number
of backgrounds and circums, but still have a couple of
different things going on. They're a little more aspirational, a
little more grounded. They seem a little bit more like
you and me. And then with the flip of a switch,
in a matter of months, brand new Grid, still very wealthy, women,
(32:12):
but almost all of them are either influencers, Instagram models,
actual models. The clothes get more expensive, the Instagram feeds
get much more curated, the brand deals become much more
plentiful and probably way more expensive behind the scenes, and
it's all just a little like everything's gotta be real,
(32:34):
a little boring.
Kate1 (32:34):
Everyone's wearing beige, so much beige. Everyone's wearing beige.
Lily Herman (32:39):
Nowadays with this explosion of media around F one. I'm
not talking about F one media, Like you have these
women working with stylists nowadays to get these hard to
find archival pieces to wear to the grid. That that's
a far cry from Charlotte Sna showing up just three
years ago in like Zara or like a Shian dress
and some sandals, some Gladia sands because the European women
(33:01):
loved gladiator sandals even just a few years ago, and
then like calling it a day.
Lily Herman2 (33:06):
Yeah, it feels like you.
Lily Herman (33:07):
Have more and more women now where there is more
of a pressure to show up, you know, dressed to
the nines.
Kate1 (33:11):
They're dressing like on theme, like they're dressing for wherever
the race is, Like yeah, it's it's it's definitely more
of a show now, yeah, and.
Lily Herman2 (33:22):
I think it goes along too.
Lily Herman (33:23):
I've thought a lot too about both Charlotte Claire and
Alexander Stemlu as well as Pierre Ghastly and kik A
gum as his girlfriend. They both with them in rapid succession,
adopted dogs less than a year into dating. But I
think of how quickly the dogs became fixtures of the grid.
Right and now the idea that like f one is
writing literal articles for its website about like Leo the dog.
(33:45):
You know how you've been watching the sport for decades.
I can't imagine Bernie ecclestone being cool with that and
being like, yeah, write an article, you know, for our
sport about a driver and his girlfriend's dog, with the
girlfriend like in.
Lily Herman2 (33:56):
Photos with the dog in this article, Like could.
Lily Herman (33:58):
You see that, Yohai? Even ten fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
I can see him like just kind of like walking
along and seeing the dog in the paddock and just
kind of like kicking him out of the way.
Lily Herman (34:07):
Ye I was gonna say, I saw I could see
him like hunting the dog.
Lily Herman2 (34:09):
I couldn't see him.
Lily Herman (34:10):
I mean, like, oh, this is a great marketing op.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
The fuck let a dog in here?
Lily Herman (34:14):
Yeah, Like he'd be pissed, and he'd probably then like
have have words with Charyl over it. And I guess
my overarching thing with wagg agedin is I feel like
it's the perfect example in this very short period of
time where every job, so to speak, on the Grid
almost becomes professionalized, including the wags right, like they are
now seen as extensions of the drivers in this very
(34:34):
formal professional way.
Kate1 (34:35):
Everyone becomes a part of the brand. It almost felt
like who gets the role of girlfriend in this in
my brand?
Lily Herman2 (34:43):
Oh for sure.
Lily Herman (34:43):
And I think a lot too about how in the
world of like romance media, particularly romance novels, there's a
trope called normal person famous person right where like, yes,
I mean, it's like the movie The Prince in Me right,
where this normal college student ends up with a prince.
He's secretly a prince. He's trying to pretend he's a
normal guy. He can't because he's very princes and so
they end up dating, et cetera. But I think in reality, though,
(35:04):
the idea of being a quote unquote normal person who
dates one of these drivers, particularly at this point in
F one history, would be so intimidating and bizarre and
just so otherworldly that I think I'm not surprised that
women who maybe are already exposed to this through Instagram
influencing or modeling or maybe quite frankly want that life,
(35:25):
find themselves in closer proximity of these drivers, and maybe
these drivers would see that actually as a more attractive
trait at this point in their careers and lives.
Kate1 (35:33):
Like, she gets it exactly, She's familiar with it. It
doesn't bother her.
Lily Herman (35:37):
Yeah, knowing that that your girlfriend can maybe handle it
in a way that some others, not that they were
weak or anything, but just a lot Like it's just
I mean, we have this whole podcast episode about wags
and we're being nice, but it's interesting to me that
by the end of twenty twenty three, the F one
Wags grid is completely different. The big question I have
here is why do you think this matters? Like why
do you think covering or following the wags matters? And
(35:58):
seeing this trajectory pre in post Wagageddon, well, I think it.
Kate1 (36:02):
Really solidified who the new fan base of F one is.
Prior to Wagga Geddon, female fans weren't really taken seriously.
I mean, I still don't think They're totally taken seriously,
but much more so now. Once Waggygeddon happened and all
these new relationships came, f one as a business started realizing, Okay,
(36:25):
these women have something that we don't. These women have followings,
but they are also not confined by the red tape
of F one because they are their own people. We
saw it first with Carmen Montero Munt for George Russell.
She became essentially an employee of Mercedes. She was like
their spokesperson. She was in all of these different like
(36:48):
brand deals, she was in their content. She was really
like humanizing the team. So I think the institution of
F one started realizing that these girlfriends and wives were
not just people. They were assets to the sport and
to like the brands of the sports, the teams, and
the drivers as individuals too.
Lily Herman (37:08):
I can see on the screen that Yohi is having
an epistol. I can see the cogs turning for Yohi.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
All of this really makes me sort of if I
step back and I think about all this conversation big
picture here, there's something I sort of ironic about this
whole story. Liberty media comes in and buys f one
and they're like, how do we make this sport more popular?
It's been stagnant for a while after being you know,
under Bernie Ecosten's guard for a long time. And the
(37:38):
sort of the mechanism they come up with is like
humanizing it and getting everybody to know more about the
drivers using drive to survive and social media. And it worked.
They became it became much more popular. The drivers became
more popular. But as a consequence of that, they realized
that they are now kind of a product. Yeah, and
(37:58):
they aligned they align themselves with that, shedding themselves of
theirs high school sweethearts, and now the prism that we
have of them is much more curated, dare I say fake?
It makes podcasts like the podcast we produce here that
much more important to be able to show a more
real and round picture of these flawed, yet interesting human
(38:23):
beings that man for some reason want to risk their
lives going around in circles for our enjoyment, and we
appreciate that they do.
Lily Herman2 (38:31):
That was beautiful.
Lily Herman (38:32):
That was actually that was beautiful beautiful.
Lily Herman2 (38:34):
I was gonna say too.
Lily Herman (38:35):
You basically described the there's a term the authenticity trap,
right of like people doing all this stuff, especially on
social media, to seem more and more quote unquote authentic.
But then at a certain point, Yeah, there's a tipping point, right.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Right, I mean it's kind of ironic that, like I'm
thinking back to, you know, like drivers of the past,
like you know, your Jaime Hunts and your Nikki Laudas
or whatever. You only got to hear them talk when
a journalist would come up and interview them a microphone
to their faces. Much more on the face of it,
curated and controlled. But there's something more direct and authentic
(39:08):
about how they came across in some ways than when
the driver himself has the phone just recording himself or
his girlfriend or whatever and getting money for it because
you know, some brand told him to take a video
of himself lathering himself with some cream or another.
Lily Herman2 (39:24):
That is correct, They are doing a lot of lathering.
You are correcting.
Lily Herman (39:29):
Before we pause for some ads, I want to remind
you that we are a growing show and we need
your help. Rate and review no grip on Apple, Spotify
or wherever you listen to podcasts, and don't forget to
click that follower subscribe button while you're at it. Okay,
see you after the break, we're back. Let's return to
the show. Do you hid anything else that you want
to add?
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Just two things that I'm thinking. In general, I'm really
hoping to see sometime in the not too distant future
a female driver on the grid for like a million
different reasons. But now I like, I have another reason.
I'm really curious to see how what would we a
hab I guess, a husband and boyfriend.
Lily Herman2 (40:09):
A soap the significant other.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Significant other end partner would be pal Yes, what is
Pagan Park?
Kate1 (40:16):
Partners and lovers?
Speaker 1 (40:17):
How would that work on the grid? And then the
other thing that I'm thinking. My f one feet is
pretty much dominated by people talking about tire degradation, So
Lily opened me up a little bit to like looking
at the at the grid from an astrological point of view,
and I do find myself wondering what was going on
with the stars and the cosmos during this Wagageddon period,
(40:41):
whether it was in the stars or there there was
somebody could foresee it, maybe take avoiding measures.
Kate1 (40:47):
I know, I'm wondering who was in their Saturn return
or who was like entering their Saturn return at this time,
if any of them, And.
Lily Herman2 (40:54):
Now YOHI knows what that means after.
Lily Herman (40:56):
We did this episode on astrology of the grid. Incredible thing,
incredible insights from no. Actually, both your points are excellent, Yo, hi,
and I love this idea of like yet like imagine
a world in which Susie Wolf, who we will be
discussing on a future episode, does end up on the
F one grid somehow still ends up married to you know,
Mercedes team principal Total suddenly pal, He's a have a
(41:19):
soap a pal?
Speaker 1 (41:20):
That wouldn't that be amazing?
Lily Herman2 (41:21):
Yeah?
Lily Herman (41:22):
I will also add we do have to consider the
fact that there are no openly queer drivers on the
F one grid, and what if there was a day
where there was an openly queer driver who had a
same sex partner. We could also have a hab or
a soap or a pal on the grid that way,
and I think that would bring some some much needed
complexity and ass to the to the grid.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Are there any bachelors on the grid currently? Like, anybody
not spoken for at the moment?
Lily Herman (41:49):
Oh, let me let me put the list. You're high
right now. Lewis Hamilton is reported to be very casually
seeing his longtime friend Kim Kardashian.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
I mean, Lewis isn't a problematic age already where it's
like what's wrong, what's wrong with you?
Lily Herman (42:04):
It's problematic, but it's definitely kind of like, okay, you're
in your forties.
Lily Herman2 (42:06):
He has said that.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
It's problematically Lily. If I told my wife my four
year old friend has never been in a long term
serious relationship, he's like, he sing, there red flags.
Lily Herman2 (42:16):
Let's not forget.
Lily Herman (42:17):
But he has this Hamilton dating Nicole Scherzinger from a
moment of the Pussycat dolls on and off for what
was it, like seven eight years, from like twenty two
thousand and seven to like twenty fifteen or something like that,
I remember in correctly correct.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
So that's your like way to tell me, No, it's
not a red flag that he on and off dated
somebody for seven years exactly. Yeah.
Lily Herman (42:35):
I answer your question though, YOHI it's really hard to
know who's an actual bachelor these days among the drivers
who are publicly labeled single, because a lot of them
have gotten much more secretive about who they're seeing and
what they're doing, especially as the sports popularity is ramped up,
and they also are aware that there are accounts in
people following this.
Lily Herman2 (42:54):
Type of news right.
Lily Herman (42:56):
There's even been some some rumors that have circulated in
recent years that some of these drivers are making the
people that they are seeing or dating sign NDA's to
avoid yeah, leaks about their romantic or personal lives.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Send some lawyer papers with the flowers.
Lily Herman2 (43:12):
It's not romantic like the his and her breakup statements
that you that you thought was cute.
Yochai (43:18):
Where where is that like zero fox energy of like
the you know, the like James Hunts and the like
Nikki Laudas and of the past.
Lily Herman2 (43:26):
Yeah, to that point.
Lily Herman (43:27):
One thing that I think has gotten a little bit
lost in our current era of F one, and I
mentioned this actually I think in our episode with with Mikayla,
is that we're missing some flirty energy on the grid,
Like we need to bring mild horniness back to F one,
We need to make motorsports sexy again.
Lily Herman2 (43:45):
And that is, in fact, is what is missing at the.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Moment, Amen amen Co sign I learned so much today, really,
thank you both so much. I really I feel like
I learned a lot.
Lily Herman (44:00):
Okay, So, looking forward three years since the events of Wagageddon,
the F one Wags grid is an entirely different place
than it once was. So these women aren't just a
niche interest for a small subset of very online f
one fans. They are now central fixtures of what's happening
in the paddock and are covered by major media outlets,
big social media accounts, and even Formula one and its
(44:22):
teams themselves. I would also say that Wagageddon was never
just tabloid fodder, because to me, it represents this big
watershed moment for the sport where every single piece of
Formula One, including the personal lives of its competitors, becomes
part of a publicly commodified entertainment product. So, for example,
we're living in a time when someone like Charlotte Clair
(44:43):
isn't just trying to raise his ferrari, which is already
enough of a struggle, while hawking some watches or jets
or whatever on the side with his sponsors. Formula one
is now covering his recent marriage to Alexandra saintemlu now
Alexandra Leclair on its website, right next to news about
team personnel changes and power unit regulations.
Lily Herman2 (45:03):
Is that a good or bad thing? Well, I will
let all of you be the judge of that.
Speaker 6 (45:08):
Hi girl Louisa.
Speaker 12 (45:13):
She laughed like summary, Charlotte Danston is a smile, but
none of them could stayley.
Lily Herman2 (45:24):
That's our show for today.
Lily Herman (45:26):
We'll see you on April twenty ninth, ahead of the
Miami Grand Prix, where we'll be diving into the thorny
topic of women in Formula one and the progress of
the EFLN Academy.
Speaker 11 (45:35):
I look back twenty years, which is how long. Thank
God my prayer has lasted so far, and I'm disappointed.
Lily Herman (45:48):
No Grip is hosted by me Lily Herman and produced,
edited and sound designed by Johai Metal. Max Miller is
our executive producer. We get additional production support from Poldo
Special thanks to Ben Riskin at Room Tone at iHeart Shantitone.
Lily Herman2 (46:01):
Is our executive producer.
Lily Herman (46:03):
Be sure to give this show a five star rating
and review. Wherever you're listening. You can follow me at
Lily K Herman on Instagram and subscribe to my F
one culture newsletter at Engine failuref one dot com. You
can follow us at No Grip Podcast on Instagram and
TikTok
Popular Podcasts
Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb
Joy is essential. And it's also elusive. You can't order it, borrow it, or simply hope it into life. But now, there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence: The Joy 101 Podcast with Hoda! Best known for her Emmy-winning work and co-anchoring Today, Hoda Kotb infuses her authenticity, curiosity, and warmth into conversations with the world’s most fascinating people. Entertainment legends, sport icons, wellness experts, and everyday folks will share how they find, allow, and experience joy. Hoda will offer her own tips and takes on seeking a more balanced, harmonious life. If you're craving inspiration, support, and useful tools to maximize your joy, tune in to these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats. Joy after a breakup, joy as an empty-nester, joy after loss, joy as a caretaker — Hoda's new podcast will speak to you. Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb, an iHeartPodcast.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com