AlphaTauri - Sugar-Free

out true. Okay, I'm gonna crank this open. Let's see here. It sounds sugar free, sounds sugar I would have been able to tell that with sugar free. So today, as we established with Alpine, we are we are comfortably in the midfield at this point, we're in the middle of our season. We're in the middle of the grid. That does not mean, though, that these teams are boring or that they've got nothing going on. So today's team middle

of the pack. I would say, Alpha Towery has got real younger sibling who's got everything to prove and nothing to lose energy. Well, are you a tennis fan, Lily, Yes, for the sake of yes, anybody else a tennis fit. Can I call this the Patrick McEnroe of the UH Formula one? You know, John McEnroe, Grand Slam champion, super loud, boisterous, got all the attention. Meanwhile, Patrick was pretty solid tennis player as well. I had no idea there was a Patrick adds color boom hit the theme from I Heart

Radio and Sports Illustrated Studios. This is choosing sides? Yes one? Wow? Okay, so alpha towery. As we previously mentioned in our Red Bull episode, they are the sister team to Red Bull. The team nowadays is very very careful to call it a sister team and no longer a junior team, so they do not want to be seen as lesser than at least in terms of public persona. But let's let's back up a little bit back in the mid two thousands. As we know, billionaires get bored, and when they do that,

they buy sports teams. So our friend Dietrich Mata, ships founder of Red Bull, buys n F one team, names it after Red Bull, and then, since he seemed to have nothing else to do, he said to himself, what what could I possibly want? Within a year of purchasing this team, another one? Yes, so a year later or within about a year, Dietrich purchases a Formula One team

called Minardi have stored on the grid. The two cars are being pushed off the grid, so they got about as far as the start finished line, which despite being one of the not greatest teams on the grid, had a humongous and very passionate fan base. He renames it to a Rosso, which is the Italian phrase for Red Bull. Creative, very clever. The original idea though, was that this Toro Rosso team would be like a junior team to Red Bull. So they were thinking, Okay, this can be a great

training ground for up and coming drivers. They can give you know them a little bit of an area to prove themselves. We can also kind of test people against each other. And it's just great to have, you know, four seats on the grid instead of two seats. So currently with ten teams on the grid, Red Bull basically controls the seats. It just feels to me like, if you're gonna be in Formula One, you gotta be trying

to win. It's an interesting question with them of is there a ceiling to how well Alpha TOWR is allowed to do exactly because what would happen if Alpha TOWERI consistently had drivers who beat Red Bull drivers and you can be certain if you're on Alpha Tari you're like, let's really throw a wrench in this ship and be better than them. Exactly. Yeah, okay, So Toro Rosso is the name of this team until two years ago or

to see sasons ago. So it's had a lot of really iconic drivers who got their start through Red Bulls Junior program and then we're funneled into Toro Rosso. So even just speaking to some of them who were on the current grid, we've got Sebastian Battles gets its moment in the Sun. Sebastian facts all he's a crow Prix winner for the first time. He's the youngest ever and that's one of the greatest things I've ever seen in

crowl Prix racing. Current world champion Max for stepping please welcome the rookie of the Year, the flying dutch Man Jenna Ricardo from McLaren from Perth, Australia and I'm twenty two years old. And then also Carlos Science. I think it's my only chance of getting to Formula one seat. So the interesting thing is that It doesn't mean that when these drivers were on tour a Rosso that the

team necessarily did super well. They've often been somewhere in the midfield, right, so whether that was a little bit higher, like a sixth versus a seventh or eighth in the championship standings. So why did they switch it to Alpha Tarot? What is Alfa Tower? Yeah, so two seasons ago they made a change. They got rid of the Toro Rosso name that had been around for about fifteen years. And the reason is very simple. Red Bull fun Fact has

a clothing line. It is called Alpha TOWERI and they decided to use what's basically free advertising space to rename the team, kind of like Alpine is a Renault brand. Reno said, let's you have a better use for the name of this team. And also it sounds cleaner and fresher. Alpha Towery also, you know, has a little bit of a different flavor than Toro Rosso. I mean in America, being an Alpha is just it's not as appreciated like it used to be. Sure that's has nothing to do

with their clothing line. I looked at the clothing line. Yes, I have some photos for you. So what's really funny about Alpha Tower is they do have professional models that model out of the clothes, but then they'll randomly put in various Red Bull and Alpha TOWERI drivers and team members to model the clothing. And it's kind of funny to watch these drivers, some of whom couldn't care less about. They probably have to do this, yeah, exactly, it's like

contractually obligated. So here, so I have I have the current as two Red Bull drivers Alpha Towery drivers, and then a special appearance by a certain team principle. Well I know who the team principle is. Christian Harner looks like he's trying to be he's doing a Zoolander face. Zoo Lander. Now the ones that are the models, I'm gonna say, are down below. Oh all of them are drivers. Okay, so we've got okay, sorry, tell me who we got here.

So up in the purple in the upper left corners pere Ghastly, who I think works at the most like he's really trying to to like the Tyra Banks smiles it up. You're right then below him, you have Max for stepping Poor Max, who you know does not want to be there. He looks like he's looking for the exit. Exactly. Yeah, like he's where is the exit out of this shoot right now? Uh? Then you have Noda never quite know what to do with Yuki because he's five two and

really tiny. For a while, they kept dressing him in beige, like fully beige outfits, which doesn't look good on pretty much anyone. To begin with. What is his nationality? He is Japanese Japanese. It does seem like they don't know what to do with him. Yes, and then his hair cut is kind of flat, it's weird. I don't mind the clothes, you know, clean. I think the lines they're so expensive like these are it's unicloe but like three more? Yeah,

and what's fashion anyways? What's what's a three shirt a fifty dollar shirt? I don't know. I think it's just also like I don't know anyone who necessarily would be like a, I need new clothing and I have seven hundred dollars to spend, let me go to the Red Bull fashion collection. It's similar to how Ferrari has an atrociously ugly fashion slection. Again, this is my opinion. Now, okay, al right, guys, I just wanted to remind you quickly that this is an f one podcast whatever. Yeah, suck

my balls mate, slowly turning into part in the interruption. Yeah. So so basically they in the early twenties switch over to Alpha Towery and with this, yeah, they really start to hammer home this whole idea of this is a sister team. It's a separate entity. It's factories in Italy. So yeah, So anyway back to a little bit of their history. So when they were still tour rosso yeah, they were, but until probably there were a bunch of

different like reliability issues at times. They had some really rough years where you had drivers, you know, having to retire the car in two thirds of races in some cases, Yeah, due to issues with with the car and not with necessarily the driver all the time. However, then it wasn't until nineteen they actually start to move up the ranks a little bit. They ended up finishing Pie six that year.

They then had another Piece six finished last season in one and now generally, especially because there are some teams that have have really had some some bad times, they've kind of moved into being a comfortable midfield team nowadays, or at least that's kind of what they're thought of.

The Other thing that I think Alpha Towery has tried to beef up, especially since their rebrand and how they're trying to both distinguish themselves from Red Bull while still not pretending that they don't have a connection to Red Bull. They actually have a really really fun digital presence. They use the drivers really effectively. For example, on top of the fact that they obviously use them in their marketing campaigns, Pierre and Yuki, the two drivers do wear Alpha Towery

close to the track. They also make them do a lot of like video challenges with the Red Bull drivers five o'clock begun to meet here in the morning, of course not. And then they also make them do challenges, like they had them do a chopstick challenge I think with like coffee beans or something. What are you doing?

Get out on my room now? Okay, close the door, Alfa Tori, I think is trying to mimic the social media um success of McLaren that was Ashley Khalita, an f one Twitch streamer, And they do a really good job posting the teammates Pierre Gasoline interacting and such, and they definitely have chemistry and they definitely care about each other and want to succeed in Formula One and do well both of them, and they definitely cheer each other on,

so I think they definitely bring that relatability side. Maybe it's not as strongly pushed on social media like McLaren does with their team, but I really think pure Ghastly and Yuki are onto something. My initial thought would be that Alpha Towery is going for a younger market, but Red Bull is already pretty young and Alpha Towery clothing is too expensive, so I don't disagree with you. In terms of Alpha Tauri this season, things are going not great.

They have had reliability issues with the car, as have a lot of other teams on the grid. With the new regulations. They currently as of the summer break, which we're in right now, there's no races coming up for a few weeks. They are currently in P eight. To again contrast that they were in Peace six last year

when they finished the championship. So obviously, for a team like Alpha Tawari that's spent a lot of time bouncing around the midfield, they were hoping to maybe spend this time moving up to best of the rest of us, or at least really get in there, and instead they unfortunately are almost relegating themselves to rest of the rest, or or the worst of the rest. They're not quite there yet, luckily, but it's not what they want. It's that looking good. It's not the best yea. So who's

in charge of Alpha? Yeah, so they have this team principle. He's been part of the Alpha Tari tour Rosso brand for a very long times. Frands Tossed or Toast depending on who you ask, Uh, he's he definitely has a bit of a personality, but he's not always the central focus, like someone like Christian Horn. Right, you're telling me his name is French Toast, Yes, keep that in, please high promise me that you'll keep it in. Or guy French Toast, Uh, despite the name, does not have as much of a

presence to the extent. But I think it's because Christian Horn or Helmet Marco from Red Bull or such big personalities that's kind of hard to compete with them. And then you have people like Total Wolf at Mercedes who's also a presence. So there's a lot of midfield teams where their actual team principles or head haunchos are not as I don't know, they don't have as much of a kind of following just because they're they're hanging out

or chilling or or whatever. I will say one of one of the most interesting things about friends is back in our French if we want to call him, that is, back in two thousand seven. Uh, there was an American F one driver at the time with the greatest race car driver name of all time. It was Hi, guys, I'm Scott Speed. Scott Speed. That's a great name. It sounds fake, right, It's Scott Speed. And Scott Speed alleged fifteen years ago that France had assaulted him over an

incident on the track. Speed claimed in an interview that tossed grabbed him right below the neck on his fireproof shirt and jerked him back and forth, let go and then pushed him into a wall. So, of course Frances Toast completely denies this whole story. And regardless of Scott Speeds not having a correct time in their car in the Tora Basso car, not driving fast, and so soon

after the incident, he is fired for low performance. And of course his whole spin on this is that, you know, almost conspiratorial idea that he hates them, it's terrible working with them. He never wants to work with France toast again. So with Scott he left the sport quickly. One could say it was a speedy exit for that was what

we need, that was what we needed. But I will say the overall I think good thing about alf A towery is you know there are a team that's sort of known to help funnel in champions right because we have a Sebastian battle, you have a max for staff. These other other guys going further back who are are kind of in that similar boat. So I think if you're if you're someone who wants to root for people who could potentially do a lot in the future, they

can be sort of a great a great pick. And also certain people, yeah, like to root for midfield teams and don't want to give all that credit to the guys at the top. Yeah. So, and it takes a

while to become comfortable racing at this level. I'm sure Red Bulls sees Alpha Tower is a way to give championship drivers who are very young experience exactly, and also a good time to kind of see, okay, can you handle any form of pressure of one without necessarily which unfortunately have Red bull has been handing over the car too early to someone unproven in there. They're kind of mainstable drivers. So who are the drivers. We got French

Toast as the team principal. Who's driving the cars. We have French Fry. We see number one um and we have scar Go in the other seat. So yeah, we're all good. We'll get into the Alpha TOWERI drivers right after this short break. All right, we're back from our break and we are diving right into the two drivers at Alfa Towery. We have Per Ghastly and then we have Yuki Sonoda, two very different drivers. They do get

along very well. So let's start with Pierre Ghastly. As you can probably tell from a name like Pierre, he is French, Verry French. So Pierre comes from a family that has been in motor sports in somewhere or another, not f one level, but his grandfather competed in carding. His grandmother was actually a carding champion. Grandmother act feminism, love to see it. His father dabbled in a number of different motor sports, so we did like carding, rallying

and Durrance racing. So he's kind of jumped around. Pierre's also the youngest he has I think four or five half siblings who are older than him, so he's kind of the the youngest of of the bunch. Basically, he takes up carding, is successful, moves on to the junior formulas. He ends up winning, so he's you know, he's well on his way. He's also competing against drivers like Charlotte Claire who is er Monico but obviously races a lot

in France, as well as estemont Ocon. They grew up forty five minutes from each other growing up, They've they've spent their their lives compete against each other just because they're literally from the same area of France. So Pierre makes his Formula One debut back in for Toro Rosso what it was called then, and it ends up racing full time for the team through He's looking good, he's looking promising, you know, getting his his sea legs, so

to speak. He had a couple of very impressive qualifyings in his first full season. He had a P four and there, a piece six, a piece seven, So in some cases he is out qualifying the machinery that he's been given. Pierre ghastly, the young French, absolutely unbelievable. Fourth position Now, granted, he would often lose places in the actual race, you know, because the car just can't keep

that pace over an extended period of time. But the fact that he everyone agreed he was way over qualifying the car like what it should have been, which only

speaks to his talent. But as we know, for Red Bull, this cataclysmic thing happens where Dania Ricardo surprises them by not re signing, and as we know from that episode as well, Dana ricardo leaving creates another sort of domino effect of other things that end up happening, one of which is that Red Bull didn't really have a successor to Danna Ricardo at this point, but had also made it very clear to everyone that Max were Stapping was their guy, So it led to this this bizarre void

to be filled by his by his labsence. Also, Dania Ricardo was a huge personality, as we've discussed, so they're kind of trying to figure out what to do. This was, you know, several years ago, Piers in his early twenties, so they end up saying, hey, let's let's call him up, despite the fact that you know, he'd only competed in his second season of the sport, and unfortunately he ends up crashing and burning spectacularly. You've got to say, only

one side of that garage is consistently delivering. At the moment, Pierre Ghastly qualified six cents off his teammate, Ghastly finished p eleven. There were a lot of races where Max was lapping him. He just got absolutely walloped by Max. And the standings, yeah, it was. It was bad. He's gone to unlock that part of him that we know is capable of bringing home better results. He ends up only completing twelve races before Red Bull yanks him from the seat and demotes him back down to the then

Toro Rosso team. That's humiliating, Yeah, really harsh. And on top of that, a big issue that's come up since then in retrospect is people feel like the car was much more tailored to Max's strengths than Pierre's. So if you're Pierre, you're a very talented driver, you just don't

drive like Max. So if you're in a car that is not made for it is very much made for your your biggest competitor, you know your teammate, you're really setting someone up to fail Max is uh, you know, he's a rocket ship and his whatever they call the like all the fire and all the smoke that comes out of the back of the rocket. It's too big. Whatever's around just gonna get sucked up into Max, you know. So I wouldn't want to drive under Max. So Pierre

is in this tough position. Obviously, it's devastating and humiliating to be demoted, not just demoted in general, but halfway through a season that's pretty pretty bad. And then to make matters worse, he's back at Toro Rosso and his best friend Antoine who Bear was a very promising driver in Formula two. Antoine who Bear dies in a race in Belgium. This is during also an F one race weekend, so Pierre is there at the track. It's incredibly sad.

This is this is bottom. I mean, there's career abouttom and then there's death. That's that's this is This is a new level entangling personal and professional tragedy. In the span of a few weeks, we lived in the same flat full five years. We went to same school where in the same classroom. Um, I've just known these guys in so long. We've shared so many moments on track and off track, especially um that yeah, honestly, I still

have believe it. He actually a really extensive personal essay on the Internet and about the experience, but basically one of the last conversations he had with Antoine was about his emotion, and Antoine kind of told me, you'll keep going. You're prove them wrong, like you've got this. So obviously he's devastated that his friend has died, but also feels really motivated. Interestingly, we actually talked to another driver for

this podcast, taughtinga Calderone. So she was Antoine's teammate when this accident happened, and she said something very similar to pire because I I sort of pose the question of well, did did watching your teammate die make you fear racing more or whatever? And her and here actually very similar in terms of saying For me, it opened as well in my mind, I respect what I do much more now, Um,

I don't. I'm not afraid of it. I think you know that I was maybe not enjoying it as as much as I should because because of the pressure that I was putting myself. That reminded me that what the most important thing is if unfortunately I and up dying in an accident or whatever. I know that I'm doing what I love most. You you have to be able to to do what you love most to be happy, and we'll see how much we we get to stay in this world doing that. That's a beautiful delusional mind

that you need to be a world class driver. Driver. Yeah, oh yeah, big time. So anyway, after this happens, he does start to improve back at at then you know, at Torboso Afatari uh and eventually actually in it's really exciting Castle is in France for the Alpha Tsari. He ends up winning his first ever Grand Prix. Is Alpha Tari Pia Castle when is the Italian Grand Prix? Oh my, oh my. Alpha Tari had a couple of podiums and obviously points to their name, but this was their first win.

So this was a very big deal multiple front. It wasn't an extra big because it was in Italy and it was in their home Grand Prix, so it's just yeah, it's just one of those feel good stories. Oh my god, what did we do? Like he's like you can see him, like, you know, pumping his fists and he's so excited. God, guys, again, God,

that was a beautiful moment. And I don't know anything about this sport, but when they when they show you the driver and you get to hear the audio of when they win, it's just it doesn't matter if you know anything or not. It's beautiful. Yeah, it's awesome for me. The driver that gives me the most excitement is somebody like a Pier Ghastly. You're hearing from Magnus Grieves, co

founder and publisher of Race Weekend. He always has the potential to do better than anybody anticipates that he's going to do given the car that he's in, and and he seems to really appreciate a great result. And also you want to see Pierre Ghastly get another chance on a big team. If you want to just cheer for somebody who could win, you're limiting yourself to a pool of about four or five of the twenty drivers. You

need to understand the story of that person. You need to understand where they're coming from, where they're trying to get to because you need to be able to cheer for somebody when they finished fifth and get as much joy as somebody else finishing first. So Pierre, nice guy. Everyone likes some that can't be the whole story, Lily. He must he must have some controversy, He must have some some dark secrets. The biggest problem with Pierre and

his career, so he's reached twenty six. It's basically middle aged in the sport of f one, which is sad to say and making me feel very old. Yeah. Uh, And the problem he has is this, So obviously he got promoted to the Red Bull seat, he tanked in the Red Bull seat. Hellman Marco, the very brash advisor and and kind of you know, person in charge of all the driver development, has made it clear that Pierre is most likely never going to get back in that seat.

So if you're Pierre, you're asking yourself, Okay, I'm stuck on this sister team that's kind of the junior team that basically has a ceiling to how well they're gonna do. But I've also been a Red Bull driver my entire career. Where can I go from here? So that's I think what he's dealing with right now. And there's been a lot of questions and speculation because yeah, he is kind of stuck. If Pierre has self belief, which I think

he does, someone's going to pick him up. Also, funk that guy who says he's never going to get in a red Bull seat again. If he keeps winning races at Alpha Torre, maybe he'll say, I don't want your dumb red Bull seat. I want my Alpha Tori seat, thank you very much, I will say to the team loves Pierre like they are like one happy family with Pierre. He loves the guys like everyone on the team, you know. So it's like it's gonna be pain well when he

has to part with them. But hope, I think the hope why a lot of people is that he ends up somewhere better or where there's actually a career trajectory that isn't just in a holding pattern, you know, perpetually holding pattern, you know, perpetually perpetually holding pattern, perpetually perpetually. So who's the who's this other driver? Other driver? We've got Yuki Sonoda who two sophomore season. This guy is not a tall man. He is barely not a boy, and he is not tall. I don't want to sound

like short was a derogatory term, because it's not. But he isn't tall even by F one standards. He is short. So just to recap here, most drivers are between five seven to five ten, usually five eight, five nine, maybe uh in the tallest drivers or there's a couple who are six ft six ft one, but they're very skinny and kind of lanky. Allah Estabato con or a George Russell.

On the other end of the spectrum, I think the next shortest drivers like five six, and then you've got Yuki at five two, and he's so short to the point where they actually had to like re engineer the cars that his feet could could actually touch the pedals because they basically, yeah, I'm excited to hear about this guy because we haven't had a lot of non white

European men who drive a race car. Yes, and it's been a little bit since they've had a Japanese driver in particular, and I will say that there's a huge Japanese fan base. For one, his assent to Formula one has been very quick, which means he's been pretty good. Ashley Khalita Again, so from I believe Japanese F four to Formula one, I think it just took him over three years. And when he arrived in twenty nine and started racing around Europe. He had no knowledge of the

circuits which track information is everything. To the fact he's been doing so well in the minimal amount of experience quote unquote, he has comparatively to the other drivers on the field with him, he had has placed very impressively in my opinion, in addition to being a very talented member of the Red Bull Young Driver Program. Something else that's helpful is that at this point we've talked about Honda before, and now Honda is the l O l

j K manufacturer and constructor of Formula One. They're in, they're out, They're they're supplying engines, they're they're actually in the sport. They're out again. So as of late they have been supplying engines to to Red Bull, and so Honda kind of says to Red Bull, hey, we're besties. Right, there's a Japanese driver and we're a Japanese company, and wouldn't it be great if you gave this seat to

this nice man who is from Japan. Uh And there is there's always controversy whenever something like that happens, because always other drivers who people wanted to see an F one who did better than him, who then don't get a seat and uh but yeah, so basically it does help.

You know, the stars aligned, so to speak, that Yuki happens to be coming up through Formula two and does well all at a time when a company like Honda has a little bit of poll right, and it's with the program that he's he's in, He's in Red Bull. So so Yuki rookie season, it was a little inconsistent. So his first race, his debut race and Formula one he gets p nine. You need a fantastic race, fantastic slow down, so he gets two points. It's very exciting.

Everyone's like, that's great. Yeah, However, he just starts having a little bit of trouble. We have our first spina here. Yuki Sonoda never been to this track before. He starts spinning out a lot. He starts crashing quite a bit, and some of this is expected with rookies, you know what happens. I mean, it's impossible to go rookie season without spinning out a couple of times or just getting

getting the feel for the car. You know, Formula one cars aren't even the same as Formula two, right, Like there's just such a big learning curve and make that jump up, so that's expected to a certain extent. But on top of everything else, yet he's kind of rude on the radio to his race engineer during races, and cursing a lot and and just being kind of rude.

So Yuki is definitely not the main character, which is unfortunate, but I think but he's definitely I'm trying to think of like relevant side characters that have taken over TV shows and you're really like, wow, maybe they should be the main character. And I really think that's that's Yuki with the experience he has, and maybe he has had a lack of consistency in one. However, he's definitely shown plenty of moments where he can compete with the top dogs.

Is he forgive my ignorance on this? Is he speaking English with his yes so that everyone has to speak English when it comes to race communications? Yet I think to keep everything standardized and yeah, you know, so they can hear what the hell is going on exactly. Um, And and on top of that that, yeah, he's talked about this. He really struggled, especially in the pandemic. You know,

Japan had a lot of lockdowns and whatnot. Is very hard to get back home, he dealt with a lot of homesickness, and he's been away for a while from home, and at this point, you know, he's twenty years old, so he's been away from home for several years. Um, you know, he he There's also he does speak English, but there is somewhat of a language barrier. There's also gonna be you know, barriers in terms of customs and how different you know, the West does things versus the

East that he has to deal with. On top of all this, he does have some issues with like discipline. There's actually like a scene in Drive to Survive season four when he makes his first appearance on the show, obviously it's his first season where basically he's complaining about having to just like run, like doing a normal training run,

and that's kind of just generally with them. He's even joked about this how he's like, oh, I'd rather lie down and like eat a sandwich then go exercise, which you know, it kind of doesn't doesn't work for certain people, but I will send the flip side. Yuki is a very fun and wacky personality. He wears his heart on his sleeve and it's brutally honest with the press. Is that more sort of expectation from from helmet and did

he uh with a helmet? I got we got this big this afternoon a BM, and I don't think it's gonna be fun conversation between us sometimes the teams like you can't you can't say that out out or or even a lot of his dynamic with Pierre. Pierre is almost like an older brother do Yuki, And half the time Uki will say something inappropriate, not problematic, just inappropriate or bizarre, you know, Pierce, like you can't do that,

like you absolutely need to be quiet. They probably put him through endless media training and he's still going to say what he's gonna say, and never necessarily always a rude way, but just he'll just be really really upfront with you have a good report, Yeah, they have a very good report. I think it does help that Pierre is so well established on that team and he is the number one. But in the same sense, Yuki is

a rookie, right and he just came on. So I think that there's not this feeling of resentment or whatnot from from that dynamic. Quick break and we'll be back. So that's that's alf a towery I would say for Pierre, you know, I think Pierre's kind of getting this. This reputation is like the comeback kid, right, like, really was down of the dumps, had a lot of personal and professional tragedy at the same time, and has not only risen above it, but totally slayed the game in the process.

Pierre I like very very much. I love anybody who gets pushed aside for some other new young hot shot and he has to kind of get some grit, he has some adversity in his past, true adversity death, and then and then we've got Yuki. You know, I'm a little bit afraid that Formula one sees Yuki as this odd Asian entity that we don't know what to do with.

And even some of the videos it was kind of like, look at him trying to do the funny thing, and some of that might just be because he's so young and they don't know what to do with, you know, like it almost seems like gimmicky, a little alienating, Yeah, exactly. So my hope is that Yuki kind of keeps his head down and doesn't doesn't let that ship bother him, and then just wins on the racetrack. I'm not. I don't.

I haven't seen enough to say that about from the one, but it just feels like maybe they don't really know how to embrace who he is yet. It's easy to see the cute face as an American and Western we see Japanese and we kind of like don't really know what it means, and it's like, what is this thing over here? But at the end of the day, it's like, if he's a bad motherfucker in the race car, that's awesome. I mean, like I says, racing has been a little consistent.

Somebodays he's brilliant. Other days, Yeah, he's crashing into a wall multiple times on the weekend. But I think he does bring a very different personality and kind of a different different style about him. And he is, Yeah, he's so young, like he was twenty when he came in, right, he can barely legally drink in the US. So and when you're a rookie and they say jump, you just

have to say how high? Especially in your team when your teammate is pere ghastly who had just come off a win, the first win on the team's history in this like incredibly, you know, epic fashion, Like that's your teammate. You gotta kind of roll with it a little bit and and play into the fact that you know he's the guy. How are you feeling about Alpha TWI, How do you feel like? I like Alfa a lot. I like the colors, I like the the logo. Their car

looks fast. You know. My least favorite part of Alpha Torre is that they're part of Red Bull. Yeah, if you told me this was a separate team, I'd be like, I think I'm all in on this team. It's like, I love my friend Paul. He's funny, he has a good sense of adventure. He always makes me laugh. His wife, you know what I mean. It's like it's like Alpha Tarry.

I just wish it would become its own thing. I feel like if Alpha Towery started winning, winning, winning, Red Bull would like secretly change up their wrench box so it has the wrong tools or something. That's just like, that's just how I feel about it. I wouldn't put that above Christian Horner or Helmet Marko to do themselves. I mean, if Yuki Sonoda is making half a million a year and Max is making twenty five million, that means in the organization, Max is seen as fifty times

the worth of Yuki. That's a huge difference. Yes, if I was Yuki, I would crash my car into Max. He's Yuki has done that with most of the growth, but a little bit of a rookie season. I like Alpha Tori, I like Alfa Tori. And and where where do they act in your overall Where are they? I would say they're top three from me? Is that interesting? On the podiums? Yeah, Ferrari's still up there. I like Alpha. Um, well it's Williams. Of course we haven't even talked. Was

gonna say, and we talked about Williams? No, no, no, we haven't. But um yeah, I don't know. For some reason, they're connecting with me. Yeah, watch the rubbing of the pants. Sorry, who's this other person's voice that I only occasionally here, not as often as YOHI. But yeah, so that's our sound engineer, Rob. I know you were supposed to be the only non F one person coming into the sport. Hilariously, Rob was just you know, assigned to deal with us

in the studio technical. Yeah, but he has become a massive F one fan over the course of this recording. Definitely, definitely, Rob. You've had You've had some disagreements with some of Michael's opinions, his driver opinions. Oh god, what is it? What is this my Twitter page? All of a sudden, I like Estevan? Who Why do you like est? I think he hasn't had his time yet, and I think there's an opportunity for him to have his time, and I think it'd

be cool to see. I strongly disagree with Rob, and I think there's a reason that he works in the audio booth and not sitting where I'm wait, So, who do you not like? Rob? Checko? Really? How I've said this before, but we connect with people for certain reasons. And the thing that I love about Checko is he's a father of three. Now, there is nothing more selfless and humiliating than being a parent, you know, like you're just constantly faced with your mortality and how unimportant your

personal life is. All of that is the opposite of what it takes to be a Formula one driver. So I just find that dichotomy so fascinating. That he probably goes home and is the fifth most important person in his house and then he goes to the race track, and well, even though he's behind Max, he has to act and behave and have the ego of I am the best driver around this course. I find that fascinating. I have no idea who this guy is in real life. He could be a total prick. I don't know. And

there there's more. Dad's on the in the race track, right. Yeah, we're gonna talk about a very exciting one next episode. Anyways, Rob, turn your microphone off from now on. Okay, loud and clear. Uh So, next time we're going on to the third team in the midfield with an a name Aston Martin, which I'm sure you will have thoughts and opinions just by you know, the association with the name Aston Martin.

Aston Martin is one of my favorite teams to talk about in the sense that at the beginning of the season we talked about how F one is a billionaire's playground. I would specify that that playground is mostly Aston Martin drama. We're going to get into a lot of weight, yeah, a lot of billionaires who have done a lot of not great things. We've got a terrifying looking owner of the team. We're going to really dive into this term

of page Driver that we've kind of thrown around. So yeah, I mean everything that I've heard about Aston Martin on the surface is ripe for some strong opinions. Yeah, if you've ever wanted to eat the rich, you want to eat Aston Martin. So so it's gonna be a great, fun, very rich time to be had. Alright, anything else you high before we I think we can wrap all right? Thank you? Jumping in a lot. It's been a week, okay, m hm, this has been Choosing Sides F one, a

production from Sports Illustrated Studios and I Heart Radio. The show was hosted by Michael Costa and Lily Hermit. This episode was produced by Lily Herman and our senior producer Johai Mattel, who is also the sound designer at the Cutting Room Studios. We recorded with engineer Robert O'Leary, mastering by Sella Weiss Bloom. Max Miller is the executive producer and Brandon Getchas is head of Audio at SI Studios. I Heart Radio. Sean ty Toone is our executive producer.

For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Don't forget to rate and subscribe, and tell your friends to choose a side that was kind of crazy. I like, got it, I got enough. I'm I might start a podcast tomorrow