April 8, 2026 • 42 mins
Though we're only three races into the 2026 F1 season, many drivers have been vocal about their hatred of the sport's brand-new rules and regulations. But what power do they actually have to change them? And how far would these racers go to get what they want?
Today's drivers don't seem to have much agency as individuals or as a group to alter their circumstances, but that wasn't always the case in Formula 1. In fact, maybe the 2026 grid could learn a few things from previous generations who came before them — particularly those from back in the early 1980s.
For this episode, Lily sits down with Elizabeth Blackstock, the motorsports journalist and historian behind Deadly Passions, Terrible Joys on Substack and YouTube, to discuss the 1982 F1 drivers' strike, where racers came together to force the hand of the sport's higher-ups, changing Formula 1's trajectory forever.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Lilya, what did you bring us today?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Okay, So instead of just giving you the topic outright,
I figured it'd be best to start this episode with
a quote from a book that I think best encapsulates
the time period we are.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Talking about today.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
In his book Chasing the title influential, motorsports journalist Nigel
Roebuck described the nineteen eighty two Formula One season as
an ugly year, pockmarked by tragedy, by dissension, by greed,
and yet paradoxically it produced some of the most memorable.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Racing ever seen, Oh tell me.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
More So, as with every sport, there are these inflection points,
and there's no doubt that nineteen eighty two ended up
being one of those.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
For Formula One. What happens A lot, A lot happened.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
But for today's episode, we're going to focus on an
event of rare driver camaraderie at the beginning of that
season in South Africa.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Driver camaraderie.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
I know.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
There's much to get through, so I actually thought that
we do a little reducs for this episode and have
an expert come in and take me through the story.
So I'm very, very excited to have Elizabeth Blackstock. Here
she is the intrepid motorsports journalist and historian behind the
podcast and substack Deadly Passions Terrible Joys, and she is
here to tell me and all of us about it.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
As soon as you reached out, I was like, oh, baby,
we're going to have a good time.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I will say, YOHI has already found a ton of
really good archival news tapes and other recordings from that time.
And first of all, the fashion on point, the hair enormous.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
The shorts shorter than you've ever seen there.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Are no shorts, it might as well be underwear at
this point, but also incredible scenes. So I couldn't be
more stoked. But before we even get to the year
nineteen eighty two, which YOHI please tell us? How was
nineteen eighty two? We young, youthful people were not around?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
How was the year?
Speaker 4 (01:53):
This?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Says? I can't believe you, Lily. How old do you
think I am?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Ohn't no, nineteen eighty two, the prehistor era, like could
be anywhere between one hundred and twenty thousand.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Who knows.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I was just a baby. I was born in nineteen
eighty two. Man, Yeah, this is my ear. The little
guy things were simple back then.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Well very thin.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Thank you for your input, your journalistic input into the
early eighties.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Okay, Elizabeth, what is.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Going on in F one at this time? Where does
this saga start? Set the scene for me?
Speaker 4 (02:25):
If I may, I would like to cast us back
to nineteen fifty and just like for the world's briefest
account of how Formula one kind of came to be,
because the seeds of nineteen eighty and the nineteen eighty
two drivers strike were first planted, like day one when
we hit the British Grand Prix. So the Formula one
World Championship, first founded in nineteen fifty definitely represented the
(02:46):
pinnacle of motorsport at the time, but it was not
the professional operation we think of today.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
How So, like what are some examples.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
So every individual race on the calendar was in charge
of organizing its own event, and that meant everything from
scheduling to inviting drivers, to providing the price perse and
entry fees to make you want to come to that racetrack.
So there were these grand teams, these manufacturer backed continental
European teams like Ferrari and Maserati, and they had the
(03:19):
money to pay their drivers generally some sort of salary
and some sort of prize money as well. You know,
then they could pour the rest of it into car
development because they were in the industry building and selling cars,
and the sanctioning body, the FIA, which was based in
Continental Europe, had a lot of affection for these proper
teams as they were called, as opposed to the scrappy
(03:40):
little British outfits that started turning up in the sixties.
There is no manufacturer tied to them. They're staffed by
like ten dudes who just want to go racing from
their garage scrap in operations together on a small little budget.
But at the same time, race organizers here were a
little torn, you know. They want to have as many
cars as possible. They also don't want to pay these
(04:05):
drivers very much money.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Okay, So to break this down a little more, let's
say you're a team hoping to compete at the French
Grand Prix. Back then, there are two general types of
teams that we're talking about here.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
We have prestigious.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Grand e outfits like Ferrari and then these scrappier garage
stay teams like Lotus exactly. And so the organizers might
give the prestigious Grandee team twenty five hundred dollars to
show up to the race, while then giving only five.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Hundred dollars to the Garage Stay team.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Obviously, that's bad news bears for the British teams. These
British teams are feeling like, well, we're getting the short
end of the stick because the series is definitely showing
some preference for the guys like Ferrari. So the British
teams join together in a little loose coalition that they
called the Formula One Constructors Association or FOCA, and basically
(04:52):
they would unite together and call up an organizer and
say we all will turn up if you give us
the s money that you give Ferrari, and if you
do not offer that to us, none of us will
show up. So kind of force these organizers to treat
these teams as something legitimate. And it was a pretty
loose coalition until a fellow named Bernie Ecklestone gets involved.
(05:18):
Ter Bernie Bernie Ecklestone was a former racer turned driver
manager turned team owner who was in charge of Brabham
at this time. So he was one of those Garage
Stay British team owners and Bernie starts driving harder bargains
he wants more money. In fact, he's calling up race
(05:38):
organizers and saying, you're gonna deal with me, specifically me
now and no one else. You're not going to talk
to the FIA, and you're gonna do things my way.
The FIA not happy, but they couldn't do anything about it,
which is when this war between FISA and FOKA first
kicks off and begins. Really setting this for the nineteen
(06:01):
eighty two drivers strike.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Just make sure understand FISA different than the FIA or
that is representing the FAI in this case, Like it's
a different abbreviation of the same org.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
It is the same thing.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
The FIA had like four or five different kind of
ways to be referred to it. I'm going to call
it generally the FIA or FISA for this just to
kind of keep things keep things moving.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Also, I feel like FISA FOCA is like a name
of a motorsports turf war is I think a little
bit catcher than f I. A FOCA or like FIA
FOCA sounds a little awkward on the tongue.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
There's been some some historians who call it the fiasco,
so f I a s c O, which I think
is really fun.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Okay, that's goofy fun. I like that.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
Yeah, that one's a good food.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
But no one and no one enough one likes to
have fun, so we can we can't have nice things
and call it fiasco.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Man, what daytime? If only?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Okay, So now that we've established a bit of history,
there's one thing we need to understand before we get
to nineteen eighty two, and that is super licenses.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
That's correct.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
What are we doing? Super licenses in the eighties.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
The original super licenses were introduced in the early eighties,
mostly like kind of as a formality. They were supposed
to be introduced as this way to say you are
not a danger to yourself and other drivers, and you
would show this by like just asking the FIA for
a license and signing the contract that they gave you.
They wouldn't give you the contract if they thought you
(07:23):
were a dangerous driver. And the nineteen eighty two all
of the drivers received this contract before the start of
the season because all of them had demonstrated previously that
they could race a Formula One car. It was just
a matter of saying, we recognize that you can get
in a very powerfully aerodynamic car and not cause yourself
(07:44):
or someone else harm.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
I also think it's important to note that at this point,
I leave, it's in the seventies, you had what an
average of like two drivers a year, yeah, being killed
in crashes during the F one season. So it's not
like today with you know, all of this different safety
stuff with the Halo, with with these extremely advanced racing suits.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Like there's a very real risk of death, yes.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
With any given race at this point, yes, and it's
like a very normalized part of the sport. Yeah, Okay,
so it is nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Were at the.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Start of the season, the FIA or like governing buddies,
they're handing out these super licenses where they're like just
sign on the dotted line and alas. There are kind
of two major clauses that have been changed for the
season that are very problematic.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
What are those?
Speaker 6 (08:29):
So?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
The first one is one that I think newer F
one fans might recognize. It was a clause that basically
said drivers are not allowed to say anything disparaging about
Formula one or the FIA. And it was the second
clause that stated a driver's super licensed contract was only
valid during the duration of time a driver was contracted
(08:52):
to a certain team. So today it is very rare
to see a driver changed teams midway through the year,
unless there's like firing or a demotion. But in f
one's past, it was pretty common for you to decide
halfway through the year, ferraris not looking too hot and
Lotus will pay me a lot more money, so I'm
just going to go halfway.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
Through the season to this new team.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
If you did that now, you would lose your super
licensed contract. And it was the same thing even if
you know, signed with McLaren for three years, completed two
instaid I'm breaking the contract, you would break your super
licensed contract as well. It would have to then reapply
through the FIA, which you know, we're in this very
contentious political period where the FIA is looking for as
(09:37):
many reasons as possible to keep drivers from racing who
annoy them. So if you've got kind of these FOKA
affiliated British affiliated drivers who are breaking contracts with their
super licenses, why would you give them permission to race.
There's one driver and specifically who spots these two clauses,
(09:59):
none other thing. Niki Lauda now Niki Lauda had at
that point won two world championships.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Wonderful, congratulations you very happy because I can then it
was easy.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Had to come near the brink of death in nineteen
seventy six where he was almost burned alive at the
German Grand Prix, only to come back several months later
and you know, get back into the championship hunt.
Speaker 5 (10:23):
This is not a man you mess with.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
You know, he'd retired, but he'd started commentating and then
he'd like started doing little opinion pieces.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
He gets us to Star Company that it was like.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Actually, I think I still have more in me. So
he signs with McLaren for nineteen eighty two. But this
super licensed contract arrives on his doorstep and he's not
happy because he doesn't have the freedom to leave a team.
This is important specifically for Nicki Lauda, because in nineteen
seventy nine, midway through the Canadian he was so fed
(11:02):
up with the Brabham car that he hated that he'd
just called it quits.
Speaker 7 (11:06):
To say that the motor racing world's stun by Nikoi
Lauda's totally unexpected retirement is a masterpiece of understatement. Because
he's been at the top for five years and all
the recent talks been about who he'd be with next
year to stay there. But it's typical of the man.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
So if that had happened with the super licensed contract,
he would have had a significant problem. So he calls
up the head of the Grand Prix Drivers Association, Dda Peroni.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Hell of a name, Dda Paroni. I know, I love
it so good.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Also, do you want to explain what this is because
it's basically like a non union union, but like it
kind of hard for folks who are trying to get
wrap their heads around it.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
So the Grand Prix Drivers Association is kind of this
loose coalition that drivers formed in nineteen sixty one as
a way of advocating for their rights, specifically as regards safety.
They were primarily just use it this organization as a
way to stand united against certain racetracks that would refuse
(12:06):
to update barriers, and they also used it as kind
of a fundraising effort. So if you're part of the
Grand Prix Driver's Association, you'd pitch into a pool of
money if a driver were to be killed. Part way
through the year, the Grand Prix Driver's Association would take
care of their widows, their family members, their children. So
the Grand Prix Driver Association by nineteen eighty two is
(12:26):
a little less powerful because there are these split factions
of two different kinds of drivers because of the FIA
and the FOCA battle that is going on. The interesting
thing with Dda Pironi is he is racing for Ferrari,
which is a Grandee team, and he's nevertheless taking Niki
Lauda's call and saying, I hear what you are saying,
(12:47):
and I do think that you have a point here.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Niki Lauda says direct quote, my guy, this super licensed
contract is garbage, and Proni's like, yeah, you have a point.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
So they have this phone calls around Christmas time in
nineteen eighty one and they realize by this point almost
everyone on the grid has signed the super license agreement,
so they cannot say well, we're just straight up not
going to sign it and force the hand of the FIA.
They had tried to talk to the FIA, and the
FIA said, well, we're going to have a meeting, a
(13:20):
scheduled meeting in like May, so if you just signed
a contract, we'll all get in the same room in May,
and you know we'll figure this out. Clearly, if you're
signing the contract, then the fi has a very easy
reason in May to say, okay, but you signed it,
so we don't have to care about this anymore. You
obviously agreed okay.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
So the FIA is decidedly not moved by Dicky loud
As appeal.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Yeah, what is Didier and Nikki's next move?
Speaker 4 (13:47):
So they go The next time we're all going to
be in the same place is the season opening race
at the South African Grand Prix. Really, the only way
to kind of make this work is if at the
South African Grand Prix we can get everyone to stand
united together to say we disagree with this super licensed contract. Now,
remember almost every driver has signed this because they I'm
(14:10):
going to assume they probably did not read the fine
print on this.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Did they like not have agents, lawyers?
Speaker 4 (14:17):
Not really, it was not the professionalization that we were expecting,
like from today, and they also just wanted to race,
So you're just gonna like sign the dotted line.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
The other thing, too, is I mean this is obvious,
but I'll just pointed out nineteen eighty two, you don't
have cell phones. You don't have Internet the way you
do today. You can't just you know, type any type
up to your WhatsApp group chat and be like, hey, guys,
like funny story. We found these clauses that are terrible.
And everyone is obviously far flung around the world, or
at least around Europe, so it's not like you. Yeah,
(14:48):
you're not easily getting in contact with people in the
same way you can today.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
We will get to that fateful day of the nineteen
eighty two strike in just a moment, but first we're
going to take a break for some ads. We're back
and we finally made it to January of nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 6 (15:08):
In the week before the race, the drivers were arriving
from their homes around the world with wives and girl friends.
First priority to soak up the southern summer sun and.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Relax to recap.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
We are in South Africa, and I will also note
for a little trivia moment that F one hasn't raced
in the continent of Africa since the early nineteen nineties.
But it's the first day of the race weekend and
the drivers are showing up to free practice.
Speaker 8 (15:32):
This was the kaya Lami circuit near Johannesburg this morning
with everything set for the official practice lapse for Saturday's
Grand Prix. The cars had been assembled and tuned. The
only thing missing the drivers.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
So Nicki and DDE commission a bus and they show
up with this bus at one of the track entrances,
bright and early, so they are there when drivers start
arriving at the track. And as every driver arrives at
Kyo Lami, the South African Ground Prix location, Nicki and
Didier are there to say hello, we have a problem
(16:06):
with this super license agreement. So they give this little spiel. Hey,
we're not getting in the cars today. If you want
to join us, you can get on this bus. If
you want to go in and race, you can go
in and race. Almost every driver gets on that bus.
The only one who doesn't is Yolkin Mas who was
staying with some friends in South Africa and derived at
(16:29):
the track via a different entrance, so he did not
come to the bus entrance. But they've at this point
you've got you know, twenty nine thirty drivers. He can
head on back. We can get this started.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
I'm relieved he wasn't like the dweeb who you know,
crossed the picket line.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
The scab is just like oops he at a little
logistical oopsie. Yeah, so we did forget him for that.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
The stories of him like turning up in the paddock
and being like, where's everybody, Like.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
What's going at And again no cell phones, no internet,
he has to wait to hear what on earth is
going going on.
Speaker 6 (17:00):
Temperatures were raised when a van tried to block the path.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
You actually have team owners parking their cars in front
of the bus before it can leave, hoping that they
can kind of stop it and prevent it from going,
to force the drivers to stay at the track, not
really realizing that they have a bus full of race
car drivers that can just like get behind the wheel.
They're going to move it and just leave it on
the side of the road and go on their merry way.
Speaker 6 (17:22):
Suddenly the bus drove off, with the sporting press chasing
madly along behind.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
I'd seen some clips of the bus driving and there
is a gaggle of cars behind them with journalists.
Speaker 9 (17:34):
Dozens of journalists jocking for pole position as they hurtled after.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
The bus heading towards Johannesburg. Watching the flying.
Speaker 9 (17:41):
Circus, A rather amused Nikki Lauda.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
It's just very abnormal to have your entire grid of
emotionally unregulated adrenaline junkie drivermen on a bus when they
should not be on that bus.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
So you've got the journalists chasing them. There's some who
stay at the track, these journalists to see what Dda
Perni is going to do, because Dda Perni stays at
the track to speak to the FI president at this time,
Jean Marie Bilestra. Jean Marie Bilestra was well known as
a hardheaded, unwilling to compromise, stubborn fella, and when he
(18:13):
was brought into the leadership position the presidency of the
FIA in nineteen seventy eight, it was specifically because he
would make a good foil for Bernie Echolestone. Bernie he
would be the big boss, the big guy who actually
could exert some pressure against the United Front of FOCA
(18:35):
and perhaps actually have some sort of progress in terms
of the FI becoming kind of taking control of its
sport once again.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Man, I'm just loving this.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
So now that we've gotten to know Jean Marie Bilestra,
our main antagonist, let's jump back to what Nikki Lauda
and his bus of renegade drivers were getting up to
once they finished this trip and ended up at the
Sunnyside Park hotel in Johannesburg.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Their plan is basically, we are going to stay in
the ballroom of this hotel together, all of us in
the same spot, until we get some sort of recognition
from the FIA. You know, they believe that if the
drivers were to go back and lock themselves in their
hotel room, they're very easy single targets to pick off.
There was a lot of pressure on these drivers to
(19:22):
just shut up and drive and keep their politics out
of the racing world. Basically, Bernie ecclestone, he's a FOKA
team owner, but he fired both of his drivers at
this point because they were going to strike. He was upset,
he was angry. He was going to find replacements. You know,
we've got teams in the paddock who are advertising to locals. Hey,
(19:45):
if you can drive a Formula one car, why don't
you get behind the wheel. We're trying to keep this
race going and all of our drivers are gone. So
if you put them all by their lonesome, you'll have
Bernie Eclestone knocking on your door and saying you better
get your button.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
That race car.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
So they want to keep everyone in the same spot.
DDA Prony's at the track trying to negotiate, and by
the end of the day realizes there is no way
that Jean Marie Blestra is going to say, we'll change it.
We'll hear you out and you don't have to sign
this to race.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
If the cause were wheeled away.
Speaker 9 (20:18):
The drivers were given a final ultimatum settled by seven
o'clock tomorrow morning, we'll face a life suspension from World
Championship Racing.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
So he calls up Niki Loud at the hotel and says, Nicki,
it's not happening. So Nicki calls in as many mattresses
as the hotel will get.
Speaker 6 (20:35):
Them, and that night the sit in became a sleep.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
We have one man at this point who has backed out.
His name is Tao Faby. He upon hearing that he
was going to be fired, freaked out and apparently climbed
out the window of the bathroom.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
You're a Formula one racing driver in the eighties, there
could be potential death at every turn of an actual
race track, and then you get spooked by the idea
of like this whole situation where you're just also just
hanging out in like a hotel ballroom, right like yeah,
like a smart I get that there's like an existential
threat to your career and whatnot, but as far as
the actual like present physical events, like you're not there's
(21:11):
no harm coming too, You're just sitting there.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
It's pretty cozy.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
The other drivers, as you can imagine, were still pretty
harsh with Tao even years later. So in nineteen ninety two,
which is a decade after this incident, mind you, KK
Rosberg told the press that Tao ran like a chicken.
This is a direct quote. Ran like a chicken. He
went out, didn't come back, and lost all of our
respect forever. Not because he decided to leave, no, but
(21:38):
because he betrayed us all. He went straight to Bilestra
and Ecclestone and told them everything we had discussed.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Harsh.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
I actually really feel for TiO. I have to say,
I do.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
I know it's funny like it is.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
He was a rookie. I think it's important to say
that he was a rookie. He just got on grid.
So this was like his dream just came true. He
got a seat in F one and this is like crazy,
and now they're asking him to get fired for it.
Nikki Lauda after winning all the championships and everything.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Yeah, and it's also worth noting like this is a
period of time where the drivers, I don't want to
say that they're all friends today necessarily, but they all
inhabit the same little circles for so many months of
the year together. These drivers didn't know each other in
the nineteen eighties quite as well. If you were a
front runner, you probably hung out with your other front runners.
If you were a guy like Teo Fabbi, if you
(22:27):
were a rookie or you were one of those kind
of back marker teams, you probably didn't talk to guys
like Niki Lauda. You probably didn't have a relationship with
those folks up at the front of the grid.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
So it's extra.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
Scary where you're like, I know, I have to trust
that they know what they're talking about and that their
influence is going to actually do something about this. But also,
who knows, maybe this all falls apart terribly and none
of us have jobs.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
So we have these somewhere between two and three dozen
drivers hanging out at hotel room, our Paladidia is trying
to figure out what's going on, and it looks like
this is not going to happen on this first day
of the race. They've now brought in all these mattresses.
These grown men are having to share mattresses. One has
escaped through a bathroom window. Where do they go from here?
Speaker 4 (23:13):
They basically have to shut it down for the night.
Jean Marie Blestra says, I'm done. The drivers all head back.
They keep each other company, They tell each other jokes,
they play the piano together. They have a jolly old time.
The wives and girlfriends pick up the cause in their
in their wake, and when they see Jean Marie Blestra
at dinner, they start chucking dinner rolls at him while
(23:36):
he is trying to eat his food and peace.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
I love the dinner rolls. Incredible, incredible.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
And the following morning, the folks in charge of the
South African Ground Prix in the morning, you know, the
second morning where the race weekend's supposed to get going,
they say, we need to sit down and hash this out.
We cannot afford to postpone the race. We also cannot
afford to run this race without the big draws like
Nikki Lauda. So they tell the FIA you just have
(24:03):
to suck it up kind of and let them, let
them do their thing, let them race without signing the contract,
but you cannot screw over this race. And Jean Marie
Buleustra says, okay, the race will go on and the
drivers will be allowed to compete whether or not they
have signed the super license agreement. No one will be
punished for it, and we will sit down and have
(24:25):
a better discussion about this in May when the Formula
one Circus returns to Europe. But as it turns out,
this is just kind of a ploy to get the
race going. Because Jean Marie Bleustra does indeed intend to
(24:46):
punish everyone who was involved in the South African Grand
Prix strike.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
How do drivers respond to when he tries to punish
them post race?
Speaker 4 (24:56):
So he tries to punish them a few different ways,
the main one being somewhere between five and ten thousand
dollars worth of fines or suspended race bands. Their response
is that they are not going to pay. They're just
not gonna pay. They're gonna keep showing up at the racetrack.
They're gonna keep racing. They're gonna keep turning up with
their teams and they're not going to pay.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Okay, proletariat like stand up and now Niki Lauda like
hero of labor organizing.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
And there was about to be a little bit of
a break between the South African Grand Prix and the
next race in Brazil. South Africa was in January and
Brazil was going to be in March. So after this,
they've got plenty of time to relax, receive their fines,
receive their race bands, and then take them to the
FIA Court of Appeals and say, we don't like this.
(25:52):
We were promised that there would be no retaliation.
Speaker 10 (25:56):
What because Stone might say about the current problems isn't
necessarily objective, isn't necessarily the truth, And in any case,
he encounters the fact that we're trying to maintain solidarity
among ourselves.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Shockingly, the FIA Court of Appeals actually does side with
the drivers in this instance and says, yeah, Jean Marie
Bilestra kind of overstepped his power. He did promise that
there would be no retaliation. So Bilestra had to walk
back the punishments and ultimately the offending clauses in the
super licensed contract were entirely scrubbed out, and the super
license itself kind of faded away until the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Okay, Comrades, quick break. When we come back, we'll get
into the state of collective power on the grid today.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
But before we pause for.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
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 get your podcasts,
and don't forget to click that follower subscribe button while
you're at it.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Do not be a teo faby. We will be right back.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
And we're back. Appreciate the solidarity. Let's get on with
our story. This is pretty much the only time there's
ever been something seen like this in F one to
this degree, with this much of the grid participating, and
I'm thinking of how in the present day. Yes, there
are times when the drivers all grumble together. They do
have a group chat, which I'm sure at times can
(27:27):
be very active. But like remember when there was that
jewelry ban in a recent season and only really Lewis
Hamilton showed up with his you know, eighty seven necklaces
and fourteen rings and god knows what else to basically
prove that, Like that was ridiculous that they were saying,
like you couldn't wear all this jewelry in the car.
Speaker 10 (27:44):
It's almost like a step backwards if you think of
the steps were taking as a sport.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
And I can't imagine for instance, you know, max for
step and stepping up and being like, I too, will
wear my even more cardier love bracelets, bracelets and I
already own like I'm going to show up too, and
like support my man Lewis like we're not going to
see that. No, Yeah, what what made it work in
nineteen eighty two? What was the special sauce of circumstances
that allowed for a strike like this to actually thrive?
Speaker 5 (28:08):
That is such a good question.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
It was just kind of this perfect combination of factors.
Like the FIA versus FOKA battle had been going on
for over a decade at this point. It was near
the end of this year's long battle between teams and
drivers and FIA, so there was a recent history of
boycotts and strikes and headbutting. There was nothing of the
(28:31):
sort of the driver's strike that happened, but there was
you know, drivers would take stands and say we're not
going to race, and how barriers are repaired at certain tracks,
and you know, it was mostly just those improvements of
the safety, but this was really the big one of
drivers saying, you know, we've been caught up kind of
in this institutional battle between the FIA and between our teams,
(28:54):
and we want to have a say in this. Because
their voices were being talked over by the team owners
and by the folks at the FIA.
Speaker 5 (29:03):
So f one.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
It was constantly growing throughout the seventies and eighties, but
it wasn't the institution that we have today. There were
big sponsors, there was big money to be made in
broadcast rights, and drivers had a bigger impact i think
on the sport as a whole at that point in
time than they do today. Like now, not only have
(29:25):
they been pr trained, but they're also more beholden to
sponsors now than they were in the past. So a
guy like Nikki Lauda, you know, clearly like a Marlborough
sponsored driver, you want to not make Marlboro look like terrible,
but they're not, you know, doing little social media clips
every weekend. They had a little bit more of that
freedom of expression and they were willing to use it
(29:47):
in this instance where they felt that they'd been hemmed
in and they needed to establish this can't go on
without us, the drivers.
Speaker 5 (29:55):
We are the heart and.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
The soul of what Formula one is. And if you
do I have good drivers, you do not have a
good race.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
And they could literally die at any given point at
this juncture of the sports history.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
Exactly, d Da Pironi, who was so instrumental on this strike,
his career came to an end that year. He crashed,
broke both of his legs and could no longer race.
Even if you weren't going to die, there was still
a very big chance that your career could come to
a catastrophic end. And the FI itself too was a
different beast. The FI has always been very politicized, but
(30:30):
I think the FI is way more monolithic now. There
are just so many departments and subcommittees and you can't
stand up to the FI. I know you mentioned the
jewelry ban. We had Max first Step and you know
his little walkout from the press conference of like, I'm
not going to say anything because if drivers swear, then
I'll get fined. But really, those those stances that they
(30:53):
take are very very rare. I think the only time
I like got my hopes up for a driver's strike
of the same nature. Do you remember in Saudi Arabia
when there were missiles launching or hitting near the track
and the drivers all like stayed overnight to talk it
over with FI. That was the only time I was like,
maybe there is a chance, because this is a genuine
(31:15):
matter of like safety, not just for them but for
everyone in Formula one. But it didn't happen then, so
I was like, they're really if that it wasn't gonna happen,
then it's not gonna happen for something like a jewelry band.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Yeah, And even that they were kind of afterwards like
we figured it out and You're like, yeah, okay, guys, Yeah,
they don't have nickey, you know, Karl Marx Lauda out
there like basically banning people from going for striking. No
for real, Like, man, yeah, I know he's passed away since,
but like, dude needs to come back. And I know
do some I don't know, some like Gi Yeah, he
(31:49):
needs to have like a little seminar or two on
how to make this work. But I do understand that
he yeah, was driving under very different circumstances.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
I do want to say the nineteen eighty two season
was kind of the pinnacle here of this battle that
they had between the FI and the Formula One Constructors Association.
It came to an end pretty sharply at the end
of that year.
Speaker 9 (32:08):
Do you think that Formula One has any lessons to
learn from Vilnav's accident?
Speaker 4 (32:12):
Jill Villeneuve was killed.
Speaker 11 (32:15):
Motor Racing is very dangerous. That's the fact that everybody
is aware of drivers, everybody involved in it. And an
accident yesterday, like with Jill, was was a very sad situation.
It's a nightstanding driver lost his life through what was,
in my opinion, a pure motor racing accident, and that's
the risk involved in motor racing. Unfortunately, it will always
(32:38):
be there as long as your men wanting to race cars,
there will always be that risk.
Speaker 5 (32:43):
Another gentleman was killed in Canada.
Speaker 8 (32:45):
Oh do they haven't got it up barking, which is
they've got a problem here.
Speaker 5 (32:48):
And then d D.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
Peroni had his career ending injury, so it kind of
took this steam I think out of a lot of
the the headbutting that was going on and a lot
of the you know, it just seemed like petty infighting
when it was kind of compared to the actual critical
safety issues that we're going to you know, have to
be addressed.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Elizabeth, this whole saga is just absolutely fascinating, you know,
to hear how this for this fleeting moment in history,
the drivers prove that they actually have real agency in
their sport. I'm wondering looking at F one now, given
the power struggles, who actually holds the reins today? And
(33:30):
also just regarding that second clause that Nikki Lauda refused
to sign, the one prohibiting drivers from you know, talking
shit about the sport. Are they required to sign anything
along those lines today?
Speaker 4 (33:43):
So with the you can't say anything bad about F
one that I believe is now like an informal clause
within the FI. So drivers are not allowed to speak
ill of Formula one. They can be fined for that.
And they're also kind of restricted in the language that
they use during a FISH press conferences. So if you
have an interview that takes place with like Max Verstappen
(34:05):
away from an FI press conference, he can say curse words,
but he cannot do that in the official post race
press conference. But yeah, that is a concern that drivers
did have, was they did feel like they were being
limited in their speech and that like if they talked
poorly about the FIA, they could be fined in F one. Today,
(34:25):
there really isn't any similar driver power that you know,
we would have.
Speaker 5 (34:30):
Had in the past.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
The Grand Prix Drivers Association does exist. It kind of
disappeared after nineteen eighty two but came back into play
in the nineties. But it's not quite it's more, I think,
just a sounding board for the drivers to kind of
discuss certain issues with specific regulations that are much more
nitpicky than they are these groundbreaking kind of frustrations. So
(34:56):
you do have George Russell quite vocal. It's Carlo Science
now who's in charge of the GPDA, but it's George Russell, who,
like you, you ask him for a quoll, he's gonna
he's a spinning a yard about what the GPDA is
going off on.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
I was gonna say, George Russell, I have long said,
is perpetually running for student body president, right, Like, this
is the guy who was always in campaign mode about anything.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
I feel like too.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
There's just a different kind of driver on the grid
than there was back in the eighties.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
And I don't even mean that in it like.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
A derogatory way, but like when I think of recent
F one history, you think of someone like Kimmy breichen
in right. So he retired from F one just a
few years ago, but back in two thousand and six,
at the Monaco Grand Prix, in one of his most
iconic moments, he had to retire his car, and instead
of going back to his team's garage, he walked in
his full racing gear over to a nearby yacht where
(35:50):
his friends were and hopped aboard, like still wearing the
helmet everything. And the funniest part for me is that
twenty minutes later, this guy is sitting there shirtless on
this yacht and that takes balls. Yeah, you're just not
going to see that. And most like George Wessell will
like ball his little fists and stomp his little feet
and like get in front of the you know, the
microphones and the recorders and be you know, basically he
can spend some like good quotes that lead to like
(36:12):
some really interesting RPF fan fiction about like him and
Max Verstappen. But you're not gonna have him doing what
Nikki Lauda did with a bus, right, Like, I don't know,
it's just a different a different type of driver and
a different type of sport.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
There was some regulatory concern that they had last year
with the FI and all the GPDA did was like
write a strongly worded letter to the FIA, and that
was like kind of the extent they're him did By sponsors,
there's multi million dollar investments in these drivers to make
sure that they get on the grid, so there is
a lot, I think a lot more financial pressure for
(36:46):
them to not do that, and they've also been trained
from a much younger age that like what the sponsor
and the team want is top notch. If I'm uncomfy,
I just kind of got to get over it and
deal with it.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
This is fascinating. First of all, want to say, that's
very astute of you. If there's any one driver that
will unite the drivers behind a cause, and I think
that's George Russell. I think you're totally right about that
and maybe maybe live to see that.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
But he's also like kind of goofy, right, like he's
the one who could who has you it is he
has he.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Has the organizational chops.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
I can see it to get it done, but he
also would be kind of annoying, and I think they
would go along with it but make fun of him.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Like imagine him going.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
From like like like motor home to motorhome being like
Fernando Alonso like we have a problem, goes to like
Max firs Staff, but he's like Max, I know I
just talked mad shit about you yesterday, but we have
a part.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Like it's just it's just like this funny vision.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
He'll be like doing his presentation and nobody will be
listening to him, and Lewis will be like, guys, listen,
listen to the present the.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
PowerPoint like he did with Toto to even like get
his attention.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Like but that's like the you you what it is?
They don't.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
They don't have a Sebastian Mettle anymore, right, Like a
driver who's got the cred, who's kind of like new school,
old school, Like this is a guy who I think
can command the attention and control over people in a
way that I think the grid is missing at the moment,
like a true get it done, but also like he's
a good hang.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
That's the thing with Niki Laudas like people had a
lot of respect for him, they also were scared as
hell of him, And I don't think that there is
anyone in F one that I would be like, I'm
kind of intimidated of them at this point in time.
They all have dinner together at the end of the season,
Like that's kind of cute.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Yeah, you, Niki Lauda is like Denaros targarianing this whole thing,
and they've got it's like, we got a vegan meal
at this like nineteen star Michelin restaurant. It's just like, again,
a different vibe, which I still enjoy today's F one obviously,
but like, yes.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
Very different.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
The other question I had there was just what happened
to the power struggle between the FIA and the main
power struggle is like basically the FAA against Liberty media,
like they decide on all these things.
Speaker 5 (38:53):
That's a great question.
Speaker 4 (38:54):
So as we like F one continued, FOKA kind of
took over the So Max Mosley, who was a FOKA
team owner, became fi president after Jean Marie Blestra. Bernie
ecclestone became the owner of Formula one Media, which was
in charge of the broadcast, right, So so we had
those two together who basically for decades kind of were
(39:17):
in charge of F one. They then, you know, Max
Mosley retired, Bernie sold the FOM to Liberty Media. I
don't know that we necessarily have as big of an
ideological struggle anymore as there used to be. I mean,
even in the Bernie era, you would have drivers pushing
back on certain rules and regulations, like Bernie would not
(39:39):
let you use Snapchat in the paddock, and Lewis Hamilton
like refused to listen to that and would put the
little dog selfie face on drivers in the press conference.
So they're supposed to be talking today, there's like not
quite as much like there is. I think the drivers
against the fi president Hi Mohammed Ben Sulaim because MBS
(40:02):
does love to talk and he does love to have
that power over the drivers, and the drivers don't want
him to have that power over them. So this is
you know, we're getting those rules of like you can't
talk poorly about Formula one, you cannot speak ill of
the FIA, you can't say swear words. Yeah, but it
feels like it's much less of an existential threat than
(40:23):
it was in the nineteen eighties, if that makes sense.
It's much more of a the drivers feel hemmed in
and how they can express themselves.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
I feel like the drivers actually have an opening here.
I think they have more leverage than maybe they seem
to be exercising because they're so hemmed in with all
these sponsorships and everything, Like the price, the corporate price
to pay for them having to switch out Lando Norris
mid season will be so high that they can demand
anything they want.
Speaker 4 (40:48):
Really, I think you're right, honestly, Like, if we show
up in Las Vegas and they're not going to race
in Las Vegas because they're striking over something like you're
going to have millions and millions of dollars of sponsors
coming on the teams in the FI Like, how are
we going to fix this? How are we going to
get those bad boys out there?
Speaker 3 (41:06):
Be interested?
Speaker 1 (41:07):
People write them in with like what cause they want
them to champion animation?
Speaker 4 (41:13):
Our strike request today.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Is yeah, incredible.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
So I've been thinking a lot about this strike in
recent weeks, especially as the Formula One season has gotten
underway and we've heard a lot of drivers complaining about
the new rules and regulations that went into effect this year.
But could we truly see the likes of drivers such
as Max Verstappen, or Lewis Hamilton or George Russell rallying
together to enact the changes they want? Could we see
(41:46):
them hopping on a bus and jetting off to the
great unknown in service of a mightier cause. Unlikely, guys,
that's our show for today. A huge thank you to
Elizabeth Blackstock for this deep dive into a fascinating point
in F one history. The Saudi Arabia Grand Prix is
(42:07):
no longer taking place due to the conflict in the region,
but we'll still be putting out an episode on April fifteenth.
This time, we're diving into what I'd argue has been
one of the biggest cultural shifts in F one in
the twenty twenty so far. Wag Again in.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
That day is just seared into my memory. I'll never forget.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
No Grip is hosted by me Lily Herman and produced,
edited and sound design by Johai Metal. Max Miller is
our executive producer. We get additional production support from Poldo
Special thanks to Ben Riskin at Roomtne At iHeart. Shan
Titne is our executive producer, 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
(42:46):
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
Lilya, what did you bring us today?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Okay, So instead of just giving you the topic outright,
I figured it'd be best to start this episode with
a quote from a book that I think best encapsulates
the time period we are.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Talking about today.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
In his book Chasing the title influential, motorsports journalist Nigel
Roebuck described the nineteen eighty two Formula One season as
an ugly year, pockmarked by tragedy, by dissension, by greed,
and yet paradoxically it produced some of the most memorable.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Racing ever seen, Oh tell me.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
More So, as with every sport, there are these inflection points,
and there's no doubt that nineteen eighty two ended up
being one of those.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
For Formula One. What happens A lot, A lot happened.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
But for today's episode, we're going to focus on an
event of rare driver camaraderie at the beginning of that
season in South Africa.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Driver camaraderie.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
I know.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
There's much to get through, so I actually thought that
we do a little reducs for this episode and have
an expert come in and take me through the story.
So I'm very, very excited to have Elizabeth Blackstock. Here
she is the intrepid motorsports journalist and historian behind the
podcast and substack Deadly Passions Terrible Joys, and she is
here to tell me and all of us about it.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
As soon as you reached out, I was like, oh, baby,
we're going to have a good time.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I will say, YOHI has already found a ton of
really good archival news tapes and other recordings from that time.
And first of all, the fashion on point, the hair enormous.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
The shorts shorter than you've ever seen there.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Are no shorts, it might as well be underwear at
this point, but also incredible scenes. So I couldn't be
more stoked. But before we even get to the year
nineteen eighty two, which YOHI please tell us? How was
nineteen eighty two? We young, youthful people were not around?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
How was the year?
Speaker 4 (01:53):
This?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Says? I can't believe you, Lily. How old do you
think I am?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Ohn't no, nineteen eighty two, the prehistor era, like could
be anywhere between one hundred and twenty thousand.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Who knows.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I was just a baby. I was born in nineteen
eighty two. Man, Yeah, this is my ear. The little
guy things were simple back then.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Well very thin.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Thank you for your input, your journalistic input into the
early eighties.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Okay, Elizabeth, what is.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Going on in F one at this time? Where does
this saga start? Set the scene for me?
Speaker 4 (02:25):
If I may, I would like to cast us back
to nineteen fifty and just like for the world's briefest
account of how Formula one kind of came to be,
because the seeds of nineteen eighty and the nineteen eighty
two drivers strike were first planted, like day one when
we hit the British Grand Prix. So the Formula one
World Championship, first founded in nineteen fifty definitely represented the
(02:46):
pinnacle of motorsport at the time, but it was not
the professional operation we think of today.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
How So, like what are some examples.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
So every individual race on the calendar was in charge
of organizing its own event, and that meant everything from
scheduling to inviting drivers, to providing the price perse and
entry fees to make you want to come to that racetrack.
So there were these grand teams, these manufacturer backed continental
European teams like Ferrari and Maserati, and they had the
(03:19):
money to pay their drivers generally some sort of salary
and some sort of prize money as well. You know,
then they could pour the rest of it into car
development because they were in the industry building and selling cars,
and the sanctioning body, the FIA, which was based in
Continental Europe, had a lot of affection for these proper
teams as they were called, as opposed to the scrappy
(03:40):
little British outfits that started turning up in the sixties.
There is no manufacturer tied to them. They're staffed by
like ten dudes who just want to go racing from
their garage scrap in operations together on a small little budget.
But at the same time, race organizers here were a
little torn, you know. They want to have as many
cars as possible. They also don't want to pay these
(04:05):
drivers very much money.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Okay, So to break this down a little more, let's
say you're a team hoping to compete at the French
Grand Prix. Back then, there are two general types of
teams that we're talking about here.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
We have prestigious.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Grand e outfits like Ferrari and then these scrappier garage
stay teams like Lotus exactly. And so the organizers might
give the prestigious Grandee team twenty five hundred dollars to
show up to the race, while then giving only five.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Hundred dollars to the Garage Stay team.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Obviously, that's bad news bears for the British teams. These
British teams are feeling like, well, we're getting the short
end of the stick because the series is definitely showing
some preference for the guys like Ferrari. So the British
teams join together in a little loose coalition that they
called the Formula One Constructors Association or FOCA, and basically
(04:52):
they would unite together and call up an organizer and
say we all will turn up if you give us
the s money that you give Ferrari, and if you
do not offer that to us, none of us will
show up. So kind of force these organizers to treat
these teams as something legitimate. And it was a pretty
loose coalition until a fellow named Bernie Ecklestone gets involved.
(05:18):
Ter Bernie Bernie Ecklestone was a former racer turned driver
manager turned team owner who was in charge of Brabham
at this time. So he was one of those Garage
Stay British team owners and Bernie starts driving harder bargains
he wants more money. In fact, he's calling up race
(05:38):
organizers and saying, you're gonna deal with me, specifically me
now and no one else. You're not going to talk
to the FIA, and you're gonna do things my way.
The FIA not happy, but they couldn't do anything about it,
which is when this war between FISA and FOKA first
kicks off and begins. Really setting this for the nineteen
(06:01):
eighty two drivers strike.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Just make sure understand FISA different than the FIA or
that is representing the FAI in this case, Like it's
a different abbreviation of the same org.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
It is the same thing.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
The FIA had like four or five different kind of
ways to be referred to it. I'm going to call
it generally the FIA or FISA for this just to
kind of keep things keep things moving.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Also, I feel like FISA FOCA is like a name
of a motorsports turf war is I think a little
bit catcher than f I. A FOCA or like FIA
FOCA sounds a little awkward on the tongue.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
There's been some some historians who call it the fiasco,
so f I a s c O, which I think
is really fun.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Okay, that's goofy fun. I like that.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
Yeah, that one's a good food.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
But no one and no one enough one likes to
have fun, so we can we can't have nice things
and call it fiasco.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Man, what daytime? If only?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Okay, So now that we've established a bit of history,
there's one thing we need to understand before we get
to nineteen eighty two, and that is super licenses.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
That's correct.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
What are we doing? Super licenses in the eighties.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
The original super licenses were introduced in the early eighties,
mostly like kind of as a formality. They were supposed
to be introduced as this way to say you are
not a danger to yourself and other drivers, and you
would show this by like just asking the FIA for
a license and signing the contract that they gave you.
They wouldn't give you the contract if they thought you
(07:23):
were a dangerous driver. And the nineteen eighty two all
of the drivers received this contract before the start of
the season because all of them had demonstrated previously that
they could race a Formula One car. It was just
a matter of saying, we recognize that you can get
in a very powerfully aerodynamic car and not cause yourself
(07:44):
or someone else harm.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
I also think it's important to note that at this point,
I leave, it's in the seventies, you had what an
average of like two drivers a year, yeah, being killed
in crashes during the F one season. So it's not
like today with you know, all of this different safety
stuff with the Halo, with with these extremely advanced racing suits.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Like there's a very real risk of death, yes.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
With any given race at this point, yes, and it's
like a very normalized part of the sport. Yeah, Okay,
so it is nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Were at the.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Start of the season, the FIA or like governing buddies,
they're handing out these super licenses where they're like just
sign on the dotted line and alas. There are kind
of two major clauses that have been changed for the
season that are very problematic.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
What are those?
Speaker 6 (08:29):
So?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
The first one is one that I think newer F
one fans might recognize. It was a clause that basically
said drivers are not allowed to say anything disparaging about
Formula one or the FIA. And it was the second
clause that stated a driver's super licensed contract was only
valid during the duration of time a driver was contracted
(08:52):
to a certain team. So today it is very rare
to see a driver changed teams midway through the year,
unless there's like firing or a demotion. But in f
one's past, it was pretty common for you to decide
halfway through the year, ferraris not looking too hot and
Lotus will pay me a lot more money, so I'm
just going to go halfway.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
Through the season to this new team.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
If you did that now, you would lose your super
licensed contract. And it was the same thing even if
you know, signed with McLaren for three years, completed two
instaid I'm breaking the contract, you would break your super
licensed contract as well. It would have to then reapply
through the FIA, which you know, we're in this very
contentious political period where the FIA is looking for as
(09:37):
many reasons as possible to keep drivers from racing who
annoy them. So if you've got kind of these FOKA
affiliated British affiliated drivers who are breaking contracts with their
super licenses, why would you give them permission to race.
There's one driver and specifically who spots these two clauses,
(09:59):
none other thing. Niki Lauda now Niki Lauda had at
that point won two world championships.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Wonderful, congratulations you very happy because I can then it
was easy.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Had to come near the brink of death in nineteen
seventy six where he was almost burned alive at the
German Grand Prix, only to come back several months later
and you know, get back into the championship hunt.
Speaker 5 (10:23):
This is not a man you mess with.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
You know, he'd retired, but he'd started commentating and then
he'd like started doing little opinion pieces.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
He gets us to Star Company that it was like.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Actually, I think I still have more in me. So
he signs with McLaren for nineteen eighty two. But this
super licensed contract arrives on his doorstep and he's not
happy because he doesn't have the freedom to leave a team.
This is important specifically for Nicki Lauda, because in nineteen
seventy nine, midway through the Canadian he was so fed
(11:02):
up with the Brabham car that he hated that he'd
just called it quits.
Speaker 7 (11:06):
To say that the motor racing world's stun by Nikoi
Lauda's totally unexpected retirement is a masterpiece of understatement. Because
he's been at the top for five years and all
the recent talks been about who he'd be with next
year to stay there. But it's typical of the man.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
So if that had happened with the super licensed contract,
he would have had a significant problem. So he calls
up the head of the Grand Prix Drivers Association, Dda Peroni.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Hell of a name, Dda Paroni. I know, I love
it so good.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Also, do you want to explain what this is because
it's basically like a non union union, but like it
kind of hard for folks who are trying to get
wrap their heads around it.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
So the Grand Prix Drivers Association is kind of this
loose coalition that drivers formed in nineteen sixty one as
a way of advocating for their rights, specifically as regards safety.
They were primarily just use it this organization as a
way to stand united against certain racetracks that would refuse
(12:06):
to update barriers, and they also used it as kind
of a fundraising effort. So if you're part of the
Grand Prix Driver's Association, you'd pitch into a pool of
money if a driver were to be killed. Part way
through the year, the Grand Prix Driver's Association would take
care of their widows, their family members, their children. So
the Grand Prix Driver Association by nineteen eighty two is
(12:26):
a little less powerful because there are these split factions
of two different kinds of drivers because of the FIA
and the FOCA battle that is going on. The interesting
thing with Dda Pironi is he is racing for Ferrari,
which is a Grandee team, and he's nevertheless taking Niki
Lauda's call and saying, I hear what you are saying,
(12:47):
and I do think that you have a point here.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Niki Lauda says direct quote, my guy, this super licensed
contract is garbage, and Proni's like, yeah, you have a point.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
So they have this phone calls around Christmas time in
nineteen eighty one and they realize by this point almost
everyone on the grid has signed the super license agreement,
so they cannot say well, we're just straight up not
going to sign it and force the hand of the FIA.
They had tried to talk to the FIA, and the
FIA said, well, we're going to have a meeting, a
(13:20):
scheduled meeting in like May, so if you just signed
a contract, we'll all get in the same room in May,
and you know we'll figure this out. Clearly, if you're
signing the contract, then the fi has a very easy
reason in May to say, okay, but you signed it,
so we don't have to care about this anymore. You
obviously agreed okay.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
So the FIA is decidedly not moved by Dicky loud
As appeal.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Yeah, what is Didier and Nikki's next move?
Speaker 4 (13:47):
So they go The next time we're all going to
be in the same place is the season opening race
at the South African Grand Prix. Really, the only way
to kind of make this work is if at the
South African Grand Prix we can get everyone to stand
united together to say we disagree with this super licensed contract. Now,
remember almost every driver has signed this because they I'm
(14:10):
going to assume they probably did not read the fine
print on this.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Did they like not have agents, lawyers?
Speaker 4 (14:17):
Not really, it was not the professionalization that we were expecting,
like from today, and they also just wanted to race,
So you're just gonna like sign the dotted line.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
The other thing, too, is I mean this is obvious,
but I'll just pointed out nineteen eighty two, you don't
have cell phones. You don't have Internet the way you
do today. You can't just you know, type any type
up to your WhatsApp group chat and be like, hey, guys,
like funny story. We found these clauses that are terrible.
And everyone is obviously far flung around the world, or
at least around Europe, so it's not like you. Yeah,
(14:48):
you're not easily getting in contact with people in the
same way you can today.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
We will get to that fateful day of the nineteen
eighty two strike in just a moment, but first we're
going to take a break for some ads. We're back
and we finally made it to January of nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 6 (15:08):
In the week before the race, the drivers were arriving
from their homes around the world with wives and girl friends.
First priority to soak up the southern summer sun and.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Relax to recap.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
We are in South Africa, and I will also note
for a little trivia moment that F one hasn't raced
in the continent of Africa since the early nineteen nineties.
But it's the first day of the race weekend and
the drivers are showing up to free practice.
Speaker 8 (15:32):
This was the kaya Lami circuit near Johannesburg this morning
with everything set for the official practice lapse for Saturday's
Grand Prix. The cars had been assembled and tuned. The
only thing missing the drivers.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
So Nicki and DDE commission a bus and they show
up with this bus at one of the track entrances,
bright and early, so they are there when drivers start
arriving at the track. And as every driver arrives at
Kyo Lami, the South African Ground Prix location, Nicki and
Didier are there to say hello, we have a problem
(16:06):
with this super license agreement. So they give this little spiel. Hey,
we're not getting in the cars today. If you want
to join us, you can get on this bus. If
you want to go in and race, you can go
in and race. Almost every driver gets on that bus.
The only one who doesn't is Yolkin Mas who was
staying with some friends in South Africa and derived at
(16:29):
the track via a different entrance, so he did not
come to the bus entrance. But they've at this point
you've got you know, twenty nine thirty drivers. He can
head on back. We can get this started.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
I'm relieved he wasn't like the dweeb who you know,
crossed the picket line.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
The scab is just like oops he at a little
logistical oopsie. Yeah, so we did forget him for that.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
The stories of him like turning up in the paddock
and being like, where's everybody, Like.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
What's going at And again no cell phones, no internet,
he has to wait to hear what on earth is
going going on.
Speaker 6 (17:00):
Temperatures were raised when a van tried to block the path.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
You actually have team owners parking their cars in front
of the bus before it can leave, hoping that they
can kind of stop it and prevent it from going,
to force the drivers to stay at the track, not
really realizing that they have a bus full of race
car drivers that can just like get behind the wheel.
They're going to move it and just leave it on
the side of the road and go on their merry way.
Speaker 6 (17:22):
Suddenly the bus drove off, with the sporting press chasing
madly along behind.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
I'd seen some clips of the bus driving and there
is a gaggle of cars behind them with journalists.
Speaker 9 (17:34):
Dozens of journalists jocking for pole position as they hurtled after.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
The bus heading towards Johannesburg. Watching the flying.
Speaker 9 (17:41):
Circus, A rather amused Nikki Lauda.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
It's just very abnormal to have your entire grid of
emotionally unregulated adrenaline junkie drivermen on a bus when they
should not be on that bus.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
So you've got the journalists chasing them. There's some who
stay at the track, these journalists to see what Dda
Perni is going to do, because Dda Perni stays at
the track to speak to the FI president at this time,
Jean Marie Bilestra. Jean Marie Bilestra was well known as
a hardheaded, unwilling to compromise, stubborn fella, and when he
(18:13):
was brought into the leadership position the presidency of the
FIA in nineteen seventy eight, it was specifically because he
would make a good foil for Bernie Echolestone. Bernie he
would be the big boss, the big guy who actually
could exert some pressure against the United Front of FOCA
(18:35):
and perhaps actually have some sort of progress in terms
of the FI becoming kind of taking control of its
sport once again.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Man, I'm just loving this.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
So now that we've gotten to know Jean Marie Bilestra,
our main antagonist, let's jump back to what Nikki Lauda
and his bus of renegade drivers were getting up to
once they finished this trip and ended up at the
Sunnyside Park hotel in Johannesburg.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Their plan is basically, we are going to stay in
the ballroom of this hotel together, all of us in
the same spot, until we get some sort of recognition
from the FIA. You know, they believe that if the
drivers were to go back and lock themselves in their
hotel room, they're very easy single targets to pick off.
There was a lot of pressure on these drivers to
(19:22):
just shut up and drive and keep their politics out
of the racing world. Basically, Bernie ecclestone, he's a FOKA
team owner, but he fired both of his drivers at
this point because they were going to strike. He was upset,
he was angry. He was going to find replacements. You know,
we've got teams in the paddock who are advertising to locals. Hey,
(19:45):
if you can drive a Formula one car, why don't
you get behind the wheel. We're trying to keep this
race going and all of our drivers are gone. So
if you put them all by their lonesome, you'll have
Bernie Eclestone knocking on your door and saying you better
get your button.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
That race car.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
So they want to keep everyone in the same spot.
DDA Prony's at the track trying to negotiate, and by
the end of the day realizes there is no way
that Jean Marie Blestra is going to say, we'll change it.
We'll hear you out and you don't have to sign
this to race.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
If the cause were wheeled away.
Speaker 9 (20:18):
The drivers were given a final ultimatum settled by seven
o'clock tomorrow morning, we'll face a life suspension from World
Championship Racing.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
So he calls up Niki Loud at the hotel and says, Nicki,
it's not happening. So Nicki calls in as many mattresses
as the hotel will get.
Speaker 6 (20:35):
Them, and that night the sit in became a sleep.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
We have one man at this point who has backed out.
His name is Tao Faby. He upon hearing that he
was going to be fired, freaked out and apparently climbed
out the window of the bathroom.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
You're a Formula one racing driver in the eighties, there
could be potential death at every turn of an actual
race track, and then you get spooked by the idea
of like this whole situation where you're just also just
hanging out in like a hotel ballroom, right like yeah,
like a smart I get that there's like an existential
threat to your career and whatnot, but as far as
the actual like present physical events, like you're not there's
(21:11):
no harm coming too, You're just sitting there.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
It's pretty cozy.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
The other drivers, as you can imagine, were still pretty
harsh with Tao even years later. So in nineteen ninety two,
which is a decade after this incident, mind you, KK
Rosberg told the press that Tao ran like a chicken.
This is a direct quote. Ran like a chicken. He
went out, didn't come back, and lost all of our
respect forever. Not because he decided to leave, no, but
(21:38):
because he betrayed us all. He went straight to Bilestra
and Ecclestone and told them everything we had discussed.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Harsh.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
I actually really feel for TiO. I have to say,
I do.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
I know it's funny like it is.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
He was a rookie. I think it's important to say
that he was a rookie. He just got on grid.
So this was like his dream just came true. He
got a seat in F one and this is like crazy,
and now they're asking him to get fired for it.
Nikki Lauda after winning all the championships and everything.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Yeah, and it's also worth noting like this is a
period of time where the drivers, I don't want to
say that they're all friends today necessarily, but they all
inhabit the same little circles for so many months of
the year together. These drivers didn't know each other in
the nineteen eighties quite as well. If you were a
front runner, you probably hung out with your other front runners.
If you were a guy like Teo Fabbi, if you
(22:27):
were a rookie or you were one of those kind
of back marker teams, you probably didn't talk to guys
like Niki Lauda. You probably didn't have a relationship with
those folks up at the front of the grid.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
So it's extra.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
Scary where you're like, I know, I have to trust
that they know what they're talking about and that their
influence is going to actually do something about this. But also,
who knows, maybe this all falls apart terribly and none
of us have jobs.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
So we have these somewhere between two and three dozen
drivers hanging out at hotel room, our Paladidia is trying
to figure out what's going on, and it looks like
this is not going to happen on this first day
of the race. They've now brought in all these mattresses.
These grown men are having to share mattresses. One has
escaped through a bathroom window. Where do they go from here?
Speaker 4 (23:13):
They basically have to shut it down for the night.
Jean Marie Blestra says, I'm done. The drivers all head back.
They keep each other company, They tell each other jokes,
they play the piano together. They have a jolly old time.
The wives and girlfriends pick up the cause in their
in their wake, and when they see Jean Marie Blestra
at dinner, they start chucking dinner rolls at him while
(23:36):
he is trying to eat his food and peace.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
I love the dinner rolls. Incredible, incredible.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
And the following morning, the folks in charge of the
South African Ground Prix in the morning, you know, the
second morning where the race weekend's supposed to get going,
they say, we need to sit down and hash this out.
We cannot afford to postpone the race. We also cannot
afford to run this race without the big draws like
Nikki Lauda. So they tell the FIA you just have
(24:03):
to suck it up kind of and let them, let
them do their thing, let them race without signing the contract,
but you cannot screw over this race. And Jean Marie
Buleustra says, okay, the race will go on and the
drivers will be allowed to compete whether or not they
have signed the super license agreement. No one will be
punished for it, and we will sit down and have
(24:25):
a better discussion about this in May when the Formula
one Circus returns to Europe. But as it turns out,
this is just kind of a ploy to get the
race going. Because Jean Marie Bleustra does indeed intend to
(24:46):
punish everyone who was involved in the South African Grand
Prix strike.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
How do drivers respond to when he tries to punish
them post race?
Speaker 4 (24:56):
So he tries to punish them a few different ways,
the main one being somewhere between five and ten thousand
dollars worth of fines or suspended race bands. Their response
is that they are not going to pay. They're just
not gonna pay. They're gonna keep showing up at the racetrack.
They're gonna keep racing. They're gonna keep turning up with
their teams and they're not going to pay.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Okay, proletariat like stand up and now Niki Lauda like
hero of labor organizing.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
And there was about to be a little bit of
a break between the South African Grand Prix and the
next race in Brazil. South Africa was in January and
Brazil was going to be in March. So after this,
they've got plenty of time to relax, receive their fines,
receive their race bands, and then take them to the
FIA Court of Appeals and say, we don't like this.
(25:52):
We were promised that there would be no retaliation.
Speaker 10 (25:56):
What because Stone might say about the current problems isn't
necessarily objective, isn't necessarily the truth, And in any case,
he encounters the fact that we're trying to maintain solidarity
among ourselves.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Shockingly, the FIA Court of Appeals actually does side with
the drivers in this instance and says, yeah, Jean Marie
Bilestra kind of overstepped his power. He did promise that
there would be no retaliation. So Bilestra had to walk
back the punishments and ultimately the offending clauses in the
super licensed contract were entirely scrubbed out, and the super
license itself kind of faded away until the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Okay, Comrades, quick break. When we come back, we'll get
into the state of collective power on the grid today.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
But before we pause for.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Some ads, I want to remind you that we are
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Speaker 3 (26:57):
Do not be a teo faby. We will be right back.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
And we're back. Appreciate the solidarity. Let's get on with
our story. This is pretty much the only time there's
ever been something seen like this in F one to
this degree, with this much of the grid participating, and
I'm thinking of how in the present day. Yes, there
are times when the drivers all grumble together. They do
have a group chat, which I'm sure at times can
(27:27):
be very active. But like remember when there was that
jewelry ban in a recent season and only really Lewis
Hamilton showed up with his you know, eighty seven necklaces
and fourteen rings and god knows what else to basically
prove that, Like that was ridiculous that they were saying,
like you couldn't wear all this jewelry in the car.
Speaker 10 (27:44):
It's almost like a step backwards if you think of
the steps were taking as a sport.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
And I can't imagine for instance, you know, max for
step and stepping up and being like, I too, will
wear my even more cardier love bracelets, bracelets and I
already own like I'm going to show up too, and
like support my man Lewis like we're not going to
see that. No, Yeah, what what made it work in
nineteen eighty two? What was the special sauce of circumstances
that allowed for a strike like this to actually thrive?
Speaker 5 (28:08):
That is such a good question.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
It was just kind of this perfect combination of factors.
Like the FIA versus FOKA battle had been going on
for over a decade at this point. It was near
the end of this year's long battle between teams and
drivers and FIA, so there was a recent history of
boycotts and strikes and headbutting. There was nothing of the
(28:31):
sort of the driver's strike that happened, but there was
you know, drivers would take stands and say we're not
going to race, and how barriers are repaired at certain tracks,
and you know, it was mostly just those improvements of
the safety, but this was really the big one of
drivers saying, you know, we've been caught up kind of
in this institutional battle between the FIA and between our teams,
(28:54):
and we want to have a say in this. Because
their voices were being talked over by the team owners
and by the folks at the FIA.
Speaker 5 (29:03):
So f one.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
It was constantly growing throughout the seventies and eighties, but
it wasn't the institution that we have today. There were
big sponsors, there was big money to be made in
broadcast rights, and drivers had a bigger impact i think
on the sport as a whole at that point in
time than they do today. Like now, not only have
(29:25):
they been pr trained, but they're also more beholden to
sponsors now than they were in the past. So a
guy like Nikki Lauda, you know, clearly like a Marlborough
sponsored driver, you want to not make Marlboro look like terrible,
but they're not, you know, doing little social media clips
every weekend. They had a little bit more of that
freedom of expression and they were willing to use it
(29:47):
in this instance where they felt that they'd been hemmed
in and they needed to establish this can't go on
without us, the drivers.
Speaker 5 (29:55):
We are the heart and.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
The soul of what Formula one is. And if you
do I have good drivers, you do not have a
good race.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
And they could literally die at any given point at
this juncture of the sports history.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
Exactly, d Da Pironi, who was so instrumental on this strike,
his career came to an end that year. He crashed,
broke both of his legs and could no longer race.
Even if you weren't going to die, there was still
a very big chance that your career could come to
a catastrophic end. And the FI itself too was a
different beast. The FI has always been very politicized, but
(30:30):
I think the FI is way more monolithic now. There
are just so many departments and subcommittees and you can't
stand up to the FI. I know you mentioned the
jewelry ban. We had Max first Step and you know
his little walkout from the press conference of like, I'm
not going to say anything because if drivers swear, then
I'll get fined. But really, those those stances that they
(30:53):
take are very very rare. I think the only time
I like got my hopes up for a driver's strike
of the same nature. Do you remember in Saudi Arabia
when there were missiles launching or hitting near the track
and the drivers all like stayed overnight to talk it
over with FI. That was the only time I was like,
maybe there is a chance, because this is a genuine
(31:15):
matter of like safety, not just for them but for
everyone in Formula one. But it didn't happen then, so
I was like, they're really if that it wasn't gonna happen,
then it's not gonna happen for something like a jewelry band.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Yeah, And even that they were kind of afterwards like
we figured it out and You're like, yeah, okay, guys, Yeah,
they don't have nickey, you know, Karl Marx Lauda out
there like basically banning people from going for striking. No
for real, Like, man, yeah, I know he's passed away since,
but like, dude needs to come back. And I know
do some I don't know, some like Gi Yeah, he
(31:49):
needs to have like a little seminar or two on
how to make this work. But I do understand that
he yeah, was driving under very different circumstances.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
I do want to say the nineteen eighty two season
was kind of the pinnacle here of this battle that
they had between the FI and the Formula One Constructors Association.
It came to an end pretty sharply at the end
of that year.
Speaker 9 (32:08):
Do you think that Formula One has any lessons to
learn from Vilnav's accident?
Speaker 4 (32:12):
Jill Villeneuve was killed.
Speaker 11 (32:15):
Motor Racing is very dangerous. That's the fact that everybody
is aware of drivers, everybody involved in it. And an
accident yesterday, like with Jill, was was a very sad situation.
It's a nightstanding driver lost his life through what was,
in my opinion, a pure motor racing accident, and that's
the risk involved in motor racing. Unfortunately, it will always
(32:38):
be there as long as your men wanting to race cars,
there will always be that risk.
Speaker 5 (32:43):
Another gentleman was killed in Canada.
Speaker 8 (32:45):
Oh do they haven't got it up barking, which is
they've got a problem here.
Speaker 5 (32:48):
And then d D.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
Peroni had his career ending injury, so it kind of
took this steam I think out of a lot of
the the headbutting that was going on and a lot
of the you know, it just seemed like petty infighting
when it was kind of compared to the actual critical
safety issues that we're going to you know, have to
be addressed.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Elizabeth, this whole saga is just absolutely fascinating, you know,
to hear how this for this fleeting moment in history,
the drivers prove that they actually have real agency in
their sport. I'm wondering looking at F one now, given
the power struggles, who actually holds the reins today? And
(33:30):
also just regarding that second clause that Nikki Lauda refused
to sign, the one prohibiting drivers from you know, talking
shit about the sport. Are they required to sign anything
along those lines today?
Speaker 4 (33:43):
So with the you can't say anything bad about F
one that I believe is now like an informal clause
within the FI. So drivers are not allowed to speak
ill of Formula one. They can be fined for that.
And they're also kind of restricted in the language that
they use during a FISH press conferences. So if you
have an interview that takes place with like Max Verstappen
(34:05):
away from an FI press conference, he can say curse words,
but he cannot do that in the official post race
press conference. But yeah, that is a concern that drivers
did have, was they did feel like they were being
limited in their speech and that like if they talked
poorly about the FIA, they could be fined in F one. Today,
(34:25):
there really isn't any similar driver power that you know,
we would have.
Speaker 5 (34:30):
Had in the past.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
The Grand Prix Drivers Association does exist. It kind of
disappeared after nineteen eighty two but came back into play
in the nineties. But it's not quite it's more, I think,
just a sounding board for the drivers to kind of
discuss certain issues with specific regulations that are much more
nitpicky than they are these groundbreaking kind of frustrations. So
(34:56):
you do have George Russell quite vocal. It's Carlo Science
now who's in charge of the GPDA, but it's George Russell, who,
like you, you ask him for a quoll, he's gonna
he's a spinning a yard about what the GPDA is
going off on.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
I was gonna say, George Russell, I have long said,
is perpetually running for student body president, right, Like, this
is the guy who was always in campaign mode about anything.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
I feel like too.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
There's just a different kind of driver on the grid
than there was back in the eighties.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
And I don't even mean that in it like.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
A derogatory way, but like when I think of recent
F one history, you think of someone like Kimmy breichen
in right. So he retired from F one just a
few years ago, but back in two thousand and six,
at the Monaco Grand Prix, in one of his most
iconic moments, he had to retire his car, and instead
of going back to his team's garage, he walked in
his full racing gear over to a nearby yacht where
(35:50):
his friends were and hopped aboard, like still wearing the
helmet everything. And the funniest part for me is that
twenty minutes later, this guy is sitting there shirtless on
this yacht and that takes balls. Yeah, you're just not
going to see that. And most like George Wessell will
like ball his little fists and stomp his little feet
and like get in front of the you know, the
microphones and the recorders and be you know, basically he
can spend some like good quotes that lead to like
(36:12):
some really interesting RPF fan fiction about like him and
Max Verstappen. But you're not gonna have him doing what
Nikki Lauda did with a bus, right, Like, I don't know,
it's just a different a different type of driver and
a different type of sport.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
There was some regulatory concern that they had last year
with the FI and all the GPDA did was like
write a strongly worded letter to the FIA, and that
was like kind of the extent they're him did By sponsors,
there's multi million dollar investments in these drivers to make
sure that they get on the grid, so there is
a lot, I think a lot more financial pressure for
(36:46):
them to not do that, and they've also been trained
from a much younger age that like what the sponsor
and the team want is top notch. If I'm uncomfy,
I just kind of got to get over it and
deal with it.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
This is fascinating. First of all, want to say, that's
very astute of you. If there's any one driver that
will unite the drivers behind a cause, and I think
that's George Russell. I think you're totally right about that
and maybe maybe live to see that.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
But he's also like kind of goofy, right, like he's
the one who could who has you it is he
has he.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Has the organizational chops.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
I can see it to get it done, but he
also would be kind of annoying, and I think they
would go along with it but make fun of him.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Like imagine him going.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
From like like like motor home to motorhome being like
Fernando Alonso like we have a problem, goes to like
Max firs Staff, but he's like Max, I know I
just talked mad shit about you yesterday, but we have
a part.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Like it's just it's just like this funny vision.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
He'll be like doing his presentation and nobody will be
listening to him, and Lewis will be like, guys, listen,
listen to the present the.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
PowerPoint like he did with Toto to even like get
his attention.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Like but that's like the you you what it is?
They don't.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
They don't have a Sebastian Mettle anymore, right, Like a
driver who's got the cred, who's kind of like new school,
old school, Like this is a guy who I think
can command the attention and control over people in a
way that I think the grid is missing at the moment,
like a true get it done, but also like he's
a good hang.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
That's the thing with Niki Laudas like people had a
lot of respect for him, they also were scared as
hell of him, And I don't think that there is
anyone in F one that I would be like, I'm
kind of intimidated of them at this point in time.
They all have dinner together at the end of the season,
Like that's kind of cute.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Yeah, you, Niki Lauda is like Denaros targarianing this whole thing,
and they've got it's like, we got a vegan meal
at this like nineteen star Michelin restaurant. It's just like, again,
a different vibe, which I still enjoy today's F one obviously,
but like, yes.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
Very different.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
The other question I had there was just what happened
to the power struggle between the FIA and the main
power struggle is like basically the FAA against Liberty media,
like they decide on all these things.
Speaker 5 (38:53):
That's a great question.
Speaker 4 (38:54):
So as we like F one continued, FOKA kind of
took over the So Max Mosley, who was a FOKA
team owner, became fi president after Jean Marie Blestra. Bernie
ecclestone became the owner of Formula one Media, which was
in charge of the broadcast, right, So so we had
those two together who basically for decades kind of were
(39:17):
in charge of F one. They then, you know, Max
Mosley retired, Bernie sold the FOM to Liberty Media. I
don't know that we necessarily have as big of an
ideological struggle anymore as there used to be. I mean,
even in the Bernie era, you would have drivers pushing
back on certain rules and regulations, like Bernie would not
(39:39):
let you use Snapchat in the paddock, and Lewis Hamilton
like refused to listen to that and would put the
little dog selfie face on drivers in the press conference.
So they're supposed to be talking today, there's like not
quite as much like there is. I think the drivers
against the fi president Hi Mohammed Ben Sulaim because MBS
(40:02):
does love to talk and he does love to have
that power over the drivers, and the drivers don't want
him to have that power over them. So this is
you know, we're getting those rules of like you can't
talk poorly about Formula one, you cannot speak ill of
the FIA, you can't say swear words. Yeah, but it
feels like it's much less of an existential threat than
(40:23):
it was in the nineteen eighties, if that makes sense.
It's much more of a the drivers feel hemmed in
and how they can express themselves.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
I feel like the drivers actually have an opening here.
I think they have more leverage than maybe they seem
to be exercising because they're so hemmed in with all
these sponsorships and everything, Like the price, the corporate price
to pay for them having to switch out Lando Norris
mid season will be so high that they can demand
anything they want.
Speaker 4 (40:48):
Really, I think you're right, honestly, Like, if we show
up in Las Vegas and they're not going to race
in Las Vegas because they're striking over something like you're
going to have millions and millions of dollars of sponsors
coming on the teams in the FI Like, how are
we going to fix this? How are we going to
get those bad boys out there?
Speaker 3 (41:06):
Be interested?
Speaker 1 (41:07):
People write them in with like what cause they want
them to champion animation?
Speaker 4 (41:13):
Our strike request today.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Is yeah, incredible.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
So I've been thinking a lot about this strike in
recent weeks, especially as the Formula One season has gotten
underway and we've heard a lot of drivers complaining about
the new rules and regulations that went into effect this year.
But could we truly see the likes of drivers such
as Max Verstappen, or Lewis Hamilton or George Russell rallying
together to enact the changes they want? Could we see
(41:46):
them hopping on a bus and jetting off to the
great unknown in service of a mightier cause. Unlikely, guys,
that's our show for today. A huge thank you to
Elizabeth Blackstock for this deep dive into a fascinating point
in F one history. The Saudi Arabia Grand Prix is
(42:07):
no longer taking place due to the conflict in the region,
but we'll still be putting out an episode on April fifteenth.
This time, we're diving into what I'd argue has been
one of the biggest cultural shifts in F one in
the twenty twenty so far. Wag Again in.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
That day is just seared into my memory. I'll never forget.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
No Grip is hosted by me Lily Herman and produced,
edited and sound design by Johai Metal. Max Miller is
our executive producer. We get additional production support from Poldo
Special thanks to Ben Riskin at Roomtne At iHeart. Shan
Titne is our executive producer, 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
(42:46):
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
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