00:06:41 · Toto Wolff
[00:06:41] S0: you learned about talent outside of drivers? So when you when you look at the Formula one team from outside as a fan, you see two drivers. You see then a guy like me who is sitting in front of a screen, and then you see the mechanics. Mhmm. And sometimes the engineers on the pit wall. This is what you expect to be the racing team. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. It's about a 150 people that go to the tracks, including marketing. Mhmm. So it's 90 technical operational people. But we are two and a half thousand. You know, here in The UK, we have two hubs. One that is... Does the engine. The other one, what we call the chassis. That is the works team. And we are 2,500 people in an in an organization that is quite vast if you if you look at the two cars. And for me, the selection process of the people that I want to work with is the same or is similar in terms of the pattern than for racing drivers. And I always say, there is not two superstars in the team. There's two and a half thousand. And I treat all of them equally. And we've learned from the old blacks ten or more years earlier, and they have a saying, which is on their training ground, that says no And we have we have continued to run that motto. The extraordinary scientist or engineer that isn't... Hasn't got the right values of humility, integrity, honesty, enthusiasm will have no future in the organization. We're trying to filter that out pretty early. Sometimes you find out later, but no place for the, genius asshole. You're describing a lot
00:08:36 · John Collison, Toto Wolff
[00:08:36] S1: the need for people to collaborate within the organization and the the the teamwork. But what's interesting is you have these different domains where you have aerodynamics, and you have the battery systems, and you have the internal combustion powertrain and, traction and everything. So the r and d almost entirely goes towards cars where you know the rules. There isn't much room for general r and d because you just don't know... Like, you're not gonna work on batteries before you know what exactly will be permitted when it comes to batteries and things like that. You have to know the target that you're designing. [00:09:05] S0: We did it Again. Long time ago, but Formula One introduced the cost cap a few years ago. Yep. So every resource that you deploy into engineering Yes. Is being counted for in the cost cap, which is 200 and a bit million dollars a year. And therefore, long term r and d work, lab work Yes. Is actually, unfortunately, very limited because you need to decide between deploying compute power Yeah. Yeah. In a front wing that you might have in three months against some long term. [00:09:37] S1: So for all f one teams, one thing is the cost cap changed is speculative r and d just had to go because, ultimately, you have fixed dollars, and you have to put absolutely everything you can towards this season and next season.
00:09:37 · John Collison, Toto Wolff
[00:09:37] S1: So for all f one teams, one thing is the cost cap changed is speculative r and d just had to go because, ultimately, you have fixed dollars, and you have to put absolutely everything you can towards this season and next season. [00:09:48] S0: I wouldn't say all of it had to go. Yeah. You still need to make the... You know, find the right balance between what you think future cars Mhmm. Are are going to benefit from Yes. Value the lap time effect it can have versus the current cars. And and, unfortunately, that percentage of r and d development of science and lab work, which I love, has a more limited Yes. [00:10:16] S1: Scope. You have not only the overall cost cap, but you have things like limits on the number of wind tunnel runs and CFD simulations. Isn't that a bit weird? Thus, you can spend your r and d budgets exactly as you want to? [00:10:30] S0: So there's two sides of that coin. The first one is to say Formula One was all... Always unlimited budget and therefore ultra sophisticated machinery Mhmm. Which led to a situation that the big teams, Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, were leapfrogging all of the other teams. Because for us, we had those big mother ships Mhmm. Behind us that benefited from either shareholder that was extremely keen like Red Bull or Mercedes that said this is a huge branding exercise for us, and the spending is relatively low in comparison to all of our marketing. So what happened is only these three teams actually won races. [00:11:15] S1: So
00:11:15 · John Collison, Toto Wolff
[00:11:15] S1: So [00:11:15] S0: Formula One said we want everybody to compete on the same budgets. Mhmm. And that was the reason why it was introduced. Now you can see that limited very much, you know, the kind of science aspect of Formula One, but it brought also more competition. And that's one of the positive effects. The other one is that Formula one back in the day, Chase Carrick, who was the CEO, said, we need to protect you from yourselves. Because obviously, I was against the cost cap. Because I knew that Mercedes, we had might. And that probably the worst case scenario was to lose against the Ferrari or against the Red Bull, but not against the McLaren or Williams or anybody else. So he said that to me. Eventually, it was a take it or leave it. [00:11:58] S1: Mhmm. You're investing, trying to eke out tiny advantages in the car. And one of the things that's interesting is this, there are the rules. There are things that are clearly against the rules. There are things that are permitted. And then there's a spectrum between those of the gray areas. And when the challenge is is, like, you defend something that you think is great and clearly allowed, but then it's banned midseason or it's, you know, banned in the next season. And so was it really worth all that effort, you know, to get, like, a, you know, trivial advantage? Maybe, maybe not. [00:12:29] S0: And I think the lesson we've learned is that it needs the dialogue with the governing body. If you feel you have an innovation that passed the first red face test within the organization [00:12:42] S1: Yes.
00:12:42 · John Collison, Toto Wolff
[00:12:42] S1: Yes. [00:12:43] S0: That means the leading engineers, sometimes myself on the table, we are carrying a mock a mock trial. And the people that have invented Yeah. The loophole or the opportunity, play the prosecutor. And so they need to fight their own argument. And then on the other side, there is the ones engineers that defend the innovation. And then is our general counsel, Carrie, and myself were the judges. And you try to see how how convincing the defense is? Yeah. Exactly. How convincing is the defense and how can you destroy the argument that is actually legal? Yes. So that would be an extreme case where there is something that we we we struggle within the engineering community to define. But, obviously, the dialogue with the FAA is important and bring them on very early. [00:13:30] S1: But so will you... If you have a very secret proprietary improvement that you don't want to unveil, it will be totally top secret within Mercedes, but you will also bring the FIA into it? [00:13:40] S0: If we think it's 100% defendable Okay. While crystal clear defendable Yes. Then we will deploy it on the car, and then we will make the argument why it's right. And normally, the FIA will say, we don't like [00:13:51] S1: it. Yes. [00:13:52] S0: They could say we like it, but it circumvents the principle of the regulation, so we're gonna ban it. Mhmm. Because the principle of regulation is most equal competition. Yes. So if they're fair, they're gonna say ban it next year. Mhmm. If they believe it's really very powerful and it's not what they wanted to see or intended
00:13:52 · Toto Wolff, John Collison
[00:13:52] S0: They could say we like it, but it circumvents the principle of the regulation, so we're gonna ban it. Mhmm. Because the principle of regulation is most equal competition. Yes. So if they're fair, they're gonna say ban it next year. Mhmm. If they believe it's really very powerful and it's not what they wanted to see or intended [00:14:10] S1: Yes. [00:14:10] S0: To define, then it could be banned much earlier. This is where the politics come into play. Yeah. So, basically, if they think it's a fair [00:14:17] S1: loophole, they'll give you one season of advantage. [00:14:20] S0: I would say this is... Call it the kind of experience that we have. Yes. Because they are, you know, innovators and engineers too, and they will respect Yes. If something comes up like this. You know, one example was was the system that we called DAS, which was, you know, you have the various dimension how you... Of the steering wheel, what you do. I don't know if you heard about it. You can steer to the left, and you can steer to the right. [00:14:43] S1: That parlay now. I'm with you so far. [00:14:44] S0: Yeah. So far. Yeah. That's like in an airplane. No. In an airplane, you can also [00:14:47] S1: go forward and back. Exactly. There's actually nothing like that. [00:14:49] S0: And here, it becomes interesting. So what we did, we created another dimension with the steering wheel, actually, to push and to pull the steering wheel in a Formula one car. And what it did, it [00:15:01] S1: changed Yes. I do remember this.