Otmar Szafnauer Interview on Andretti, Pink Mercedes, Aston Martin-Alpine, Perez-Ocon (Part 2)

[00:00:02] Before we begin, I wanted to give a huge shout out to the folks at Amazon Music for partnering with us on this episode of the Inside Line F1 Podcast.

[00:00:10] But more on this later, right then, let's get right into today's episode.

[00:00:35] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the second part of the Autmar Safnaware interview on the Inside Line F1 Podcast.

[00:00:42] I mentioned second part because part one was quite the bomb.

[00:00:46] Autmar revealed so much about Force India, about how they made the magic happen and you, Kunal, were there at that time.

[00:00:53] What was it like from your perspective? And what was Autmar's method of working like?

[00:00:58] I was actually there when the magic happened.

[00:01:00] You know, it's like being a part of the magician side rather than the audience, right?

[00:01:05] But frankly, you know, I explained a very human side to Autmar, but the more interesting side was also the efficient side.

[00:01:14] You know, you always walk into conversations and there'll always be that one person who knows exactly the question to ask.

[00:01:23] Like, what's the hook? As we say in the world of content marketing, two people who are really good at what's that hook in a conversation in real life for Autmar Safnaware,

[00:01:34] but even more so Dr. Vijay Malia.

[00:01:37] And I think that's why their partnership also worked so well with delivering on all the magic around the Force India Formula One team.

[00:01:46] And that's what we covered in part one.

[00:01:48] Folks, in this particular episode, we are going to be covering the other side to it.

[00:01:53] The time when Autmar almost got racing point to P3 in the Constructors Championship.

[00:01:58] The time when they were unofficially known as the Pink Mercedes.

[00:02:02] So much scrutiny around that time.

[00:02:04] How did Autmar and the team manage that entire period?

[00:02:07] And also, Kunal, best thing of all, we got to know some insights about Alpine and why even though they keep on changing names and management and liveries and drivers,

[00:02:18] it just never seemed to win a championship.

[00:02:20] That for me was my best part.

[00:02:22] What about you?

[00:02:23] I think my best part was also about Alpine because in this episode, we've sort of dug deeper into his current journey.

[00:02:30] In the previous one, it was about Force India, how we made things happen there.

[00:02:34] And now it's about Alpine and why things didn't work here.

[00:02:36] What were the difficulties in getting things work here?

[00:02:39] So during his version of the Alpine story is what is definitely the most exciting one talking about the number of people who've been in the team,

[00:02:50] talking of all the decision making or the slowness that hence is impacted.

[00:02:54] And the fact that Alpine, you know, one of the things that you and I have spoken about ever since Somil is Alpine's lack of a competitive reference in a customer team.

[00:03:04] How is that impacting the works team from France?

[00:03:08] So lots of in the moment talk with Autmar in this episode, that's what everyone should expect.

[00:03:15] Let's get right into it then.

[00:03:17] Ladies and gentlemen, here's Autmar Saafnau.

[00:03:20] Super.

[00:03:21] So Autmar, firstly, I wanted to talk to you about the Force India times, right?

[00:03:24] Because we spoke so much in depth about it earlier as well.

[00:03:27] But we didn't quite touch upon what was your personal favorite Force India moment out of all of those.

[00:03:32] If you had to pick one, would it be Bahrain 2014 or perhaps the win that he got in Sakir later or any other ones that come to mind as well?

[00:03:42] I see that's put you on the spot.

[00:03:44] Favorite Force India moment?

[00:03:52] Probably, probably one of Sergio's, maybe Sergio's monocle podium.

[00:04:01] And what makes it more interesting is at that point of time, you guys clearly weren't up there fighting with the rest of it as it became a thing in 2020.

[00:04:09] So I mean, can you talk us through that weekend as a whole?

[00:04:11] And normally with Checo, how was it that always whenever someone had some sort of error, Sergio was always there towards the podium, always bouncing on to get out?

[00:04:23] Sergio was a great racer and he often in the lower formulas wasn't in the best team.

[00:04:33] And because of it, he had to learn his race craft in the middle of the field.

[00:04:40] And when you don't always start at the front and you want to get to the front, you learn how to do that.

[00:04:50] And some of the competitors that he's raced against, Hulkamberd for example, he always started at the front and finished at the front in the lower formulas.

[00:05:00] But that wasn't the case with Sergio.

[00:05:03] He would start somewhere in the midfield and then try to work his way up to the front.

[00:05:09] And because of that, he developed a great race craft.

[00:05:14] And when he came to Force India, you know, we were, I can't remember how many pole positions we had if any.

[00:05:20] You know, we weren't qualifying up in pole or front row, but not far behind.

[00:05:27] So we're somewhere in the midfield and then he just did a great job at taking that position that he was in and moving forward.

[00:05:34] And he learned his race craft like that early on in his career.

[00:05:39] And he was brilliant at it.

[00:05:41] And because of it, he would score a lot of points, was very tenacious, would be on the podium every once in a while and did very well for us.

[00:05:49] Where Hulkamberd won everything in the lower formulas coming up.

[00:05:54] And they were pretty evenly matched.

[00:05:56] I think Nico beat Checo one year and Checo beat Nico the other year.

[00:06:00] So that's really good.

[00:06:02] And that actually brings me on to Esteban Ocon, because I remember you guys had such a special bond, not just in one team but two of them.

[00:06:10] I remember you once saying, Otmar, that he was a future world champion.

[00:06:14] What do you see in Esteban?

[00:06:16] What do you find as the most interesting or the most best quality about him?

[00:06:20] Well, early on, I mean, you could tell we tested a few young drivers and Esteban was probably the best of all those that we tested.

[00:06:30] And there's a few things.

[00:06:32] One, he had great car control, very skillful in the car, but also he wanted to learn.

[00:06:41] He was very keen to listen, very keen to do what the more experienced engineers were telling him to do, to get more performance out of the car.

[00:06:51] And he always tried things.

[00:06:54] So, you know, that's if you've got the talent and you've got the ambition and want to learn and follow direction and are easily taught.

[00:07:05] You need all those elements to become world champion, which is why I said it could be a future world champion.

[00:07:12] But how did that journey with him begin?

[00:07:14] So clearly you must have seen his work at Manor in 2016.

[00:07:17] And then at what point did he realize, OK, this is the guy I wanted my team next when Nico goes.

[00:07:22] At that point, he still had done not even a full season, right?

[00:07:25] It was only half a year.

[00:07:26] Yeah, we got to know him in testing really.

[00:07:30] And there's nothing like putting him in your own car, looking at the data, looking at his data overlaid with racing driver's data,

[00:07:41] whose quality you already know.

[00:07:43] And, you know, if he can match or get really close very quickly, then, you know, he's good.

[00:07:48] And it was that that did it much more so than looking at him in other cars.

[00:07:53] But that really brings me on to today because you folks have so little testing time in comparison to what you had previously.

[00:08:00] Just scouting and hunting drivers, do you feel it's more of a risk now because you can't quite put them in the car and figure it out?

[00:08:07] So is it more?

[00:08:08] Yeah, it's more of a risk now.

[00:08:10] But you can still these days, you can and not all teams do it.

[00:08:15] I think most by now do.

[00:08:17] You can put them in a two year old car and you can put them in a two year old car next to the racing driver or just overlay the data from what the racing car driver did.

[00:08:27] And then you have that basis of comparison.

[00:08:30] But yeah, you're right.

[00:08:31] In a new car or this season's car, it's very limited.

[00:08:37] Well, with Esteban, I love how it worked out.

[00:08:40] And we spoke earlier about Spa 2018, that big moment where both of your cars were doing so well and then Esteban also qualified so good too.

[00:08:47] What was your favorite moment with him?

[00:08:49] And clearly you have a very special bond with him.

[00:08:53] Do you know?

[00:08:54] Yeah, in Spa 2018, yeah, really well coming out of administration, you know, having the team unsure of its future and having him performed at that level was really good.

[00:09:09] It just shows, you know, their mental toughness and that's another element that you need to be world champion.

[00:09:18] You know, mental toughness is up there with driving skill.

[00:09:22] And then when you had to tell him that he wasn't part of the team for the next year, that must have hurt, right?

[00:09:27] What was that moment like of communicating to Esteban that he wouldn't be in the team next year?

[00:09:32] Yeah, so I was very confident that because of his skill level that he would find another driving formula on that, that wasn't going to be his last.

[00:09:44] So although, you know, never pleasant, I wasn't worried and eventually I was proven right.

[00:09:52] I think he spent a year as reserve at Mercedes and then after that he went to Albin.

[00:10:01] And that's because he deserves to be in the sport.

[00:10:05] Actually, I love that you brought this up because that brings me on to 2020.

[00:10:10] Now, can I just say, I really like to commend you for that incredible season that you folks had finally getting the team's first win in such crazy circumstances,

[00:10:18] but also having a car that was challenging for many podiums all throughout the season.

[00:10:23] But it was a tomato's ear, right?

[00:10:25] Leading up to which so many people were literally verbally throwing stones at your team.

[00:10:29] But how did you all manage it?

[00:10:31] Like, you all knew clearly that the car was legal, but fending off the others, that must have taken so much of your mental energy in 2020.

[00:10:38] Well, by the time we had to fend everybody off the car was what it was.

[00:10:43] We did follow the rules.

[00:10:47] So we weren't illegal.

[00:10:51] In the past, if I remember correctly, we always bought our gearboxes, powertrain and hydraulics from Mercedes.

[00:11:05] And Mercedes was the only team at the time running a low-rate concept.

[00:11:11] And so we would always buy gearboxes from them from a team that was running a low-rate concept.

[00:11:18] And because of that concept, we had constraints as to how much rear ride height we could run.

[00:11:25] We couldn't go any higher because of their gearbox design, because the pickup points for the rear suspension.

[00:11:32] And therefore, we were always compromised.

[00:11:34] You know, we would run a gearbox that was designed for a low-rate concept, but we were running a high-rate concept.

[00:11:40] And that gave us constraints and limitations as to how much we could develop that car dynamically.

[00:11:46] We could develop it to its full.

[00:11:48] So when we finally could afford to buy suspension from Mercedes, for example, then we could also run a low-rate concept.

[00:12:02] The first time ever we were able to run a low-rate concept with a gearbox that was designed for a low-rate.

[00:12:10] And lo and behold, we had a much more performant car.

[00:12:16] And that was the car that won.

[00:12:18] And that was also the car that finished on the podium more often.

[00:12:22] And had we not had, I think we had two engine failures in a row at the end,

[00:12:28] we would have finished third in the championship.

[00:12:30] I think we lost out to third by a few points.

[00:12:34] And we're in a very good point-scoring position in two races.

[00:12:38] I think one, we would have been on the podium either second or third, the penultimate race.

[00:12:42] And we had an engine failure with, I don't know, maybe six laps to go, something like that.

[00:12:49] And had that not happened, we would have finished third in the championship.

[00:12:52] But it did happen.

[00:12:53] And then the very next race, we again had to finish in the points in ahead of McLaren,

[00:13:01] if I remember right.

[00:13:03] And we were doing just that and brand new engine because the previous one had failed.

[00:13:11] And that one failed too.

[00:13:13] In the first, I don't know, quarter of the race, which is unusual from Mercedes,

[00:13:19] but it did happen and that cost us third in the championship.

[00:13:22] This actually leads me to a point about, you know,

[00:13:26] when did you know that your time was up at 4th India Racing Point of Mark?

[00:13:31] Because you were really leading the team so well.

[00:13:34] And there was a change of management as we spoke about earlier.

[00:13:38] You know, I didn't know until probably quite late in the year or in December,

[00:13:49] November, December that, you know, most of my job was taken by Martin Whitmarsh,

[00:13:58] who was just recently hired.

[00:14:00] And, you know, at that point where, you know, for 12 years I used to lead the team,

[00:14:08] run the management, all the management meetings, you know,

[00:14:12] help in significant and senior decision making process.

[00:14:17] Like I said, when 90% of that work was taken away from me,

[00:14:21] then it was, you know, the writing was on the wall that Lawrence wanted a different management team.

[00:14:29] And, you know, I had a very good run, but it was time to go,

[00:14:36] which is what happened and it's fact.

[00:14:45] But I look back at the times that I was there taking the team from last

[00:14:50] of significantly or to 4th and 4th, you know, 3 times if you include racing point towards the end there.

[00:15:02] And, you know, I wish all the people there that I hired that are good people,

[00:15:09] I wish them luck to be in being able to repeat that, but so far they haven't been able to.

[00:15:15] I'm sure they will in the future, but sitting here right now today,

[00:15:21] you know, I think they've been 7th and 5th.

[00:15:26] And it was really nice to, or it's really nice now to look back

[00:15:33] and remember those times and, you know, it's a bit nostalgic looking back at all those times where,

[00:15:40] like you say, we've won races, we're on the podium, we regularly finished 4th in the championship.

[00:15:47] Should have been 3rd one year, but, you know, everyone could say should or could have would have.

[00:15:52] But we did it. We did it. And I'm not there anymore and I wish them luck that,

[00:15:59] you know, there's a lot of good people there that they can repeat that and do even better, but only time will tell.

[00:16:05] I love how you just look at it in such a broader perspective about your time over there.

[00:16:10] But then immediately came Alpine and I'll be honest, Otmar, I found it to be quite a move

[00:16:16] because normally team principals tend to take some time between jobs,

[00:16:19] but you went there literally almost immediately.

[00:16:22] So what was the thought process like and how did that move actually come about?

[00:16:27] That's because there was a rare moment of my leaving Aston and Alpine needing a leader and team principal.

[00:16:40] They didn't have that structure before they had two directors but no team principal.

[00:16:48] They wanted to change that to move it into just having a team principal.

[00:16:54] I was available and then they started talking to me.

[00:16:58] So it was just fortuitous that the timing of their need and the timing of my departure was the same.

[00:17:07] But it is also the team you fought the most fiercely in your time at Force India.

[00:17:11] Was there any sort of animosity against you even a little bit?

[00:17:15] Or was there just respect about what you've done against them all the way through?

[00:17:18] No, no, no animosity.

[00:17:21] We used to beat them regularly to finish forth the only ones that we didn't beat.

[00:17:32] We're the big three, which was Mercedes Ferrari and Red Bull.

[00:17:37] So all those years we finished forth, we finished ahead of the folks at Endstone.

[00:17:44] So no animosity when I went there.

[00:17:47] I learned that many of the people that I had worked with in the past at other teams including at Honda and British American Racing

[00:17:57] and even Force India in the early days they were working there.

[00:18:02] So I knew a lot of the people already and they're a good group too.

[00:18:10] You know, almost well, most teams of Formula One if not all of them have outstanding people in them.

[00:18:18] One compared to say the rest of the society.

[00:18:22] It's a microcosm of the best engineers in the world and they had them there as well at Alpine.

[00:18:32] When I got there it was just a matter of adding some further resource that they didn't have.

[00:18:38] Not that the people that had weren't to the right level, it's just they had pockets of knowledge that was missing.

[00:18:47] And I started to populate those pockets of knowledge that they didn't have along with the rest of the technical team.

[00:18:57] In my year and a half we probably hired almost 80 people all in the technical areas, which was significant.

[00:19:06] And because we did that, you know, the team started getting better and my one year at Alpine I left mid-season 23 but 22

[00:19:18] although the car was already designed and developed or did not develop, the initial car was done by the time I got there.

[00:19:27] I think I made significant change in order to enable us to finish fourth.

[00:19:33] And you know, again we're fourth behind the big three teams again my one year at Alpine.

[00:19:43] And Atmar, I want to ask you when you came to Alpine just what did you find?

[00:19:48] Can you tell a lot about how the team has run from the outside as well being competitors?

[00:19:52] So when you came there what did you find was missing?

[00:19:55] There are some areas that for example Aston or Mercedes which I also knew well.

[00:20:04] They had much more capability in those areas.

[00:20:09] You know, deep knowledge of the tire, a good tire model for example.

[00:20:15] Although their tire engineers were very clever, you know, very well educated but they were junior in their experience.

[00:20:27] And you need both, you need really smart people and also experienced people to be able to get the most out of a subsystem.

[00:20:35] That you know there are other areas that they didn't have ahead of their aeropreformance group for example

[00:20:41] and needed to bolster their vehicle dynamics group.

[00:20:45] There are areas that needed improving and we embarked on it pretty much straight away

[00:20:51] but I always like to assess the situation before I start making changes.

[00:20:56] So you don't just make change and guess it, result or the outcome of the change.

[00:21:01] You have to do it methodically and strategically and with some knowledge.

[00:21:06] So I took some time gaining the knowledge with all the other seniors who were there at the time.

[00:21:13] Some of which have left, you know, Pat Fry's at Williams now

[00:21:19] and he was instrumental as well in making some of these changes

[00:21:23] and identifying areas that needed improving.

[00:21:27] By the time I got there, there was already a written plan in place as to areas that we needed to look at.

[00:21:34] And you know, I agreed with most of them and added to some of them.

[00:21:39] Actually, I like that you brought up the team structure because from the outside of Otmar it really confuses so many people.

[00:21:45] Like there's a CEO, there's a team principal, there's a racing director, then there's a racing consultant as well.

[00:21:51] Like who really runs Albin? What is the structure actually like there?

[00:21:56] Well, you know, the CEO's job is most of the time more strategic and medium to long term focused as opposed to day to day.

[00:22:08] But also, you know, the other thing a team principal must do is if there are short term issues,

[00:22:17] then you take a deep dive in those short term issues until they're fixed and you do your best to help that.

[00:22:25] And you've got to have a good introspective view of when you do take those deep dives,

[00:22:33] whether you're actually helping or hindering. Because if you as a team principal start delving into the minutiae of an engineering problem,

[00:22:45] it's probably the case that the engineer is working on that problem though, a better new do.

[00:22:52] And you should let him get on with solving it.

[00:22:56] You know, there's a leader of Boeing and also Ford Motor Company who is CEO at both

[00:23:05] and a great engineer Alan Mulally used to always say, you know, two things.

[00:23:11] One, you should always acknowledge your problems. And two, your team is a solution, never the problem.

[00:23:19] So even if you spend your time in a short term problem, you should always let your team come up with a solution.

[00:23:27] You just lead them to make sure that the focus is there and give them the resource they need to overcome the problem.

[00:23:33] So where do you find the gap, Otmar? Because I've seen that in the last decade or so, Alpine is the team.

[00:23:39] They've changed names many times. They've changed liveries many times, change management structures many times as well.

[00:23:45] But regardless of whatever the intent of the board is, for some reason Alpine is always stuck where they are.

[00:23:51] Why do you think that is the case? It's not like they've not committed money to it though.

[00:23:56] Yeah, it's not a matter of, I mean, I think Pat Fry said it earlier.

[00:24:05] It's not really a matter of money commitment these days, although it could have been money commitment in the past.

[00:24:13] But to have ambitions of winning world championships, you've got to do a lot of things right.

[00:24:20] And now it looks like one of those things that you had to do right was in the past invest in the tools and infrastructure that was required to win.

[00:24:33] So it's difficult as a team who didn't have that because of sales or different ownership and then come back and say,

[00:24:43] look, we're going to win in the short term. Well, you don't have the infrastructure that all the other teams have that invested over the last 10 years,

[00:24:53] for example, or 15 years. You didn't do that or the previous team owners did do that.

[00:24:59] You can't get that overnight. And now, especially with a cost gap, you can't get it overnight.

[00:25:05] And the other thing is getting the right people.

[00:25:08] So the tools are often designed, developed, specified by the people.

[00:25:16] So it's people first, but it's people and tools.

[00:25:19] And these days because of the way contracts are written, it doesn't change overnight.

[00:25:26] It takes time. And like you said, especially with the cost cap that's come into play now, it's more than just the cost cap for operational expenses.

[00:25:40] It's also cost cap for capital expenses. There's a capex cost cap and that capex cost cap can hold you back in improving infrastructure as quickly as you want,

[00:25:52] even if you have the money.

[00:25:53] But then why are we not able to get the best people if you feel that's the missing link between them getting upwards?

[00:26:00] Well, it takes time. First, you've got to identify who they are and other teams if that's where they are.

[00:26:08] And then two, you've got to have a compelling reason for them to leave that team and come to yours.

[00:26:16] And there are reasons for people to do that.

[00:26:19] And then three, they have to be available out of contract and that's a rare thing.

[00:26:25] You know, it's the probability that their out of contract right when you approach them and need them is low.

[00:26:34] The likelihood is more that they're, you know, have got a couple years left on their contract or at least one.

[00:26:42] So those are some of the hurdles that you have to overcome in getting people.

[00:26:48] But like I said, we hired 70 of them or 70, it was between 70 and 80 in a year and a half.

[00:26:55] And that's significant. And I think we did a good job in doing so.

[00:26:59] And do you feel the current management is taking a step in the right direction all the way through?

[00:27:04] Like the vision that you said?

[00:27:06] Yeah, it's hard to know what's happening there now.

[00:27:09] You know, I'm happily working in my garden and I haven't been back since.

[00:27:17] So I have no idea.

[00:27:19] And time will tell.

[00:27:22] You know, let's see how the car performs in just a few months' time.

[00:27:28] I think it's going to be a good start in March or maybe even end of February.

[00:27:34] Start testing in Bahrain and then you'll know.

[00:27:37] And Akbar, I want to talk about your personal experience because Alpine must have been your first proper time leading a customer, leading a works theme, right?

[00:27:46] And at Fosindy, obviously you folks were customers by gearboxes engines.

[00:27:50] But was it a change in approach and style for you now that you have the entire car with you?

[00:27:56] So there is, there's a lot more dialogue between the engine side or the powertrain side at Viri with Endstone.

[00:28:09] There's trade-off decisions that you talk about and make in order to optimize the entire package where we did that at Fosindy racing point Aston with Mercedes.

[00:28:23] However, their number one team that they're looking after or having those trade-off decision meetings with were their own team, you know, Mercedes-Groverie.

[00:28:38] So we were, although often, you know, both us and Mercedes and whoever other customer they had wanted similar things, they sometimes weren't exactly the same.

[00:28:52] And I don't blame them for, you know, taking the input from, you know, from their brothers down the road, so to speak, from, you know, from their teammates in Brackley.

[00:29:07] You know, that was their focus.

[00:29:10] That was, those were their objectives because they wanted to win as a team and I don't blame them.

[00:29:16] It's just, that's what happened.

[00:29:18] So there were times where, you know, we got what we were given and had to make the best of it.

[00:29:25] But having said all that, Mercedes did a great job for us with the powertrain.

[00:29:30] We're always confident we had one of the best powertrains in putting the Mercedes in the back of the car.

[00:29:36] I was about to ask you on the customer team, right?

[00:29:39] Because at that point, Mercedes obviously had, for Zindia, a racing point, of course, an Aston Martin eventually.

[00:29:45] But at Alpine, you had no other team to work with.

[00:29:48] Do you think that impacts Alpine as well?

[00:29:50] The fact that there's nobody else to share that much data and also build up the power you...

[00:29:54] Well, there's, you know, there's two sides to that coin.

[00:29:57] In an era of frozen engines, I guess, and the only opportunity you have to make changes is for reliability's sake.

[00:30:11] And it's, you know, it's often that if you're making reliability changes to improve reliability,

[00:30:21] you always have an eye on, okay, well, if I'm able to make this change, how can I do it such that,

[00:30:29] yeah, I improve reliability in the first instance, but in the second order, I get a little performance out of it too.

[00:30:35] Because I'm allowed.

[00:30:37] And I think the more teams you have and the more reliability issues that creep up because other teams will run the year powertrain in a different installation,

[00:30:48] that gives you a little bit more latitude on making those changes and hopefully improving performance a bit.

[00:30:55] Not much but a little bit.

[00:30:57] But on the other hand, it does help just to focus on one team.

[00:31:02] You've got less distractions and like I said, you don't have to listen to anybody else for their tradeoff decisions that they want.

[00:31:10] But you're right.

[00:31:12] If it's just one team you have, then the learning is a little bit more limited and ultimately it's about learning and getting better.

[00:31:20] And, Aukmar, you know, we also spoke of the structure of Alpine and so on.

[00:31:25] And you had a fairly large number of powerful people in the structure.

[00:31:30] There was Alan Frost, of course, Mr. Professor himself, there was Davideh, Brivio, Laurent Mekis, etc. You worked with.

[00:31:37] Did you believe and given how you had hands-on and hands-off approach with VJM and Lawrence Stroll,

[00:31:45] did you believe that having so many powerful people in management positions actually convolute your decision making processes at Alpine?

[00:31:54] So it was Laurent Rossi.

[00:31:56] It wasn't as efficient as other Formula One teams, that's for sure.

[00:32:04] And it also meant that the decision making process wasn't as direct as it needs to be for a high-performing Formula One team.

[00:32:16] It needed to be streamlined.

[00:32:18] And I think Pat Fry and his interview, I don't know who he did it with, talked about that significantly.

[00:32:25] So the second-last question is, are you in favor of more teams in Formula One, the 11th and the 12th team that everyone...

[00:32:33] Of course, 12th is not happening but the 11th team and Andretti, are you in favor of them?

[00:32:38] So me personally is...

[00:32:40] Look, I'm in favor of the right amount of teams to make sure that Formula One is healthy.

[00:32:52] All the teams can thrive and the fans get a good show.

[00:32:59] If we end up with an 11th team that isn't financially stable or doesn't add to the show and just takes away

[00:33:10] and the fans don't appreciate it or enjoy it, then we probably shouldn't do it.

[00:33:16] However, if there's 22 cars on the grid and they're all closely matched

[00:33:21] and the fans enjoy having another two cars and two more drivers, then that's what we should do.

[00:33:27] But if there was an 11th team, would you see yourself leading that team

[00:33:32] given that you have American roots yourself, Ortma?

[00:33:35] Well, it all depends on who that 11th team is and it also depends on whether they need somebody with my experience and my skill set.

[00:33:46] But first and foremost, there's got to be an 11th team with an entry and so far there isn't.

[00:33:54] Interesting. But how does one get hired as a team principal?

[00:33:58] If that's the last one we can go to?

[00:34:00] You apply.

[00:34:01] Okay.

[00:34:03] See you boys.

[00:34:05] Okay, we'll be in touch.

[00:34:06] Take care.

[00:34:07] See you.

[00:34:08] I made you laugh.

[00:34:12] Incredible to hear from someone like Ott Marsoff now who has given us so many insights on how Formula One today is working.

[00:34:19] And the point for me to really watch for is two, three years down the line, how do these smaller teams like Williams, like Haas, like Alpine, like Aston Martin,

[00:34:28] how do they react with new investment and can they over time actually catch up to the likes of Ferrari, Mercedes and of course the dominant force Red Bull Racing.

[00:34:37] But that's all we have from Ott Marsoff now folks.

[00:34:40] However, that's not all we have on the Inside Line F1 podcast.

[00:34:44] Make sure you subscribe to the podcast to listen to all of our previous special episodes.

[00:34:48] With the likes of guests such as Mika Hakkinen, Rave Shastri.

[00:34:52] Who else did we have? Helmut Marco as well.

[00:34:54] So many esteemed people from the Formula One barrack who came on here to share their stories.

[00:34:59] And by the way, a few really fun episodes on the upcoming season are also going to be coming up very, very shortly.

[00:35:05] Thank you so much for listening folks and we'll see you soon.

[00:35:07] So bye.

[00:35:20] Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the Inside Line F1 podcast.

[00:35:33] Before we end it, I just wanted to say a huge thank you to Amazon Music once again for partnering with us on this episode of the podcast.