Speaker 1: So today I feel like I need, like I don't know,
Speaker 1: I need, I need inspirational music playing because today we're
Speaker 1: getting to a very anticipated team, and that is Williams. Williams.
Speaker 1: We got there. And why is it just because I've
Speaker 1: just always it's always piqued my interest. It's you know,
Speaker 1: Williams is interesting. They're the perfect example of being okay,
Speaker 1: you would make probably a good like NFL or MLB
Speaker 1: or some sort of Big four sports reference here. They
Speaker 1: are one of the worst teams on the grid currently
Speaker 1: but have one of the most like die hard biggest
Speaker 1: fan bases. Are the Mets a good equivalent. I don't know, yeah, probably, sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry my dad who's a Mets fans, But Williams
Speaker 1: used to be very yes, and the Mets too, So yeah,
Speaker 1: that's fair. Yes, okay, I'm glad I nailed that. I
Speaker 1: know nothing about the Mets. Apologies to any Mets fans
Speaker 1: who are extremely mad at me now, but so so yes.
Speaker 1: So Williams currently one of the worst teams on the grid,
Speaker 1: however also one of the most historic, also the one
Speaker 1: of the winning ist throughout their their time in Formula one.
Speaker 1: What's really fascinating about Williams. That will get into is
Speaker 1: that they are a pure hardcore Formula one only team.
Speaker 1: We've got that sort of chip on their shoulder going on.
Speaker 1: We've got a team founder who was so singularly focused
Speaker 1: on this team that he sort of neglected every other
Speaker 1: part of his life. And yeah, and we've got a
Speaker 1: lot of history. So today on Choosing Sides of One,
Speaker 1: we are diving into Williams. Finally. I know this is
Speaker 1: a big, a big, big moment for you from I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Sports Illustrated Studios. This is Choosing Sides one. Wow, Michael.
Speaker 1: We've talked about how you know teams like Mercedes are
Speaker 1: on the grid partially because they are a large scale
Speaker 1: car manufacturer. Aston Martin obviously has a car brand attached,
Speaker 1: you know, Red Bull, not a car manufacturer. But you
Speaker 1: get what they are trying to sell you, and that
Speaker 1: is touring filled energy drinks. I will never live down
Speaker 1: the fact that we know what is what what equatoring
Speaker 1: is at this point Alpha Tawy. They sell you clothing.
Speaker 1: Williams is not is not here for anything else. They
Speaker 1: are they are just here for the F one fund.
Speaker 1: So Williams at the center of Williams is its namesake,
Speaker 1: Sir Frank Williams, he is knighted, he is British, and
Speaker 1: Sir Frank Williams started off having a very very brief
Speaker 1: racing career as a as a driver and pretty quickly
Speaker 1: realized he was just not cut out for the driving lifestyle.
Speaker 1: Though he loved cars, he loved racing, but he he
Speaker 1: found that his strengths would be better suited to build
Speaker 1: and manage a team rather than be the one in
Speaker 1: the car. So he found what's called Frank Williams Racing Cars.
Speaker 1: He started. He actually bought a Formula one car from
Speaker 1: another team and I told them, now, I'm just going
Speaker 1: to use this in retrofit it for a different racing
Speaker 1: series and then you like put a driver in it
Speaker 1: to drive an F one, which no doubt piste off
Speaker 1: the the other teams leadership for very obvious reasons. And
Speaker 1: at that the time you know, he had it was small,
Speaker 1: it was obviously a very scrappy outfit and had a
Speaker 1: bunch of different struggles. On top of that, a major
Speaker 1: tragedy at the time was that one of Frank williams
Speaker 1: good friends, Piers Courage, very fun name not as good
Speaker 1: as Scott speed but solid, but unfortunately Pierce Courage he
Speaker 1: was kind of the driver for version one Williams team.
Speaker 1: He dies in one of the cars in nineteen seventy,
Speaker 1: so that is is obviously sad Frank Williams. After this
Speaker 1: point we kind of talked about this a little bit
Speaker 1: with Enzo Ferrari. He does start to distance himself a
Speaker 1: little bit, trying to draw that compare us. And also,
Speaker 1: I love any story like this, not where someone's dead, obviously,
Speaker 1: but it never just happens right away. This success everyone
Speaker 1: who's listening that millions of people. It's effort, it's years,
Speaker 1: it's time. Yeah, so obviously, yeah, like tragedy occurs, all
Speaker 1: these other things happen, and the team is always kind
Speaker 1: of struggling, like it's it's it's not really taking off.
Speaker 1: And so by around nine or you know, six seven
Speaker 1: years later, uh, they need money. Well, Frank Williams always
Speaker 1: a need of money is like the ongoing theme here,
Speaker 1: and so he partners with a Canadian billionaire named Walter Wolf,
Speaker 1: who ends up owning a sixty stake in Frank Williams
Speaker 1: adventure And what does he do with that? Replace Frank
Speaker 1: Williams as the head of the team by the end
Speaker 1: of the season, a wolf in sheep's clothing. Yes, cut
Speaker 1: that up. Yeah, okay, thanks for that. So that sucks.
Speaker 1: So Sir Frank Williams starts Williams ten years or so,
Speaker 1: Grinds does his best, has needs money, so gives Walter
Speaker 1: Wolf a majority steak and Walter Wolf cuts his ass.
Speaker 1: Yes dirty, also real like l O l j K moment.
Speaker 1: So Frank and a young engineer from his original team,
Speaker 1: this guy Patrick Head. They're like, if it, we're going
Speaker 1: to create another another team, like it's gonna be us
Speaker 1: great And so that actually starts yet the Williams that
Speaker 1: we know today. So yeah, this is the late seventies.
Speaker 1: They immediately get the reputation for being very scrappy, very
Speaker 1: low blow budget and because they don't have the money,
Speaker 1: very innovative because they have to find wacky, weird ways
Speaker 1: to stretch their budget to make things work. It was
Speaker 1: this sort of shoes string inventive innovative operation. This is
Speaker 1: Williams super fan bird Pinkerton. They would be doing these
Speaker 1: wild cookie hijinks essentially to their car, like trying new
Speaker 1: aerodynamic things, like in some ways the cars that we
Speaker 1: have today. Oh a lot to the like experimentation and
Speaker 1: just surprising ideas of sort of Williams of old. They
Speaker 1: have nothing else going for them. They have nothing to lose,
Speaker 1: you know, they're not sitting upon billions and billions of dollars.
Speaker 1: So they kind of used that to play around with it,
Speaker 1: and it actually starts working out for them. I'm punching through.
Speaker 1: It's Clay Riggat Serny taking the lead. That's incredible. It's
Speaker 1: the too saudio Williams Cars first corner. Williams Car wins
Speaker 1: its first ever Grand Prix in nineteen seventy nine. Another
Speaker 1: great thing happened in nineteen seventy nine, Michael Costa was born.
Speaker 1: I think this was meant to be you and Williams,
Speaker 1: your birth through the birth of my mother's canal. Okay,
Speaker 1: uh so, so Williams is now one its first nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine, roughly ten years since they started in a
Speaker 1: lot of different adversity and a death and firing and
Speaker 1: a new company. Okay, well, so they just start killing
Speaker 1: it in the eighties. They win the nineteen eighty World Championship.
Speaker 1: This sets off. I think it's seventeen or eighteen years
Speaker 1: of on and off Williams is picking up everything right there,
Speaker 1: constantly in the hunt for race wins, for you know,
Speaker 1: for the championship, for on both the constructor and the
Speaker 1: driver's side. So this is all going on up. This
Speaker 1: is Sir Frank Williams's professional life. It's it's very well
Speaker 1: known and it's been documented that he was very singularly
Speaker 1: focused on his F one team. We have a certain way,
Speaker 1: a modus operan by a way of operating, and that
Speaker 1: is a fairly informal manner, but it does achieve under
Speaker 1: these very difficult conditions, very long hours, does achieve the
Speaker 1: right results, and that's how I operate. His wife, Virginia Williams,
Speaker 1: talks about like she gave him eight pounds to go
Speaker 1: buy groceries and he came back with spark plugs instead.
Speaker 1: Or I think on his wedding day as well, he
Speaker 1: was like, I'm going to the racetrack directly after getting married.
Speaker 1: He never went on any family holidays because he was
Speaker 1: so obsessed with the team. What's interesting to me already
Speaker 1: about this is that I would have assumed Sir Frank
Speaker 1: Williams and Williams with its racing. I would have a
Speaker 1: lot of money, you know, I just always said everybody
Speaker 1: has a lot of money. But it sounds like they
Speaker 1: kind of had a reputation as being scrappy. And you know,
Speaker 1: this is Formula one, so even low budget is high
Speaker 1: budget for me and you. But it doesn't sound like
Speaker 1: it was one of this unlimitedly funded teams. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and they obviously went through phases of better funding than
Speaker 1: other times, and especially as we know, you know, the
Speaker 1: better you card does, the easier it is to get
Speaker 1: sponsors or to get you know, to get more money
Speaker 1: from f one. The other thing, Williams had a lot
Speaker 1: of took a lot of pride, and the fact that
Speaker 1: his stuff was was mostly you know, as much as
Speaker 1: they could build all their own stuff, they did, which
Speaker 1: considering the fact that again they are not like a
Speaker 1: major car manufacturer, they don't have some other kind of
Speaker 1: business elsewhere, you know, is pretty remarkable. It was this
Speaker 1: project of one man and his and his colleagues and
Speaker 1: they're just like law of and devotion for this specific
Speaker 1: sport and everything that it could be and everything that
Speaker 1: it could mean. And so I think, yes, like they're
Speaker 1: at the back of the pack now, they're not where
Speaker 1: they used to be, but it's there because it loves
Speaker 1: racing and I love it dearly for that. What is
Speaker 1: Frank Williams? What I mean, what's the money? What is
Speaker 1: their okay? So I'll give some just some quick stats here.
Speaker 1: So between nine and seven, Williams won nine constructors titles
Speaker 1: and seven drivers titles, and so Williams was in the
Speaker 1: hunt for for a lot of the titles and the
Speaker 1: glory and all of that. So obviously the royal family
Speaker 1: finally says, hey, he's done enough for us to say
Speaker 1: that he's very impressive. And they were still when he
Speaker 1: got knighted, you know, at this at this real pinnacle
Speaker 1: of motorsport. So he was knighted because of Formula one. Yes,
Speaker 1: he was knighted. My impression was like this this night,
Speaker 1: you know, came in and it was like I want
Speaker 1: to start a form in the one team. No, it
Speaker 1: was it was the Formula one that created the nighting. Yes,
Speaker 1: and he was knighted in So this was again really
Speaker 1: when the team was still very much at the pinnacle.
Speaker 1: So it makes sense that they were like, oh, their kid,
Speaker 1: they've been killing it for two decades. Let's let's hand
Speaker 1: this guy something. So what was it like on it?
Speaker 1: I mean, this is if he's obsessed with formula one
Speaker 1: these poor kids, yes, and no, I mean I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't want to psychoanalyze the individual kids. However, one
Speaker 1: of his kids, one of his kids, Claire, actually does
Speaker 1: start getting involved in the organization. She ends up working
Speaker 1: up the leadership track, doing a lot with marketing and
Speaker 1: communications for the team. And we'll talk about in a bit,
Speaker 1: but she does summit to kind of this leadership role
Speaker 1: on the team by by the end of her tenure.
Speaker 1: So unfortunately, Williams does start running into a mix of
Speaker 1: some money trouble, some leadership executive team trouble, and some
Speaker 1: inconsistencies with its cars as we enter at the two thousand's.
Speaker 1: You know, so if you look, if you just look
Speaker 1: at their racing stats here here, it's like some years
Speaker 1: are great, some years are bad, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: you know, again, there's nuanced reasons for all these individual
Speaker 1: examples why, but it's sort of isn't quite what it
Speaker 1: was in this kind of dominating fashion in the eighties
Speaker 1: and nineties, and uh, something that starts to happen because
Speaker 1: money is king in cash is king and anything, but
Speaker 1: especially in Formula one. Um to relate this to our
Speaker 1: discussion of Land Stroll and Daddy Stroll. When we're discussing
Speaker 1: Aston Martin, the team Williams has to start forming an
Speaker 1: increasing reliance on pay drivers and these sort of sketchier,
Speaker 1: weird sponsorship deals or other deals to to keep the
Speaker 1: operation afloat. So Williams does start to again, very slowly
Speaker 1: over many years, get a little bit of a reputation
Speaker 1: for having one, if not more drivers who you're kind
Speaker 1: of like, Okay, are they really like a merit pick? Yeah?
Speaker 1: That sucks. That sucks, and I'm sure that's not their
Speaker 1: first choice, but it is what it is. But as
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, they continue to have a mix of
Speaker 1: some solid years, some bad years over the next twenty years.
Speaker 1: Frank basically maintains the role of team principle, even though
Speaker 1: he's less active in it. Claire is the one who
Speaker 1: kind of she's a deputy team principle, but it's kind
Speaker 1: of running the show here, and she's obviously one of
Speaker 1: the only women that high. Yeah, she's a very visible
Speaker 1: woman in the paddock, and and you know it is
Speaker 1: probably the highest ranking amongst the teams at that point.
Speaker 1: So that's where where Claire comes in. Let me show
Speaker 1: you actually sir Frank and Claire. Um. So you'll notice
Speaker 1: so Frank Williams got into a car accident not while
Speaker 1: racing in six and so he actually became a tetraplegic.
Speaker 1: So you'll see him in a wheelchair six. He got
Speaker 1: in the car accident, and the teams still continued to
Speaker 1: to thrive. Y god, that is a lot of adversity.
Speaker 1: That would be a good time to say, let me
Speaker 1: rethink about my I mean that that's unbelievable. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of stories in Formula one of like of there's
Speaker 1: a lot of adversity that happens. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: dark ships and it's like, yeah, it's it's kind of depressing.
Speaker 1: But also I wouldn't say funny, but it is a
Speaker 1: depressing that everyone's like, yes, they really got got going
Speaker 1: after their like five friends died in car accident, Like,
Speaker 1: oh my god. Yeah, they live, they live high speed,
Speaker 1: they do high speed, and when you crash at high speed,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of there's a lot of problems. Yea.
Speaker 1: So here's him and then there's a photo. He's in
Speaker 1: a he's in a wheelchair and a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of later photos. Yeah, that is sir Frank Williams.
Speaker 1: Even his wheelchair looks fast, you know. And that's his
Speaker 1: daughter Claire and they're both smiling. They're looking at some results. Cool.
Speaker 1: I love it. You know, it's a win win. She
Speaker 1: gets to spend some time with dad. He's at the
Speaker 1: garage anyways, and sounds like she's climbing up the ranks.
Speaker 1: And let's go Formula one. Let's get everybody involved in
Speaker 1: this sport. Yeah, there we go. So, you know, it
Speaker 1: is a weird team in the sense that it is
Speaker 1: it is still very much centered on a singular man, right,
Speaker 1: like Frank Williams at the center of everything. There's something
Speaker 1: really appealing about this young, scrappy team. That's just they
Speaker 1: just really love racing and they love Formula one racing,
Speaker 1: and that that also builds them a really die hard
Speaker 1: fan base. Early on money, but gets money, they get momentum.
Speaker 1: Even after Frank's accident and subsequent disability, they continue to
Speaker 1: win more and more for over a decade after that.
Speaker 1: So it's amazing and there's something very attractive about a small,
Speaker 1: scrappy group that's like, we're here to race. Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1: We're not promoting our energy drink, We're not trying to
Speaker 1: get you to buy our street cars. We're here to race. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're pretty hardcore. There's like a there's a there's almost
Speaker 1: like a purity to it. Well, what's that I'm now
Speaker 1: paralyzed through a car accident. We're still here to race
Speaker 1: and we're still gonna kick your ass exactly. And that's
Speaker 1: what they do. And they're also a very British team
Speaker 1: through it all sensing that, Yeah, they give you her
Speaker 1: I mean, he's a night right, So yeah, they're British there,
Speaker 1: you know, leaderships British, the founders British, everything's based in
Speaker 1: in Britain. So how does the car even look British?
Speaker 1: You know, mean because they all look the same, but
Speaker 1: it just the colors, the cut, I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: just it screams British to me. It's very dignified and
Speaker 1: refined in a way that the Brits like to be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but also you know, we talked about Aston Martin. It
Speaker 1: didn't scream British to me, even though that's a British brand.
Speaker 1: Something about Williams. So we're gonna skip ahead to the
Speaker 1: end of the tens again. There's some really inconsistency in
Speaker 1: the twenty Tents. There's some years where you've got drivers
Speaker 1: finishing P four, P five in the championship standings, and
Speaker 1: you've got years where they are completely like a rock
Speaker 1: sinking to the bottom of a pond, like just completely
Speaker 1: every everything's aft, and they reach a real low point
Speaker 1: though they finished in last place in the standings, in
Speaker 1: the entire season goes by and they only earn a
Speaker 1: single point to yeah, so really not good, and then
Speaker 1: they finished with zero points. So there, Oh, Claire, it's
Speaker 1: been a tough few months. But actually, in reality, it's
Speaker 1: probably been a tough fee is if we're honest. So
Speaker 1: things are looking mighty fft at this point, and you know,
Speaker 1: Williams again has a lot of pride in the fact
Speaker 1: that they are this family team, their family oriented, they
Speaker 1: build everything themselves, and over the years they started to
Speaker 1: kind of let up on that that whole ethos. But
Speaker 1: you know, by the end of the twenty Tents, they
Speaker 1: have to admit that things are looking really bad. If
Speaker 1: they want the team to survive in any form, they're
Speaker 1: going to have to sell at least some stake of it,
Speaker 1: or maybe the whole thing. So the Williams family sells
Speaker 1: the team to a private equity firm called Dorleton Capital,
Speaker 1: office is very close to here in New York. You
Speaker 1: wanted to peruse. Yeah, they sound like Darth Vader. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. Anytime like private equick gets involved, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: how it starts playing. So Frank and Claire end up
Speaker 1: leaving the team. This is a hard, hard business. I've
Speaker 1: given it my owl, and I've done that because I've
Speaker 1: wanted to protect my Emilie's legacy in this sport. I've
Speaker 1: done it because I'm my dad's daughter and I felt
Speaker 1: almost it was my duty to do it. However, they
Speaker 1: do make a deal with the new owners, like can
Speaker 1: you keep the name because you know the legacy of
Speaker 1: the name. So they agree to so it's still Williams Racing,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that the Williams family is not legally
Speaker 1: on paper involved anymore. That's a big loss, Yeah, enormous,
Speaker 1: enormous loss. People are obviously really upset. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of retrospectives and then the following years. In November one,
Speaker 1: Frank Williams passes away at the age. Of course he does,
Speaker 1: because this was his life. It was his life, and
Speaker 1: he was older and and probably had some health stuff
Speaker 1: going on, but he but it doesn't it doesn't help,
Speaker 1: doesn't help. So yeah, so Frank passes away, the team
Speaker 1: obviously dedicates a race to him. There's a there's a
Speaker 1: one minute moment of silence on the grid for this hero,
Speaker 1: Sir Frank Williams in the sport so definitely left his mark.
Speaker 1: Um okay, so Doralton, cap it all takes over. Williams
Speaker 1: keeps the name. What happens a good question? So rolls around.
Speaker 1: You know, Mercedes out here fighting for their eighth constructors
Speaker 1: in World title in as many years, you know, Red
Speaker 1: Bulls trying to beat them, and then you have Williams
Speaker 1: like we just want to score a point, where like
Speaker 1: we just want our drivers to get out of Q
Speaker 1: one and qualifying, like completely different set of standards here.
Speaker 1: And yes, so George Russell still on the team at
Speaker 1: this point and they get some lucky breaks. So we
Speaker 1: talked about with espon Ocon. He won his his first
Speaker 1: Grand Prix in this very bizarre Hungarian Grand Prix where
Speaker 1: it was like, yeah, like bowling pins being knocked down
Speaker 1: at the start in the rain. So in that same race,
Speaker 1: the two Williams drivers, George Russell and Nicholas Latifi, somehow
Speaker 1: dodge all of this madness because they're at the back
Speaker 1: of the grid. Yes guys, yes, yes, yes, and end
Speaker 1: up being able to come in and both score points
Speaker 1: in this race. So it's the team's first points in
Speaker 1: literal years. It's absolutely fantastic both causing the points. We
Speaker 1: could not have expected that. Thank you so much, great job.
Speaker 1: The entire team lost their goddamn minds like it was
Speaker 1: life changing. They were so excited and like George Russell
Speaker 1: was crying, there was because he knew what it meant.
Speaker 1: Four years of this team striving and working and trying
Speaker 1: for something, everything just means so much more to them.
Speaker 1: And what's not to love about watching a team claw
Speaker 1: their way back from a pit. It's a joy, quick
Speaker 1: break and we'll be back. So this year it's been
Speaker 1: a little bit tougher for Williams, but I mean new regulations.
Speaker 1: They were barely barely keeping afloat with the old ones,
Speaker 1: so it's definitely gonna be an adjustment period. They may
Speaker 1: have to find some new some new motivation or some
Speaker 1: new leadership that's going to work for them. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't want to call any multi bazillion dollar motorsports
Speaker 1: operation a mom and pop shot, but it is a
Speaker 1: mom pop shot being overtaken by drivate equity, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, Americans will understand a little bit about that.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, I probably am leaning towards liking the
Speaker 1: old Williams as opposed to Dorleton Capital. But but it's
Speaker 1: good to have all this information there you go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's talk about drivers. I love George Russell, but he
Speaker 1: doesn't race for Williams anymore. He does not, I will say,
Speaker 1: he was replaced with a driver who who I think
Speaker 1: embodies a lot of the ethos at Williams. So this driver,
Speaker 1: YOHI suggested a tagline of the driver with nine Lives,
Speaker 1: which I think does does really have some merit to it.
Speaker 1: So first driver we're talking about is Alex Alban Hi Alex.
Speaker 1: Hello to Alex, his family, I will say, off the bat,
Speaker 1: they have a bijillion pets. I follow their pets Instagram.
Speaker 1: It is a delightful corner of the internet. You know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I see these accounts of like a pet of
Speaker 1: a famous person. And I think, who in God's name
Speaker 1: follows these accounts? Me? I follow all of them? Do
Speaker 1: I also follow Louis's dog Roscoe's account? Yes? I do so.
Speaker 1: Alex's dad was a British racing driver, albeit in a
Speaker 1: completely different series. And then his mother is actually Tie
Speaker 1: and so Alex is British. Sound you know? He has
Speaker 1: a British accent. He's lived in Britain for most of
Speaker 1: his life. He chooses to race under the Taie flag
Speaker 1: in motorsports. No ship, Yeah cool, he's respecting of his
Speaker 1: mom's nationality. Yes, much love, exactly exactly. So tragedy does
Speaker 1: strike for Alex. In two thousand eight, his mom gets
Speaker 1: arrested and yeah, gets arrested and incarcerated for fraud. She
Speaker 1: ran a ten million a nearly ten million dollar car scam.
Speaker 1: What is up with these with these stories? A car scam? Yes,
Speaker 1: kind of a Ponzi scheme of buying and selling and
Speaker 1: promising certain things to investors. YadA, YadA, YadA. She she
Speaker 1: gets caught and and incarcerated for this, and she is
Speaker 1: sentenced to six years and is released about three years later. Uh.
Speaker 1: And if you look at and Alex has talked about
Speaker 1: this only a tiny bit. He really doesn't like for
Speaker 1: obvious reasons to discuss it. But if you look at
Speaker 1: his racing history, he struggles during this time period where
Speaker 1: understandably he has a parent who's incarcerated, which would affect
Speaker 1: any very young person. Yeah for sure, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: So Alex has a hard time, and he's got several siblings,
Speaker 1: they've got all these pets. Like, there's just a lot
Speaker 1: going on in his personal life is a long and
Speaker 1: short of it, and his parents are divorced. So anyway,
Speaker 1: a lot a lot going on for a young guy
Speaker 1: who's then also trying to compete in this high speed,
Speaker 1: high stakes sports. His parents are divorced, divorced, and he
Speaker 1: chooses his mom's flag. Yes, there's a little something. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So he begins karting at the age of eight, makes
Speaker 1: his way through the junior formulas. He wins things. I mean,
Speaker 1: all these guys for the most part win things. You know,
Speaker 1: does well. Uh. The other big thing that I think
Speaker 1: definds a lot of his racing, given that he's racing
Speaker 1: off in Britain at this point, is he's constantly competing
Speaker 1: against Lando Orris, George Russell, those names kind of constantly
Speaker 1: come up in his career. I mean, they're they're dominating
Speaker 1: over there. So they are good friends, they've known each
Speaker 1: other for forever, and he does those struggle to distinguish
Speaker 1: himself given that there is such a stacked group. Some
Speaker 1: years the class is stronger and you just don't know, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: and as we know, it's there's a lot of luck
Speaker 1: that goes into it. Yeah, for sure. For sure. What
Speaker 1: I find most interesting about Alex speaking of like nine
Speaker 1: lives and just like things weirdly working out or not
Speaker 1: working out. Alex wasn't originally supposed to end up in
Speaker 1: Formula one. You know, when you get to Formula too,
Speaker 1: you're kind of you know, yes, you want to get
Speaker 1: to F one, but you have to look at your
Speaker 1: other options. A lot of these guys are talking a
Speaker 1: different motorsports series obviously, have talked to US sponsors, teams,
Speaker 1: team principles, There's all this stuff going on. It's that
Speaker 1: that's just the pace of Formula two. So he actually
Speaker 1: ends up signing a contract to race in a series
Speaker 1: called Formula E, which is electric race car driving. So
Speaker 1: you know, Alex has kind of resigned himself that he's
Speaker 1: going to formulaly he won't get to live out his
Speaker 1: f one dream. Also, keep in mind he's in the
Speaker 1: Red Bull junior program at this point. And then, as
Speaker 1: we know in Daniel Ricardo surprise announces that he is
Speaker 1: piecing out of Red Bull, and as you know for
Speaker 1: many of our other episodes, this is one of those
Speaker 1: moments where in retrospect we know it was kind of
Speaker 1: cataclysmic in terms of domino effect on the rest of
Speaker 1: the grid. They, as we discussed with Alfatari, move up
Speaker 1: Pierre Ghastly to the old Dana Ricardo spot. But that means, hey,
Speaker 1: there's a spot open at Toro Rosso all of a sudden.
Speaker 1: They didn't really have a good contingency plan for if
Speaker 1: Daniel left this abruptly. So Alex goes in that into
Speaker 1: that seat, Alex goes into these ross second second Sea
Speaker 1: and putting in quotation marks of Rosso. Yes, yes, so
Speaker 1: here's Alex's twenty nineteen. He is just trying to get
Speaker 1: his bearings as a rookie on the the this point,
Speaker 1: the you know, junior team for Red Bull, and as
Speaker 1: we know, twelve races in, Pierre Ghastly is unceremoniously booted
Speaker 1: from the Red Bull seat. So basically, mid season, Alex
Speaker 1: a rookie on the grid, it gets named to the
Speaker 1: second Red Bull seat, and immediately he is struggling to
Speaker 1: keep up with Max. We already know that these cars
Speaker 1: are are geared towards Max's strength to begin with. It's
Speaker 1: just awkwards. They don't luckily don't boot him at the
Speaker 1: end of that season, but by the end of he
Speaker 1: still hasn't really improved. His race results are really in consistent.
Speaker 1: He's nowhere near Max. So at the end of his
Speaker 1: sophomore season they end up demoting him to a reserve
Speaker 1: and test driver at Red Bull and he's not on
Speaker 1: the grid. Yeah. So it's it's obviously similar to Pierre,
Speaker 1: you know, very humiliating, it's very public. It's just very
Speaker 1: very depressing. You gotta have thick skin in this sport. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so Alex. Alex also interestingly has a very small but
Speaker 1: loyal and die hard fan base around him, and they
Speaker 1: were pretty vocal during that they wanted to see him
Speaker 1: back on the grid. Now, it's pretty obviously Red Bull
Speaker 1: is not going to put him back in that seat.
Speaker 1: Off of tow he has already got their stuff going
Speaker 1: on with you know, Pierre's their golden boy, and Yuki
Speaker 1: just got there. So they're giving Yuki a fair shake.
Speaker 1: And and as soon as rumors starts swirling that George
Speaker 1: Russell is going to be leaving that Williams seat, sure
Speaker 1: enough Alex comes in announces that he's taking the Williams seat.
Speaker 1: And it's very, very exciting. Everyone is super happy. So
Speaker 1: to speed up to present day, this season, there's a
Speaker 1: couple of things going on for Alex. So one, as
Speaker 1: of this recording in the middle of the season, he
Speaker 1: is twenty six years old, so again a lot of
Speaker 1: similarity to peire Ghastly, he's he's middle aged by f
Speaker 1: one stead or entering entering middle age. He's not a
Speaker 1: young upstart who just entered the grid. He's seen some ship.
Speaker 1: There's just a lot of ongoing long term question marks
Speaker 1: for Alex as to where where does he go? Uh.
Speaker 1: Some other things about Alex this season. Yet he has
Speaker 1: scored some valuable points thus far at Williams. At the
Speaker 1: start of the season. Something very funny so for one
Speaker 1: of the the first race he scored, points out his
Speaker 1: hair was actually dyed. This very artificial looking red color.
Speaker 1: I'll show you a picture in a second. It was
Speaker 1: due to some some charity thing that he did. Surreal,
Speaker 1: I'm getting my hair dyed in a temple with a
Speaker 1: cat of my lad and with so he scored points.
Speaker 1: And then the next race he did not you know,
Speaker 1: he had he had washed it out as a dye
Speaker 1: faded away. We finished the eleventh Innimulus, so he started
Speaker 1: to affect the performance. So he re dyed his hair
Speaker 1: for the Miami Grand Prix and because he was so superstitious,
Speaker 1: and he got points points. So now the running jokes
Speaker 1: like he's gonna look like Archie from Riverdale with like
Speaker 1: the super unnatural dyed hair because now he's superstitious. He says,
Speaker 1: it also makes him look like when he you know,
Speaker 1: he obviously sweating and all of that. He's like it
Speaker 1: looks like a murder scene whenever he takes his and
Speaker 1: his like his you know, butck clave and everything is
Speaker 1: like white. So it's just like this red, bloody looking mess.
Speaker 1: And it's just hair dye that is very crappy, temporary,
Speaker 1: like drug store hair dye. So uh yeah, so that's here.
Speaker 1: I'll show you a picture of Alex here. This is
Speaker 1: both alex um with his normal hair, and then Alex
Speaker 1: said the Miami Grand Prix with his red hair. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: looks like you know still to me, young kid, he's
Speaker 1: got nice normal hair, smiling on the right, he looks
Speaker 1: insane with the red hair. He looks like a little
Speaker 1: delusional and he's doing a thumbs up. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe the red hair gives him some freedom, makes him
Speaker 1: feel alive. It makes him feel alive or something. But
Speaker 1: he's very he's got a very wholesome face. I would say.
Speaker 1: Here he uh yeah, he just looks like a like
Speaker 1: a happy guy. Yeah. We're gonna take a quick break
Speaker 1: and we'll be right back. So the other side of
Speaker 1: the garage we have Alex on one who's our other driver.
Speaker 1: So we have got Nicholas Latifi. YOHI has named Nicholas
Speaker 1: Latifi the straggler. Straggler, which is just the word stragglers
Speaker 1: serie define straggler thinking thinking is it a real word?
Speaker 1: It is a person in a group who becomes separated
Speaker 1: from the others, typically because of and this is the
Speaker 1: death of formula one moving more slowly. Oh that is dirty.
Speaker 1: Your what a dick nickname? So Nicholas Latifi is the
Speaker 1: second of our two Canadian page Driver that these fucking
Speaker 1: Canadians are just not winners. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry to Canada right now. It's a great country, it's
Speaker 1: a great people. Kind the only thing they win at
Speaker 1: is hockey, that is true, alright, Sorry, I just had
Speaker 1: to do that for growing up in Michigan. It was
Speaker 1: just there was so much Canada, you know, and there
Speaker 1: They are great people, their services are great. But there's
Speaker 1: just there's something about this American capitalistic strive to be
Speaker 1: number one, which I do appreciate, even though we treat
Speaker 1: poor people and all people like ship. Okay, let's keep going.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so Nicholas's dad, just to differentiate, he's a
Speaker 1: billionaire but in the food business. Yeah. So anyway, that's
Speaker 1: just that's just that. So Nicholas Latifi basically nick So
Speaker 1: speaking of the whole idea of a straggler, Nicholas whole
Speaker 1: Nickie's whole story comes down to this idea that because
Speaker 1: his dad has so much money, he can almost outlast
Speaker 1: anyone else and kind of improve over an even more
Speaker 1: extended period of time than the average of one driver,
Speaker 1: just because he has the money to do so, so
Speaker 1: he actually, as we've talked about, a lot of people
Speaker 1: get their starting krding at the age of you know,
Speaker 1: negative five, they're still in the womb and already carding
Speaker 1: kind of thing, right, we got people starting at three
Speaker 1: four five competitive carding by like six seven eight. We've
Speaker 1: heard the story nausea at this point, Nicholas starts carding
Speaker 1: at the super late age of thirteen. What Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: thirteen years old when he starts his journey. Journey at
Speaker 1: that point, you and other these other guys are already
Speaker 1: in like open wheel seaters, are about to be an
Speaker 1: open wheel seaters, and he's just getting started in competitive carding.
Speaker 1: But because his dad has all this money, again, he's
Speaker 1: able to race. We've talked about this, how in these
Speaker 1: junior formula categories you spend maybe one to two years
Speaker 1: in any given series. Nicholas spends a lot more time
Speaker 1: than other people. So, for example, he's in Formula two
Speaker 1: for four years, and obviously he gets better and better
Speaker 1: as he goes along. Because he has the time, he
Speaker 1: can outlast a lot of the competition just from a
Speaker 1: financial exactly exactly. So we just some more chances because
Speaker 1: a lot of these kids can't afford to spend half
Speaker 1: a million dollars on like a Formula two careers. He's
Speaker 1: just able to last everyone on that front. Let me
Speaker 1: interject for a second. Ask you a question. I'm a
Speaker 1: huge tennis person. I probably said that every episode previously
Speaker 1: on Choosing Sides. Well, are you a tennis fan, Lily, Yes,
Speaker 1: for the sake of m yes, anybody else at tennis,
Speaker 1: I love tennis. No one's ever died playing competitive tennis.
Speaker 1: Tennis has these guys who are so good so young.
Speaker 1: I mean, as a guy who was numbered six on
Speaker 1: his collegiate tennis team, he dumps his champagne in it
Speaker 1: and then drinks out of it. I want some tennis
Speaker 1: players to do that. In tennis, you have these kids
Speaker 1: whose parents are very wealthy, okay, and they get so
Speaker 1: many resources coaching, equipment, travel, But at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, they still have to win the match. Money
Speaker 1: doesn't win you the match. So are you suggesting that
Speaker 1: in Formula one money can actually get you to place
Speaker 1: and be okay? I mean, you still have to win.
Speaker 1: As we've discussed, there's have to have the skill, there's
Speaker 1: that super license, right, you still need the points to
Speaker 1: get into Formula one. But yeah, it's just um, you know,
Speaker 1: we look at someone like, let's say in Estemon Okon,
Speaker 1: who felt a lot of pressure and he's talked about
Speaker 1: this to be good off the bat because he knew
Speaker 1: his parents had finite resources and just had to really
Speaker 1: go after it and had to some natural talent and
Speaker 1: an ability to other people believed in him, whereas Nicholas Latifi,
Speaker 1: obviously it's impressive to kind of start out your career
Speaker 1: in your teens for when other people started, some of
Speaker 1: them a decade prior to that. But yeah, he just
Speaker 1: had time. It's an enormous advantage exactly. And someone like
Speaker 1: Estevan probably sees Nikki on the garage and just goes, you,
Speaker 1: you motherfucker. I just have worked so much have more
Speaker 1: grit than you. Yeah yeah, alright, cool, Sorry for the interjection. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but no, it's it's true. It's a very weird thing where, yes,
Speaker 1: these these guys who are paid drivers still have to
Speaker 1: have a certain level of drive ability, like you can't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't. If I if my parents suddenly made billions,
Speaker 1: they cannot just suddenly put me into Formula one. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, there's a difference between yeah, a
Speaker 1: Max verstep and a Charlette Claire and a Nicholas Latifi.
Speaker 1: I love Nicholas Latif. He's just like a nice guy
Speaker 1: Bird Pinkerton. Part of what makes me feel like he's
Speaker 1: such a good, decent guys. He didn't seem to resent
Speaker 1: George Russell being like everyone's favorite wonder kinned and ever
Speaker 1: and being like and then there's La TV. You know,
Speaker 1: he's worked hard to be there, He's he's trying, and
Speaker 1: so I think he has to figure out does he
Speaker 1: want to keep being just that solid, dependable, nice guy
Speaker 1: who sort of fades away at some point or does
Speaker 1: he want to become a little meaner, a little a
Speaker 1: little something different on the track and maybe challenging alban
Speaker 1: And I think that that's hard because for Albun he
Speaker 1: needs to like wipe the floor with Latif kind of
Speaker 1: and Latifi this is my imagination, but probably doesn't want
Speaker 1: to be wiped the floor with. Is he the single
Speaker 1: fastest driver on the grid. No, But he's a really
Speaker 1: really he just seems like a really really decent, nice
Speaker 1: human being. We're not talking about me and a nice person.
Speaker 1: His signature personality trait is that he loves Nutella. Oh
Speaker 1: and that he's tall. He's six one, so Williams always joke.
Speaker 1: There's a running joke Williams keeps ending up being one
Speaker 1: of the tallest, the tallest team on the grid. So
Speaker 1: George Russell six six one, Alex Alban six one, and
Speaker 1: another reason I'm gonna like Williams. There you go. I
Speaker 1: can probably fit in their car exactly six ft four
Speaker 1: and a half, though it might be a little bit
Speaker 1: of stretch for them, but all their drivers are kind
Speaker 1: of linky and tall. That's that's been the gist. So
Speaker 1: he does. He does fit the kind of nice, wholesome
Speaker 1: persona that Williams how's going for it right now. But
Speaker 1: to be completely frank, it's sounding like his time in
Speaker 1: Formula one is going to be coming to an end
Speaker 1: sooner rather than later. So yeah, he's got to really
Speaker 1: put up some resolves to make matters worse for Nicholas Dorlton.
Speaker 1: Capital has very publicly said, you know, hey, we're now
Speaker 1: financially solvent. We don't need these paid driver ry outside
Speaker 1: sketchy weird resources were good to go on that front,
Speaker 1: which kind of hints to people of like if if
Speaker 1: if nick Nicki isn't they said this last season then
Speaker 1: resigned him. But everyone was kind of like, we can
Speaker 1: read between those lines. If you're listening, now is the
Speaker 1: time to put up some results. Unfortunately he has. In
Speaker 1: the opposite he has been crashing left and right in
Speaker 1: the other thing too. That's that's kind of interesting about
Speaker 1: Nikki on the crashing front. Several of his crashes had
Speaker 1: very large consequences for the grid. So for instance, when
Speaker 1: we talked about Max for Steppin's win last year, you know,
Speaker 1: his first World Championship title, we discussed that the whole
Speaker 1: reason all of this went down and that Lewis lost
Speaker 1: his lead and all that is because somebody crashed and
Speaker 1: caused a safety car to come out. LA has crashed
Speaker 1: And I think that is a turn ful scene. That
Speaker 1: was none other than our guy Nicholas Latifi, who then
Speaker 1: after the race had to hire security because he was
Speaker 1: getting death threat. Yeah, yo, hi, I'm envisioning a movie poster, okay,
Speaker 1: And underneath it says the straggler and he is climbing
Speaker 1: a mountain, barely hanging on, but the mountain is a
Speaker 1: jar of nutella. Isn't that good? No? Yo, Hi stopped talking.
Speaker 1: So this is it. I love this story. You just
Speaker 1: feel for him, that is, I don't feel for him,
Speaker 1: and this is fucking awesome. I mean, he's a rich
Speaker 1: kid Canadian who sounds like he sucks at driving, keeps
Speaker 1: crashing fucking up the grid. But the team needs money.
Speaker 1: It's part of the problem with Formula one. It's so
Speaker 1: money driven. Now there's a capital group coming in saying, dude,
Speaker 1: you got one year, get your ship together. This is
Speaker 1: a great story. I will say too. If if you're
Speaker 1: trying to find more reasons to like Alex Alban, a
Speaker 1: reason then to like Nicholas is that he's making Alex
Speaker 1: Alban look really good this season. Alex really needs this
Speaker 1: year to be his breakout year to show you know,
Speaker 1: I'm back on the Formula one grid. Look how great
Speaker 1: I am. And you know, as we know, your teammate
Speaker 1: is your biggest competition. He's trouncing his teammate right now.
Speaker 1: By the way, we're not talking about Nicholas personally here,
Speaker 1: we're talking about him as a racer. And this is
Speaker 1: the reality of it, and it doesn't sounds like if
Speaker 1: I was him, I would start start getting the suitcase
Speaker 1: out of the upstairs called. Yeah, it's probably a Louis
Speaker 1: Vuitton's suitcase, and he probably has someone pack for him. Possibly.
Speaker 1: I guarantee his sheets are more comfortable than my sheets, exactly, higher,
Speaker 1: higher threat counts, definitely. And also at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, if, if, and when he leaves a sport,
Speaker 1: he's leaving to go probably living a mansion somewhere in Canada.
Speaker 1: So I don't think tears will be shed too much. Well, look,
Speaker 1: it's probably hard in a lot of ways being Nicholas Latifi,
Speaker 1: especially when two chumps in NoHo recording studio or talking
Speaker 1: about him. But I wish I could switch places with
Speaker 1: him and be in that car and must be fun
Speaker 1: as hell. And you know afterwards, yeah, I will sleep
Speaker 1: in my cotton sheets in my mansions and you know
Speaker 1: what this is what's so awesome about sport, Nicholas Latifi.
Speaker 1: Here we are talking ship. Here's Doralton Capital saying, dude,
Speaker 1: you better pick it up. It's in his power. He
Speaker 1: can put up great results and everything will change, and
Speaker 1: I hope that happens. Nicholas. Okay, so we were now
Speaker 1: through of the grid. We're really getting close. Now, where
Speaker 1: does I'm actually curious to know worse on the driver's
Speaker 1: where does Williams factor in for you? I like Williams,
Speaker 1: You like Williams. I like Williams. I love that Frank
Speaker 1: Williams got in a life threatening paralyzing car accident and
Speaker 1: then still was running a championship. I love that. I
Speaker 1: love that his daughters involved. And I think it's cool
Speaker 1: that when Frank and Claire left that they said, you
Speaker 1: gotta keep this name the same, because as I'm learning
Speaker 1: all these teams, the teams that have kept their name,
Speaker 1: you can remember, you can, oh, yeah, that's Ferrari, that's
Speaker 1: you know, Mclair exactly. But but like the Alpeene used
Speaker 1: to be there, I don't even know what the hell
Speaker 1: you're talking about. Like, it's so hard to just fixate
Speaker 1: on a team when their name changes all the time.
Speaker 1: But I don't love Dorlton Capital. I think no, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't and it's in violation of probably the foundation
Speaker 1: of the team, which was which is a family enterprise.
Speaker 1: So final pitch for Alex alban So he's singlehandedly providing
Speaker 1: a lot of hope for the team, especially after George
Speaker 1: Russell left a bit of a void when he exited
Speaker 1: to take up his you know, his rightful spot over
Speaker 1: at Mercedes. Alex is a really positive guy, really friendly,
Speaker 1: a really hard worker. Also, I do root for him
Speaker 1: because he has to go against the Red Bull organization.
Speaker 1: I like the Comeback Kids. I think there's there's an
Speaker 1: argument who made for these kind of especially like the
Speaker 1: Red Bull Comeback Kids. I wonder if they have like
Speaker 1: a support group somewhere. I gotta be supportive and root
Speaker 1: for anyone whose mom has served prison time. I know
Speaker 1: that's not the highlight of all this, but that is
Speaker 1: a major difficulty, and I'm sure he's harboring some deep
Speaker 1: emotional turmoil that we don't see. Come on, it's your mom.
Speaker 1: So I I am definitely rooting for him to be successful,
Speaker 1: and he already is successful, but you know, more more
Speaker 1: to stick the land, sweet story, the sweet story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then and then it's his final pitch for Nicholas Latifi.
Speaker 1: And then I wrote to be honest, which is how
Speaker 1: you know it all goes downhill from there, and then
Speaker 1: all the all the YOHI added in the comments was
Speaker 1: what about the new tella? So he has good taste
Speaker 1: in hazelnuts spreads. That's really a big plus for Nicholas Latifi.
Speaker 1: But I have to be honest and say that there's
Speaker 1: no one here who's really stoked on his future in
Speaker 1: the sport or who wants to put their eggs in
Speaker 1: that basket. And speaking of putting eggs in a basket,
Speaker 1: I mean his dad is a supermarket conglomerate, so he
Speaker 1: has his pick of which type of eggs in his basket.
Speaker 1: I like Williams for some reason. They've always resonated with me.
Speaker 1: It's clear it's a name that I name. You know,
Speaker 1: I know, I I like him. I like him. I
Speaker 1: think Nicholas bye bye, thank you nick lists, and I
Speaker 1: have every reason to root for Alex. So I would
Speaker 1: put Williams in my top three right now. So next episode,
Speaker 1: were moving on to the ninth team on the Grid.
Speaker 1: We've got Alpha Romeyo my whole life. My father spoke
Speaker 1: so fondly of one of his first big purchases, which
Speaker 1: was an Alpha Romeo. I haven't heard about this team yet.
Speaker 1: Also a team that has been around for a bit.
Speaker 1: We talked about them with Ferrari. They're also at an
Speaker 1: interesting point in their history where they've had trouble making
Speaker 1: their mark, especially kind of as their own, their own team,
Speaker 1: their own name. And the hope though, is that this season,
Speaker 1: with a big driver change they made and also some
Speaker 1: good car regulation changes that have gone their way, that
Speaker 1: they're actually going to have a real, a real breakout year. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yes, any other thoughts before we wrap up? No,
Speaker 1: that's it, I'm I'm that's it. This has been Choosing
Speaker 1: Sides F one, a production of Sports Illustrated Studios and
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. The show was hosted by Michael Costa
Speaker 1: and Lily Herp. This episode was produced by Lily Herman
Speaker 1: and our senior producer Yehai Mi Tao, who also did
Speaker 1: the sound design at the Cutting Room studios. We are
Speaker 1: recorded by engineer Robot Larry the second mastering by Cello Weisblum.
Speaker 1: Max Miller is the executive producer and Brennan get Us
Speaker 1: his head of audio at s I Studios. At I
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Speaker 1: if you want more F one goodness, follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Choosing Sides, Rob, do you have any thoughts
Speaker 1: now that we've heard about Williams. They're not doing it
Speaker 1: for me. They're cool, but yeah, they don't stand out
Speaker 1: until something good happens for them. I think they're just
Speaker 1: kind of there.