Williams - The Episode Michael's Been Waiting For

or some sort of Big four sports reference here. They are one of the worst teams on the grid currently but have one of the most like die hard biggest fan bases. Are the Mets a good equivalent. I don't know, yeah, probably, sorry, I'm sorry my dad who's a Mets fans, But Williams used to be very yes, and the Mets too, So yeah, that's fair. Yes, okay, I'm glad I nailed that. I know nothing about the Mets. Apologies to any Mets fans who are extremely mad at me now, but so so yes.

So Williams currently one of the worst teams on the grid, however also one of the most historic, also the one of the winning ist throughout their their time in Formula one. What's really fascinating about Williams. That will get into is that they are a pure hardcore Formula one only team. We've got that sort of chip on their shoulder going on. We've got a team founder who was so singularly focused on this team that he sort of neglected every other part of his life. And yeah, and we've got a

lot of history. So today on Choosing Sides of One, we are diving into Williams. Finally. I know this is a big, a big, big moment for you from I Heart Radio and Sports Illustrated Studios. This is Choosing Sides one. Wow, Michael. We've talked about how you know teams like Mercedes are on the grid partially because they are a large scale car manufacturer. Aston Martin obviously has a car brand attached,

you know, Red Bull, not a car manufacturer. But you get what they are trying to sell you, and that is touring filled energy drinks. I will never live down the fact that we know what is what what equatoring is at this point Alpha Tawy. They sell you clothing. Williams is not is not here for anything else. They are they are just here for the F one fund.

So Williams at the center of Williams is its namesake, Sir Frank Williams, he is knighted, he is British, and Sir Frank Williams started off having a very very brief racing career as a as a driver and pretty quickly realized he was just not cut out for the driving lifestyle. Though he loved cars, he loved racing, but he he found that his strengths would be better suited to build and manage a team rather than be the one in the car. So he found what's called Frank Williams Racing Cars.

He started. He actually bought a Formula one car from another team and I told them, now, I'm just going to use this in retrofit it for a different racing series and then you like put a driver in it to drive an F one, which no doubt piste off the the other teams leadership for very obvious reasons. And at that the time you know, he had it was small, it was obviously a very scrappy outfit and had a

bunch of different struggles. On top of that, a major tragedy at the time was that one of Frank williams good friends, Piers Courage, very fun name not as good as Scott speed but solid, but unfortunately Pierce Courage he was kind of the driver for version one Williams team. He dies in one of the cars in nineteen seventy, so that is is obviously sad Frank Williams. After this point we kind of talked about this a little bit with Enzo Ferrari. He does start to distance himself a

little bit, trying to draw that compare us. And also, I love any story like this, not where someone's dead, obviously, but it never just happens right away. This success everyone who's listening that millions of people. It's effort, it's years, it's time. Yeah, so obviously, yeah, like tragedy occurs, all these other things happen, and the team is always kind of struggling, like it's it's it's not really taking off. And so by around nine or you know, six seven

years later, uh, they need money. Well, Frank Williams always a need of money is like the ongoing theme here, and so he partners with a Canadian billionaire named Walter Wolf, who ends up owning a sixty stake in Frank Williams adventure And what does he do with that? Replace Frank Williams as the head of the team by the end of the season, a wolf in sheep's clothing. Yes, cut that up. Yeah, okay, thanks for that. So that sucks.

So Sir Frank Williams starts Williams ten years or so, Grinds does his best, has needs money, so gives Walter Wolf a majority steak and Walter Wolf cuts his ass. Yes dirty, also real like l O l j K moment. So Frank and a young engineer from his original team, this guy Patrick Head. They're like, if it, we're going to create another another team, like it's gonna be us great And so that actually starts yet the Williams that we know today. So yeah, this is the late seventies.

They immediately get the reputation for being very scrappy, very low blow budget and because they don't have the money, very innovative because they have to find wacky, weird ways to stretch their budget to make things work. It was this sort of shoes string inventive innovative operation. This is Williams super fan bird Pinkerton. They would be doing these wild cookie hijinks essentially to their car, like trying new aerodynamic things, like in some ways the cars that we

have today. Oh a lot to the like experimentation and just surprising ideas of sort of Williams of old. They have nothing else going for them. They have nothing to lose, you know, they're not sitting upon billions and billions of dollars. So they kind of used that to play around with it, and it actually starts working out for them. I'm punching through. It's Clay Riggat Serny taking the lead. That's incredible. It's the too saudio Williams Cars first corner. Williams Car wins

its first ever Grand Prix in nineteen seventy nine. Another great thing happened in nineteen seventy nine, Michael Costa was born. I think this was meant to be you and Williams, your birth through the birth of my mother's canal. Okay, uh so, so Williams is now one its first nineteen seventy nine, roughly ten years since they started in a lot of different adversity and a death and firing and a new company. Okay, well, so they just start killing

it in the eighties. They win the nineteen eighty World Championship. This sets off. I think it's seventeen or eighteen years of on and off Williams is picking up everything right there, constantly in the hunt for race wins, for you know, for the championship, for on both the constructor and the driver's side. So this is all going on up. This is Sir Frank Williams's professional life. It's it's very well known and it's been documented that he was very singularly

focused on his F one team. We have a certain way, a modus operan by a way of operating, and that is a fairly informal manner, but it does achieve under these very difficult conditions, very long hours, does achieve the right results, and that's how I operate. His wife, Virginia Williams, talks about like she gave him eight pounds to go buy groceries and he came back with spark plugs instead.

Or I think on his wedding day as well, he was like, I'm going to the racetrack directly after getting married. He never went on any family holidays because he was so obsessed with the team. What's interesting to me already about this is that I would have assumed Sir Frank Williams and Williams with its racing. I would have a lot of money, you know, I just always said everybody has a lot of money. But it sounds like they

kind of had a reputation as being scrappy. And you know, this is Formula one, so even low budget is high budget for me and you. But it doesn't sound like it was one of this unlimitedly funded teams. Yeah, and and they obviously went through phases of better funding than other times, and especially as we know, you know, the better you card does, the easier it is to get sponsors or to get you know, to get more money

from f one. The other thing, Williams had a lot of took a lot of pride, and the fact that his stuff was was mostly you know, as much as they could build all their own stuff, they did, which considering the fact that again they are not like a major car manufacturer, they don't have some other kind of

business elsewhere, you know, is pretty remarkable. It was this project of one man and his and his colleagues and they're just like law of and devotion for this specific sport and everything that it could be and everything that it could mean. And so I think, yes, like they're at the back of the pack now, they're not where they used to be, but it's there because it loves racing and I love it dearly for that. What is Frank Williams? What I mean, what's the money? What is

their okay? So I'll give some just some quick stats here. So between nine and seven, Williams won nine constructors titles and seven drivers titles, and so Williams was in the hunt for for a lot of the titles and the glory and all of that. So obviously the royal family finally says, hey, he's done enough for us to say that he's very impressive. And they were still when he got knighted, you know, at this at this real pinnacle of motorsport. So he was knighted because of Formula one. Yes,

he was knighted. My impression was like this this night, you know, came in and it was like I want to start a form in the one team. No, it was it was the Formula one that created the nighting. Yes, and he was knighted in So this was again really when the team was still very much at the pinnacle. So it makes sense that they were like, oh, their kid, they've been killing it for two decades. Let's let's hand this guy something. So what was it like on it?

I mean, this is if he's obsessed with formula one these poor kids, yes, and no, I mean I don't. I don't want to psychoanalyze the individual kids. However, one of his kids, one of his kids, Claire, actually does start getting involved in the organization. She ends up working up the leadership track, doing a lot with marketing and communications for the team. And we'll talk about in a bit, but she does summit to kind of this leadership role on the team by by the end of her tenure.

So unfortunately, Williams does start running into a mix of some money trouble, some leadership executive team trouble, and some inconsistencies with its cars as we enter at the two thousand's.

You know, so if you look, if you just look at their racing stats here here, it's like some years are great, some years are bad, and it's kind of you know, again, there's nuanced reasons for all these individual examples why, but it's sort of isn't quite what it was in this kind of dominating fashion in the eighties and nineties, and uh, something that starts to happen because money is king in cash is king and anything, but especially in Formula one. Um to relate this to our

discussion of Land Stroll and Daddy Stroll. When we're discussing Aston Martin, the team Williams has to start forming an increasing reliance on pay drivers and these sort of sketchier, weird sponsorship deals or other deals to to keep the operation afloat. So Williams does start to again, very slowly over many years, get a little bit of a reputation for having one, if not more drivers who you're kind of like, Okay, are they really like a merit pick? Yeah?

That sucks. That sucks, and I'm sure that's not their first choice, but it is what it is. But as I said, yeah, they continue to have a mix of some solid years, some bad years over the next twenty years. Frank basically maintains the role of team principle, even though he's less active in it. Claire is the one who kind of she's a deputy team principle, but it's kind of running the show here, and she's obviously one of

the only women that high. Yeah, she's a very visible woman in the paddock, and and you know it is probably the highest ranking amongst the teams at that point. So that's where where Claire comes in. Let me show you actually sir Frank and Claire. Um. So you'll notice so Frank Williams got into a car accident not while racing in six and so he actually became a tetraplegic. So you'll see him in a wheelchair six. He got in the car accident, and the teams still continued to

to thrive. Y god, that is a lot of adversity. That would be a good time to say, let me rethink about my I mean that that's unbelievable. There's a lot of stories in Formula one of like of there's a lot of adversity that happens. There's a lot of dark ships and it's like, yeah, it's it's kind of depressing. But also I wouldn't say funny, but it is a depressing that everyone's like, yes, they really got got going after their like five friends died in car accident, Like,

oh my god. Yeah, they live, they live high speed, they do high speed, and when you crash at high speed, there's a lot of there's a lot of problems. Yea. So here's him and then there's a photo. He's in a he's in a wheelchair and a lot of a lot of later photos. Yeah, that is sir Frank Williams. Even his wheelchair looks fast, you know. And that's his daughter Claire and they're both smiling. They're looking at some results. Cool. I love it. You know, it's a win win. She

gets to spend some time with dad. He's at the garage anyways, and sounds like she's climbing up the ranks. And let's go Formula one. Let's get everybody involved in this sport. Yeah, there we go. So, you know, it is a weird team in the sense that it is it is still very much centered on a singular man, right, like Frank Williams at the center of everything. There's something

really appealing about this young, scrappy team. That's just they just really love racing and they love Formula one racing, and that that also builds them a really die hard fan base. Early on money, but gets money, they get momentum. Even after Frank's accident and subsequent disability, they continue to win more and more for over a decade after that. So it's amazing and there's something very attractive about a small, scrappy group that's like, we're here to race. Yeah, that's it.

We're not promoting our energy drink, We're not trying to get you to buy our street cars. We're here to race. Yeah, they're pretty hardcore. There's like a there's a there's almost like a purity to it. Well, what's that I'm now paralyzed through a car accident. We're still here to race and we're still gonna kick your ass exactly. And that's

what they do. And they're also a very British team through it all sensing that, Yeah, they give you her I mean, he's a night right, So yeah, they're British there, you know, leaderships British, the founders British, everything's based in in Britain. So how does the car even look British? You know, mean because they all look the same, but it just the colors, the cut, I don't know, it's just it screams British to me. It's very dignified and refined in a way that the Brits like to be. Yeah,

but also you know, we talked about Aston Martin. It didn't scream British to me, even though that's a British brand. Something about Williams. So we're gonna skip ahead to the end of the tens again. There's some really inconsistency in

the twenty Tents. There's some years where you've got drivers finishing P four, P five in the championship standings, and you've got years where they are completely like a rock sinking to the bottom of a pond, like just completely every everything's aft, and they reach a real low point though they finished in last place in the standings, in the entire season goes by and they only earn a single point to yeah, so really not good, and then they finished with zero points. So there, Oh, Claire, it's

been a tough few months. But actually, in reality, it's probably been a tough fee is if we're honest. So things are looking mighty fft at this point, and you know, Williams again has a lot of pride in the fact that they are this family team, their family oriented, they build everything themselves, and over the years they started to kind of let up on that that whole ethos. But you know, by the end of the twenty Tents, they

have to admit that things are looking really bad. If they want the team to survive in any form, they're going to have to sell at least some stake of it, or maybe the whole thing. So the Williams family sells the team to a private equity firm called Dorleton Capital, office is very close to here in New York. You wanted to peruse. Yeah, they sound like Darth Vader. Yeah, I know. Anytime like private equick gets involved, it's like, yeah, how it starts playing. So Frank and Claire end up

leaving the team. This is a hard, hard business. I've given it my owl, and I've done that because I've wanted to protect my Emilie's legacy in this sport. I've done it because I'm my dad's daughter and I felt almost it was my duty to do it. However, they do make a deal with the new owners, like can you keep the name because you know the legacy of the name. So they agree to so it's still Williams Racing, despite the fact that the Williams family is not legally

on paper involved anymore. That's a big loss, Yeah, enormous, enormous loss. People are obviously really upset. There's a lot of retrospectives and then the following years. In November one, Frank Williams passes away at the age. Of course he does, because this was his life. It was his life, and he was older and and probably had some health stuff going on, but he but it doesn't it doesn't help, doesn't help. So yeah, so Frank passes away, the team

obviously dedicates a race to him. There's a there's a one minute moment of silence on the grid for this hero, Sir Frank Williams in the sport so definitely left his mark. Um okay, so Doralton, cap it all takes over. Williams keeps the name. What happens a good question? So rolls around.

You know, Mercedes out here fighting for their eighth constructors in World title in as many years, you know, Red Bulls trying to beat them, and then you have Williams like we just want to score a point, where like we just want our drivers to get out of Q one and qualifying, like completely different set of standards here. And yes, so George Russell still on the team at this point and they get some lucky breaks. So we

talked about with espon Ocon. He won his his first Grand Prix in this very bizarre Hungarian Grand Prix where it was like, yeah, like bowling pins being knocked down at the start in the rain. So in that same race, the two Williams drivers, George Russell and Nicholas Latifi, somehow dodge all of this madness because they're at the back of the grid. Yes guys, yes, yes, yes, and end up being able to come in and both score points in this race. So it's the team's first points in

literal years. It's absolutely fantastic both causing the points. We could not have expected that. Thank you so much, great job. The entire team lost their goddamn minds like it was life changing. They were so excited and like George Russell was crying, there was because he knew what it meant. Four years of this team striving and working and trying for something, everything just means so much more to them. And what's not to love about watching a team claw

their way back from a pit. It's a joy, quick break and we'll be back. So this year it's been a little bit tougher for Williams, but I mean new regulations. They were barely barely keeping afloat with the old ones, so it's definitely gonna be an adjustment period. They may have to find some new some new motivation or some

new leadership that's going to work for them. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to call any multi bazillion dollar motorsports operation a mom and pop shot, but it is a mom pop shot being overtaken by drivate equity, which is, you know, Americans will understand a little bit about that. All right. Well, I probably am leaning towards liking the old Williams as opposed to Dorleton Capital. But but it's good to have all this information there you go. Yeah,

let's talk about drivers. I love George Russell, but he doesn't race for Williams anymore. He does not, I will say, he was replaced with a driver who who I think embodies a lot of the ethos at Williams. So this driver, YOHI suggested a tagline of the driver with nine Lives, which I think does does really have some merit to it. So first driver we're talking about is Alex Alban Hi Alex. Hello to Alex, his family, I will say, off the bat, they have a bijillion pets. I follow their pets Instagram.

It is a delightful corner of the internet. You know. Sometimes I see these accounts of like a pet of a famous person. And I think, who in God's name follows these accounts? Me? I follow all of them? Do I also follow Louis's dog Roscoe's account? Yes? I do so. Alex's dad was a British racing driver, albeit in a completely different series. And then his mother is actually Tie and so Alex is British. Sound you know? He has a British accent. He's lived in Britain for most of

his life. He chooses to race under the Taie flag in motorsports. No ship, Yeah cool, he's respecting of his mom's nationality. Yes, much love, exactly exactly. So tragedy does strike for Alex. In two thousand eight, his mom gets arrested and yeah, gets arrested and incarcerated for fraud. She ran a ten million a nearly ten million dollar car scam. What is up with these with these stories? A car scam? Yes, kind of a Ponzi scheme of buying and selling and

promising certain things to investors. YadA, YadA, YadA. She she gets caught and and incarcerated for this, and she is sentenced to six years and is released about three years later. Uh. And if you look at and Alex has talked about this only a tiny bit. He really doesn't like for obvious reasons to discuss it. But if you look at his racing history, he struggles during this time period where understandably he has a parent who's incarcerated, which would affect

any very young person. Yeah for sure, Yeah, for sure. So Alex has a hard time, and he's got several siblings, they've got all these pets. Like, there's just a lot going on in his personal life is a long and short of it, and his parents are divorced. So anyway, a lot a lot going on for a young guy who's then also trying to compete in this high speed, high stakes sports. His parents are divorced, divorced, and he chooses his mom's flag. Yes, there's a little something. Yeah.

So he begins karting at the age of eight, makes his way through the junior formulas. He wins things. I mean, all these guys for the most part win things. You know, does well. Uh. The other big thing that I think definds a lot of his racing, given that he's racing off in Britain at this point, is he's constantly competing against Lando Orris, George Russell, those names kind of constantly come up in his career. I mean, they're they're dominating

over there. So they are good friends, they've known each other for forever, and he does those struggle to distinguish himself given that there is such a stacked group. Some years the class is stronger and you just don't know, yeah, exactly, and as we know, it's there's a lot of luck that goes into it. Yeah, for sure. For sure. What I find most interesting about Alex speaking of like nine lives and just like things weirdly working out or not

working out. Alex wasn't originally supposed to end up in Formula one. You know, when you get to Formula too, you're kind of you know, yes, you want to get to F one, but you have to look at your other options. A lot of these guys are talking a different motorsports series obviously, have talked to US sponsors, teams, team principles, There's all this stuff going on. It's that that's just the pace of Formula two. So he actually ends up signing a contract to race in a series

called Formula E, which is electric race car driving. So you know, Alex has kind of resigned himself that he's going to formulaly he won't get to live out his f one dream. Also, keep in mind he's in the

Red Bull junior program at this point. And then, as we know in Daniel Ricardo surprise announces that he is piecing out of Red Bull, and as you know for many of our other episodes, this is one of those moments where in retrospect we know it was kind of cataclysmic in terms of domino effect on the rest of the grid. They, as we discussed with Alfatari, move up Pierre Ghastly to the old Dana Ricardo spot. But that means, hey, there's a spot open at Toro Rosso all of a sudden.

They didn't really have a good contingency plan for if Daniel left this abruptly. So Alex goes in that into that seat, Alex goes into these ross second second Sea and putting in quotation marks of Rosso. Yes, yes, so here's Alex's twenty nineteen. He is just trying to get his bearings as a rookie on the the this point, the you know, junior team for Red Bull, and as we know, twelve races in, Pierre Ghastly is unceremoniously booted

from the Red Bull seat. So basically, mid season, Alex a rookie on the grid, it gets named to the second Red Bull seat, and immediately he is struggling to keep up with Max. We already know that these cars are are geared towards Max's strength to begin with. It's just awkwards. They don't luckily don't boot him at the end of that season, but by the end of he still hasn't really improved. His race results are really in consistent.

He's nowhere near Max. So at the end of his sophomore season they end up demoting him to a reserve and test driver at Red Bull and he's not on the grid. Yeah. So it's it's obviously similar to Pierre, you know, very humiliating, it's very public. It's just very very depressing. You gotta have thick skin in this sport. Yeah, so Alex. Alex also interestingly has a very small but loyal and die hard fan base around him, and they were pretty vocal during that they wanted to see him

back on the grid. Now, it's pretty obviously Red Bull is not going to put him back in that seat. Off of tow he has already got their stuff going on with you know, Pierre's their golden boy, and Yuki just got there. So they're giving Yuki a fair shake. And and as soon as rumors starts swirling that George Russell is going to be leaving that Williams seat, sure enough Alex comes in announces that he's taking the Williams seat.

And it's very, very exciting. Everyone is super happy. So to speed up to present day, this season, there's a couple of things going on for Alex. So one, as of this recording in the middle of the season, he is twenty six years old, so again a lot of similarity to peire Ghastly, he's he's middle aged by f one stead or entering entering middle age. He's not a young upstart who just entered the grid. He's seen some ship. There's just a lot of ongoing long term question marks

for Alex as to where where does he go? Uh. Some other things about Alex this season. Yet he has scored some valuable points thus far at Williams. At the start of the season. Something very funny so for one of the the first race he scored, points out his hair was actually dyed. This very artificial looking red color. I'll show you a picture in a second. It was

due to some some charity thing that he did. Surreal, I'm getting my hair dyed in a temple with a cat of my lad and with so he scored points. And then the next race he did not you know, he had he had washed it out as a dye faded away. We finished the eleventh Innimulus, so he started to affect the performance. So he re dyed his hair for the Miami Grand Prix and because he was so superstitious,

and he got points points. So now the running jokes like he's gonna look like Archie from Riverdale with like the super unnatural dyed hair because now he's superstitious. He says, it also makes him look like when he you know, he obviously sweating and all of that. He's like it looks like a murder scene whenever he takes his and his like his you know, butck clave and everything is like white. So it's just like this red, bloody looking mess. And it's just hair dye that is very crappy, temporary,

like drug store hair dye. So uh yeah, so that's here. I'll show you a picture of Alex here. This is both alex um with his normal hair, and then Alex said the Miami Grand Prix with his red hair. Oh yeah, looks like you know still to me, young kid, he's got nice normal hair, smiling on the right, he looks insane with the red hair. He looks like a little delusional and he's doing a thumbs up. Yeah, you know, maybe the red hair gives him some freedom, makes him

feel alive. It makes him feel alive or something. But he's very he's got a very wholesome face. I would say. Here he uh yeah, he just looks like a like a happy guy. Yeah. We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back. So the other side of the garage we have Alex on one who's our other driver. So we have got Nicholas Latifi. YOHI has named Nicholas Latifi the straggler. Straggler, which is just the word stragglers serie define straggler thinking thinking is it a real word?

It is a person in a group who becomes separated from the others, typically because of and this is the death of formula one moving more slowly. Oh that is dirty. Your what a dick nickname? So Nicholas Latifi is the second of our two Canadian page Driver that these fucking Canadians are just not winners. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to Canada right now. It's a great country, it's a great people. Kind the only thing they win at is hockey, that is true, alright, Sorry, I just had

to do that for growing up in Michigan. It was just there was so much Canada, you know, and there They are great people, their services are great. But there's just there's something about this American capitalistic strive to be number one, which I do appreciate, even though we treat poor people and all people like ship. Okay, let's keep going. So yeah, so Nicholas's dad, just to differentiate, he's a billionaire but in the food business. Yeah. So anyway, that's

just that's just that. So Nicholas Latifi basically nick So speaking of the whole idea of a straggler, Nicholas whole Nickie's whole story comes down to this idea that because his dad has so much money, he can almost outlast anyone else and kind of improve over an even more extended period of time than the average of one driver, just because he has the money to do so, so he actually, as we've talked about, a lot of people get their starting krding at the age of you know,

negative five, they're still in the womb and already carding kind of thing, right, we got people starting at three four five competitive carding by like six seven eight. We've heard the story nausea at this point, Nicholas starts carding at the super late age of thirteen. What Yeah, he's

thirteen years old when he starts his journey. Journey at that point, you and other these other guys are already in like open wheel seaters, are about to be an open wheel seaters, and he's just getting started in competitive carding. But because his dad has all this money, again, he's able to race. We've talked about this, how in these junior formula categories you spend maybe one to two years in any given series. Nicholas spends a lot more time

than other people. So, for example, he's in Formula two for four years, and obviously he gets better and better as he goes along. Because he has the time, he can outlast a lot of the competition just from a financial exactly exactly. So we just some more chances because a lot of these kids can't afford to spend half a million dollars on like a Formula two careers. He's just able to last everyone on that front. Let me interject for a second. Ask you a question. I'm a

huge tennis person. I probably said that every episode previously on Choosing Sides. Well, are you a tennis fan, Lily, Yes, for the sake of m yes, anybody else at tennis, I love tennis. No one's ever died playing competitive tennis. Tennis has these guys who are so good so young. I mean, as a guy who was numbered six on his collegiate tennis team, he dumps his champagne in it and then drinks out of it. I want some tennis

players to do that. In tennis, you have these kids whose parents are very wealthy, okay, and they get so many resources coaching, equipment, travel, But at the end of the day, they still have to win the match. Money doesn't win you the match. So are you suggesting that in Formula one money can actually get you to place and be okay? I mean, you still have to win. As we've discussed, there's have to have the skill, there's that super license, right, you still need the points to

get into Formula one. But yeah, it's just um, you know, we look at someone like, let's say in Estemon Okon, who felt a lot of pressure and he's talked about this to be good off the bat because he knew his parents had finite resources and just had to really go after it and had to some natural talent and an ability to other people believed in him, whereas Nicholas Latifi, obviously it's impressive to kind of start out your career in your teens for when other people started, some of

them a decade prior to that. But yeah, he just had time. It's an enormous advantage exactly. And someone like Estevan probably sees Nikki on the garage and just goes, you, you motherfucker. I just have worked so much have more grit than you. Yeah yeah, alright, cool, Sorry for the interjection. Yeah, but no, it's it's true. It's a very weird thing where, yes, these these guys who are paid drivers still have to have a certain level of drive ability, like you can't. Yeah,

I can't. If I if my parents suddenly made billions, they cannot just suddenly put me into Formula one. But at the same time, there's a difference between yeah, a Max verstep and a Charlette Claire and a Nicholas Latifi. I love Nicholas Latif. He's just like a nice guy Bird Pinkerton. Part of what makes me feel like he's such a good, decent guys. He didn't seem to resent George Russell being like everyone's favorite wonder kinned and ever

and being like and then there's La TV. You know, he's worked hard to be there, He's he's trying, and so I think he has to figure out does he want to keep being just that solid, dependable, nice guy who sort of fades away at some point or does he want to become a little meaner, a little a little something different on the track and maybe challenging alban And I think that that's hard because for Albun he needs to like wipe the floor with Latif kind of

and Latifi this is my imagination, but probably doesn't want to be wiped the floor with. Is he the single fastest driver on the grid. No, But he's a really really he just seems like a really really decent, nice human being. We're not talking about me and a nice person. His signature personality trait is that he loves Nutella. Oh and that he's tall. He's six one, so Williams always joke. There's a running joke Williams keeps ending up being one

of the tallest, the tallest team on the grid. So George Russell six six one, Alex Alban six one, and another reason I'm gonna like Williams. There you go. I can probably fit in their car exactly six ft four and a half, though it might be a little bit of stretch for them, but all their drivers are kind of linky and tall. That's that's been the gist. So he does. He does fit the kind of nice, wholesome

persona that Williams how's going for it right now. But to be completely frank, it's sounding like his time in Formula one is going to be coming to an end sooner rather than later. So yeah, he's got to really put up some resolves to make matters worse for Nicholas Dorlton. Capital has very publicly said, you know, hey, we're now

financially solvent. We don't need these paid driver ry outside sketchy weird resources were good to go on that front, which kind of hints to people of like if if if nick Nicki isn't they said this last season then resigned him. But everyone was kind of like, we can read between those lines. If you're listening, now is the time to put up some results. Unfortunately he has. In the opposite he has been crashing left and right in the other thing too. That's that's kind of interesting about

Nikki on the crashing front. Several of his crashes had very large consequences for the grid. So for instance, when we talked about Max for Steppin's win last year, you know, his first World Championship title, we discussed that the whole reason all of this went down and that Lewis lost his lead and all that is because somebody crashed and caused a safety car to come out. LA has crashed

And I think that is a turn ful scene. That was none other than our guy Nicholas Latifi, who then after the race had to hire security because he was getting death threat. Yeah, yo, hi, I'm envisioning a movie poster, okay, And underneath it says the straggler and he is climbing a mountain, barely hanging on, but the mountain is a jar of nutella. Isn't that good? No? Yo, Hi stopped talking. So this is it. I love this story. You just feel for him, that is, I don't feel for him,

and this is fucking awesome. I mean, he's a rich kid Canadian who sounds like he sucks at driving, keeps crashing fucking up the grid. But the team needs money. It's part of the problem with Formula one. It's so money driven. Now there's a capital group coming in saying, dude, you got one year, get your ship together. This is a great story. I will say too. If if you're trying to find more reasons to like Alex Alban, a reason then to like Nicholas is that he's making Alex

Alban look really good this season. Alex really needs this year to be his breakout year to show you know, I'm back on the Formula one grid. Look how great I am. And you know, as we know, your teammate is your biggest competition. He's trouncing his teammate right now. By the way, we're not talking about Nicholas personally here, we're talking about him as a racer. And this is the reality of it, and it doesn't sounds like if I was him, I would start start getting the suitcase

out of the upstairs called. Yeah, it's probably a Louis Vuitton's suitcase, and he probably has someone pack for him. Possibly. I guarantee his sheets are more comfortable than my sheets, exactly, higher, higher threat counts, definitely. And also at the end of the day, if, if, and when he leaves a sport, he's leaving to go probably living a mansion somewhere in Canada.

So I don't think tears will be shed too much. Well, look, it's probably hard in a lot of ways being Nicholas Latifi, especially when two chumps in NoHo recording studio or talking about him. But I wish I could switch places with him and be in that car and must be fun as hell. And you know afterwards, yeah, I will sleep in my cotton sheets in my mansions and you know what this is what's so awesome about sport, Nicholas Latifi. Here we are talking ship. Here's Doralton Capital saying, dude,

you better pick it up. It's in his power. He can put up great results and everything will change, and I hope that happens. Nicholas. Okay, so we were now through of the grid. We're really getting close. Now, where does I'm actually curious to know worse on the driver's where does Williams factor in for you? I like Williams, You like Williams. I like Williams. I love that Frank Williams got in a life threatening paralyzing car accident and then still was running a championship. I love that. I

love that his daughters involved. And I think it's cool that when Frank and Claire left that they said, you gotta keep this name the same, because as I'm learning all these teams, the teams that have kept their name, you can remember, you can, oh, yeah, that's Ferrari, that's you know, Mclair exactly. But but like the Alpeene used to be there, I don't even know what the hell you're talking about. Like, it's so hard to just fixate on a team when their name changes all the time.

But I don't love Dorlton Capital. I think no, and it doesn't and it's in violation of probably the foundation of the team, which was which is a family enterprise. So final pitch for Alex alban So he's singlehandedly providing a lot of hope for the team, especially after George Russell left a bit of a void when he exited to take up his you know, his rightful spot over at Mercedes. Alex is a really positive guy, really friendly,

a really hard worker. Also, I do root for him because he has to go against the Red Bull organization. I like the Comeback Kids. I think there's there's an argument who made for these kind of especially like the Red Bull Comeback Kids. I wonder if they have like a support group somewhere. I gotta be supportive and root for anyone whose mom has served prison time. I know that's not the highlight of all this, but that is a major difficulty, and I'm sure he's harboring some deep

emotional turmoil that we don't see. Come on, it's your mom. So I I am definitely rooting for him to be successful, and he already is successful, but you know, more more to stick the land, sweet story, the sweet story. Yeah, and then and then it's his final pitch for Nicholas Latifi. And then I wrote to be honest, which is how you know it all goes downhill from there, and then all the all the YOHI added in the comments was what about the new tella? So he has good taste

in hazelnuts spreads. That's really a big plus for Nicholas Latifi. But I have to be honest and say that there's no one here who's really stoked on his future in the sport or who wants to put their eggs in that basket. And speaking of putting eggs in a basket, I mean his dad is a supermarket conglomerate, so he has his pick of which type of eggs in his basket. I like Williams for some reason. They've always resonated with me. It's clear it's a name that I name. You know,

I know, I I like him. I like him. I think Nicholas bye bye, thank you nick lists, and I have every reason to root for Alex. So I would put Williams in my top three right now. So next episode, were moving on to the ninth team on the Grid. We've got Alpha Romeyo my whole life. My father spoke so fondly of one of his first big purchases, which was an Alpha Romeo. I haven't heard about this team yet. Also a team that has been around for a bit.

We talked about them with Ferrari. They're also at an interesting point in their history where they've had trouble making their mark, especially kind of as their own, their own team, their own name. And the hope though, is that this season, with a big driver change they made and also some good car regulation changes that have gone their way, that they're actually going to have a real, a real breakout year. Yeah. So yes, any other thoughts before we wrap up? No,

that's it, I'm I'm that's it. 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 Herp. This episode was produced by Lily Herman and our senior producer Yehai 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 Weisblum. Max Miller is the executive producer and Brennan get Us his head of audio at s I Studios. At I

Heart Radio, Seawan Titone is our executive producer. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts where 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, Rob, do you have any thoughts now that we've heard about Williams. They're not doing it for me. They're cool, but yeah, they don't stand out

until something good happens for them. I think they're just kind of there.