Haas - An Embarrassment of Riches

it with this team anyway. The word I would say to best describe HOSS is chaos. They have got chaotic drivers, they've got a chaotic team principle, a chaotic owner, and then also very very chaotic sponsors. If the office and parks and rec need like a third or another version of a workplace mockumentary, this is the team to do it tough, to consistently win. If the one word associated with your team is chaos, yes, it's is to It's just you need stability, which which these guys do not have.

So so yeah, So today, on choosing sides of one, we are diving into the history of the only American owned team on the grid Hoss very very American and yet also very not from I Heart Radio and Sports Illustrated Studios, This is choosing sides one Wow, So let's dive into Our story begins with a man named Gene Hoss. By normal people standards, he is a very wealthy man by Formula one standards. Lauren Stroll a k Daddy Stroll,

his net worth is around three billion. According to Wikipedia, Gene Hasses is only around two fifty to three hundred million. Only a millionaire. He was he should quit, Well he's he's you know, it's just not going to work out for him with his only three hundred million dollars. He is not involved with the you know, well known avocado outfit Hoss. He is known for basically making machines that make machines is how I just put it. Yes, so

into machinery. He is also a massive car guy just in general and into motorsports, so he has sponsored other teams over the years, most notably NASCAR. Gina Hasses Vibe is the guy who is kind of in the background, like he doesn't make a lot of noise, but he's always there. He's like the mastermind he plants a seed and then lets it grow. The people you're hearing from

our Atlantis King and Elizabeth Blackstock. They're both motorsports journalists and co authors of the book Racing with Rich Energy colon how a rogue sponsor took Formula One for a ride. Gene Hass is just watching from afar, and you don't want to make him upset? Is he an American? Gene has hast American. They have a NASCAR team UM and a long legacy of actually like taking part in sports, so it makes sense that Hoss would kind of take

it to a much larger stage. So basically back, Gene Hass and some partners announced that they're going to create a Formula one team starting with the Chaos It was supposed to launch in but gets delayed to Which does happen with new teams and funding and logistics resources, etcetera before all of that even happens though. A very fun fact about Gene In two thousand six, he was arrested for filing false tax returns, witness intimidation and conspiracy. We

are off to a great start. He later pleaded guilty for felony conspiracy to commit tax evasion he was sentenced to two years in prison. He served sixteen months in prison and then had to pay seventy five million dollars in restitution. WHOA, that's our guy, Jeane. WHOA chaos to begin, Yeah, that's a rough start. But you know, some of some of what I'm liking about all of this is if this podcast can shed some light that rich people do some shady ship. I think sometimes in America we think

he's got money, he knows what he's doing. Yeah, okay, sometimes and sometimes they do illegal ship to get money and to get even more money, get even more money, and they all work together in cahoots. You don't want witness intimidation on your resume. Also, I just want it's like conspiracy and that's the charge, like what what did? What did you conspire? It's just it's almost more ominous

when there's nothing attached to it, conspiracy. So so a guy who's got that much money and that many lawyers like that, he probably did a good job fighting the case and he's still served fifteen months into pay seventy million dollars, Like, you have to be pretty fucked if if that was the negotiation you got. So yeah, of course, that never gets mentioned in Formula One. But it's like

very funny that everyone breezes over. I mean we we talked about Force India with Aston Martin and that guy being wanted in like multiple countries, and like, by comparison, this is very quaint. It's cute. Yeah, but Formula one does have this problem and needs so much money that it's going to get some shady characters. Well that's actually a perfect segue into literally the rest of this episode.

That's what I'm doing here. Uh so so has from the very beginning has always struggled financially, and the team almost I wouldn't say identically to Williams, but similarly to Williams, has gained this reputation of being scrappy and tiny. So, for instance, at one point, just to give an example, how smaller they are than some of the other teams, hoss back ineen Ish gun Thor mentioned they had about

two employees for for Hosses F one team. By comparison, Mercedes F one team around the same time had a thousand more people than hass Yeah, just for F one. If you say the two magic words Lewis Hamilton's and Mercedes, you know, that's a successful combination, so you will be more likely to throw money at that pairing something like HOSS doesn't have that. They tried to do things on

as much of a budget as they possibly could. A big part of when their team launched is they sort of marketed the scrappiness as hey, we're going to buy a hodge podge of parts and in power units and all this stuff from different teams. But in doing so, we're showing how Formula One teams can be started for less money and hopefully diversified the grid from that perspective. And so you know, you no longer need to be a Mercedes or you know, a Ferrari to get on

the grid. You can be like us. So next, we can't really talk about HOSS without talking about all of the issues they've had with sponsors over a very extended period of time. Obviously, a lot of you know, teams need sponsors a lot of times. The wars off teams are doing, the more desperate they get with who they

ask for sponsorship. We do know, obviously talking about Williams, that everything's getting eaten up by larger and larger private equity firms and corporations and whatnot, especially as the sport gets more expensive every year. The first sponsor we're going to talk about is a sketchy energy drink company called Rich Energy. My gosh, I'm going to assume you have never seen, had or heard of Rich Energy. I thought it was like rich money infused energy, like a power

unit energy. I was wrong, you were you were wrong, But it was bound to happen at some in this podcast, the last episode. I'm wrong. So Rich Energy is a is a energy drink hypothetically. Okay, okay. So it's the end of ten. We're heading into the nineteen season. Hass has had a couple of years on the grid. Was the hass F one team's most successful year by far. They finished fifth in the team standings, five of ten. That's a big deal for a team that's only been

around for a couple of years. Is very impressive. Yeah, and they have less money than everyone else. They got your pure personnel, so it's looking great and then everything kind of uh went downhill from there. So as always, like I said, HOSSA is always needing more money always, that's always the case for them. They start obviously looking for sponsors and other people who can who can give

them a little bit of a leg up financially. And all of a sudden, a man named William's Story comes in and he says, I am the founder and businessman behind this successful energy drink company called Rich Energy, and everyone's like that is great, okay, you know Rich Energy. Williams story excellent. Rich Energy was a sponsor for boxers, UM for some smaller lower tier racing athletes, especially in

motorcycle racing. UM. So it looked on its face to be a legitimate company and especially one that was promoting itself as a luxury energy drink, something that you you wouldn't find in a gas station, something that you would find in a nightclub, which I think is a very appealing look and a very appealing draw for the very elite levels of Formula one. And of course William's Story has like some long, scraggly beard and just looks like a weird dude, Like already getting weird dude vibes off

the bat. So we are here for the unveiling of the Rich Energy has f one Formula one team Livery Us does their big abut of the car, brand new black and gold delivery. Wow, that looks pretty tasty. They unveiled this car that was a really beautiful car. It looked great. This gold antler logo, it's it's the Rich Energy logo. William's story has pledged millions of pounds slash dollars to the team. What does it mean? It's now

the title sponsor of the House of One team. We're absolutely delighted and we think that has are you know, absolutely our favorite team on the grid, the brilliant people and they're the perfect partner for Rich Energy as we move forward to take Red Bull challenge RedBull on and off the track. It made a big, big statement, so everybody starts googling. Fans very quickly are like, who the fuck is Rich Energy and William's story? Is this some weird niche? Like it's only a baila about a couple

of countries, Like what's the deal with this? One New Year they posted a photo of a pool and they said a New Year's swim with Rich Energy, and the pool had a rich Energy logo on the bottom up it um the image of the pool was actually taken from the Internet and the logo was photoshopped in. Fans also start saying like, well, where can we buy it and the very things we find it's almost impossible to buy. Pretty simple question, Yeah, where can I buy this product?

I mean even in my newsletter. If if if this has been announced with my my newsletter was around, I would have tried to go out and buy Rich Energy to like rank the different energy drinks that sponsor F one teams like. It's a very Energy is great. It's like almost like some guy was like, Okay, I am poor and need to make this sound richer. I've got an idea Rich Energy I already love has. I think they're in my top three. This is awesome. This is great

comedy slash entertainment. I told you this is an episode of Parks and Wreck like waiting to Happen or the Office. Yeah, like you could see Michael Scott being like, I've got a new sponsor for the Office. It's gonna be yeah. So so we have each Energy and fans. So these aren't even people within motorsports only who are doing this. Journalists are obviously looking into it, but fans are looking this up. And it's Oliver Twitter. Obviously a lot of

company records are just publicly available. Normally, you would expect a team to be looking at the financial records of these companies to establish it. There's legitimate products. You know, you can sell this somewhere. You can find this product somewhere. Um. And that was part of what made Rich Energy so perplexing, was that the financials that were available, We're not great. They had under a thousand dollars in the bank at the time that the deal was signed. Those were the

most recent financial records. UM. No one really had any idea where to buy it unless you bought it online. It was It was a mystery, and I think it will probably remain a mystery. Smokes. This is just shady or money laundering or something. Yeah. More and more evidence piles up as the season begins that William's story is not who he claims to be, and that his company is not what he says it is. So and on top of that, the host team is not doing well

on the racetrack. They don't have a great car, so the whole thing is just a magnificent implosion William's story that announces on Twitter without telling anyone's terminating the deal with the Hoss team due to poor performance and the PC attitude of F one because F one is the pinnacle of political correctness. When I think, you know woke people, I think Formula one race car driving. Then the host team responds and says, no, we did not have a

performance clause in the contract. The contract is still together. We are still the Rich Energy Hass F one team. And then a few weeks later, Hass terminates the partnership. On its end, it just makes a mockery of the team. It also just ties up all their resources into something totally dumb. And also all of the press, right, no one cares about how they're racing. They care about this absurd scandal. Then Hass ran just black and gold blank cars for the rest of the season before going into

and changing the livery. It really becomes the scandal that launches a thousand memes. Right there's there's still to this day, years later, endless mockery of this whole situation. Well, maybe Gene has should do a little googling before he accept some sponsorship money. This was like the single question we struggled to find an answer too, because no one was willing to speak about why Hass took on Rich Energy. Um, no one was willing to tell us what that vetting

process look like. UM has repeatedly said that they did their due diligence UM in vetting rich Energy as a sponsor UM, but wouldn't describe exactly what that meant. HASS is an interesting organization and that it's very small and there's a lot of loyalty both to Hoss Automotive and to the team principle talk about Gunther Steiner. So it's to this day not clear who was in charge of finding and vetting rich energy. We still don't know. Yeah, we still don't know who was in charge of, you know,

signing on the dotted line. We don't know how much Gunther or Gene Hass really knew. And then we yeah, we never really know. William's story has also sent then try to tease quote unquote coming back to formula one. Obviously it's a it's a bunch of bullshit, but I want to see what he looks like. I'm gonna google him real quick. S D O R E. I are you kidding me with this guy? I mean, this is a straight out of Lord of the Rings, put on a camo hat and he's ready to go hunting absolutely

rich energy. That should be like my rap name. Yeah, you know, I mean, if you if you ever want a real deep cut, yeah, Formula one world, I say, go for it. You would think that after this whole very public, humiliating debackle, that HOSS would learn its lesson and find better sponsors that were less controversial and weird and just less ill received. You would be wrong. I would be wrong. Yes. So, so this's, like we said,

it's early beginning of the season. We skip ahead to the end of so we are in the pandemic at this point. This is, I guess it relatively recent. So Hass again started for cash because nothing what else is new? And so Hass announces that they're going to be working with a Russian chemical fertilizer company called Ural Collige. I mean, the first two words of that Russian fertilizer would tell me to back off. Yeah, you can see where this

is going. So this, this company is headed up by a Russian oligarch who is besties with Vladimir Putin named Dmitri Mazepin. And so why does Dmitri Mazopin want a sudden sponsorship on the F one grid Because he wants his son to race there you go. So, Dmitri has a son named Nikita. Nikita had actually previously a couple years prior then banned for a bit from racing in the junior formulas because he punched a competitor after a race. To give you just an idea of his vibe, So

Nikita really wants to get enough one. He's not really good enough to do it on his own marriage or through other means, so good old dad helps him do that. And on top of Nikita already being known as yeah, a not good driver who's then very angry and takes out in not great ways, he also, right before the season starts as a December he posts a video of him essentially groping a woman's chest like a friend, and that, for understandable reasons, does not go over well with the

fan base. People are really angry at Hoss gunther Steiner. The team principle has to issue this weird, vague statement because they don't really know what to do and they need his dad's money. That's no news, and we don't want the news out of it. We we've been internally have a dealing internal not we with and that's the That's the only thing I want to say, Maybe take this serious. What happened, and David, we've bell deal with it, you know. So I don't want to go into any

comments about the domage and expected this. I just want to say, prost us wed with it. What about managing him going forward? Are you concerned about that? No, that's refit dating with it. This makes me think that has is so tight lipped and loyal, not because there's some scrappy, intelligent competitive team, but because they are shady. Mother. These are just the things we know. It is already bad. Don't even know how deep this goes, but what what

exactly transpired internally? But so so, like any good billionaire father, yeah, daddy, mas a Pin says, yeah, I'll give you all this money, millions and millions of dollars if my son gets one of these seats going into does get a seat. Not only does he get a seat, but you were that kid I said he punched after a race. This guy callum I Loot is sort of for his class, considered the guy who was meant to drive an F one and didn't get a seat. Nikita mas Pin gets a seat.

That would just drive me insane. How is hass As a racing team? Besides all this sponsorship, nefarious activity, can they race? Oh yes, we haven't even gotten to the racing stuff. Everything else. We'll get right back into the chaos after the break. So has long story shirt. Not really, They're not really good. Um has starts off in their first two seasons are understandably rocky. Maybe we've seen this a million times with almost every other new, brand new

team to the grid. However, they have this big breakout year. They finished P five, so they're excited because they think, oh, we're comfortably in the midfield. Right for a third year team. That's great. A lot of teams would be super stoked if on their third year they were just sitting there. At some point, we're also competing for p the P. Four spot on the standing, so things are looking great. Since then, though, it has been an endless struggle bus for has So. Like I said, in addition to the

sponsorship issues, their car is not great. The car isn't good. And then to make matters even worse. Fuck, this was a big At the end of one of the last races of the season, one of their drivers, Roman Grosjean, who now is an IndyCar. Roman has a massive crash at the start of the race where his car literally splits in two in a giant fireball. All my muscle relaxes, almost not have a smile, but in peace with myself, thinking I would die in enough foot which part is

gonna burn? First said the food the hands is going to be painful, and then thought about my kids. And now they think for several minutes he's dead, and then he comes like jumping out of this like a literal fight. It is completely on fire. People are trying to put it out. I can feel the pain and the burn, but I'm going up somehow miraculously only ends up with some scarring and issues on his hands. Yeah, so shouldn't put that Russian fertilizer in the trunk? It wasn't there yet.

But this is at this point Roman and the other driver, Kevin Magnusson, who we know, comes back. They knew they were kind of on their way out already, so but yeah, so Roman Grosjean, who had a very long and interesting, if one career, ends it with this, this gigantic fiery explosion, scary and just again caps off another not great thing to happen to this team, and it brings you back to hey, it's funny William's story, rich energy, Russian, futile.

It's all funny. But it's like when things go awry, people can die and that's the tagline. But yeah, the stakes are high. Roman now calls himself the Phoenix and like rising from the ashes. And let me guess this experience only made him love racing more. Oh it did? He went over and they're all insane. You keep mentioning Gunther? Who is this Gunther? Yeah, so Steiner from a name like that. What country do you think? He's from Germany or Austria. He is from Italy, but he is used

to everyone thinking he's German. He talks about this constantly. Is part of his personality to mention everyone that he is Italian. Everyone I know who's Italian. Every sentence begins with I'm Italian. Yes, even my friends who live in Michigan that are like seven generations removed from Italy. They want you to know they know how to make possible

and they don't. Actually. That's so. Gunther gets a start way back when as a mechanic working in the Rally Motorsports series, kind of works his way through a bunch of different motorsports series and whatnot. But he eventually ends up in the early two thousand's at an F one team called Jaguar. Jaguar eventually gets sold to Red Bull in the mid two thousands. That's the team the Red

Bull Team takes over and rebrands. So gunther Steiner is with Red Bull for a little bit, but it becomes very clear he's not vibing with them, he's not mentioning with them, He's not doing well. So he takes a couple of years off after serving as their technical director, and eventually he founds his own manufacturing company over in the US, trying to figure out, I think what he wants to do next, and eventually gunther Steiner meets with Gene Hass and one of his associates at like a steakhouse.

They're kind of saying, well, entering off one is expensive, we don't know how to do it. He says, Hey, you kind of just buy parts from other teams or whatever, you know, and that's how we we kind of scraped this, you know, scrape this whole thing together, and eventually that's how the whole thing starts. As gun Through and Jane start working together, they build this thing from the ground up.

They have this sort of interesting relationship where Jean as a millionaire but not billionaire, but as a very rich person. Whenever he's dissatisfied, he calls, you know, Gun through very upset, and then Gun has to sort of smooth things over and be like, yeah, I know people fuck things up, like it's fine, Like we'll figure it out. So that's

kind of their dynamic. So when you're working with someone like Steiner, he might be a little bit harsh, but he's going to tell you exactly what he thinks and what's on his mind. A lot of the people I talked to they did say we like Guther Steiner's leadership style. Atlantis King and Elizabeth Blackstock. Again, if you look at Formula one, Formula one is about politics. If you look at Christian Horner, Christian Horner is very sly. He kind of he does what he can to benefit himself and

his team, but he's not straightforward about it. He's very politic e gunther Stein will come up to you and he'll just say, what's going on? Fix it? All? Right? Well we haven't discussed who's driving. Yes, that's pretty important. Who is driving these hoss cars? Okay, Well, remember when I said we'd come back around to this whole girl

colleague Nikita Man's a pine story. Alright, alright, So first driver, we're going to talk about old hass veteran Kevin Magnusson, Right, So okay, So I'm gonna start with Kevin's background and career, and then we'll kind of emerge will happen where we'll get to present day of how, how, what we're why we're kind of I'm chuckling as I talk about Kevin Magnusson's time at Hass so k Mag He's called k

Mag often. He's a Danish racing driver. He very much gets a reputation which we'll talk about, as you know, the bad boy or a bad boy of the F one grid around the outside again, trying to hang on in there and asked we said, Kevin Magnuson did not leave him any room whatsoever. His father, Yon Magnusson, also a racing driver. He competed in a little bit of F one in the nineties, but was not very good.

Kevin quickly distinguishes himself when he starts his carding career when he's young, eventually makes his way through the lower formulas and he's a member of McLaren's Young Driver's program during that time. So in he gets his start at McLaren and his season goes it's okay. Unfortunately, though, the next year he's demoted by the team because the team signs Fernando Alonso, So Kevin is out, Fernando is in.

Obviously he's upset about this, and after again a little more bouncing around, he does a one season stint at our good friends Reno now Karl Peene and then eventually at the start of he comes to HOSS. I will say now in present day he's twenty nine, almost thirty years old, so he's pretty young. So k Bag is that Hoss for four years. Basically, it's just as we've established kind of a weird team and a weird time. He has some real triumphs, he has some real issues.

Ken to come and see he's made please. It is also during this time that we get the iconic k mag saying Kevin is like kind of bitter for a lot of reasons. I'm picking up that vibe a little bit. Yeah, that guy's kind of an asshole, but I dig it. Elizabeth Blackstock again, Kevin magnus Him is kind of a fan favorite driver, but like not not in the Daniel Ricardo since of like, this is a person with a lot of personality who's really friendly and nice. Do you

want to hang out with him? It's more like Kevin magnus Him is like the sassy version, very very like Viking esque. Um, he's got like that. I don't know, almost a masculinity about him. That's very funny. Um, But he's he's a good driver. He's a how a aggressive driver. I think news has broken and it's broken down at hass Heaven. Mansen will not be saying next season when

he ends his time there. Yeah, he's pretty quick to be kind of rude about hass He comes up with a memoir during the off season were basically says everyone sucks. I remember reading it and just like my jaw was dropped, Like I cannot believe this man just said all of this during the off season between two Hassa debuts the car and he actually posted me on his Instagram making fun of it. So by and large everyone kind of

had had shuffled him out the f one door. It was just assumed he's had another guy trying to figure out what he's gonna do post f one, and then in February, what seemed unthinkable in the entry is now underway. Russia invades Ukraine, and every single sports organization in the world, as we know, is freaking out over what to do

about Russian athletes, Russian coaches, in Russian sponsorship. Politically, this is a it's a geopolitical disasters, and so f One, of course, very quickly is getting questions about this left and right. As his Hoss, the geopolitical issues that go on in the world kind of get ignored by Formula one, especially when you've got so many Saudi Arabian oil companies that it was like I could see them, you know, sticking with Earl Collige. Well they did not. It also

doesn't help that no one likes your oal colleague. No one likes them as a pin father son duo. Everyone hates Nikita and he finished last in the championship. Pretty simple decision, exactly. So it's already I think HOSS almost given the speed at which they made this all happen, it's pretty obvious that they too, We're kind of ready for it. Like right in the middle of preseason testing, they got rid of him literally overnight. You know, news comes out the next day, you know, houses like okay, um,

we're going to take the girl colleague branding off. Like immediately, he formed his own little coalition of canceled athletes because apparently it was a personal slight, not a geopolitical issue that got him cut. I have decided to make a foundation that will be supporting athletes that have lost that chance to compete in the support at the highest level because all the non sporting decision. We will be providing jobs,

financial support, psychological and legal aid. In case the athletes wish to debate the position, the foundation will be called We Compete as One. Meanwhile, then Kevin Magnusson is hanging out having a good time during motorsports general offseason when he gets a phone call from his old boss Guler Steiner, saying, Hey, you want to come back and race in four Hold on, Russia invaded Ukraine. Yeah, and our shitty driver that everyone

hates and his terrible father had to leave. And so Kevin Magnuson, being the very smart guy he is, says sure I would do that. Um, I would like a multi year contract. So he goes from being ousted from F one, now being guaranteed on the grid barring a performance issue for at least at least a couple of years. I love it. This is awesome for him and his family. I hope his feet were up on a chaise lounge and they called and he's looked at his wife and

smiled and says, we're back in the money. It had only seven days today, next days to the second day of the season. Kevin knows the team, the deem knows Kevin. Kevin was the team, so it's it's a no brainer. I'm glad he didn't, you know, put two middle fingers up on his way out of there and you know, break his desk and say I hate all you guys. It's probably smart enough to burn the bridge. The funny thing is he kind of did, but they still love him,

like they still were like back and get back. Yeah, Like I don't know, it's just like I said, it works for Hassa, probably wouldn't work for any other team, but for HAS, They're like, okay, they don't they don't want to test another new person. They already had a terrible season with two rookies. Yeah, everybody knows hiring and training somebody new is more of a headache than taking

someone that was doing a decent job before. And also to this point, Kevin, Kevin knows that he's really lucked out here, so he starts towing the party line a little. But he's like, I'm really excited to be back at HASS, but like, you did not feel that way literally two months, like a month ago. But okay, this is an endearing story. It's endearing, and he's such a character that it's sort of like this is the most bizarre things. So so I won't go into fully Kevin's two season, but Hass

already people are excited. They have this awful car. In one they basically didn't develop their car. They said, we're gonna put all of our money and efforts into our new regulation car. So everyone's waiting with bated breath to see how the new Hoss car is. They've they've built this up for over a year now, and they basically took all of the eural Collie Russian money and then got to spend it on developing a car and then

dropped both the sponsor and the driver. This is such a great story because there's not a lot of positive that comes out of Russia invading Ukraine, and this is one of those little field good sports stories that's like, oh good, someone got a second chance exactly. And then on top of that, we get to the first race in ball Rain, Kevin Magnuson and a hoss who again they score a single point. He ends up in P five. Can come back today. I cannot believe it. Thanks, thanks,

thank you, fuck guys company. This you see Kevin's wife and he has an infant daughter. Came and his wife obviously has seen him through everything. It's just also losing her mind. His daughter is just like smiling because she doesn't know what to do when she's a baby, but she's just like everyone is so excited. He scored points and three of the first four races, which was something that House has not done in two years, so it was it was very much he Oh my gosh, is

this a comeback? Is the team doing better? Is this like, you know, are we going to have them back? Competing for fifth place? Is very solid midfield team, especially now that we've had these massive regulations changes that have shaken everything up. Well, not really. As the season has gone on, there's been a lot more unreliability. We've had a lot

more more drama going on. Uh and it's yeah, it hasn't exactly gone as as nicely as I think a lot of people predicted with that fifth place finish mechanical problems affecting the hass I don't even miss it. Sorry bad, you're on it. It's been kind of downhill since then. It's okay, mag is back and we got this other driver. You might recall that all the way back in episode one, we're discussing the sport of Formula one. I asked you when you knew about Formula one, Michael, what do you

know about Formula one racing? And the only thing you could tell me was there's this Michael Schumacher guy who was a big fucking deal and he's super rich. And that was about it. That was that was I think that was. That was only it. That was the only name I knew. And we come full circle things, We're back full circle. Yeah, to the other Schumacher. We have to talk about his son, Mick. Oh my gosh, unbelievable.

We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back almost as quick as Nikita Masipan's Formula one career, so so Mick Schumacher. It's interesting because Michael Schumacher came from humble beginnings. That's a huge part of his story. He used to work on his own carding cars and kind of worked his way up. Mick obviously is in a very different boat, having one of the most famous fathers in the world. From an athletic perspective, I would advise him to not get into racing, but I think

we're too late on that. So Nick is He's only in his early twenties, and I think the only real big thing to know about Mick, or that I think contextualizes him, this is a guy who has spent his entire life with the weight of his father's legacy on his shoulders. And to make matters worse, champion auto racer Michael Schumacher is fighting for his life tonight after a skiing accident yesterday in the French Alps, and has been kind of not seen by the public since we don't

really know his health status. We just know it's very not good. Holy sh it, I forgot about yeah, And if all of that wasn't bad enough, Mick was there when the freak ski accident happened. So on top of the fact that his dad is his hero, his role model,

he's used these words to describe him. His AD's not doing well health wise, or he's just not as you know, someone's going I don't know as I mean, Yeah, basically we don't know he's been photographed or he hasnt been seen outside of his like Swiss compound in a decade. We have no idea. Holy sh it, that's nuts. So no one knows the full story. But way back when before all of that, Mick decides very early on that he he does like racing. He's been obviously been around

race cars in the race garage his entire life. He starts carding around eight or nine years old in the late two thousands, and he actually originally drove under his mother, Karinna's maiden name Betch. They were trying to not give as much attention to him. He's a kid smart yeah, um. And and he's still very close with his mother actually,

which is really sweet. Um. Yeah. And the funny thing about this whole like racing under his mom's like everyone's aware this is like Michael Schumacher's son, but it's like it's like the worst kept secret, and eventually, like the local press does start covering that Michael Schumacher's son under this other name is like carding. I get it, and I think it shows some intelligence and awareness of their situation.

Yeah it's a weird one. Yeah, So like he wants to cart, they know he's under a lot of pressure. Everyone's already paying attention. Uh. He proceeds to eventually work his way into the junior formula categories. I will say there's a similar pattern that emerges, which is that Nick takes a little time to warm up. So if you look through his racing results over the years, his first seasons are usually typically kind of mediocre, not horrifically bad,

but like not anything to write home about. And then he kind of comes alive more in his second season with a lot of teams and a lot of these these categories. So he never really quite hits the ground running.

He's pretty private, very quiet, and if you listen to him in interviews, he's very careful with his words, so he takes he'll he'll take the pause before answering a question, or he'll kind of think, think before he spends like someone who's grown up around media, someone around media has also seen what it can do when you give too much to people. So he's never mean or anything like that. And he he's actually said he actually looks forward to

doing the press. During an interview he did with F one as a podcast beyond the Grid, he had said he's like, no, I look forward to every part of F one, including you know, the media, the fans. You know, he's really excited about all of it, which is nice. But he he is very careful. He is a big thing that he took away from his dad, and he's talked about this is he is nice to everyone on the team and he never gives anyone a reason to say something bad about him. Families somewhere there in ten

eleven twelve, you can give him away. Mick Schumacher and his race engineer Gary become almost a meme. Like there are YouTube videos of like all these cute radio interactions between Gary and Mick. So you have like Nikita yelling at people in the radio juxtaposed with Mick, Mick and Gary. You know, Gary will be like, Nick, great job, you

really tried hard. Good job, Mick, very tricky race. Your pace was excellent there in that last stint associate soon Again, he's very clear that his dad instilled this in him, that you have to, you know, make sure you treat everyone with respect in the garage and that that's that's a key part of if you're going to be a race car driver. Seems also like a smart move considering they're making the car you drive. You don't want people

to hate you exactly. Really sweet guy who's trying very hard not to not to rock the boat, not to give anyone a reason to be upset with him. Um but yeah, so so I guess on the racing front, Yeah, it's been a little bit dice here for mick. Uh. He was in sort of an interesting position last year. It's rare the you of teams take on two rookies at the same time, because rookies, was we've discussed, can

be messy and not do what you want. So Nikita, he's spinning constantly, he's crashing, he's blaming everyone, he's yelling on the radio. His dad's always in the garage yelling at everyone, etcetera, etcetera. Um Nick also has his struggles, right, he does. He does push to trying to get into Q two. He he almost gets into the points in a couple of wacky races where a ton of drivers are taken out and and he does have these a couple of moments of brilliance. At this time has got

slightly ahead going into turn four. He's trying to hang it out around the house. Just slam that door on it. What's interesting about two is all of a sudden, Nikita,

who everyone universally despises, is gone. And not only that, he gets a veteran experienced teammate who is specifically experienced on this team, who's older than him, and you know, starts off the whole, you know, the whole shebang with this iconic, amazing comeback you know storyline from from race one, so completely the different situations than last year, and he's trying to figure out I think, okay, crap, you know, last year is easy to be better than like the

worst guy who should not have been on the grid. Now I have a guy who has not only been on on the Formula one grid a lot, but is also known for elp getting elbows out, being a little bit diceier at times, and has no problem sort of establishing and asserting his dominance. I think when you have the situation where there's a driver who's doing better, it kind of it puts that negative light on someone like

Mike Schumacher. That's Elizabeth Blackstock again, and I think Schumacher is kind of in a very negative place because he can't really win. He doesn't have Formula One experience aside from this very bad team that's done very poorly um and like, that's that's really hard. How do you know what a good car is when you've actually never driven one. Whereas Magnusson has been in Formula one for a very long time. He's driven good cars, he's driven bad cars.

He's done really well with HOSS, and he's also done really poorly with HOSS. Uh. So it kind of you've got this person who knows how to combat kind of a bad car, and then you've got Mick Schumacher who doesn't have that experience and doesn't have that on his resume. So it kind of is making him look I don't want to stay incompetent, but he just doesn't look like the prodigy I think people were expecting him to be

when he came into Formula One. What Mick Schumacher has going for him with his name is that people will give him a little more time, a little more time, he gets a little more personal sponsorship, and he's also been smart and been nice to everyone. So on top of the fact that the name helps, like, Okay, he's a Schumach, he's a nice Schumacher. We want to help

a nice Schumacher. Yes, let's making Kevin probably I think, like I said, a chaotic pairing, but not because they're chaotic to each other, but just very different ways of getting into F one and Kevin's case coming back to F one. So if you want to root for a team that cannot go downhill anymore, that cannot get any worse, that can own we go up hill from here, you go for the Hoss Formula one team. I love me

some back markers. If you are three laps down, you probably have a little piece of my heart, you know. I think Elizabeth makes a great point here. That was Atlanta's king again in twenty nineteen. They scored twenty eight points and then we're like, yeah, there's no way they're going down from here. They scored three points and you're like, well, there is no way we are going down from there, and then in they scored zero. So they cannot physically

go down any further. If you want someone to root for that, they have the potential two do okay that when they score a point, it is a very big day to celebrate the little things you want to go for the Hoss team. I would throw a couple of bucks on Hoss, you know what I mean. I would throw money on them, way before an Alpine or an Aston Martin or I Actually I like all forro Mayo. So yeah, I mean, this wouldn't be all of my eggs in one basket. But I like this driving duo.

And I like that Kevin has a second chance type five. You gotta be careful of people with second chances. They go hard. Yeah he he, and he already went hard to begin with. Yeah, I like I like this team. I like this team. I have never watched in Formula one race. I have not seen five seconds of a Formula one race. I like Kevin mac Maybe when I watched him race, I'll go, oh, this guy's not for me, but uh, I like him, and I'm excited to watch

all these people race. And um, it's not their fault that Williams story gave him, you know, It's not like they have anything to do with that, I don't think, but I think this is this is an interesting team teams. Man, we did all ten before we hear who you're officially picking for for your team and your driver. We're going to actually let you watch At Long Last a Formula One race. You guys, let me go to the bathroom too? Yes, okay,

time to time, time to take a break. No, I mean great, because you can't tell anything until you watch. It's one of those it's it's a it's a catch twenty two and that letting you watch too early you'd be just kind of confused, or maybe would you'd be one of those uh those dads always ask questions like even though they haven't watched, like of the movie, my dad doesn't cost um. So yeah, it's one of those things where I think a lot of stuff wouldn't have

made sense without the context. But now that you know it, it's like, Okay, let's let's actually see these guys go out there and and do something I can't wait to watch for real. And so then after after at Long Last, after all of that, you will finally make your choice. What if after all this I come back and I'm like hung jury. We gotta read it's got to be a clause in your contract against season two. I promised to YOHI to Lily, to Rob and every of our listeners,

I will pick a team to support. I'm gonna need a list of teams and a list of driving Hey, yeah, this is producer Kai here. Just quickly before we before we sign off. Speaking of breaks, I just wanted to tell our listeners that we are going to be taking a little break while we work on our big finale. But stay tuned to the feet anyway, because we're gonna have a little something to tide you over. This has been Choosing Sides F one, a production of Sports Illustrated

Studios and I Heart Radio. The show was hosted by Michael Costa and Lily Harp. This episode was produced by Lily Herman and our senior producer Hi Mi Tao, who also did the sound design at the Cutting Room studios. We are recorded by engineer Robot Larry, the second mastering by Cello Wise Blue. Max Miller is the executive producer and Brannan get Us his head of Audio at s

I Studios. At I Heart Radio, Sean Titone is our executive producer For more podcasts for My heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts were Wherever you get your podcasts, don't forget to subscribe to us and leave a review. And if you want more F one goodness, follow us on Instagram at Choosing Sides F one