00:00:00 · Toto Wolff, John Collison
[00:00:00] S0: You know, as a continental European, I kind of never got the tradition of standing at the bar and having a pint or two or three and then having a conversation. What do you talk about? [00:00:13] S1: Cheers. Cheers. Many people across many jobs are in the town spotting business, but you're especially in the town spotting business. How do you actually spot a Kimi? [00:00:28] S0: How do I spot a Kimi? I think in the... You know, when it comes about about sporting racing drivers, you can judge pretty early on in a kid's karting performance whether that kid has the potential to be a professional racing driver. Even with the tiny ones, you can identify the ones that are doing better than their peers. Either because they are younger, you know, if someone that's eight years old beats the ones that are 10 in that group, you can have those very early signs of whether that kid has the potential. You can see when someone is comfortable in the cart, you know. Going at a 100 kilometers an hour in the rain and that kid does his first lap and comes across the corner, you know, sideways, you know, okay. There are the ingredients for being good at it. [00:01:17] S1: How quantitative is it? Like, you know, in certain sports, in cycling, you know, there's a metric called threshold power, and Telepugatcha, the best in the world, is very clearly just the best in the world on this single metric of, you know, how much power for your weight can you can you produce. Is there some number that, you know, Kimmy and George Russell would stand out on compared to other racers?
00:01:17 · John Collison, Toto Wolff
[00:01:17] S1: How quantitative is it? Like, you know, in certain sports, in cycling, you know, there's a metric called threshold power, and Telepugatcha, the best in the world, is very clearly just the best in the world on this single metric of, you know, how much power for your weight can you can you produce. Is there some number that, you know, Kimmy and George Russell would stand out on compared to other racers? [00:01:39] S0: This is what makes our sport so unique. There isn't any. With Tade Pogacar, you know, you you can see that the threshold watt per kilogram Mhmm. V o two max. These are things that are measurable. But I don't know what Tade's metrics was when he was 12. So maybe that was not best in class. Maybe that came later. And ingredients of success that you can't measure personality. Mhmm. How resilient are you to pressure? How much can you play the team game? When it comes to racing drivers, the... There are obviously similar KPIs. The stopwatch, you know, the stopwatch never lies. Mhmm. But put them in the same car, the the stopwatch is gonna decide whether you're being judged good or not. But underneath the stopwatch, there needs to be technical ability [00:02:42] S1: Mhmm.
00:02:42 · John Collison, Toto Wolff
[00:02:42] S1: Mhmm. [00:02:42] S0: To set your car up in the right way, interact with the engineers, have some kind of social competence of making sure you have sponsors Yeah. Treat them well. You know, they have been extremely talented kids that never went anywhere because they were just simply bad people Yes. Or not intelligent enough. And then there is the kind of overwhelming part, and that is this what we call speed. [00:03:06] S1: Mhmm. [00:03:07] S0: What is speed? And all of your cognitive abilities and neurosensors Mhmm. The sheer billions of sensors that a human has that give you an ability that not many have. It's actually to feel what the car does underneath of you. And you can see with the extraordinary drivers, they feel much more, they feel more connected to the car on the road than anybody else. One example is, you know, old friend and driver of mine, Louis Hamilton. You have two axles, a front axle, a rear axle, and you have the chassis in between. And when you call a car understeer, it means when you turn the wheel and it goes straight. And that happens over the tires and the front axle. It's pretty normal. But Lewis once said something when talking about the car. The car understeers from the front axle to where I sit. Well, that's the middle of the car. How can that understeer? And the engineers couldn't really identify what he meant, but that is what his body told him or his brain told him the car is doing. And if a driver is able to have that fun underlying layer of of of ability, then that becomes unbeatable. But that is, you know, genetics.
00:03:07 · Toto Wolff, John Collison
[00:03:07] S0: What is speed? And all of your cognitive abilities and neurosensors Mhmm. The sheer billions of sensors that a human has that give you an ability that not many have. It's actually to feel what the car does underneath of you. And you can see with the extraordinary drivers, they feel much more, they feel more connected to the car on the road than anybody else. One example is, you know, old friend and driver of mine, Louis Hamilton. You have two axles, a front axle, a rear axle, and you have the chassis in between. And when you call a car understeer, it means when you turn the wheel and it goes straight. And that happens over the tires and the front axle. It's pretty normal. But Lewis once said something when talking about the car. The car understeers from the front axle to where I sit. Well, that's the middle of the car. How can that understeer? And the engineers couldn't really identify what he meant, but that is what his body told him or his brain told him the car is doing. And if a driver is able to have that fun underlying layer of of of ability, then that becomes unbeatable. But that is, you know, genetics. [00:04:26] S1: The great drivers strap the car onto themselves. You know, they don't sit in the car and there's a connectedness. [00:04:31] S0: Absolutely. Connectedness is connectedness is the right word. It's actually being one with the car Mhmm. And and and with the road. [00:04:40] S1: How did you decide that you weren't good enough to be a professional driver on this topic of talent identification. I mean, that's
00:04:40 · John Collison, Toto Wolff
[00:04:40] S1: How did you decide that you weren't good enough to be a professional driver on this topic of talent identification. I mean, that's [00:04:49] S0: Talking about decision. Talking about humiliation and trauma as ingredients for later success. When I was a child or a teenager, there wasn't really anything differentiating me or outstanding, be it academically or in sports or socially. [00:05:08] S1: Mhmm. [00:05:09] S0: And when I was 18, by sheer coincidence, I ended up on a on a... With friends on a racetrack watching an f three race, which is a junior formula. And when I stepped into this paddock, it's like I've I've gotten my identity. Mhmm. This is what what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a racing driver. Someone that is able to tame this machine. And this is when I started, you know, basically my my career as a driver. But I came too late to the party, you know. I didn't have all of this karting background that teaches you the fundamentals of the physics Yeah. Of how to position your car in the race. But I became I became a pro. I went through the various stages of junior formula racing into what we call GT cars Mhmm. Touring cars or sports cars with a certain amount of success. And it is, you know, like you do about your business, I guess. And what I'm doing today is, you know, I woke up with that desire and I went to bed with that desire. And that lasted for for quite some few few... A few years. The
00:05:09 · Toto Wolff, John Collison
[00:05:09] S0: And when I was 18, by sheer coincidence, I ended up on a on a... With friends on a racetrack watching an f three race, which is a junior formula. And when I stepped into this paddock, it's like I've I've gotten my identity. Mhmm. This is what what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a racing driver. Someone that is able to tame this machine. And this is when I started, you know, basically my my career as a driver. But I came too late to the party, you know. I didn't have all of this karting background that teaches you the fundamentals of the physics Yeah. Of how to position your car in the race. But I became I became a pro. I went through the various stages of junior formula racing into what we call GT cars Mhmm. Touring cars or sports cars with a certain amount of success. And it is, you know, like you do about your business, I guess. And what I'm doing today is, you know, I woke up with that desire and I went to bed with that desire. And that lasted for for quite some few few... A few years. The [00:06:19] S1: the other maybe less talked about part, you know, obviously, there's a huge amount of fixation on driver selection and who'll get the next seat and everything like that. Presumably, a lot of what you spend time on is recruiting the right engineers and aerodynamicists and things like that. How does spotting that kind of talent work? Are you trying to pull people from other Formula one teams or from other industries and outside? And how are you... Just what have