0:05

So today I feel like I need,

0:07

like I don't know, I need, I need inspirational

0:09

music playing because today we're getting

0:11

to a very anticipated

0:13

team, and that is Williams.

0:17

Williams. We got there. And

0:19

why is it just because I've just always it's always

0:21

piqued my interest. It's you know,

0:25

Williams is interesting. They're

0:27

the perfect example of being okay, you would

0:29

make probably a good like NFL or MLB

0:32

or some sort of Big four sports reference here.

0:34

They are one of the worst teams on the grid currently

0:37

but have one of the most like die hard

0:39

biggest fan bases. Are the Mets

0:41

a good equivalent. I don't know, yeah, probably,

0:44

sorry, I'm sorry my dad who's a Mets

0:46

fans, But Williams used to be very yes,

0:49

and the Mets too, So yeah,

0:51

that's fair. Yes, okay, I'm glad I nailed

0:53

that. I know nothing about the Mets. Apologies

0:56

to any Mets fans who are extremely mad

0:58

at me now, but so so yes.

1:00

So Williams currently one of the worst teams

1:02

on the grid, however also one

1:04

of the most historic, also the one of

1:06

the winning ist throughout their their time

1:09

in Formula one. What's really fascinating

1:11

about Williams. That will get into is that they are

1:13

a pure hardcore Formula

1:15

one only team. We've

1:17

got that sort of chip on their shoulder going on.

1:19

We've got a team founder

1:21

who was so singularly focused

1:24

on this team that he sort of neglected every

1:26

other part of his life. And yeah,

1:28

and we've got a lot of history. So today on

1:30

Choosing Sides of One, we are diving into

1:32

Williams. Finally. I know this

1:35

is a big, a big, big moment for you

1:44

from I Heart Radio and Sports Illustrated

1:47

Studios. This is Choosing Sides

1:52

one. Wow,

2:00

Michael. We've talked about

2:02

how you know teams

2:04

like Mercedes are on the grid partially

2:06

because they are a large scale car manufacturer.

2:08

Aston Martin obviously has a

2:10

car brand attached, you know, Red Bull,

2:13

not a car manufacturer. But you get what they are trying

2:15

to sell you, and that is touring

2:17

filled energy drinks. I will

2:19

never live down the fact that we know what is what

2:22

what equatoring is at this point Alpha Tawy.

2:24

They sell you clothing. Williams is

2:27

not is not here for anything else.

2:29

They are they are just here for the F one

2:31

fund. So Williams at

2:33

the center of Williams is its

2:35

namesake, Sir Frank Williams,

2:38

he is knighted, he is British,

2:41

and Sir Frank Williams

2:43

started off having a very very

2:45

brief racing career as a

2:47

as a driver and pretty quickly

2:49

realized he was just not cut out for

2:52

the driving lifestyle. Though he loved cars,

2:54

he loved racing, but he

2:56

he found that his strengths would be better suited

2:59

to build and manage a team rather

3:01

than be the one in the car. So

3:04

he found what's called Frank Williams

3:06

Racing Cars. He started.

3:08

He actually bought a Formula one car from

3:11

another team and I told them, now, I'm just

3:13

going to use this in retrofit it for a different racing series

3:15

and then you like put a driver in it to drive

3:17

an F one, which no doubt piste off the

3:20

the other teams leadership

3:22

for very obvious reasons. And

3:25

at that the time you know, he had it was small,

3:27

it was obviously a very scrappy outfit and

3:30

had a bunch of different struggles. On top of that, a

3:32

major tragedy at the time was that one

3:34

of Frank williams good friends, Piers Courage,

3:37

very fun name not as good as Scott

3:39

speed but solid, but unfortunately

3:41

Pierce Courage he was kind of the driver for

3:44

version one Williams team. He dies

3:46

in one of the cars in nineteen seventy, so

3:50

that is is obviously sad Frank

3:52

Williams. After this point we kind of talked about this a little

3:54

bit with Enzo Ferrari. He does start to distance

3:57

himself a little bit, trying to

3:59

draw that compare us. And also, I love

4:01

any story like this, not where someone's dead, obviously,

4:04

but it never just happens

4:06

right away. This success everyone who's

4:09

listening that millions of people. It's

4:11

effort, it's years, it's time. Yeah,

4:14

so obviously, yeah, like tragedy occurs,

4:16

all these other things happen, and the

4:18

team is always kind of struggling, like it's

4:20

it's it's not really taking off. And so by

4:23

around nine or you know, six

4:26

seven years later, uh,

4:28

they need money. Well, Frank Williams always a need

4:30

of money is like the ongoing theme here, and

4:32

so he partners with a Canadian billionaire named

4:34

Walter Wolf, who ends up owning a sixty

4:37

stake in Frank Williams adventure And

4:39

what does he do with that? Replace Frank Williams

4:41

as the head of the team by the end of the season,

4:44

a wolf in sheep's clothing. Yes,

4:47

cut that up. Yeah, okay,

4:50

thanks for that. So that sucks. So Sir

4:52

Frank Williams starts Williams ten

4:54

years or so, Grinds

4:57

does his best, has needs money,

4:59

so gives Walter Wolf a majority steak

5:01

and Walter Wolf cuts his ass. Yes dirty,

5:04

also real like l O l j K moment. So

5:07

Frank and a young engineer from his original

5:09

team, this guy Patrick Head. They're

5:11

like, if it, we're going to create another another

5:13

team, like it's gonna be us great

5:16

And so that actually starts yet the Williams that we

5:18

know today. So yeah, this

5:20

is the late seventies. They immediately

5:23

get the reputation for being very scrappy,

5:25

very low blow budget and because they don't

5:27

have the money, very innovative because they have to find

5:30

wacky, weird ways to stretch

5:32

their budget to make things work. It

5:34

was this sort of shoes string

5:37

inventive innovative

5:39

operation. This is Williams

5:42

super fan bird Pinkerton. They

5:44

would be doing these wild cookie

5:48

hijinks essentially to their car,

5:50

like trying new aerodynamic

5:52

things, like in some ways the cars

5:55

that we have today.

5:57

Oh a lot to the like experimentation

6:00

and just surprising ideas

6:03

of sort of Williams of old. They have nothing

6:05

else going for them. They have nothing to lose, you

6:08

know, they're not sitting upon billions

6:10

and billions of dollars. So they kind of used that to play

6:12

around with it, and it actually starts

6:14

working out for them. I'm punching through.

6:16

It's Clay Riggat Serny taking the

6:19

lead. That's incredible. It's the too saudio

6:21

Williams Cars first corner.

6:24

Williams Car wins its first ever Grand Prix

6:26

in nineteen seventy nine. Another great thing happened

6:29

in nineteen seventy nine, Michael

6:31

Costa was born. I think this was meant

6:33

to be you and Williams, your

6:35

birth through the birth of my mother's

6:39

canal. Okay,

6:42

uh so,

6:45

so Williams is now one its first

6:47

nineteen seventy nine, roughly ten

6:49

years since they started in a lot of different

6:52

adversity and a death and firing

6:54

and a new company. Okay, well, so they just

6:56

start killing it in the eighties. They win the

6:59

nineteen eighty World Championship. This sets

7:01

off. I think it's seventeen or eighteen years of on and off

7:03

Williams is picking up everything right there,

7:06

constantly in the hunt for race

7:08

wins, for you know, for the championship,

7:11

for on both the constructor and the

7:14

driver's side. So this is all going

7:16

on up. This is Sir Frank Williams's professional

7:18

life. It's it's very well known

7:20

and it's been documented that he was very singularly

7:23

focused on

7:25

his F one team. We have a certain

7:28

way, a modus operan by a way of

7:30

operating, and that is a

7:32

fairly informal manner, but

7:34

it does achieve under these very difficult conditions,

7:37

very long hours, does achieve

7:39

the right results, and that's how I operate. His wife,

7:41

Virginia Williams, talks about like she

7:44

gave him eight

7:46

pounds to go buy

7:48

groceries and he came back with spark plugs

7:51

instead. Or I think on his wedding

7:53

day as well, he was like, I'm going to

7:55

the racetrack directly after

7:57

getting married. He never went on any

8:00

family holidays because

8:02

he was so obsessed with the team.

8:04

What's interesting to me already about this

8:06

is that I would have assumed Sir

8:09

Frank Williams and Williams

8:11

with its racing. I would have a lot of

8:13

money, you know, I just always said everybody has a lot

8:15

of money. But it sounds like they kind of had a

8:17

reputation as being scrappy. And you know,

8:19

this is Formula one, so even low budget is high

8:21

budget for me and you. But it doesn't

8:23

sound like it was one of this unlimitedly

8:25

funded teams. Yeah, and

8:27

and they obviously went through phases of better

8:30

funding than other times, and especially as

8:32

we know, you know, the better you card does, the easier it is to get sponsors

8:34

or to get you know, to get more money

8:36

from f one. The other thing, Williams had a lot

8:38

of took a lot of pride, and the fact that his stuff

8:41

was was mostly you know, as much as they could build all

8:43

their own stuff, they did, which considering the

8:45

fact that again they are not like a major car manufacturer,

8:47

they don't have some other kind of business

8:49

elsewhere, you know, is

8:52

pretty remarkable. It was this project

8:54

of one man and

8:56

his and his colleagues and they're just

8:59

like law of and devotion

9:01

for this specific sport and

9:03

everything that it could be and everything

9:06

that it could mean. And so I think, yes,

9:08

like they're at the back of the pack now,

9:10

they're not where they used to be, but

9:13

it's there because it

9:16

loves racing and

9:18

I love it dearly for

9:20

that. What is Frank

9:23

Williams? What I mean, what's the money? What is

9:25

their okay? So I'll give some just some quick

9:27

stats here. So between nine and

9:30

seven, Williams won nine

9:32

constructors titles and seven drivers

9:34

titles, and so Williams was in the hunt

9:36

for for a lot of the titles and the glory

9:39

and all of that. So obviously the

9:41

royal family finally says, hey, he's done enough

9:43

for us to say that he's very impressive.

9:46

And they were still when he got knighted, you know, at this at this real

9:48

pinnacle of motorsport. So

9:50

he was knighted because of Formula

9:52

one. Yes, he was knighted. My impression

9:55

was like this this night, you

9:57

know, came in and it was like I want to

9:59

start a form in the one team. No, it was it was the Formula

10:01

one that created the nighting. Yes, and he was knighted

10:03

in So this was again really

10:06

when the team was still very much at

10:08

the pinnacle. So it makes sense that they were

10:10

like, oh, their kid, they've been killing it for two

10:12

decades. Let's let's hand this guy something.

10:15

So what was it like on it? I mean, this is if

10:18

he's obsessed with formula one these poor

10:20

kids, yes, and no, I mean

10:22

I don't. I don't want to psychoanalyze the individual

10:25

kids. However, one of his kids, one

10:27

of his kids, Claire, actually does start getting involved

10:29

in the organization. She ends up working up

10:31

the leadership track, doing a lot with marketing

10:33

and communications for the team. And we'll

10:35

talk about in a bit, but she does summit to kind

10:37

of this leadership role on the team by

10:40

by the end of her tenure. So unfortunately,

10:42

Williams does start running into a mix of

10:45

some money trouble, some leadership executive

10:47

team trouble, and some inconsistencies with its

10:49

cars as we enter at the two thousand's.

10:52

You know, so if you look, if you just look at their racing

10:54

stats here here, it's like some years are great, some years

10:56

are bad, and it's kind of you know, again,

10:59

there's nuanced reasons for all these individual examples

11:01

why, but it's sort of isn't quite

11:03

what it was in this kind of dominating fashion

11:07

in the eighties and nineties, and

11:09

uh, something that starts to happen because money

11:12

is king in cash is king and anything,

11:14

but especially in Formula one. Um to

11:17

relate this to our discussion of Land Stroll

11:19

and Daddy Stroll. When we're discussing Aston

11:21

Martin, the team Williams

11:23

has to start forming an increasing reliance

11:26

on pay drivers and these sort of

11:28

sketchier, weird sponsorship

11:30

deals or other deals to to keep the

11:32

operation afloat. So Williams

11:35

does start to again, very slowly over many years,

11:37

get a little bit of a reputation for having

11:40

one, if not more drivers who

11:42

you're kind of like, Okay, are they really like

11:44

a merit pick? Yeah? That sucks.

11:47

That sucks, and I'm sure that's not their first choice,

11:49

but it is what it is. But as I

11:51

said, yeah, they continue to have a mix of some

11:53

solid years, some bad years over

11:56

the next twenty years. Frank basically

11:58

maintains the role

12:00

of team principle, even though he's less active

12:02

in it. Claire is the one who kind

12:04

of she's a deputy team principle, but it's kind of running

12:06

the show here, and she's obviously

12:09

one of the only women that high. Yeah,

12:11

she's a very visible woman in the paddock, and

12:14

and you know it is probably

12:16

the highest ranking amongst the teams

12:18

at that point. So that's where where

12:20

Claire comes in. Let me show you actually

12:22

sir Frank and Claire. Um. So

12:25

you'll notice so Frank Williams

12:27

got into a car accident not while racing

12:29

in six and so he actually

12:33

became a tetraplegic. So you'll see him in a wheelchair

12:36

six. He got in the car accident, and the teams still

12:38

continued to to thrive.

12:41

Y god, that is

12:43

a lot of adversity. That would be a good

12:45

time to say, let me rethink about

12:47

my I mean that that's unbelievable. There's

12:50

a lot of stories in Formula one of like

12:53

of there's a lot of adversity that happens. There's

12:56

a lot of dark ships and

12:58

it's like, yeah, it's it's kind of depressing. But also I wouldn't

13:01

say funny, but it is a depressing that everyone's like, yes,

13:03

they really got got going after their like

13:05

five friends died in car accident, Like,

13:07

oh my god. Yeah, they live, they live

13:10

high speed, they do high speed, and when

13:13

you crash at high speed, there's a lot

13:15

of there's a lot of problems. Yea. So

13:17

here's him and then there's a photo. He's in a he's

13:19

in a wheelchair and a lot of a lot of later

13:22

photos. Yeah, that is sir Frank Williams.

13:24

Even his wheelchair looks fast, you

13:27

know. And that's his daughter

13:29

Claire and they're both smiling.

13:31

They're looking at some results. Cool.

13:34

I love it. You know, it's

13:36

a win win. She gets to spend some time with dad.

13:38

He's at the garage anyways, and sounds

13:41

like she's climbing up the ranks.

13:43

And let's go Formula one. Let's get everybody

13:45

involved in this sport. Yeah, there we go. So,

13:48

you know, it is a weird team in the sense that it is

13:50

it is still very much centered

13:52

on a singular man, right, like Frank Williams

13:54

at the center of everything. There's something

13:56

really appealing about this young, scrappy

13:59

team. That's just they just really love racing

14:01

and they love Formula one racing, and that that also

14:03

builds them a really die hard fan base.

14:05

Early on money, but gets money, they

14:07

get momentum. Even after Frank's

14:10

accident and subsequent disability,

14:13

they continue to win more and more for

14:15

over a decade after that. So it's amazing and

14:18

there's something very attractive about

14:20

a small, scrappy group that's like, we're

14:23

here to race. Yeah, that's it. We're not promoting

14:25

our energy drink, We're not trying to get you to

14:27

buy our street cars. We're here to race.

14:29

Yeah, they're pretty hardcore. There's

14:32

like a there's a there's almost like a purity to it.

14:34

Well, what's that I'm now paralyzed

14:36

through a car accident. We're still here to race

14:39

and we're still gonna kick your ass exactly.

14:41

And that's what they do. And they're

14:43

also a very British team through it all

14:45

sensing that, Yeah, they give you her I

14:47

mean, he's a night right, So

14:50

yeah, they're British there, you know, leaderships

14:53

British, the founders British, everything's based

14:55

in in Britain. So how does the car

14:57

even look British? You know,

15:00

mean because they all look the same, but it just the colors,

15:02

the cut, I don't know, it's just it screams British

15:04

to me. It's very dignified and refined

15:07

in a way that the Brits like to be. Yeah, but

15:09

also you know, we talked about Aston Martin. It

15:11

didn't scream British to me, even

15:14

though that's a British brand. Something about

15:16

Williams. So we're gonna

15:18

skip ahead to the end of the tens

15:21

again. There's some really inconsistency in the twenty

15:23

Tents. There's some years where you've got drivers finishing

15:25

P four, P five in the championship standings, and you've

15:27

got years where they are completely like a rock

15:29

sinking to the bottom of a pond,

15:32

like just completely every

15:34

everything's aft, and they

15:36

reach a real low point though they

15:39

finished in last place in the standings,

15:42

in the entire

15:45

season goes by and they only earn

15:47

a single point to yeah,

15:50

so really not good, and then they finished with zero points.

15:53

So there, Oh, Claire,

15:57

it's been a tough few months. But actually,

16:00

in reality, it's probably been a tough fee is

16:02

if we're honest. So things are looking

16:05

mighty fft at this point, and

16:07

you know, Williams again has a lot of pride

16:09

in the fact that they are this family team,

16:11

their family oriented, they build everything themselves,

16:14

and over the years they started to kind of let up

16:16

on that that whole ethos. But

16:18

you know, by the end of the twenty Tents, they have to admit

16:20

that things are looking really bad. If they want

16:23

the team to survive in any form, they're

16:25

going to have to sell at least some stake of it,

16:27

or maybe the whole thing. So the

16:29

Williams family sells the team to

16:32

a private equity firm called Dorleton Capital,

16:35

office is very close to here in New York.

16:38

You wanted to peruse. Yeah, they sound

16:42

like Darth Vader. Yeah, I know. Anytime

16:44

like private equick gets involved, it's like, yeah,

16:47

how it starts playing. So Frank

16:50

and Claire end up leaving the team.

16:52

This is a hard, hard business. I've

16:54

given it my owl, and I've

16:57

done that because I've wanted to protect

16:59

my Emilie's legacy in this sport. I've

17:01

done it because I'm my dad's daughter

17:04

and I felt almost it was my duty

17:06

to do it. However, they do make

17:08

a deal with the new owners,

17:11

like can you keep the name because you know the legacy of the

17:13

name. So they agree to so it's still Williams Racing,

17:15

despite the fact that the Williams family is not legally

17:18

on paper involved anymore. That's

17:20

a big loss, Yeah,

17:23

enormous, enormous loss. People are obviously really

17:25

upset. There's a lot of retrospectives and

17:28

then the following years. In November one,

17:30

Frank Williams passes away at the age.

17:32

Of course he does,

17:35

because this was his life. It was

17:37

his life, and he was older and and

17:39

probably had some health stuff going on, but

17:42

he but it doesn't

17:44

it doesn't help, doesn't help. So

17:47

yeah, so Frank passes away, the team obviously

17:49

dedicates a race to him. There's a there's a one minute

17:51

moment of silence on the grid for this hero,

17:53

Sir Frank Williams in the sport so

17:56

definitely left his mark. Um

17:58

okay, so Doralton, cap it all

18:00

takes over. Williams keeps

18:03

the name. What happens a good question?

18:05

So rolls

18:07

around. You know, Mercedes out here fighting

18:10

for their eighth constructors

18:12

in World title in as many years, you know, Red

18:15

Bulls trying to beat them, and then you have

18:17

Williams like we just want to score a

18:19

point, where like we just want our drivers

18:21

to get out of Q one and qualifying, like completely

18:23

different set of standards

18:26

here. And yes, so George

18:28

Russell still on the team at this point and

18:30

they get some lucky breaks. So we talked

18:33

about with espon Ocon. He won his his first

18:35

Grand Prix in this very bizarre Hungarian

18:37

Grand Prix where it was like, yeah, like bowling

18:39

pins being knocked down at the start in the rain. So

18:42

in that same race, the two Williams drivers,

18:44

George Russell and Nicholas Latifi, somehow

18:47

dodge all of this madness because they're at the back of

18:49

the grid. Yes guys, yes,

18:52

yes, yes, and end up being able

18:54

to come in and both score points in this

18:56

race. So it's the team's first points in literal

18:58

years. It's absolutely fantastic both

19:01

causing the points. We could

19:03

not have expected that. Thank you so much,

19:05

great job. The entire team

19:07

lost their goddamn minds like it

19:09

was life changing. They were so excited

19:13

and like George Russell was crying,

19:21

there was because he knew what

19:23

it meant. Four years of

19:26

this team striving and working

19:28

and trying for something, everything

19:32

just means so much more

19:34

to them. And what's not to love

19:36

about watching a team

19:39

claw their way back from

19:43

a pit. It's a joy,

19:45

quick break and we'll be back. So

19:49

this year it's been a little bit tougher for Williams, but I

19:51

mean new regulations. They were barely barely

19:54

keeping afloat with the old ones, so it's

19:56

definitely gonna be an adjustment period. They may have

19:58

to find some new some

20:00

new motivation or some new leadership that's

20:02

going to work for them. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to call any

20:05

multi bazillion dollar motorsports

20:08

operation a mom and pop shot, but it is a mom

20:10

pop shot being overtaken by drivate equity, which

20:12

is, you know, Americans will understand a little bit

20:14

about that. All right. Well, I probably

20:16

am leaning towards liking the old Williams

20:19

as opposed to Dorleton Capital.

20:22

But but it's good to have

20:24

all this information there you go. Yeah, let's

20:27

talk about drivers. I love George Russell,

20:29

but he doesn't race for Williams anymore. He

20:32

does not, I will say, he was

20:34

replaced with a driver who who

20:36

I think embodies a lot of the

20:39

ethos at Williams. So this

20:41

driver, YOHI suggested

20:43

a tagline of the driver with nine Lives,

20:46

which I think does does really have some merit

20:49

to it. So first driver we're

20:51

talking about is Alex Alban

20:53

Hi Alex. Hello to Alex,

20:55

his family, I will say, off the bat, they have a bijillion pets.

20:58

I follow their pets Instagram. It is

21:00

a delightful corner of the internet. You know. Sometimes

21:02

I see these accounts of like a

21:04

pet of a famous person. And I think,

21:07

who in God's name follows these accounts?

21:10

Me? I follow all of them? Do I also

21:12

follow Louis's dog Roscoe's account?

21:14

Yes? I do so. Alex's

21:16

dad was a British racing driver, albeit

21:19

in a completely different series. And then his mother

21:21

is actually Tie and

21:23

so Alex is British.

21:25

Sound you know? He has a British accent. He's lived in

21:27

Britain for most of his life. He chooses

21:30

to race under the Taie flag in motorsports.

21:32

No ship, Yeah cool, he's respecting of

21:34

his mom's nationality. Yes, much love, exactly

21:36

exactly. So tragedy does strike for

21:39

Alex. In two thousand eight, his mom

21:42

gets arrested and yeah,

21:44

gets arrested and incarcerated

21:47

for fraud. She ran

21:49

a ten million a nearly ten million

21:51

dollar car scam. What is up

21:53

with these with these stories? A

21:55

car scam? Yes, kind of a Ponzi

21:57

scheme of buying and selling and promising certain things

21:59

to investors. YadA, YadA, YadA.

22:02

She she gets caught and and incarcerated

22:05

for this, and she is sentenced to six years

22:07

and is released about three years later. Uh.

22:09

And if you look at and Alex has talked about

22:12

this only a tiny bit. He really doesn't like for obvious reasons

22:14

to discuss it. But if you look at his racing

22:16

history, he struggles during this time period

22:19

where understandably he has a parent who's

22:21

incarcerated, which would affect any

22:23

very young person. Yeah for sure,

22:25

Yeah, for sure. So Alex has a hard

22:27

time, and he's got several siblings, they've got all these

22:29

pets. Like, there's just a lot going on in his personal life

22:32

is a long and short of it, and his parents are

22:34

divorced. So anyway, a lot a lot going

22:36

on for a young guy who's then also trying to compete

22:38

in this high speed, high stakes sports.

22:40

His parents are divorced, divorced, and he chooses

22:43

his mom's flag. Yes, there's

22:45

a little something. Yeah. So he begins

22:47

karting at the age of eight, makes

22:50

his way through the junior formulas. He wins

22:52

things. I mean, all these guys for the most part win things.

22:54

You know, does well. Uh. The other

22:56

big thing that I think definds a lot of his racing,

22:58

given that he's racing off in Britain at this

23:00

point, is he's constantly competing against

23:03

Lando Orris, George Russell, those names kind

23:05

of constantly come up in his career. I

23:07

mean, they're they're dominating over there. So

23:10

they are good friends, they've known each other for forever,

23:12

and he does those struggle to distinguish

23:14

himself given that there is such a stacked group.

23:17

Some years the class is stronger and you just don't

23:19

know, yeah, exactly, and as we know, it's there's a lot of luck

23:21

that goes into it. Yeah, for sure. For sure.

23:23

What I find most interesting about Alex speaking of like nine

23:26

lives and just like things weirdly

23:28

working out or not working out. Alex wasn't originally

23:30

supposed to end up in Formula one.

23:33

You know, when you get to Formula too, you're

23:35

kind of you know, yes, you want to get to F one, but you have to

23:37

look at your other options. A lot of these guys are talking a

23:39

different motorsports series obviously, have talked to US

23:41

sponsors, teams, team principles,

23:44

There's all this stuff going on. It's that that's just

23:46

the pace of Formula two. So he

23:48

actually ends up signing a contract to race in

23:50

a series called Formula E, which

23:52

is electric race car

23:54

driving. So you know, Alex has kind of

23:56

resigned himself that he's going to formulaly he won't get

23:58

to live out his f one dream. Also,

24:01

keep in mind he's in the Red Bull junior program

24:03

at this point. And then,

24:05

as we know in Daniel

24:08

Ricardo surprise announces that he

24:10

is piecing out of Red Bull, and

24:12

as you know for many of our other episodes, this is one of those

24:14

moments where in retrospect we know it was kind of cataclysmic

24:17

in terms of domino effect on

24:19

the rest of the grid. They, as we discussed

24:22

with Alfatari, move up Pierre Ghastly to the old

24:24

Dana Ricardo spot. But that means, hey, there's

24:26

a spot open at Toro Rosso all of a sudden.

24:28

They didn't really have a good contingency plan for if Daniel

24:31

left this abruptly. So

24:33

Alex goes in that into that seat, Alex

24:35

goes into these ross second second

24:37

Sea and putting in quotation marks of Rosso.

24:40

Yes, yes, so here's Alex's twenty

24:42

nineteen. He is just trying to get his bearings as a

24:44

rookie on the the

24:46

this point, the you know, junior team for

24:48

Red Bull, and as we know, twelve races

24:52

in, Pierre Ghastly is unceremoniously

24:54

booted from the Red Bull seat. So

24:57

basically, mid season, Alex a rookie

24:59

on the grid, it gets named to the second

25:02

Red Bull seat, and

25:04

immediately he is struggling to keep up with Max.

25:06

We already know that these cars are are geared

25:08

towards Max's strength to begin with. It's

25:11

just awkwards. They don't luckily don't boot him at the end of

25:13

that season, but by the end of he

25:17

still hasn't really improved. His race results are

25:19

really in consistent. He's nowhere near Max.

25:21

So at the end of his sophomore season they end up demoting

25:24

him to a reserve and test driver

25:26

at Red Bull and he's not on the grid.

25:30

Yeah. So it's it's obviously similar to Pierre,

25:32

you know, very humiliating, it's very public. It's

25:34

just very very depressing. You gotta have thick

25:37

skin in this sport. Yeah, so Alex. Alex

25:39

also interestingly has a very

25:41

small but loyal and die hard fan base around

25:43

him, and they were pretty vocal during

25:47

that they wanted to see him back on the grid. Now, it's

25:49

pretty obviously Red Bull is not going to put him back in that seat.

25:52

Off of tow he has already got their stuff going on with

25:54

you know, Pierre's their golden boy, and Yuki

25:56

just got there. So they're giving Yuki a fair

25:58

shake. And and as

26:01

soon as rumors starts swirling that George Russell

26:03

is going to be leaving that Williams

26:05

seat, sure enough Alex

26:07

comes in announces that he's taking the Williams

26:09

seat. And it's very, very exciting.

26:13

Everyone is super happy.

26:15

So to speed up to present

26:17

day, this season, there's a couple of things going

26:19

on for Alex. So one, as of this recording

26:21

in the middle of the season, he is twenty six years old,

26:24

so again a lot of similarity to peire Ghastly, he's

26:26

he's middle aged by f one

26:28

stead or entering entering middle age. He's not a

26:30

young upstart who just entered

26:32

the grid. He's seen some ship. There's

26:34

just a lot of ongoing long term question

26:36

marks for Alex as to where

26:39

where does he go? Uh. Some other

26:41

things about Alex this season. Yet he has scored

26:44

some valuable points thus far at

26:46

Williams. At the start of the season. Something

26:48

very funny so for one of the

26:51

the first race he scored, points out his hair was actually

26:53

dyed. This very artificial looking red color.

26:55

I'll show you a picture in a second. It was due to some

26:58

some charity thing that he did. Surreal,

27:01

I'm getting my hair dyed in a temple with

27:03

a cat of my lad and with so

27:07

he scored points. And then the next race he

27:09

did not you know, he had he had washed it out as a dye faded

27:11

away. We finished the eleventh Innimulus,

27:13

so he started to affect

27:15

the performance. So he re dyed his hair for

27:18

the Miami Grand Prix and because

27:20

he was so superstitious, and he got points

27:22

points. So now the running jokes like he's

27:24

gonna look like Archie from Riverdale with like the super

27:27

unnatural dyed hair because now

27:29

he's superstitious. He says, it also makes him look

27:31

like when he you know, he obviously sweating and all of that.

27:34

He's like it looks like a murder scene whenever he takes

27:36

his and

27:38

his like his you know, butck clave and everything is like

27:40

white. So it's just like this red, bloody

27:42

looking mess. And it's just hair dye that is very

27:45

crappy, temporary, like drug store hair dye. So

27:48

uh yeah, so that's here. I'll show

27:50

you a picture of Alex here. This

27:52

is both alex um

27:54

with his normal hair, and then Alex said the Miami

27:57

Grand Prix with his red hair. Oh yeah,

28:01

looks like you know still

28:03

to me, young kid, he's

28:06

got nice normal hair, smiling on

28:08

the right, he looks insane with

28:10

the red hair. He looks like a little

28:13

delusional and he's doing a thumbs up.

28:15

Yeah, you know, maybe the red hair gives

28:17

him some freedom, makes him feel alive. It

28:20

makes him feel alive or something. But he's

28:22

very he's got a very wholesome face. I would say.

28:25

Here he uh yeah, he just

28:27

looks like a like a happy guy.

28:28

Yeah. We're

28:33

gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back. So

28:40

the other side of the garage we have Alex

28:42

on one who's our other driver. So

28:45

we have got Nicholas Latifi.

28:48

YOHI has named Nicholas Latifi

28:50

the straggler. Straggler, which is just

28:53

the word stragglers serie define

28:55

straggler thinking

28:59

thinking is it a real word? It is

29:01

a person in a group who

29:03

becomes separated from the others, typically

29:06

because of and this is the death of

29:08

formula one moving more

29:10

slowly. Oh

29:12

that is dirty. Your what

29:15

a dick nickname? So

29:18

Nicholas Latifi is the second of our

29:20

two Canadian page Driver that

29:23

these fucking Canadians are just not winners.

29:26

I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to Canada

29:28

right now. It's a great country, it's a

29:30

great people.

29:33

Kind the only thing

29:35

they win at is hockey, that

29:38

is true, alright, Sorry, I just had

29:40

to do that for growing up in Michigan. It was

29:42

just there was so much Canada, you

29:45

know, and there They are great people,

29:47

their services are great. But there's

29:49

just there's something about this American

29:51

capitalistic strive to be number

29:54

one, which I do appreciate,

29:56

even though we treat poor

29:58

people and all people like ship. Okay, let's keep going.

30:01

So yeah, so Nicholas's dad, just to differentiate,

30:04

he's a billionaire but in the food business.

30:08

Yeah. So anyway, that's just that's just that. So

30:10

Nicholas Latifi basically

30:13

nick So speaking of the whole idea of a straggler,

30:15

Nicholas whole Nickie's

30:17

whole story comes

30:20

down to this idea that because

30:22

his dad has so much money, he can almost

30:24

outlast anyone else and kind

30:26

of improve over an even more extended period of

30:28

time than the average of one driver, just because he has the

30:30

money to do so, so he actually,

30:33

as we've talked about, a lot of people

30:35

get their starting krding at the age of you know,

30:37

negative five, they're still in the womb and already carding

30:39

kind of thing, right, we got people starting at three four five

30:42

competitive carding by like six seven

30:44

eight. We've heard the story nausea

30:47

at this point, Nicholas starts

30:49

carding at the super late

30:51

age of thirteen. What Yeah,

30:57

he's thirteen years old when he

31:00

starts his journey. Journey

31:02

at that point, you and other these other guys are already in like

31:04

open wheel seaters, are about to be an open wheel

31:06

seaters, and he's just getting started in competitive carding.

31:09

But because his dad has all this money,

31:11

again, he's able to race. We've talked

31:14

about this, how in these junior formula categories

31:16

you spend maybe one to two years in any

31:18

given series. Nicholas spends

31:20

a lot more time than other people. So, for example,

31:23

he's in Formula two for four years, and

31:26

obviously he gets better and better as he goes

31:28

along. Because he has the time, he can outlast

31:31

a lot of the competition just from a financial

31:34

exactly exactly. So we just some more chances

31:36

because a lot of these kids can't afford to spend

31:38

half a million dollars on like a Formula two careers.

31:41

He's just able to last everyone on that front. Let

31:43

me interject for a second. Ask you a question. I'm

31:46

a huge tennis person. I probably said that every episode

31:50

previously on Choosing Sides. Well,

31:52

are you a tennis fan, Lily, Yes,

31:55

for the sake of m yes, anybody else

31:57

at tennis, I love tennis. No one's ever died

32:00

playing competitive tennis. Tennis has these

32:02

guys who are so good so young.

32:04

I mean, as a guy who was numbered

32:06

six on his collegiate tennis team, he

32:08

dumps his champagne in it and then drinks

32:10

out of it. I want some tennis players

32:12

to do that. In

32:16

tennis, you have these kids whose parents

32:18

are very wealthy, okay,

32:20

and they get so many resources

32:23

coaching, equipment, travel,

32:26

But at the end of the day, they still

32:29

have to win the match. Money

32:31

doesn't win you the match. So

32:34

are you suggesting that in Formula

32:36

one money can actually get

32:40

you to place and be okay?

32:42

I mean, you still have to win. As we've discussed, there's

32:44

have to have the skill, there's that super license, right, you

32:46

still need the points to get into Formula

32:48

one. But yeah, it's just um, you know,

32:51

we look at someone like, let's say in Estemon Okon, who felt

32:53

a lot of pressure and he's talked about this to be good off

32:55

the bat because he knew his parents had finite resources

32:57

and just had to really go after it and had to some

33:00

natural talent and an ability

33:02

to other people believed in him, whereas Nicholas Latifi,

33:05

obviously it's impressive to kind of start out your career

33:08

in your teens for when other people started,

33:10

some of them a decade prior to that. But yeah,

33:13

he just had time. It's an enormous

33:15

advantage exactly. And someone like

33:17

Estevan probably sees Nikki

33:20

on the garage and just goes, you,

33:23

you motherfucker. I just

33:25

have worked so much have more grit than you. Yeah

33:27

yeah, alright, cool, Sorry for the interjection. Yeah,

33:29

but no, it's it's true. It's a very weird thing where, yes,

33:32

these these guys who are paid drivers still have to have a certain

33:34

level of drive ability, like you can't. Yeah,

33:36

I can't. If I if my parents suddenly made billions,

33:39

they cannot just suddenly put me into Formula one. But

33:41

at the same time, there's a difference between

33:43

yeah, a Max verstep and a Charlette

33:45

Claire and a Nicholas Latifi. I love

33:47

Nicholas Latif. He's just like a nice

33:49

guy Bird Pinkerton. Part of what makes

33:52

me feel like he's such a good,

33:54

decent guys. He didn't seem to resent

33:56

George Russell being like everyone's favorite

33:59

wonder kinned and ever and being like and then there's La

34:01

TV. You know, he's worked hard to be there,

34:03

He's he's trying, and so I

34:06

think he has to figure out does he want to keep

34:08

being just that solid, dependable,

34:11

nice guy who sort

34:13

of fades away at some point

34:15

or does he want to become a little

34:18

meaner, a little a

34:21

little something different on the track and maybe

34:23

challenging alban And I think that that's hard because

34:25

for Albun he needs to like wipe

34:28

the floor with Latif kind of and

34:30

Latifi this

34:33

is my imagination, but probably doesn't

34:35

want to be wiped the floor with.

34:38

Is he the single fastest

34:41

driver on the grid. No,

34:46

But he's a really really he

34:48

just seems like a really really decent, nice

34:51

human being. We're not talking about me

34:53

and a nice person. His signature personality

34:56

trait is that he loves Nutella. Oh

34:58

and that he's tall. He's six one, so Williams

35:00

always joke. There's a running joke Williams keeps ending

35:02

up being one of the tallest, the tallest

35:05

team on the grid. So George Russell six six

35:07

one, Alex Alban six one,

35:10

and another reason I'm gonna like Williams. There

35:12

you go. I can probably fit in their car exactly

35:14

six ft four and a half, though it

35:17

might be a little bit of stretch for them, but all their drivers

35:19

are kind of linky and tall. That's that's been the gist.

35:21

So he does. He does fit the kind of nice, wholesome persona

35:24

that Williams how's going for it right now. But

35:26

to be completely frank, it's

35:29

sounding like his time in Formula

35:31

one is going to be coming to an end sooner

35:33

rather than later. So yeah,

35:35

he's got to really put up some resolves to

35:38

make matters worse for Nicholas Dorlton.

35:40

Capital has very publicly said, you

35:42

know, hey, we're now financially solvent. We don't

35:44

need these paid driver ry outside

35:46

sketchy weird resources were good to go on

35:48

that front, which kind of hints to people of

35:50

like if if if nick Nicki isn't they said this last

35:53

season then resigned him. But everyone was kind of like, we

35:55

can read between those lines. If you're listening,

35:58

now is the time to put up some results. Unfortunately

36:01

he has. In the opposite he has been crashing left and

36:03

right in the

36:05

other thing too. That's that's kind of interesting

36:07

about Nikki on the crashing front. Several

36:10

of his crashes had very large consequences

36:13

for the grid. So for instance, when

36:15

we talked about Max for Steppin's win last

36:17

year, you know, his first World Championship title,

36:20

we discussed that the whole reason all of this went

36:22

down and that Lewis lost his lead and all that is

36:24

because somebody crashed and caused a safety

36:27

car to come out. LA has

36:29

crashed And I think that is a turn

36:32

ful scene. That was none other than our

36:34

guy Nicholas Latifi, who

36:36

then after the race had to hire security

36:38

because he was getting death threat. Yeah,

36:41

yo, hi, I'm envisioning a movie

36:44

poster, okay, And underneath

36:46

it says the straggler and

36:48

he is climbing a mountain, barely

36:51

hanging on, but the mountain

36:55

is a jar of nutella.

37:00

Isn't that good? No?

37:02

Yo, Hi stopped talking. So this is it.

37:05

I love this story. You just feel for

37:07

him, that is, I don't feel for him, and this is fucking

37:09

awesome. I mean, he's a rich kid Canadian

37:12

who sounds like he sucks at driving,

37:15

keeps crashing fucking up the grid.

37:17

But the team needs money. It's

37:20

part of the problem with Formula one. It's so money

37:22

driven. Now there's a capital group

37:24

coming in saying, dude, you got one year, get

37:26

your ship together. This is a great story. I

37:28

will say too. If if you're trying to find

37:31

more reasons to like Alex Alban, a

37:33

reason then to like Nicholas is that he's making

37:35

Alex Alban look really good this season. Alex

37:37

really needs this year to be his breakout year to show

37:40

you know, I'm back on the Formula one grid. Look

37:42

how great I am. And you know, as we know, your

37:44

teammate is your biggest competition. He's trouncing

37:46

his teammate right now. By the way, we're not talking

37:48

about Nicholas personally here, we're talking

37:50

about him as a racer. And this is the reality

37:53

of it, and it doesn't sounds

37:55

like if I was him, I would start

37:58

start getting the suitcase out of the upstairs called.

38:00

Yeah, it's probably a Louis Vuitton's suitcase,

38:03

and he probably has someone pack for him. Possibly.

38:05

I guarantee his sheets are more comfortable than my sheets,

38:08

exactly, higher, higher threat

38:10

counts, definitely. And also at the end of the day,

38:12

if, if, and when he leaves a sport, he's leaving to go probably

38:15

living a mansion somewhere in Canada. So I

38:17

don't think tears will be shed too much. Well,

38:20

look, it's probably hard in a lot

38:22

of ways being Nicholas Latifi,

38:24

especially when two chumps in

38:27

NoHo recording studio or talking about

38:29

him. But I wish I could switch places

38:31

with him and be in that car and must be fun

38:34

as hell. And you know afterwards, yeah, I will sleep

38:36

in my cotton sheets

38:39

in my mansions and you know what this is what's

38:41

so awesome about sport, Nicholas

38:43

Latifi. Here we are talking ship. Here's Doralton

38:46

Capital saying, dude, you better pick it up. It's

38:48

in his power. He can put

38:50

up great results and everything will change, and I hope

38:52

that happens. Nicholas. Okay, so we were

38:55

now through of

38:57

the grid. We're really getting close.

39:00

Now, where does

39:02

I'm actually curious to know worse on the driver's

39:04

where does Williams factor in for you? I

39:06

like Williams, You like Williams. I like Williams.

39:08

I love that Frank

39:11

Williams got in a

39:13

life threatening paralyzing

39:17

car accident and then

39:19

still was running a

39:21

championship. I love that. I love that his

39:23

daughters involved. And I think it's cool that

39:26

when Frank and Claire left

39:29

that they said, you gotta keep this name the same,

39:31

because as I'm learning all these teams, the teams

39:33

that have kept their name, you

39:36

can remember, you can, oh, yeah,

39:38

that's Ferrari, that's you

39:41

know, Mclair exactly. But

39:43

but like the Alpeene used

39:45

to be there, I don't even know what the hell you're talking about. Like,

39:48

it's so hard to just fixate

39:50

on a team when their name changes all the time. But

39:53

I don't love Dorlton Capital. I think no,

39:56

and it doesn't and it's in violation of probably

39:59

the foundation of the team, which was which

40:01

is a family enterprise. So final pitch

40:03

for Alex alban So he's

40:05

singlehandedly providing a lot of hope for the

40:08

team, especially after George

40:10

Russell left a bit of a void when he exited

40:12

to take up his you know, his rightful spot over

40:14

at Mercedes. Alex

40:17

is a really positive guy, really friendly, a

40:19

really hard worker. Also, I

40:21

do root for him because he has to go against

40:24

the Red Bull organization. I like

40:26

the Comeback Kids. I think there's there's an argument who

40:28

made for these kind of especially like the Red Bull Comeback

40:30

Kids. I wonder if they have like a support group

40:32

somewhere. I

40:37

gotta be supportive and root for anyone

40:39

whose mom has served prison time. I

40:41

know that's not the highlight of all this, but that

40:43

is a major difficulty, and

40:45

I'm sure he's harboring some

40:48

deep emotional

40:51

turmoil that we don't see. Come

40:53

on, it's your mom. So I I am definitely

40:56

rooting for him to be successful, and he already is successful,

40:58

but you know, more more to

41:00

stick the land, sweet story, the sweet

41:02

story. Yeah, and then and

41:06

then it's his

41:09

final pitch for Nicholas Latifi. And then I

41:11

wrote to be honest, which is how you know it

41:13

all goes downhill from there, and

41:15

then all the all the YOHI added in the comments

41:17

was what about the new tella? So

41:22

he has good taste in hazelnuts spreads. That's

41:24

really a big plus for Nicholas Latifi.

41:27

But I have to be honest and say that there's no one

41:29

here who's really stoked on his future

41:31

in the sport or who wants to put their eggs in that

41:34

basket. And speaking of putting eggs

41:36

in a basket, I mean his dad is a supermarket

41:38

conglomerate, so he has

41:41

his pick of which type of eggs in

41:43

his basket. I

41:47

like Williams for some reason. They've always resonated

41:50

with me. It's clear it's

41:53

a name that I name. You know, I know, I

41:55

I like him. I like him. I

41:57

think Nicholas bye bye, thank you

41:59

nick lists, and I have every reason to root

42:02

for Alex. So I would put Williams in my top

42:04

three right now. So

42:17

next episode, were moving on to

42:19

the ninth team on the Grid. We've got

42:21

Alpha Romeyo my whole life. My

42:24

father spoke so fondly

42:27

of one of his first big purchases,

42:30

which was an Alpha Romeo. I

42:32

haven't heard about this team yet. Also

42:34

a team that has been around for a bit. We

42:36

talked about them with Ferrari. They're

42:39

also at an interesting point in

42:41

their history where they've had trouble

42:43

making their mark, especially kind

42:45

of as their own, their own team, their own name.

42:48

And the hope though, is that this season, with

42:50

a big driver change they made and also

42:53

some good car regulation changes

42:56

that have gone their way, that they're actually going to have

42:58

a real, a real breakout year. Yeah.

43:00

So yes, any other thoughts

43:02

before we wrap up? No, that's it, I'm

43:05

I'm that's it. This

43:11

has been Choosing Sides F

43:14

one, a production of Sports

43:16

Illustrated Studios and I Heart Radio.

43:19

The show was hosted by Michael Costa and Lily

43:21

Herp. This episode was produced

43:24

by Lily Herman and our senior producer

43:26

Yehai Mi Tao, who also did

43:28

the sound design at

43:30

the Cutting Room studios. We are recorded

43:32

by engineer Robot Larry the second

43:35

mastering by Cello Weisblum. Max

43:38

Miller is the executive producer

43:41

and Brennan get Us his head of audio

43:43

at s I Studios. At

43:46

I Heart Radio, Seawan Titone

43:48

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43:50

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43:55

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43:59

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44:01

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44:08

Rob, do you have any thoughts now that we've

44:10

heard about Williams. They're

44:12

not doing it for me. They're

44:16

cool, but yeah, they don't stand out until

44:18

something good happens for them. I

44:20

think they're just kind of there.