It’s me, Mark Stone, and in this episode of the Backseat Driver Podcast, I’m joined by author Steve Rendle to look beyond the drivers and cars and discover the extraordinary operation that keeps modern Formula One moving.

Steve’s book explores the enormous infrastructure behind F1, where teams employing hundreds of people and spending vast sums of money ultimately have one objective: putting two competitive cars on the starting grid.

We look at what really happens during a Grand Prix weekend, from the engineers and mechanics working trackside to the teams back at the factory operating what is effectively a mission control centre. While the cars circulate thousands of miles away, specialists analyse live data, run simulations, and feed information back to the circuit in the relentless search for performance.

Steve explains the increasingly important role of simulators, including the incredibly detailed scans of circuits that allow teams to recreate tracks virtually. We also discuss how information gathered during practice sessions can be processed overnight, allowing teams to refine setups and strategies before the cars return to the track the following day.

It reveals a side of Formula One that television rarely captures. Behind two drivers and two cars sits an extraordinary network of people, technology, logistics and information, all working together to find fractions of a second.

I'd like to introduce the Backseat Driver.

Journalist, editor, engineer, you name it, he seems to have done it.

He's written plenty of books, but his Latest is how F1 works the sport Explained.

It's a new book once again from Evero Publishing.

So I would like to introduce, without further ado, Steve Rendell.

Steve, welcome to the Backseat Driver.

Thank you very much, Mark, for the very flattering introduction.

I'd like to point out I'm a master of many trades.

Sorry, Jack of many trades, master of none.

So I've doubled in all those things you've mentioned, but yes, I wouldn't say I'm a master of any of them.

Now, this vast and weighty tomb explains how and what I must say.

To start with, it's nothing to do with cars, it's nothing to do with drivers as such, although they are mentioned how the modern F1 circus works and moves about.

But my first question, Steve, is do you not think it's all got rather complicated and over the top?

It is incredibly complicated.

Over the top.

Matter of opinion, I suppose, yeah, I would tend to agree with that because at the end of the day a huge amount is involved, which is what this book is all about.

And all that effort, all that resource, all those people and all that money is there to put two cars per team on the grid for each race.

Of the year for two.

For two hours, might I add.

Yes, yes.

A bit longer in spin race.

You get the extra bonus of 45 minutes or so there as well.

So.

Yes, but then I suppose maybe if you go back through history, you could argue it's always been at the sort of upper end of the financial spectrum and business spectrum.

Today it's just gone another step further.

And I think that's because of the business side of.

There's nothing really to rival F1 in terms of the reach for advertisers and companies trying to promote their businesses.

Yeah.

And also today, the other thing that comes into it is a lot of those sponsors and.

And partners, whereas 25, 50 years ago they were just sort of plunking the sticker on the car and that was getting seen by the people at circuits and on tv.

Today, a lot of those companies are involved in what goes on with sport and are using it as a developing ground, particularly IT and the car manufacturers.

I mean, in many ways we can blame Graham Hill for all this, can't we?

Since he started off with gold leaf Team Lotus, that that was.

That's what you might say when the rot set in or the money Set in.

Exactly.

Yeah.

That was the beginning of it all, the beginning of sponsorship and it.

And it snowballed and once TV really took off, the coverage took off in the 80s really, I suppose, late 80s.

And since then.

Yes, the money involved in the sport has just grown exponentially, particularly in the last 10 years, I would say.

Now when you look around, I mean when an F1 team or the F1 teams hit the circuit paddocks, I mean there's all the transporters, they don't just.

I mean when I was racing and yes, I was sponsored, we had a transporter and that was it, there was a gazebo.

You were really posh if you had two of them and some matching plastic chairs and a box of snap ons knocking around the place.

I mean now they construct a virtual office bl, aren't they?

Oh, and, and some.

Yes.

I mean you've got full office facilities, meeting facilities, you've got a complete IT department, effectively for each team on site.

You've got a room.

Well, you're Asian facilities.

You got lays and 3D printing machines.

Basically you've got everything that they have at the factory on a.

On a much smaller scale.

Yeah, but by many people's standards that's still quite a big scale.

And all that equipment, of course has to be transported to each race.

It's one of the few sports where the teams turn up at the beginning of each weekend and other than the track itself and some empty garages, there's nothing there.

So everything has to be brought in and set up, which, as you can imagine, has to be a pretty well oiled machine to do that.

Yeah, sometimes.

Every weekend, you know, two, two weekends in a row at several points in a season.

Now, I mean each team will bring.

It'll bring its mechanics, its engineers, its personnel and everything else.

I mean, I conclude, are these people employed purely to do all this at the circuits or are they drawn out of the, shall we say, the factory back home?

And how closely during a race can the team at the circuit work with the factory back home?

Well, today usually everybody in the circuit, with a handful of exceptions, those are people who are actually employed as the race team and the race squad.

So everybody from the mechanics to the people who handle some of the sponsorship meetings that might take place at circuit, the caterers, the hospitality crew, they are employed to attend each race.

Well, back at the circuit, sorry, back at the factory you've got another parallel team.

So that's one of the fascinating things which has been enabled by where we are today with it and the technology.

During a race weekend, you have back at the team's factories, what they generally call mission control.

Yeah.

And it's a big office, just absolutely covered in monitors across the back wall.

And then you've got a team of probably, generally, I think it's about 20 to 30 people.

It could be more with their own monitors.

They are sitting there, back at, let's say McLaren is at Woking, at McLaren Technology center, and everything that happens on the track is transmitted live back to them.

So all the data from the cars, the TV coverage, the communications from team to car is all sent back to that center.

Ange's also obviously broadcast the guys at the circuit.

Yeah.

And they are talking all weekend because there's so much data today.

Data is king in most things, but especially F1.

Yeah.

And the guys at track just can't analyze all that.

It's just impossible.

So you've got a complete separate team of people back at HQ doing all that, feeding back constantly.

And that happens all weekend.

Right.

It does make you wonder because ultimately it all boils down to a car and a driver.

And you often wonder how the driver is meant to try and assimilate all this without actually distracting himself from doing what he's meant to be doing.

Absolutely, yeah.

And, well, I suppose the team filter a lot of it out because.

And they have to filter it out between themselves as well, because there is so much information and so many people.

I mean, I think typically they've probably got, say, 30 odd separate communication channels, intercom channels between different people in the team.

So you might have the team principal sat on the pit wall.

He only really needs to know what's happening with, let's say, the two race engineers.

The son, your race engineer on each car, he'll just sit there getting an overview.

You might have some teams, might have the designer there, or at some races, the chief designer.

He, again, only needs to have access to certain information.

And then you've got the strategy team who need to know what's going on with the weather, with all the competitors with their own cars.

They need to be aware whether there are any problems allowed to crop up, technical problems on their own cars.

So all has to be filtered because otherwise you'd have 30 people.

You'd have 30 people yakking in headphones.

He only ever gets an audio feed of what he needs to know.

It's minimal.

But having said that, of course, he's got a steering wheel display and it's.

I think.

I mean, it's not something I'VE ever been involved with and probably never will be driving a car anything close to a Formula one car today.

Yeah, but you're an IT manager.

It's almost like, I probably liken it to flying a fighter, fighter jet.

Because you're a systems manager, you've got to have the capacity, the brain capacity to drive the car almost without thinking about it and react to whatever's going on and be aware of what other cars are doing, what you're racing, but also you're adjusting.

You're just differential.

The brakes, the boost, the energy management.

Every corner, never mind every lap, got.

To be a fairly.

I think many of the current drivers have grown up playing video games.

I think probably helps them.

Now, one thing is, like within a team structure, as you say, the F1 team, I conclude not everybody within that structure is, shall we say, not being fully a race enthusiast, they are there to do a job which may not actually involve the car itself.

So I conclude they're doing other things besides looking after the car.

Yes, well, I think probably within the team, strangely, there's probably a fairly low percentage of the staff at the circuit who actually see any race action.

Yeah.

Obviously the mechanics are watching it in the garage on monitors.

They're not watching the track live.

Probably any people that really see anything are the people on the pit wall.

On the pit wall.

And of course, you've got.

With the huge motorhomes teams have today, you've got a catering team and also probably people working with guests and sp.

They're very unlikely to see anything really, other than what's in the garage, when they take guests into the garage to have a look around.

Yeah.

So, yeah, you're right.

There's relatively few people in the team ever see a race.

And at the factory, I mean, I guess a lot of them at the factory, they might get.

If it's a British team, they might get involved in games, the British Grand Prix, as a thank you each year.

Otherwise it's probably TV like the rest of us.

Yeah, I mean, ironically enough, a great friend of mine who's been on the show a couple of times, Ronnie Sandham, she's now retired, she took care of the logistics for the Ford Rally Team, especially the catering and the people she took with them, she took a lot of trainees, a lot of students to give them the experience.

And she used to say to them, the last thing you're going to see is any rallying.

She said, as soon as they've had breakfast, she said, you then prepare for snacks for the guests.

She said the lunch and everything else.

She said, you will not see any rallying.

You may might see a driver at lunchtime.

I can believe it.

Yeah.

I mean, what do you think?

They're traveling, you know, to different country every week.

So also, I guess the expectations of the.

The guests and the sponsors that they're entertaining as well as all the team people, of course, are pretty high in terms of the quality of food they're going to get.

It's not sort of.

They're not burgers and chips, fish and.

Chips.

On the other.

I found out during research for this that some of these teams, some of the chefs they employ, have kind of got their own favored suppliers somewhere, like maybe Malaysia or Monaco, where they source fresh produce, because clearly they can't take it all with them.

We don't want airline food where it's all frozen.

So it's a heck of a challenge.

So, like you say, yeah, those people, I mean, gosh, it must be really, really intense working on hospitality side, because you're probably catering for 100 people just from the team, and then you've got shifts of guests probably coming in each day, before the race, after the race.

So it's pretty relentless, I think, for those people.

Yeah.

Now, it's like you said, they have meeting rooms and everything else are the guests.

And it's like this is leading into sponsorship.

Are the guests chosen as existing sponsors and potential sponsors?

How do they work out who to invite?

I think that varies from team to team.

I mean, I think if a sponsor effectively buys a sponsorship package, and they're very much tailored to each company and each team, so it's kind of hard to talk generically, but generally I would imagine that most sponsors would actually put the money in and then they would expect to be able to take a certain number of guests to each race and they'd get fed, watered, probably put in a grandstand somewhere or the F1 Paddock Club, which is kind of the pinnacle of hospitality at each race.

Yeah.

For the rather wealthy few.

And you have to be invited or you have to have quite hefty resources to be able to experience that.

So I think it varies.

And of course, they run competitions for the fans as well to try and increase the fan base.

So if you join the McLaren Fan Club or the Red Bull fan club, there'll probably be a competition where a prize would give you a weekend at a race.

Yeah.

Sometimes even the transport to get there.

So it does vary, I think.

And if there are potential sponsors, obviously in the outground, then they're going to be wines and dined by the team bosses as well at particular race.

And Monaco and Silverstone are probably the two biggest races in those terms because a lot of teams are UK based, so they tend to take sponsors there and also families and teams.

And Monaco, well that's sort of self explanatory.

It's the, the pinnacle of glamour.

So that's a good place to persuade people who want to get involved.

Yeah, they seem to specialize at Monaco and Silverstone to a degree of inviting VIP guests who quite obviously don't really know why they're there.

Something I've always found fascinating is that.

But yes, yeah, I would, I would agree.

I suppose it's the same with many sports there.

There are people that probably don't really know whether they're looking at a Red bull or a McLaren, but they oil the wheels, I suppose at the end of the day.

So yeah, it's a necessary thing to do.

Now, the circuits, now ostensibly every circuit remains the same, but having been to many of them over the years, both behind the wheel and as a spectator do the team sends like somebody out beforehand to look at what's changed, where they need to be, what they will want to arrange things or how does it work with the circuits,.

If anything on the circuit has changed in terms of the actual track, the circuit profile or even resurfacing perhaps, or revised Kurtz, that sort of thing.

So, so the circuit via the fia will send data on that to each of the teams because sort of a slight tangent.

But one of the things that's very important today is running simulators back at the factories, which I mentioned earlier.

Yeah, so that's big part of Formula one today.

And those simulators are incredibly advanced, real cutting edge stuff.

So they can simulate even the track surface conditions.

So, so all the data is provided by the circuit by the fia and they use scanners, they actually scan the track surface, provide data on the actual type of asphalt, et cetera.

And of course you might change a corner profile, there might be a curb.

And the teams obviously can feedback on some of this because if there's been a problem with the floor of the car wearing because it's waxing to a particular curve or something they consider dangerous, which inadvertently has happened in terms of just corner profile or change in surface, they'll feed back.

Yeah.

So yeah, all that data is fed back to the teams and then they can, they can feed back to the circuit and also they can use that for the setup of the cars.

Right.

I mean, I know simulators now are very important.

A friend of mine raced a one of the support races for the American Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas.

He was racing the Ferraris, he'd never been.

He spent quite a lot of time on a simulator and did extremely well for the simple reason.

He knew the circuit, he knew what he would see before he'd even got there.

So it's the circuits themselves who provide all this information?

Yeah, the circuits provide the information if something changes or if a new circuit, like for instance this year you've got the Madrin Spanish Grand Prix.

But teams will of course use all the data they collated the previous year.

So if nothing has changed or not much has changed, they're using all the data they've built up over the years for that circuit and the simulator work has just become part of the racing.

I mean most of the drivers will spend way more hours in the simulator than they will in a race car during a season.

Yeah.

And you've also got a third driver.

Sometimes they have another two drivers behind the scenes working in the simulator.

So over any race weekend on Friday, you'll usually have one or two practice sessions, depending on whether it's a sprint race weekend or normal weekend.

So all the data that's collated from the cars during free practice is sent back to the factory.

That's the team in the factory that I mentioned previously.

And that information is then fed into the simulator and overnight.

Overnight, in terms of the time zone, wherever the brace is, there'll be somebody driving that simulator back in the uk.

This UK based team wherever overnight to basically go through exactly what happened on track and try and figure out where they could save a bit of time to derive a brake 5 meters too early, analyzing the differences between the two drivers so that the following day, Saturday morning, they have that data from the factory and they will use that to brief the drivers and set the cars up with the only.

Making them go faster, of course.

Yeah.

Now, whilst all this is going on, the other thing that has to be looked after besides the spectators and I mean how the spectators are looked at, the facilities vary from circuit to circuit, but all the facilities, I mean, do they, how often do they upgrade them?

What do they look into?

How do they work all these facilities out for the teams, the personnel, the spectators, the media and everything else?

I mean, is this looked at every year?

Yeah, well, I think it's an ongoing thing.

I think, yes.

Every year each circuit is analyzing what's just happened.

So straight after the race.

So for instance, the British Grand Prix, which was last month, they're probably having meetings now about what they could improve on, what they've learned, with a view to improving the whole thing for next year.

And also, of course, the huge show that you've got now with all the entertainment that goes on outside of the actual race, they've got to start thinking about booking that now in terms of facilities.

Well, you're right, I think some circuits are.

Are better or worse, depending on your views, than others.

But I think today there's not many circuits that don't have a pretty impressive setup for media, for spectators, for everybody.

Does to the Barry, obviously, depending on the character of the circuit.

But I think the demographic spectators has changed, so expectations are perhaps higher than they used to be.

Now, I think it's safe to say since Liberty Media took over, they have turned it, no disrespect, they've turned it more into an out and out circus.

I mean, the entertainment starts two or three days beforehand and is relentless.

And one of the things that is now staggeringly important.

Well, it's staggeringly important to virtually everything these days is social media.

Who works it all out and how do they work it all out?

Well, in terms of the teams.

Well, and I think F1, so almost every aspect, you've got the teams, of course, the circuits, the fia, who make all the rules and control the sport and Formula one.

And as you say, they all realize how important social media is.

So every one of those organizations and every team has a social media media team.

And they are responsible for making sure that in terms of teams, number one thing is the team and sponsors are portrayed properly in the way that they want to be seen.

And also they get key people involved, they get the drivers involved, which I think quite a few drivers probably find quite a chore.

So over the weekend, I mean, they're spending hours, as everybody who's familiar with Formula One and is on social media will know the output is massive every weekend.

So, yeah, that's pretty much controlled by the teams.

But of course you have various.

Maybe I'm.

I don't know if I call them.

Journalists, but they're very.

People, I must confess.

Just putting in some of the tripe that pours out of social media.

Not all the eight journalists.

No, you're right, definitely not.

But I guess they're trying to engage with a different audience and as well, speaking for myself as a sort of ancient purist, that's kind of a bit different.

I'm interested in the cars and the actual racing, but I suppose you can't knock it if it improves the viewing figures and helps the sport.

So, yes, the social media side is pretty much controlled by the teams and the stakeholders in the sport and I think they're quite careful about how they manage who has access and the right to be there in the pit lane every weekend.

Because that's one of the things, I'll be quite honest, that annoys me intensely.

Some of the presenters.

Now, one shouts all the time and I wish somebody had tell him to stop.

But a lot of the people who are presenting and interviewing, it's quite obvious they've never.

Not only have they never raced, they've never even sat in one.

And I often wonder how modern F1 thinks its audience takes to these people spewing forth facts when it's quite obvious that if it wasn't written down for them, they wouldn't have a clue what they were talking about.

Yeah, no, quite, quite right, I agree.

But then I think it's.

It's coming down to the kind of almost like the cult of personality, where in recent years, Whereas even probably 20 years ago, the drivers were kind of almost behind this wall of media people.

And yes, of course they'd be interviewed, but today their personalities are out there, aren't they?

And they're sort of encouraged to put things out on social media.

So I think it's become a lot more about the personalities, particularly with the TV coverage and.

And obviously Netflix.

Yeah, to survive.

I mean, that really took off because people got this insight, whether it was all accurate.

Who.

Who knows?

I think there's probably a bit of scripting and editing going on, but even so, it gave you an insight into the people rather than just machinery.

Yeah.

And I think, yeah, that you're right.

And some of the presenters, in some areas, I guess they are good at reaching an audience that the more knowledgeable presenters don't.

Probably.

Yeah.

Which is a great shame, in my opinion, because when I. I'll be perfectly honest now, when I watch F1, I actually watch the 8 to 10 minute highlight on YouTube, because the rest of it I have no interest in.

So I find that bit useful.

I watch eight to 10 minutes of the race, it's all condensed down to eight to 10 minutes.

And that tells me everything I need to know about that particular Grand Prix.

The rest of it doesn't interest me, but I get the feeling these days that it's everything besides the race that interests people.

Yes, I think you're right.

It's a spectacle and that's something, I think the Liberty Media have brought to the sport.

I mean, I guess the clues in the name Liberty Media, they are basically a media company and I think I'm right in saying that in terms of origins, originally they, they grew through TV stations in the us.

I, I think they had a big stake in News Corp. Yeah, Corporation.

So.

And also think they are involved in running live events throughout the world, concerts, that sort of thing, through Live Nation.

So they're specialists in shows, basically.

And when they acquired Formula One, the commercial rights, that is, so that they own the Formula One brand and they're responsible for anything commercial to do with the sport and selling it.

Yeah, they moved it into a whole new area so it became about the show.

And that's why, you know, in recent years, since Liberty took over, you've got a whole weekend of activities.

There are probably some people who go to Grand Prix and spend all day not actually watching the cars.

Put it this way, a friend of mine, a friend of mine goes to classic Le Mans each year and never actually sees any racing.

He's there, he's quite well off and he just enjoys the hospitality of Ferrari, Bentley and all the other manufacturers that are there.

The only nearest he gets to the racing is he can hear it.

Which to my mind seems a complete waste of time going, but that's just me.

Well, yeah, I suppose there's nice way if you can get it, isn't it?

But I, yeah, I can understand why you could.

Why you would do that.

And you know, you're meeting people, aren't you, hearing the cars?

It's the whole atmosphere, probably.

Yeah.

But no, like, like you, I'd much rather be looking at the cars, hearing them and, and just experiencing a racing.

And that's something.

I think another aspect is that I don't think it's changed over the years.

I've always said to mates of mine who said, oh, everyone's boring, they're so slow and they're not much noise.

And I say, yeah, have you ever actually experienced one?

Have you ever been to a Grand Prix or even Goodwood or something like that, and seen and heard a Formula One car?

And I think TV is great.

It does give you an insight into what's going on and it gives you all race coverage.

But there's no substitute for actually going and seeing and hearing one of those things.

It's funny, I must confess, Many, many, many years ago, I was at Le mans for the 24.

I was there as a spectator and a guest, but I snuck two people who'd never been the gendarmes quarters eventually across the golf course to stand at the side of Mulsanne straight.

I said, you want to know what a full blown endurance racer sounds like and looks like in action?

And they could credit the speed at which they went past.

No, no, I don't think you can.

To see, like you say, one of those Le Mans cars, an endurance car or an F1 car, to experience it in the flesh flying past you on a track is just something else.

You know that.

That's the point where I think, certainly a lot of us think, do you know what?

I couldn't do that.

You watch telly and think, oh, yeah, it's driving around, around the track for two hours.

I guess anyone could do that in a bit of practice.

But actually see them in the flesh, you, you realize, no, that's, that's something different.

And the other thing is as well, funnily enough, to go back to Lamar, know your books on F1, I said, you stand here, I said, on the balcony above the pits at Lamar, I said, the group C cars, I said, you don't hear them, you feel them.

I said, they will shake a building.

They were wonderful, weren't they?

Yeah.

I used to go and watch like a Silverstone back in the 80s.

And the other thing that I always remember at Silverstone was Ayrton Senna coming through the old bridge corner.

Yeah.

And goodness me, I mean, every time in qualifying, we used to stand there because this is our favorite spot.

And every lap you thought, he's going off this time.

There's no way.

And he would, he would not change down.

Most drivers would drop one gear.

Okay, that's, that is partly to do with the setup.

I know, but he would just stay on the throttle and it kind of sends a shiver down my spine.

Now, one of those things you have to experience, but that's when you realize that these guys are something special at the top end of the grid, certainly.

Well, they all are.

But there is a gulf between the few that just take it a step further.

Now, the one thing that you talk about in the book are things like what you would call the unseen heroes, the marshals, the medical, all the behind the scenes people.

I mean, I conclude they start briefing them very, very early on.

And the marshals.

Do the marshals know that they're marshalling or how soon do they start selecting marshals?

I think probably with marshals for Grand Prix, they're probably, I think they probably apply.

You know, I would love, obviously, that's the pinnacle of marshalling, to be able to marshal at Grand Prix.

So.

So a lot of those people are applying to be marshals either at Silverstone or.

Quite a lot of the British guys travel abroad.

Yeah, I think that was still the case to places like Spa and certainly Monaco.

So that they're probably applying, I expect, a year before.

But of course, the marshals, I mean, the marshals are fantastic because they are involved in motorsport every weekend during the season.

They don't just come out for the Grand Prix.

So they're all trained in specialist areas, whether it be fire marshal, obviously, that's, you know, if there's a problem, a crash, they're on the case straight away.

Flag signaling, extraction.

So they usually have their own specialist areas, but they'll be practicing that and doing all that training as part of being a marshal.

And they're probably attending, you know, Formula 3 meetings, maybe rallying, maybe hill climbs and other circuit meetings.

So they've already got very, very good knowledge.

They know what they're doing.

But for the Grand Prix, yeah, there'll be meetings and training sessions about all the specifics of the track and where all the fire extinguisher points are, where the cars are likely to pull over if they have a problem, all that kind of thing.

And with F1 cars, well, then some of the WRC, sorry, WEC cars, work cars, because they're hybrids, you have the electrical danger, so that they'll be trained in how to approach a car and to not go near it until they know it's safe and there's a light on the car that tells them all that kind of thing.

So it's training.

Now, the other thing I notice is, and once again, it's something you tend not to think about, but it would appear to be a task unless undertaken by dhl.

I won't tell you what I call the DHL stands for, from my point of view, but.

All right, go on.

Dhl.

Don't hide it, lose it.

But dhl, I conclude, have a fleet of aircraft for flying virtually everything around.

Is it just for specific teams or is it for all the teams that DHL do this?

It's for all the teams.

So some of the French goes by sea because the cost.

I think I'm right in saying that the cost of air freighting stuff is about nine times what it costs to move it by sea.

Yeah.

So there'll be some stuff like the garage equipment and the pit equipment, which will just be going around the world by sea, and they'll have four or five sets of that and they're sort of leapfrogging as they go around the world.

Now, for just what it.

I was going to ask you that.

I conclude a lot of the kit you see at a Grand Prix, there will be more multiples of it because they surely cannot keep moving all this lot about from one week to another, hundreds of thousands of miles.

So I conclude they have duplicates.

That's exactly right, yeah.

So the screens you see in the garages and anything that's not likely to change or isn't personal to the team personnel and the cars themselves, that tends to go by C. And yes, five sets.

So before the season starts, they plan out a route for each set.

So, you know, if you can imagine you've got four or five sets of this stuff and they're traveling from race to race, it might take a month to get from one port to another.

So it's all figured out beforehand.

Yeah, by the teams and logistics.

So dhl, I think they've got a fleet.

I think it's about nine at the moment.

Boeing 777 freighters, all liveried up.

And so for the Flyaway races, as opposed to the European races, they are taking all that kit for the teams, for every team.

And each team is allocated a certain number of containers which are all specially designed to fit inside the fuselage of the planes.

And they package everything up.

So the cars themselves for the Flyaway races, they will dismantle them insofar as taking wings off noses, that sort of thing, and they'll be in special crates all packed up in foam, as with all the spares, the mechanics, tools, all that kind of thing, that all goes by air.

So I think there's something like 40, 40 to 50 tons for each tea per ace.

Excuse me.

Now, just out of interest, as time's gone by and Formula One has expanded formula a better term, we don't see as many of the old circuits as we used to do, like sport Monaco, we see every year.

Even though, in my opinion, Monaco is getting to the stage where it's now Getting beyond modern F1 or modern F1 is becoming beyond Monaco.

But Spa and places like that, are there any logistical differences between an old circuit or racing at and attending an old circle circuit and one of the ultra modern ones, say, Abu Dhabi or.

Somewhere like that, I don't think there's probably that much difference logistically, other than the fact, of course, that a lot of these more modern circuits are probably designed when they're built to cater for logistics and getting trucks and all the kit in and out, whereas the older ones weren't.

I mean, the one that stands out, of course, is Monaco, because that is.

Does matterless in terms of logistics.

Yeah.

I mean, they basically hold the trucks about 30 miles away in Italy or in France, I think there's two sort of points and call them down for each team before the weekend starts to unload, because obviously otherwise every road around the principality will be locked for about three or four days.

And the space of Monaco is minuscule compared with anywhere else.

So that's a massive challenge.

But no, I think someone like Spa compared with Abu Dhabi, probably not a lot of difference other than access, you know, physically getting the trucks in on the road.

Because of course, Belgium, they'd be driving from the uk, predominantly.

Yeah.

So it's all a challenge, but I guess a different challenge in each place.

Now the race calendar, I mean, the number of Grand Prixs has increased, which will place greater strain and stress on each team and the.

The companies that help them to move everything around.

How long beforehand is each season's calendar put into place and who takes part in deciding all this?

Well, it's usually pretty much a year, a little bit less than a year, perhaps.

So they'll be looking at next year's calendar, the logistics of it now.

And the calendar will probably be announced before the end of the season.

In fact, I think, I think probably has been an.

A blind calendar, but it won't be confirmed yet.

The FIA, the people that drive that and, and F1 Liberty, but they take into account obviously a.

A large number of factors.

So one is the weather, because with races in the Middle east now and Singapore, say you can't hold those any time of year.

It's got to be the rough time of year when it's not ridiculously hot.

It's going to be hot, but not, not the peak.

And even some of the European races, they're going to be a little bit careful about when they hold them.

So it's basically decided that they decide where they're going to hold the races, then they look at the calendar, they look at the logistics, the course as well.

Because even though, I mean, there's a bit of irony really in, in the whole ecological green issue, when you say what the sport's about and we're flying a huge number of airplanes around the world.

But even so that is taking into consideration, which is why you have the sort of North American part of the season, Europeans part of the season, and then the Middle east is at each end of the season, the beginning and the end Part because of the weather and the teams obviously feeling stats as well.

They have some say in it, but predominantly it's the FIA and F1 themselves, and they work with DHL and the logistics companies to figure out what's going to work best.

Yeah.

And then they apply for the calendar.

Do the circuits get a say in when they will have their Grand Prix or are they just told, by the way, 13th of July, you're hosting the Grand Prix?

How does it work?

Do the circuits have to agree or are they involved or how does that bit work?

Yeah, the circuits are certainly involved and obviously that they're going to agree in the end, because they wouldn't get a race if they didn't.

Yeah.

So I'm sure there's a bit of bullying goes on.

I don't think they have probably as much say as they would have done years ago, but they do.

Yes, of course.

But it's.

It's almost determined when you look at where they're holding races.

It's determined by the locations.

Yeah.

And the logistics of it.

So, I mean, Silverstone, I'd be very surprised if that ever changed from July.

Maybe it.

Well, I think you did one year, didn't it, a few years back, but generally that's going to be July.

The European season is pretty well in place and has remained the same for many years.

So, yeah, the circus get a say, but perhaps not as much of a say as they would have done.

Right.

And lastly, for want of better term, when the drivers are interviewed, a lot of the time they will use in Monaco, they tend to use a location of the harbour in the background.

When the driver's interviews are sorted out, how far in advance do they arrange all these interviews and arrange locations?

I mean, does somebody go out looking for locations?

I think when you're talking about the interviews that people like Sky F1 do, I think they're probably arranged with the team months in advance.

Yeah.

Because the media schedules for the drivers and other team members, they're so, so busy and they have to be in a certain place at a certain time every weekend.

So after each track session, the drivers will be in what they call the media pen, which is just a place with some barriers around in the paddock somewhere.

Not particularly exciting backdrop, but they have to be there.

And then it's very regimented.

I think after a race, each journalist could possibly ask two questions, but during the practice sessions, after the practice sessions, qualifying, it might be just one.

Yeah.

So it's all very regimented.

Each team will have its own Media schedule for the weekend too, which is published and sent to journalists.

So, yeah, the interviews where you see a driver talking all about his season and his, his past career, those sorts of things, I think those are set up a long time in advance.

Yeah.

So they might be talking now about what they could do at the end of the season at a race with, with the team and the drivers to make it happen.

Yeah.

I mean, as, as Formula one expands.

I mean it is a growing sport.

I mean it's always been a great sport, even though today I don't watch it as much because the modern F1 car doesn't turn me on like an old F1 car did.

But I mean, where, where will Liberty Media continue to take Formula One?

Do you know if they've any plans for it and how will they incorporate it into all the organization and logistics, etc.

Well, I think, you know, from, from what I've seen and found out during research for this book, I don't think they can take it much further in terms of the number of races because we, we've got 24.

I mean, this year's.

Obviously we've had problems in the Middle east, so that's changed a little bit.

But I think generally the teams and the organizers agree that 24 is as far as you can take it.

Yeah.

And because of the business side of it, you've now got tracks, circuits, people virtually queuing up to be a part of Formula One.

So to a degree, it will go where the money is.

I think.

I know the feeling.

I've tried.

It's never worked for me, but it worked for me.

Yeah.

So I don't think the number of races is going to expand, but I think there's a desire to go into new territories.

I mean, there's not very much at all in Asia at the moment, for instance.

That's a new market.

The Middle east seems to be, business wise is a good place to go when it's perhaps a little bit safer if it is, hopefully in the future.

So they're making more there.

So I think it's a venue that are going to change, new venues, but that might mean that they have to rotate or already Belgium, I believe, is going to be held every couple of years after next year.

So it's keeping a balance.

But I would personally, I would hate to see places like Monza, Silverstone, Spa fall by the wayside to accommodate new tracks.

I think that they have to bear in mind where this all started and where it came from, which they are so far so let's hope they continue to do that.

Now, the book itself, how F1 works, how long did it take you to write?

Was.

I think it was a little over 18 months.

Yeah, from.

From when I first started.

I mean, not, not every hour, every day, obviously, but yeah, that's the sort of timescale with all the research and.

Then the writing and I mean it's very, very comprehensive.

But you ever look at the published book and think, I left that bit out, I forgot about that.

Is there anything that's not in there that should have been?

I'm not going to tell you, but.

You look at these books, it's like when I do certain things and I record videos with people and for people and it's just one of those things.

You look at some of these things and you think, I should have asked that, I should have done that.

And I interviewed Derek Daly a few weeks ago and after we finished the interview, etc.

I thought I never asked him.

That has not occurred to you?

I left that out.

Don't tell me what it is, but.

No, I think every book I've ever written or been involved with in any way, I've always thought that's at the end of it.

I don't think it's very hard to make something completely definitive.

Listen to historical book on something else long gone.

But I don't know, I guess I'd almost feel bad if I didn't think that because I'm always trying to do the best you can.

But what I've tried to do with this is, is put myself in the position of someone sat at home watching it every weekend during the season.

A fan who just wonders what, what the head goes on to make all this happen.

So, yeah, I guess it's my sort of curiosity and I think I. I be given an opportunity to research it and write about it.

So I tried to think of all those questions that fans out there would ask, but I'm sure I've missed some.

What's the next thing on the list?

Have you another book in.

In the, in the, in the pipeline?

Well, prior to this one, I wrote a book similar in Ethos, but about the engineering, about the actual cars.

So everything to do with the cars, Formula one technology, the Engineering Explained, which Evero published.

Yeah.

So I'm currently starting to work on an update for that book to cover what's happened in the past four years.

So this is, this is everything that happens away from the cars, that books everything to do with the cars themselves and aims to explain aerodynamics, how tires work, how they create grip.

So it's basically for somebody who's curious about how the cars themselves work and probably hasn't got any knowledge.

But also there's enough information to appeal to people that know the sport, that are interested in how the aerodynamics have been refined, etc.

Etc.

Steve Rendell, it's been a pleasure chatting and how F1 1 works.

The sport explained, as I said, by everal publishing for 55 of your English pounds.

I mean it's a beautifully produced book, but there again, everything everall produced tends to be very, very well done.

But Steve Rendle, by the way, that's me dropping it.

Thanks very much for joining me on the back seat driver.

It's been a pleasure and let me know what else is coming along and when I can get my hands on one.

Thank you much, very, very much, man.

It's been a pleasure talking to you.

I appreciate it and of course I'll let you know.