Speaker 1: Hmm.
Speaker 2: Should we do comedy, as we say in the biz,
Speaker 2: let's do comedy, all right, ready, Tony Michael. Do you
Speaker 2: have any idea what it took just for me to
Speaker 2: be here in the studio with you today?
Speaker 3: You know I do not. I have a feeling you're
Speaker 3: about to tell me.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm gonna tell you. Okay, Okay. I got up,
Speaker 2: I put on my shoes, I took the sea train,
Speaker 2: I stopped at the cafe on the corner here, great
Speaker 2: coffee by the way, I took the elevator, and here
Speaker 2: I am.
Speaker 3: That seems pretty straightforward.
Speaker 2: Well that's the thing. It's anything but straightforward.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Think about the amount of logistics happening in the background
Speaker 2: to get me here today. I'm talking train conductors, policemen, barristas,
Speaker 2: coffee farmers, dorman, elevator technicians. When you think about it,
Speaker 2: it's a logistical miracle that I'm here with you today.
Speaker 3: Well, I surely feel blessed.
Speaker 2: For my heart pots one on one studios and Sports
Speaker 2: Illustrated studios.
Speaker 3: This is choosing sides, yes, one wow wow. Someone once
Speaker 3: told me there's no plan B when it comes to logistics.
Speaker 3: You know, we joke about Ferrari's plan A, B, C, D, E,
Speaker 3: F G, And they'll say, well, what's interesting is in
Speaker 3: logistics there's no plan B. Plan A has to work,
Speaker 3: those freights have to make it to the destination on time.
Speaker 3: Is that true?
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it would be wrong to say
Speaker 4: there is no plan B because in a way, there
Speaker 4: never is a plan. It's constantly evolving. So we start
Speaker 4: with Plan A at the beginning of the season and
Speaker 4: we end up with Plan Z in a few months,
Speaker 4: because it's just everything happens. I mean, we had COVID,
Speaker 4: we had strikes, we have wars, we have weather, we
Speaker 4: have pandemics, we had I mean we saw that literally
Speaker 4: the moment we said, okay, what next, what else can happen?
Speaker 4: Something else was happening, happening, So we thought COVID and
Speaker 4: the pandemic was the worst moment of our life. Now
Speaker 4: even worse. Yeah, So I think we become expert of
Speaker 4: dealing with issues, of finding solution to a problem, and
Speaker 4: we always get to a plan in the end and
Speaker 4: we make it happen. But to get to that make
Speaker 4: it happen, we change multiple times. So I mean I
Speaker 4: would say, yes, we always make it happen. But to
Speaker 4: get there, there are a lot of plan ABCD.
Speaker 3: There's lots of pivots happening. Yeah, this is Georgia Tierra Bassi,
Speaker 3: DHL Motorsports track side manager.
Speaker 4: If I had to list what I do, I think
Speaker 4: we would be here for hours.
Speaker 3: She's going to help us understand all of the logistics
Speaker 3: that goes into the Formula one race we can.
Speaker 2: I know you're expecting me to be skeptical about this
Speaker 2: week's topic, but I'm actually I'm all in great.
Speaker 3: I admit I didn't peg you as a logistics man.
Speaker 2: You know, I think it was US General Omar Bradley
Speaker 2: who once said amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I hold that to be inherently true.
Speaker 3: I absolutely love that there we go. So there's a
Speaker 3: lot of focus on Formula one that goes into drivers,
Speaker 3: the speed, the money, the glitz, the glamor, and all
Speaker 3: of that is true and all good and well. But
Speaker 3: to me, truly, one of the things that astounds me
Speaker 3: with this sport is the logistical component of it all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you've described it, but I've also heard
Speaker 2: other people describe it as a traveling circus. Help me
Speaker 2: understand why that's true.
Speaker 5: There's nothing else like it. Really, there is nothing else
Speaker 5: like Formula one logistically because of all the different components
Speaker 5: that go into it. I mean we're talking about the
Speaker 5: car is alone weigh two thousand pounds.
Speaker 3: This is Joe Pompiono.
Speaker 2: Hi, Joe.
Speaker 3: Joe's a banker turns sport expert. He loves everything that
Speaker 3: has to do with the underbelly of the sports machine,
Speaker 3: so finances the in this model, but also the logistical
Speaker 3: efforts underlining it all.
Speaker 5: They're racing at top speeds of two hundred miles per hour.
Speaker 5: The drivers are like movie stars relative to what's come
Speaker 5: out over Netflix over the last few years and their popularity,
Speaker 5: and it's just unlike anything else that we have in
Speaker 5: sports today. And I think it's really challenging specifically because
Speaker 5: it's really one of the only global sports that we have.
Speaker 5: There are sports leagues that play in other places. There's
Speaker 5: you know, European football teams that play friendlies in the US,
Speaker 5: and even the NFL goes international. But Formula one is
Speaker 5: global in its blood. It's everywhere. They travel every single
Speaker 5: year to the same places all over the world, and
Speaker 5: it makes it really challenging because it's not an asset
Speaker 5: like business where you can just kind of pick yourself up,
Speaker 5: fly over there and then do the event. You need
Speaker 5: the cars, you need grand stands put up, you need
Speaker 5: premium hospitality. You obviously need to bring hundreds of employees.
Speaker 5: You have to have the motor homes set up and
Speaker 5: the hospitality areas for the teams themselves, and that's really
Speaker 5: challenging logistically because there's so many different moving parts.
Speaker 3: So remember when we talked about sponsorship a few episodes back,
Speaker 3: and we talked about F one having official sponsors and
Speaker 3: teams and drivers have their sponsorships and promoters have their sponsors. Well,
Speaker 3: DHL has been one of the longest standing sponsors for
Speaker 3: Formula one for over forty years, and DHL is one
Speaker 3: of those sponsors that helps F one make sure that
Speaker 3: they can put on this traveling circus.
Speaker 4: Yeah, DHL are the longest official partner of F one.
Speaker 4: I'm not a Formula one fun I mean I like
Speaker 4: the logistics behind it, but anything to do with Fromula one,
Speaker 4: like drivers, teams and everything else, I kind of know
Speaker 4: it because I'm working in it, so I have to
Speaker 4: have a basic knowledge. Yeah, but I wouldn't define myself
Speaker 4: as a Formula one fun if they ask me who
Speaker 4: won after the race nine times after ten, I'm like,
Speaker 4: no clue. I need to go on the internet and
Speaker 4: check because I don't have the time to actually watch
Speaker 4: the outcome. I need to focus on Okay, did they crash? Yes,
Speaker 4: then I have to ship more frame.
Speaker 3: You are my dream expert who's just like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: Formula one, that's all good. Let's talk logistics.
Speaker 4: Yeah. The race is the only time we have where
Speaker 4: it's quiet because everyone, of course is busy watching it,
Speaker 4: so we don't get customer in the office. It's the
Speaker 4: only two hours we have to catch up on emails
Speaker 4: to relax a little bit, so we actually we use
Speaker 4: that time to relax and catch up on anything we
Speaker 4: haven't been able to do. I focus on air freight mainly,
Speaker 4: but in our job, there is I mean, there is
Speaker 4: nothing really you can focus on because we are track
Speaker 4: side and we are the face of the company in
Speaker 4: a way, so we need to know a bit of everything.
Speaker 4: We have an office at the circuit in every single event,
Speaker 4: so if there is an issue with any kind of
Speaker 4: shipment air fhrase, see freight customs, anything, we have to
Speaker 4: have the answer.
Speaker 2: The HL the shipping company, the.
Speaker 3: Shipping company, that same company that a lot of people
Speaker 3: complain about that loses their package.
Speaker 2: Right. I don't even know what DHL stands for, but
Speaker 2: thankfully there's internet connection here.
Speaker 3: No Google it for us or bring it for us.
Speaker 2: I'm going to bring it for you guys. Let's guess
Speaker 2: drove it here myself. I like that DHL acronym meaning.
Speaker 6: Gilblm put up a portion of his student loans to
Speaker 6: start the company, bringing in his two friends, Adrian Dalcy
Speaker 6: and Robert Lynn as partners. They shared a Plymouth duster
Speaker 6: that they drove around San Francisco to pick up the
Speaker 6: documents and suitcases. Then they would rush to the airport
Speaker 6: where they booked flights using a relatively new invention, the
Speaker 6: corporate credit card.
Speaker 2: Dalzy, Hillblom and Lynn as expected, an American founded German
Speaker 2: logistic company providing courier, package delivery and express mail service,
Speaker 2: delivering over one point eight billion parcels per year. That's
Speaker 2: what American founded German logistics. I'll tell you what when
Speaker 2: it comes to logistics, the Germans, I'm I'm pro German.
Speaker 2: There you go, when you say DHL sponsors. What does
Speaker 2: that mean, like who's paying who here?
Speaker 3: So it's a bit of a mixture. And again the
Speaker 3: numbers and the finances in F one always a bit opaque,
Speaker 3: but I think on this one they probably look some
Speaker 3: sponsors paying kind and what I mean by d is
Speaker 3: they pay with the technology we mentioned Oracle, Aws, et cetera. Google,
Speaker 3: they offer the tablets and all of that. I think
Speaker 3: with this one there's a fair amount that DHL puts
Speaker 3: up front. But also it's not because we're flying DHL
Speaker 3: planes that Formula one doesn't actually pay for this, so
Speaker 3: they're chartered planes and we'll get we'll get into the
Speaker 3: n antiquity of that because the teams then have to
Speaker 3: pay Formula one for spaces on that plane as well.
Speaker 2: I see.
Speaker 3: So there's a couple of layers to this.
Speaker 4: Jeez.
Speaker 5: They've been working with DHL, their their logistics and chipping
Speaker 5: partner for forty years now, and DHL actually sends thirty
Speaker 5: five dedicated specialist Formula one to every single race to
Speaker 5: oversee it.
Speaker 4: So yeah, in total, we always have up to fifty
Speaker 4: people on site at teach events.
Speaker 5: It's one of those things where they're obviously presenting sponsor
Speaker 5: of the series. They get paid a lot of money
Speaker 5: and they get a lot of value out of the
Speaker 5: partnership that they have with Formula One. And this is
Speaker 5: their gig right, this is their job, this is what
Speaker 5: the company does, so they've obviously put a lot of
Speaker 5: resources towards it to make sure that everything runs smoothly.
Speaker 4: We have got our air freight team, We've got C Freight,
Speaker 4: We've got PADO Club, we have got our TV guys
Speaker 4: who focus on the TV broadcasters. So everyone is a
Speaker 4: specialist in something, but as well as they know how
Speaker 4: to do everything, So we tend to have one team
Speaker 4: that has got one specialist on each side, but overall
Speaker 4: they can all cover each other's job. We all know
Speaker 4: each other. We're all like a little village dealing with
Speaker 4: the same people. You're just in a different country. So
Speaker 4: it's like we were all a big team. Just move
Speaker 4: in from A to B and BB to C. So
Speaker 4: it does feel like a big family.
Speaker 3: So we used to have a much lighter calendar. And
Speaker 3: actually that's another hot topic in this sport of people
Speaker 3: saying we don't need I'm a big believer in that
Speaker 3: that we don't actually need more races It used to
Speaker 3: be that we had maybe twelve, sixteen, eighteen races in
Speaker 3: the season, which meant that more or less between each
Speaker 3: race weekend there was a week or two or three.
Speaker 3: Now we're adding more and more races, the calendars getting
Speaker 3: bigger and bigger, which means that we now have to
Speaker 3: squish a lot of these races together, which means we
Speaker 3: end up with double headers and sometimes triple headers.
Speaker 5: It's the nature of the business model, which is race
Speaker 5: promoters paying extravagant fees for the traveling circus to come
Speaker 5: to town, and they're really giving a lot of the
Speaker 5: annual revenue to Formula One. It's the basis of their business.
Speaker 5: And in other sports, if we want to talk about
Speaker 5: American specifically, if you think about the NFL or the NBA,
Speaker 5: or any of the major sports leagues here in the US,
Speaker 5: that position of power is really with the media companies,
Speaker 5: right It's with the ESPNS, the Fox, the CBS, those companies,
Speaker 5: because they're the ones that are providing the most revenue
Speaker 5: to the sports leagues. It's no secret if you look
Speaker 5: at the NFL, they make about twenty billion dollars a
Speaker 5: year in annual revenue, but about ten or eleven billion
Speaker 5: of that is coming specifically from their media partners. So
Speaker 5: there's this constant tug of war going on of like,
Speaker 5: we're going to give you better games if you do this,
Speaker 5: and vice versa. And I think that's the relationship in
Speaker 5: Formula one that belongs with the race promoters because they're
Speaker 5: the ones that are essentially I mean, if you look
Speaker 5: at some of these races, they're paying upwards of fifty
Speaker 5: million dollars every year for Formula one to come to
Speaker 5: town for like three days, right, And that's obviously a
Speaker 5: lot of money, especially when you break it down on
Speaker 5: an annual basis per event. And I think that's the
Speaker 5: reason why these race promoters have so much power. And
Speaker 5: that's not to say that Liberty Media and Formula One
Speaker 5: don't have power. I think that they just have to
Speaker 5: kind of work together to figure out the best schedule,
Speaker 5: and it's not always easy when you're moving twenty to
Speaker 5: twenty five different partners around.
Speaker 4: In Unison, I think we are hitting the limit because
Speaker 4: we keep adding and adding and adding, and you don't
Speaker 4: realize that we have got one team of people that
Speaker 4: are doing this race. So at the end of the day,
Speaker 4: to ask a person that has got a life, that
Speaker 4: wants to have a life to do even more races.
Speaker 4: I mean it means a lot of days away from home.
Speaker 4: From what I have seen, people are starting to complaining
Speaker 4: now because it's I mean, you don't get any work
Speaker 4: life balance. It's just work. It just never stops. I
Speaker 4: mean sometimes it feels like we're shipping organs or I
Speaker 4: mean we are saving lives, like your doctors saving lives.
Speaker 4: The stress that you feel is enormous.
Speaker 3: This year, we're going to do Vegas and then we're
Speaker 3: gonna go and fly in Abu Dhabi, which is insane
Speaker 3: by the way, because it's a twenty five hour trip
Speaker 3: from Vegas to Abu Dhabi and then there's eleven hour
Speaker 3: time difference between the two, and then we're expecting these
Speaker 3: drivers to drive.
Speaker 2: It's not safe.
Speaker 5: I actually tweeted something out last year when the NFL
Speaker 5: traveled to Germany for their game, and there was a
Speaker 5: huge debate about when the team should get there. I
Speaker 5: forget who was. It was either the Dolphins or the
Speaker 5: Chiefs that got there like three to four days before
Speaker 5: the other team, And the argument was that if you're
Speaker 5: not going to go a week early, you're better off
Speaker 5: just going like two days early, because then your internal
Speaker 5: clock is not going to be as messed up, and
Speaker 5: by the time it reverts to that, you're moving back.
Speaker 5: And I made a comment just kind of like a
Speaker 5: throw away comment, essentially saying that it's really hard on
Speaker 5: the body, and Formula one drivers have to do with this,
Speaker 5: but the fact that you're getting hit, you know, makes
Speaker 5: it that much harder. And I did that, and obviously
Speaker 5: people got upset form of the one fan saying this
Speaker 5: is a really physical sport. And I went back and
Speaker 5: I hated that I did that because I'm not one
Speaker 5: of those people that say Formula one isn't physical. It's
Speaker 5: extremely physical, right. The g forces that you have in
Speaker 5: certain corners and the toll that it takes on your body,
Speaker 5: not only physically but mentally is really challenging. And I
Speaker 5: think that's where jet lag comes in is I read
Speaker 5: this quote. It was in the New York Times a
Speaker 5: few years ago, and as a physio for one of
Speaker 5: the teams, and they were essentially saying that what they
Speaker 5: want to do is they want to get to a
Speaker 5: location that they're going to race. If it's one hour
Speaker 5: time difference, they want to get their one day ahead.
Speaker 5: If it's three, they want to get their three days ahead.
Speaker 5: And when you're racing in a time zone like Las
Speaker 5: Vegas to Abu Dhabi, that's I don't know how long
Speaker 5: ahead that is. It's probably like eight to ten hours
Speaker 5: or something like that. That is extremely challenging, and it's impossible
Speaker 5: because the race is actually only seven days beforehand. They
Speaker 5: have families, they want to hang out at home, they
Speaker 5: want these other things, so to do that. You've seen this.
Speaker 5: I mean in Singapore, a lot of the drivers they're
Speaker 5: completely inverting their schedule. Las Vegas was the same thing.
Speaker 5: They're staying up until the early morning hours because quality
Speaker 5: isn't taking place in some instances, or practiced till one
Speaker 5: or two in the morning.
Speaker 3: We were having breakfast at four pm, lunch at midnight,
Speaker 3: and dinner at like two am when we would get
Speaker 3: back into the Hope. And you think, and I don't
Speaker 3: need to get in a car and race and experience
Speaker 3: the g forces and I'm already messed up.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean, the half of the drivers and the
Speaker 5: team members probably don't even know what time it is
Speaker 5: when they go to certain places, right, because it's just
Speaker 5: it's like a blur and you're doing it for several
Speaker 5: months at a time, and that's obviously difficult on the drivers.
Speaker 5: They're the athletes that are performing, but I think one
Speaker 5: of the most underrated parts is really how hard it
Speaker 5: is on the team members too.
Speaker 4: In Las Vegas, we were starting at a three pm
Speaker 4: and finishing at six am in the morning, so you
Speaker 4: adapt to the actual schedule of the race. That is
Speaker 4: another interesting part of the job. You just have to
Speaker 4: work when you have to work, and it's like your
Speaker 4: body adapts to it.
Speaker 2: Also, these little boys can raise their little cars around
Speaker 2: the track yep, yep today, heart's content.
Speaker 4: You get used to sleep when you can sleep, so
Speaker 4: like like you have eight hours off, okay sleep, that's
Speaker 4: I mean, it's just something that your body understand when
Speaker 4: you have time to sleep, sleep, because any other time
Speaker 4: you just have to do something, so you just you
Speaker 4: learn to use the time you're given.
Speaker 5: In some instances, they're also away from their family for
Speaker 5: months at a time. Right when the European schedule comes out,
Speaker 5: it could be two months at in a row that
Speaker 5: you're away from your family most of the week. So
Speaker 5: that's really difficult. Not only them, but their families too,
Speaker 5: if you have kids and other things like that. So
Speaker 5: I think part of it's the driver's, part of it's
Speaker 5: the teams, and it adds up to this just extremely
Speaker 5: complicated scenario logistically that's almost impossible to solve. But they're
Speaker 5: getting better at it each year.
Speaker 2: Look, we all want to grow whatever sport we're talking about, yeah,
Speaker 2: but they all get sucked into this idea football, baseball
Speaker 2: of more and more and more, and it dilutes the
Speaker 2: quality of the sport and it puts the athletes at risk.
Speaker 2: Don't do it, and it's interesting. That's not what this
Speaker 2: episode's about.
Speaker 3: No, but it's a fair point because one of the
Speaker 3: arguments that I make all the time is not we're
Speaker 3: diluting the championship. The less races there are, the more
Speaker 3: important each race is towards the championship and the championship points.
Speaker 3: The more races you add. The fact that we have
Speaker 3: this year Maxwistappan who's won the championship and there was
Speaker 3: what four or five races still to go, is an
Speaker 3: interesting problem that we are in now.
Speaker 2: So it's a long flight to Abu Dhabi.
Speaker 3: It's a long flight, and.
Speaker 2: Think about those special gloves with the monitors on them
Speaker 2: at heart rate? What if that gets lost in the flight.
Speaker 2: What if you just get a left glove.
Speaker 3: And that is part of the.
Speaker 2: Then you'll only know what the athletes left hand heart rate.
Speaker 3: Is the left. Yes, we're digressing.
Speaker 2: Let's take a short logistical break here so we can
Speaker 2: listen to some ads. So back from the ads. So
Speaker 2: let me ask maybe a silly question, maybe a brilliant question.
Speaker 3: Sure it's a brilliant question.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't be so sure, honest alpine races they come in,
Speaker 2: what are they usually coming? Fifteen sixteen? It depends. Okay,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter what midfield. Okay, midfield for the sake
Speaker 2: of this question has no bearing on the question. Okay,
Speaker 2: they pull into the paddock at the end. Where does
Speaker 2: the actual physical car go?
Speaker 4: You will never see a full car. It's always in pieces.
Speaker 4: The only time you see a car, it means it's
Speaker 4: a show car. So it's not an actual car. It's
Speaker 4: too sensitive to send it completely built, so it is
Speaker 4: completely put in parts and sent as each individual item.
Speaker 4: You will never see a car. You will only see
Speaker 4: a box containing parts of the car.
Speaker 2: How much equipment are we talking here?
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: A couple of trucks, four or five trucks, Is it
Speaker 2: just like the Formula one cars and they put a
Speaker 2: little good track on top.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 2: And they can get there faster because they can go
Speaker 2: so fast.
Speaker 3: The visual to that is pretty spectacular.
Speaker 2: Would effect win track?
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, Okay, if you want numbers, I have numbers.
Speaker 2: Yes, they want numbers, okay.
Speaker 5: Fifteen hundred tons of equipment throughout the entire year and
Speaker 5: they're traveling seventy five thousand miles.
Speaker 3: The DHL cargo travels in six or seven Boeing seven
Speaker 3: four seven cargo planes.
Speaker 4: In Europe it is up to nearly four hundred trucks
Speaker 4: for every race.
Speaker 3: If you had too much time on your hands and
Speaker 3: you wanted to put each of these trucks one in
Speaker 3: front of the other, they would make a convoy longer
Speaker 3: than five kilometers.
Speaker 4: They're not all the HL trucks. The teams have got
Speaker 4: their own hospitality trucks and garages which are all rended.
Speaker 3: Each team ships the equivalent weight of eight elephants per race.
Speaker 2: How many kangaroos is that?
Speaker 6: Michael assuming Tony is referring to an average African male
Speaker 6: elephant and Michael has in mind the male red kangaroo.
Speaker 6: The answer would be one thousand and three hundred kangaroos
Speaker 6: worth of freight per team per race.
Speaker 3: Over a season, the teams will ship six hundred and
Speaker 3: sixty tons of air freight and five hundred tons of
Speaker 3: sea freight.
Speaker 2: But what's that on elephants?
Speaker 3: You know, it's funny that you as I have the
Speaker 3: number in elephants. That's the equivalent of one hundred and
Speaker 3: sixty five elephants. I think that's all the stats that
Speaker 3: I have for you related to logistics.
Speaker 2: I weigh roughly point zero one five of an elephant.
Speaker 3: That's not too bad.
Speaker 5: One of the more interesting parts is actually the kits
Speaker 5: at the beginning of the season. So again everything's loaded
Speaker 5: up on maybe two, three or four cars that are
Speaker 5: going to European races and driving to each other. Most
Speaker 5: of the equipment feels fits on there, excluding the motor homes,
Speaker 5: which are obviously a little bit bigger need to be
Speaker 5: on bigger trucks. But when we talk about flyaway races,
Speaker 5: all of that equipment is mostly transported. That isn't the
Speaker 5: cars and other things on these kits that are sent
Speaker 5: at the beginning of the year.
Speaker 4: They have got between five to sik set and they
Speaker 4: can rotate them in between races and they can cover
Speaker 4: the whole year.
Speaker 5: And I think that logistically is one of the more
Speaker 5: challenging parts because those are happening in elite frog positions. Right,
Speaker 5: They're not only going to Zanvor and then going back
Speaker 5: to the factory. They're going to Miami. But instead of
Speaker 5: going back to the factory, they're staying on the road
Speaker 5: for another three months, and they're being transported to Austin,
Speaker 5: to Las Vegas, to Canada, to Mexico and other places
Speaker 5: in the same area.
Speaker 3: What part of this job do you sit back and go,
Speaker 3: I can't believe we pull this off.
Speaker 4: This makes nose, I would say, what is chocking me
Speaker 4: every week is how quickly everything is part done and
Speaker 4: moved because you wouldn't even imagine it.
Speaker 3: Do you have any idea when they start packing up,
Speaker 3: for example after race? Yeah, like right after the race,
Speaker 3: do you think there's like a day to.
Speaker 2: Like, let me tell let me tell you how the
Speaker 2: Daily Show does it? Okay, Okay, So we go to
Speaker 2: Atlanta last year for four shows and Thursday the show
Speaker 2: ends at eight thirty one pm and they start packing
Speaker 2: up at eight thirty two pm, Like before you're even
Speaker 2: done finishing, they're taking the lights down. I would assume
Speaker 2: that F one is that time's a bit bazillion.
Speaker 3: It's very close to that. They actually the moment the
Speaker 3: cars hit the track, they already are.
Speaker 2: They're already doing it.
Speaker 4: While the race is happening, everyone is focused on the
Speaker 4: race itself. Everything else is moving and you don't see
Speaker 4: what's happening because you're focusing on the race. But in
Speaker 4: the meantime, everything else is being parked because a few
Speaker 4: hours afterwards everything has to leave. So it is just
Speaker 4: crazy how it takes maybe three four days to set
Speaker 4: it up and a few hours to pack it crazy
Speaker 4: and unless you are on site, you just don't realize
Speaker 4: how quickly that happens.
Speaker 3: It's not uncommon for the entire F one presence to
Speaker 3: be completely gone eight hours after the Grand Prix is finished,
Speaker 3: like everyone's just disappeared, which is kind of crazy.
Speaker 2: It's like a one night stand right.
Speaker 3: Here, and then you're not and.
Speaker 2: Then you're gone, just longing, just.
Speaker 3: Just gone on the bedside table.
Speaker 5: Miss me and I'm gone.
Speaker 2: When do we go by boat? When do we go
Speaker 2: by plane. Okay, when do we drive? When is it horseback?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 2: What what mode of transport are we using? And why
Speaker 2: you can't go Vegas Abu Dhabi on a truck?
Speaker 5: No you can't, Right, So it depends on how much
Speaker 5: time you have in between certain events. Right. So the
Speaker 5: kits that I talk about, those will move on boats
Speaker 5: because you have several months before you need them, and
Speaker 5: then once they get to Miami or Brazil or wherever
Speaker 5: they're going, then they'll be transported on cars to the
Speaker 5: next races from there. But things that would go on
Speaker 5: a plane would be the cars themselves or things that
Speaker 5: you need to get there immediately.
Speaker 4: The air freight is normally the most valuable items, which
Speaker 4: is normally like what is extremely sensitive? Yeah, it cannot
Speaker 4: be replicated. It's one set only, and that goes air freight.
Speaker 5: A lot of like the general equipment we'll call it carjacks, tables, chairs,
Speaker 5: things like that will already be there because it'll be
Speaker 5: on one of the kits. But obviously the cars need
Speaker 5: to get there, so that will go on a plane
Speaker 5: and other like immediate things that could be necessary that
Speaker 5: you don't necessarily want to put on a kit several
Speaker 5: months before that you're going to use at the actual
Speaker 5: race that are either expensive like the cars or extra
Speaker 5: engines or things like that will be transported via plane.
Speaker 5: And the trucks are really just used for the European races,
Speaker 5: so those are things that will transport everything from the
Speaker 5: cars to the engines, to the tables and the chairs
Speaker 5: and everything in between.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Of course, an influence is also the costs. Of course,
Speaker 4: air freight is more expensive than sea fraight. So what
Speaker 4: they're trying to do because of the cost cup is
Speaker 4: they're trying to send as much as they can sea
Speaker 4: freight because it's cheaper to send it sea freight than
Speaker 4: air freight.
Speaker 3: So at any given time, there are ships and planes
Speaker 3: with f one cargo going around the world. Only imagine
Speaker 3: plopping all of this up on a map is pretty insane.
Speaker 3: They but for the flyaway races, they divide the cargo
Speaker 3: into really important crucial equipment and then the stuff that
Speaker 3: can go slow that we also have four five different
Speaker 3: packs the same version of the same stuff.
Speaker 2: Then it's going to land in a port and run
Speaker 2: through customs.
Speaker 3: Customs.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've like in my little comedy world, I
Speaker 2: get hung up performing in Canada because I got to
Speaker 2: go through their like tax department, you know, and then
Speaker 2: it's like now I'm in the States. And then they
Speaker 2: go to Australia and it's like this is just me
Speaker 2: and I can only imagine it's insane.
Speaker 3: I don't think there's a single story where a race
Speaker 3: couldn't start because the cargo didn't arrive. But there are
Speaker 3: many stories of just like riots have broken out in
Speaker 3: a country, or there's a canal that's been blocked because
Speaker 3: lots of and so all the ships are being waited,
Speaker 3: and at that point they will take a snap decision
Speaker 3: and go, well, the cargo that we were sending to
Speaker 3: another location, let's dock it, let's put it on a
Speaker 3: plane and get it back here fast. And so you
Speaker 3: have these insane decisions that come up those moments because
Speaker 3: the world is what it is and certain things that
Speaker 3: we can't control.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this year a race was canceled because
Speaker 1: of a flood, Right.
Speaker 2: There's not a flood. Tire amphibious vehicles, those things are sweet.
Speaker 2: There's your kids ever do those?
Speaker 7: It's gonna turn on the propellor.
Speaker 3: He's gonna hold lord and we're gonna quaggle.
Speaker 5: Lot it roll. I think one of the craziest things
Speaker 5: to me is the motor homes at.
Speaker 3: The European races, which makes sense if you've ever gone
Speaker 3: camping versus taking a plane trip, you can take a
Speaker 3: lot more with you. So those motor homes that you're
Speaker 3: talking about, they aren't much bigger and is more to
Speaker 3: build because they bring more at the European races.
Speaker 5: And specifically Red Bulls. Red Bull is famous that they
Speaker 5: bring their motor home to Monaco and they've stood it
Speaker 5: in the bay, right, And what they do is they
Speaker 5: literally bring it to the bay and they construct it.
Speaker 5: It takes twenty five crew members thirty six hours to
Speaker 5: assemble it and one day to take it down. They
Speaker 5: put it on a barge and they bring it to Monaco, right,
Speaker 5: they float it down the Italian Riviera, which I think
Speaker 5: is just absolutely amazing, and it speaks to the lengths
Speaker 5: that these teams will go to to make sure that
Speaker 5: everything's set up. Because part of what we have to
Speaker 5: remember here is that most of Formula one revolves around sponsorships, right,
Speaker 5: certainly at the lower level teams, the majority of their
Speaker 5: income is coming through sponsorships, and maybe a little bit
Speaker 5: less called forty percent of their income is coming through
Speaker 5: sponsorships at the high level teams, but these teams are
Speaker 5: making you know, hundreds of millions of dollars in some
Speaker 5: cases from sponsorships each year. So entertaining those sponsors in
Speaker 5: places like the paddock club or in the motor homes
Speaker 5: themselves is especially important to the income and the business
Speaker 5: of these teams. So Red Bull certainly takes it seriously.
Speaker 5: Mercedes Ferraris and a bunch of these teams take it
Speaker 5: really seriously because they know that if people come to
Speaker 5: the races, they have fun, in some cases, they're going
Speaker 5: to spend more money with the team next year, or
Speaker 5: it could sell a sponsorship in the future. And that's
Speaker 5: a huge reason why Formula one kind of gets this
Speaker 5: reputation for just being this luxurious, you know, sporting event
Speaker 5: where there's champagne and there's caviare and there's lobster and
Speaker 5: there's all these things. And I think part of the
Speaker 5: reason why that's true in some cases is because they're
Speaker 5: entertaining corporate partners that are paying tens of millions of
Speaker 5: dollars annually to make sure that everything runs smoothly.
Speaker 2: Yo, Hi, this is when you would play my stand
Speaker 2: up my stand up comedy joke on my special about
Speaker 2: packing for driving versus packing for flying.
Speaker 7: When you fly somewhere, you really think about packing. You know,
Speaker 7: you talk it out with each other. We stuff things
Speaker 7: in the shoes. That's a good spot. But if you're
Speaker 7: driving somewhere, Brillian, bring it. We're driving, brigand.
Speaker 2: Honey. Should I bring the blender?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 7: I may want to make fresh tomato soup this weekend.
Speaker 2: What about the treadmill? It's already packed. We're driving.
Speaker 7: We're driving, person your see fill twelve of you ride?
Speaker 2: Does there happen to be I don't know a fun fact.
Speaker 3: I feel like Mary Poppins going in my bag. Now,
Speaker 3: give me a fun fact.
Speaker 2: Give me a fun fact.
Speaker 3: There's a rule now that states that when the team
Speaker 3: crates are placed on the pit lane of any venue,
Speaker 3: that's when they all arrives. Teams are not allowed to
Speaker 3: access their team crates until every single team has received
Speaker 3: all of their cargo.
Speaker 4: Exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: Love this, like fence. Love this.
Speaker 3: And the reason I think why every team is on
Speaker 3: board with this is you just never know what could
Speaker 3: happen to you, and if it could be you so
Speaker 3: I think that's pretty cool. It's both but it's also
Speaker 3: a safety and security thing as well, that you can't
Speaker 3: have one team upfloading stuff well and other team's not
Speaker 3: doing anything, because then those people are probably hanging around
Speaker 3: on the pit lane and all the pitwalk and they
Speaker 3: shouldn't be there.
Speaker 2: And I also love that F one with all of
Speaker 2: its data and game strategy and logistics, they all just
Speaker 2: agree like sometimes they fuck up your luggage, so we're
Speaker 2: all just gonna wait, like even like they're there's so
Speaker 2: in control of everything, and but they're still just like,
Speaker 2: look as if at a fairness. I thinks I love
Speaker 2: this rule.
Speaker 3: And it's even if there's like two or three shipments,
Speaker 3: like you wait until everyone, which I think is a
Speaker 3: nice role. I do that now with my husband when
Speaker 3: we both order something and we're both waiting for it,
Speaker 3: we will open up our packages when we've both seen.
Speaker 2: That, oh that's not what I did.
Speaker 3: Won't be doing that.
Speaker 2: We're at a point in my family where if your
Speaker 2: food's ready, you eat it. You you know, but I'm
Speaker 2: I don't. I'm hoping we also change that eventually. But
Speaker 2: with we have kids, two little kids, it's just like
Speaker 2: you eat when you can eat.
Speaker 3: We're hoping that everyone in F one is adults at
Speaker 3: this point.
Speaker 2: I would love it if we could hire an F
Speaker 2: one logistician at our house, like one, because that would
Speaker 2: help me manage my life tire as well to its
Speaker 2: full capacity. Let's keep moving moving. One of the attributes
Speaker 2: that I'm really enjoying this season, okay, of learning about
Speaker 2: F one is this cooperative competitiveness. Tennis has this a lot,
Speaker 2: Like you end up having to practice oftentimes with someone
Speaker 2: who might be your opponent because you have to and
Speaker 2: both parties are like, we're both in this town or
Speaker 2: country together, we need to practice. Or you split a
Speaker 2: hotel room with someone that's in the draw. You might
Speaker 2: play that person. But I'm really enjoying learning how F
Speaker 2: one has some of that cooperation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I must be the same, and I imagine answer
Speaker 3: this for me. They're practicing amongst themselves because there's no
Speaker 3: one else that's better than the coming.
Speaker 2: Right, you can only practice with so many people. I
Speaker 2: like that, all right, So what's being moved? The cars?
Speaker 3: Everything?
Speaker 2: The wheels, does PERELLI take the wheels, the gloves.
Speaker 3: Absolutely everything you see and that is used during a
Speaker 3: race weekend is most likely being transported.
Speaker 4: Apart from the circuited cell. Yeah, that's the only thing
Speaker 4: that that.
Speaker 3: Sense because the circuit doesn't actually belong to Formula one.
Speaker 3: It actually belongs to the promoters. So that's not going anywhere.
Speaker 3: Even think about even like we talked about all the data,
Speaker 3: there's data storage systems and data servers that are being
Speaker 3: moved as well. There's cable that's being moved like that list.
Speaker 2: There's a guy with a handcuff on a briefcase that's
Speaker 2: got the hard drives.
Speaker 3: Never met him. Oh you want a fun fact? Yeah,
Speaker 3: so want of fun fact doesn't involve a guy with
Speaker 3: a briefcase and handcuffs, but it does involve a guy
Speaker 3: called the f one tailor with a backpack. There is
Speaker 3: one guy that walks up and down the paddock who
Speaker 3: is sole job and only responsibility is to tailor anything
Speaker 3: that any of the drivers need, whether it's their gloves,
Speaker 3: the suit anything. There's a fantastic story that I was
Speaker 3: told by one of the team's last see about Fernando Alonso.
Speaker 3: The way they they work with very specific manufacturers and
Speaker 3: very specific teams. The people who do the under garments,
Speaker 3: the people who do the race suits and everything is
Speaker 3: tailored to absolutely an inch of their lives. And the
Speaker 3: person who had been doing Alonzo's gloves for many, many
Speaker 3: years changed and apparently Alonzo when he tried on his gloves,
Speaker 3: he was like, this doesn't feel right. What's happened? And
Speaker 3: they said, oh, we've got to do it, and He's like,
Speaker 3: I can feel it, and so I'm going to need
Speaker 3: a few jass the changes. So there is there isn't
Speaker 3: a guy with a briefcase, but there's a guy with
Speaker 3: a backpack who's called the tailor, who gets called into
Speaker 3: whenever any of the drivers need a bit of tailoring.
Speaker 3: That's call job.
Speaker 2: There's an a called tailor for these drivers.
Speaker 3: Correct.
Speaker 2: You know there's a guy in New York. Yeah that
Speaker 2: you probably know this. YOHI Endzoltan. There's a guy in
Speaker 2: New York who twenty four hour emergency phone will saw
Speaker 2: your couch in half? Wait what then move it because
Speaker 2: it won't fit in your apartment. In New York City,
Speaker 2: people have a huge problem of their couches won't You
Speaker 2: can get in the apartment, but you can't get in
Speaker 2: the building or in the elevator. Called the couch doctor.
Speaker 2: He'll saw your couch in half and then move it
Speaker 2: upstairs for you and then reassemble it for you.
Speaker 1: Yes, I just had a situation with a puppy.
Speaker 2: You'll saw the puppy and half.
Speaker 3: Quickly give us the rest of that story.
Speaker 1: No, I mean the point. I'm just gonna go right
Speaker 1: to the point here. But if you guys need to
Speaker 1: have a really good and I think you know, not cheap,
Speaker 1: but like you know, you get your money's worth couch
Speaker 1: cleaner yea, if anybody needs so, yeah, yeah it's not.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about my favorite part of logistics when it
Speaker 2: comes to anything which involves large groups and travel. Carrots food, yes, close,
Speaker 2: but yes, carrots. Like if you're if if Lance Stroll
Speaker 2: loves his carrot and he's in Las Vegas and they're
Speaker 2: going to Abu Dhabi, Like, is someone going grocery shopping
Speaker 2: in Abu Dhabi? Is they bring it's just caviar? Sorry
Speaker 2: but bad example, but catering food? Like, how is all
Speaker 2: this happening? Someone's in charge of this, Someone is in
Speaker 2: charge of the food.
Speaker 3: You've actually absolutely there's someone in charge of the food.
Speaker 3: And you've probably just named one of the few things
Speaker 3: that doesn't really travel with the flyaway races, so catering
Speaker 3: is mostly organized on site. Also, things like you mentioned,
Speaker 3: like the amount of people moving, like things like booking
Speaker 3: hotel rooms, cars, even internet connectivities, all stuff that's generally
Speaker 3: done on site. You know, they're not creating motor homes
Speaker 3: for all of these people. They are maybe for the
Speaker 3: drivers and the direct teams in European races, but in
Speaker 3: flyaway races, this is all stuff that's left to what
Speaker 3: happens when we land out.
Speaker 2: But what about the like data cables.
Speaker 3: Data cables I think is a mixture. I think the
Speaker 3: teams have the cables and the connectivity that they need
Speaker 3: for their own screens. But then, as with there anythinking
Speaker 3: F one, there's the stuff that the f I needs
Speaker 3: to govern that race. There's the stuff that Formula one
Speaker 3: needs to put on the race and run f on
Speaker 3: TV and all of that, and then it's all of
Speaker 3: the stuff that every team needs.
Speaker 2: It has to be perfect, it has to be perfect.
Speaker 2: Mix CHAMPI slow like oh you know Vegas, their internet's
Speaker 2: a little slow, Like what's the password? Like, it's got
Speaker 2: to be perfect, it's got to be perfect.
Speaker 4: There are days where you just can't keep up. You
Speaker 4: just hate it because the stress is a lot, the
Speaker 4: deadlines are just unbelievable. But when you see that it's
Speaker 4: a team efforts. So when we all work together as
Speaker 4: a team, which we just learn to understand each other well,
Speaker 4: learn when is the right moment to ask something, to
Speaker 4: do something, well, learn when it's the right moment. Maybe
Speaker 4: just avoid any additional stress. So it becomes in a way,
Speaker 4: a little family where you all know how to deal
Speaker 4: with each other and you know how to make it work. So,
Speaker 4: I mean you can actually see that by working as
Speaker 4: a team, we make it happen. And regardless of how
Speaker 4: much we may argue and fight in between, at the
Speaker 4: end of the day, we have made it happen together.
Speaker 4: So every single individual has done something to make it happen.
Speaker 4: And that's what makes it rewarding at the end, because
Speaker 4: on Sunday night, after every race, you can see that
Speaker 4: your effort have made it happen.
Speaker 2: So there's boats, Yeah, there's planes.
Speaker 3: Explains six to seven planes.
Speaker 2: There's trucks. None of this sounds good for the climate
Speaker 2: or environment.
Speaker 5: It's probably not. I think it's not up to me
Speaker 5: to decide. Probably where Formula one is on their net
Speaker 5: carbon neutral promise, but they've obviously made that and it's
Speaker 5: something that I know that they're serious about. So we'll
Speaker 5: leave it up to Liberty Media and Formula one to
Speaker 5: give us some numbers in the near future about what
Speaker 5: progress they've made on that, and hopefully we're at least
Speaker 5: trending in the right direction.
Speaker 2: I don't want to come across as snooty because this
Speaker 2: is a competitive sport. It's all gratuitous and you know,
Speaker 2: we don't need to have ye so there is an
Speaker 2: acceptability of like the stuff costs money and costs resources,
Speaker 2: but f one it seems a little bit over the top,
Speaker 2: like maybe we could do a better job.
Speaker 3: These other times where I really miss Sebastian Vettel because
Speaker 3: he was so good at talking about I absolutely realized
Speaker 3: that I race in the sport that guzzles fuel as
Speaker 3: we travel around the world, and at the same time
Speaker 3: I'm campaigning to save the bees because we need to
Speaker 3: save the environment. And he has such an.
Speaker 2: Edgy campaign to save the bees.
Speaker 3: He bought bees this year to Japan and built opponent's helmets.
Speaker 1: They were on the track, they had.
Speaker 3: These like little bee hives on the track. That they
Speaker 3: were like painting. I don't know if the bees were
Speaker 3: actually on track, but the beehives one track, but maybe
Speaker 3: the bees were there too be meet up. But he's
Speaker 3: so eloquent at talking about both things can be true,
Speaker 3: like this is a sport that's constantly you know, we
Speaker 3: have to do.
Speaker 2: Better, because that could also be seen as like rich
Speaker 2: pro athlete is so out of touch so with reality.
Speaker 2: But you're saying he did it in the right way.
Speaker 3: He did it and I these are not my words,
Speaker 3: but one of the people who used to work very
Speaker 3: closely with him explained it this way, like he is
Speaker 3: middle class, white sis married man, and yet he always
Speaker 3: campaigned for all of the right things. He always found time.
Speaker 3: He's the last person who needed to campaign for LGTBQ rights,
Speaker 3: He's the last person who needed to campaign for eco friendliness.
Speaker 3: He's the last person who needed to campaign for you know,
Speaker 3: equality and diversity, and yet he was always there and
Speaker 3: he still is. I only say that as he's no
Speaker 3: longer in the sport and left last year, But he
Speaker 3: had such a good way of saying, I have to
Speaker 3: be comfortable driving and being in this sport and also
Speaker 3: doing good in the world. One doesn't take away from
Speaker 3: the other as long as you're conscious and willing to
Speaker 3: have And look, here's the amazing thing about him is
Speaker 3: he had those conversations under the Aramcobana and got very
Speaker 3: comfortable at doing that.
Speaker 2: In the world of Sebastian Vettel, the B and LGBTQ
Speaker 2: was b's.
Speaker 3: So, Michael, final thoughts. Are you a logistics fan?
Speaker 2: I am a logistics fan. I'm impressed and I don't
Speaker 2: know if it's going to make me turn on a
Speaker 2: race to know that all this school logistics is happening.
Speaker 2: But to even just watch Su Paulo, Vegas Abu Dhabi,
Speaker 2: it just blows your mind that it's the same teams
Speaker 2: and the same drivers in such a different part of
Speaker 2: the world. It blows my mind. And you know, there's
Speaker 2: like a wife that's like, how's Abu Dhabi this week?
Speaker 2: And he's like, it's actually I'm in Vegas. You know,
Speaker 2: it's like, oh, well, whatever, I don't give a.
Speaker 3: Shit, you're not here.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Exactly what you've helped me appreciate is when I'm watching
Speaker 2: the race, there was just so many factors that made
Speaker 2: this race happen, much like me getting here today, with you,
Speaker 2: blessing you. You said you were blessed?
Speaker 3: What was the existence?
Speaker 2: What'd you say it was? We as we all feel blessed.
Speaker 2: We all feel blessed watching F one race, knowing all
Speaker 2: the things that needed to happen to make that happens.
Speaker 2: Bless you.
Speaker 1: This has been Choosing Sides F one, a production of
Speaker 1: Sports Illustrated Studios, iHeart Podcasts and one oh one Studio Podcasts.
Speaker 1: The show is hosted by Michael Costa and Tony Cowen Brown.
Speaker 1: This episode was edited, scored, and sound designed by Senior
Speaker 1: producer Jai Maythan Scott Stone is the executive producer and
Speaker 1: head of audio, and Daniel Wexman is Director of podcast
Speaker 1: Development and production manager at One on one Studios. At
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts, Sean Titone is our executive producer. And a
Speaker 1: special thank you to Michelle Newman, David Glasser, and David
Speaker 1: Hootkin from One on one Studios. For more shows from
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts, go visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, and whatever you do, don't
Speaker 1: forget to rate us and tell your friends it really
Speaker 1: does mean a lot.
Speaker 3: So next week, I'm Choosing sides f one, the gossip.
Speaker 3: What is Formula one without the literati? The gossip, the scandal,
Speaker 3: the drama. It's going to be salacious watching and Hi inappropriate.
Speaker 2: Let's get down there we go.
Speaker 3: We will have the awkward celebrity moments, we will propagate
Speaker 3: unsubstantiated rumors, and we will have a pandemic of luxury.
Speaker 3: Watch feels cool.
Speaker 2: Can't wait? Talk about that shit.
Speaker 3: Let's go, oh dear,