Financials and Future of Racing

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It feels good to Gaiko From Wiire, this is the Big Interview, where we'll get to know the people beyond the headlines in conversations that explore the intersection of technology, power, and culture I'm Katie Drmond, Wired's global editorial director Formula One auto racing, or F one, is already very popular overseas. And in the past few years, it's broken into the US in a big way Much of that success can be attributed to the sports representation in movies and on streaming platforms Netflix has a series, Formula One Drive to Survive that's now in its eighth season And you may remember that among the Oscar contenders for Best Picture this year was the blockbuster named Fittingly F one, starring none other than Brad Pitt as a race car driver But in the world of auto racing, one team in particular has made a huge comeback McLaren Racing, one of the sport's oldest teams, won three world championships between twenty twenty four and twenty twenty five Each marked the first time the team has clinched those titles in decades. At the helm of the storied racing franchise is CEO Zach Brown, who's credited with much of the team's recent success He joins me now to talk about all this and more. welcome Zach. Thank you for having me on. We're thrilled to have you. I'm so excited to talk. and I need to start with a confession. I need to start by leveling with you here Wired covers sports a little bit, particularly on YouTube. We have just fanatical audience for auto racing. anythingything F one, people go absolutely crazy. I have to admit, I'm the global editorial director, which is a fancy way of saying I'm the editor in chief. I'm not an expert in everything that we do here at Wired. and cars and driving is not my strong suit I do not have a driver's license But I do know that F one has been breaking through in the U.S in a significant way. We're going to get into the specifics of it all. You're going to teach me more about Auto racing, you're going to talk to me about cars. I want to learn. I want to understand this world. I think our listeners do too. But first I want to actually start with your personal story because it's a fascinating one. In terms of how you got to where you are now And I understand that it started with watches and it started with Wheel of Fortune. So take us back many, many years to the origin story of Zach Brright. I, I don't think any of us can be experts att everything. I'm certainly not an expert at all things McLaren and I. I just I just always laugh when I'm talking about cars because literally cannot drive one. Yeah, okay. All right, fair fair enough, fair enough. I would never be able to be But we have I have I have wired, I mean, there are people in the wired newsroom who were like begging to come listen to this taping because they are such massive F one fans. So like I understand the power of Formula one. The power of Formula One. L this is a cultural phenomena that I experience in the newsroom. I just I don't know as much about it as I would like to. We're going change we're gonna change that today.. Yeah, where did I get started? So I'm originally from Los Angeles My first ever Grand Prix was the nineteen eighty one Long Beach Grand Prix. I remember it like it was yesterday Remember meeting my first racing driver, getting my first autograph, and the speed and the sound and the kind of the visceral experience I was ten years old, a lot older now. And a couple years later, I was able to go on wheel of Fortune Teen week. Teen week. Teen weeks. I was thirteen years old. won the first two rounds. The Surfs. I knew who the Surfs were. Okay good. W Bill Hickcock I need to rely on Wikipedia to tell me who Wildild Hicock was, but I got the spelling right and then one and you do what you do is thirteen years old and you look immediately at what's the most expensive thing I can buy. How much money are we talking about here? three thousand fifty dollars, I think it was, or three thousand. Not an insignificant sum of money to the top of the list, which happened to be his and her watches, which kind of as it came out of my mouth was thirirteen year old oneunt with u Very nice cardier watches. Wow. Then went back to the Long Beach Grand Prix in nineteen eighty seven with my buddy in high school Met Mario and Gretti And I was very intimidated Now I wanted to kind of get into racing And I asked him, how do you get started? He said, carting. I knew or I assumed my parents wouldn't helpel me with that. Parding, you mean go garden Harding. Go garden. Yeahep. that's kind of where you get the littleittle league if you'd like even though it's very serious And I thought, ah, I know how I can pay for this. I got some watches in in my drawer that I've I think I can go take to a vanuyized pawn shop. went and sold them, got some cash They never asked me Why do you have these watches? Yeah Today I'd probably they you passed the KYC test at the pwn shop. Sold them, bought a go cart. And that's how I got started And your parents were, yes, sell these watches by a go cart? No, I'm not sure I ran the idea ofust them. they were my watch. An independent team. Exactly. They were your. I was definitely very independent te. But from there, you actually hadad a career as a driver. Tell us about that for ten years. ten years. So I was successful in carting, so then I wanted to pursue my dream of Formula one. requires sponsorship. My family wasn't in a position to support me much, you know, certainly by racing standards. Mom gave me her a salary for one year, which was enough to move to England, which was very great of her, but not enough to go beyond that. But she was a travel agent, still was a travel agent, knew someone at TWA who liked racing, so they gave me some airline tickets, which I would then barter and sell And that's how I got started in this is a pos the sponsorship business. So I would go to companies and go Give me fifty grand to go racing. and not only will I put your logo on my race car, and you can have some hospitality, I'll give fifty grand in an airline tickets to match it. And so it was kind of a that's a good deal. So that's how I got started, thenen I became obsessed with both my racing career and the need for sponsorship, so I just calling everyone and just trying to understand how does it all work And I still carry that with me to this day. You were running like a mini enterprise. I mean, you were running your own business I was running my own business. I raced for ten years. and then when I stopped racing, everyone said, Hey, you're really good at the sponsorship stuff. ended up building what was the world's largest motor sports agency after the corporate side of the sport. So the sponsors because I felt no one was advising them And they've got a lot of juice in the sport. They're the money Yeah. So I thought, hey, I can get you great deals here. I had the credibility of understanding the sport being a racer and built that business up, did it for twenty years, sold it, and then had the opportunity, a great opportunity to either join Formula One itself or McLaren ultimately tough decision, but very happy with my decision. Which was I'm a racer, so I felt I'd done sponsorship for so long that joining McLaren would give me both the commercial side of the business, which I absolutely love. But when the lights go out or in America, the green flag comes out, you go racing. And that was something that was very exciting for me. And so now I'm in my tenth season at McLaren. You raced for ten years, so you would know What kind of person is drawn to the sport? Like Wh wants to get behind a wheel of that car Looks terrifying to me personally kind of person is drawn to as a career. What do you think drew you to it? I think certainly adrenaline sureort plays plays a role being competitive, lo in the field for speed. get nervous and If you get scared too often, you shouldn't do it. but anyone who says they don't get scared. you know you have big moments or you crash or you're in wet weather or something like that. But I think same thing Being a baseball player, which is what I wanted to be. You know, if you have a hundred mile an hour fastball coming at your head, I would imagine that's Pretty scary here. if you're a football player and Michael Strayan's about ready to hit you That's got be pretty scary. So I think Far is a natural element of sport, but that actually creates adrenaline and excitement, which drives performance You know, and then it requires. Motor racing, not just physical skills but mental because the race cars are very sophisticated. So understanding the equipment is something that all these sports playing the sport, but then there's understanding how the sport is played and motor racing you need to be pretty switched on to understand how to get the most out of the race car and the team And I want to ask you a lot more about the cars themselves in a few minutes, but I'm curious about Your arrival at McLaren. What were the biggest challenges when you showed up? You walked in the door And you thought, oh my God, and what came after that? I mean, if you did think that But I think theres there's a pretty significant transformation Iident with first because There was a lot of arrogance in the team, given the unbelievable history And we were new with Honda And Honda was really struggling. And so I came in with the belief that I think the team believed and led everyone to believe, which is We're great. This is all on Honda And that was not the case. You know, Honda definitely had their challenges but when we replaced Honda. And we put another engine in Renau. while we took a step forward, we went from being our worst ver ever when I joined nine We hopped up to an all great six that it was like, okay Okay. Honda might be responsible from ninth to sixth, but who's responsible from sixth to first That's on us.. So that's when I realized, wow, we're not. good as we think we are today We had record low sponsorship less than fifty million Today we're up over close to five hundred million.ow We were ninth in the championship, a team that has been the second most successful team in the history of the sport We ever had a worst year Our employees were not Happy And as I say, other than that, everything was great. Now what was great was we have this great iconic brand that was not in a place, but you know, sitting here in New York it's kind of like, okay, if the Yankees have a bad season, they're still the Yankees. Yeah. so you can revitalized that brand with success quite quickly. So I knew we had an unbelievable brand And then we have four thousandteen hundred people at McLaren, about a thousand of those in Formula onene And as you kind of walked around the halls in the shop It was like there was a lot of race wins and championships here. So the problem isn't the masses. The problem is the leadership or the lack of leadership team. and that wasn't any one person's responsibility. It was the leadership team as a as a whole. so I set out focusing on the people Change the leadership team quickly, one at a time, get the right leadership in place. create the right energy and the right culture the commercial side of the business because that's something I love and was very comfortable with and I felt if we could You know, you could sell the brand and setet a new vision and get people to buy into that B partner to kind of buy into that was Dell technologies. twenty eighteen and it was like, okay, I wantce you get to Dell, then they're going to help pr track the Googles and the master cart, you know, they' of start success be gets success. Yeah Yeah. And so then with that created a new energy that brought in some revenue so we could upgrade our technology. We were behind in technology. We could hire the best drivers in the world. and all just started to build and sitting here now today, ten seasons in. We've won the last couple championships. We've got the best driver line at in Formula one. We have revenues just on the partnership side, you know, knocking on five hundred million do. So we've ten X that lot of excitement and energy and most importantly, very engaged with our fans and a very inclusive team. We were kind of a dark unfriendly team I kind of called us Darth Vader, which people like Darth Vader. Darth Vader can be C Boden. But Luke Skywalker is the good guy. Sure. And so we went to our papaya, which was our iconic color, orange And we did that because that's what the fans. wanted. So we started to really engage with our fans and be a team that fans loved or liked, which there was some data that came out recently and we were the most loved and least disliked racing team, which is very important It's great to be the least disliked. Yeah because in sport, you know, its you know, it's quite a polarizing business. Yeah. and a lot of credit that to our two drivers, you know, worldorld Champion Lando Norris and Oscar Pastra, two of the nicest guys in the world when they don't have helmets on. And when they got the helmets on, they're tough characters. I wanted to ask you about the fans and the fandom and sort of that piece of it. So something I was wrapping my head around as I was learning about F one and learning more about McLaren when I was getting ready for this interview is that You have It's the McLaren team two drivers and fans can get behind the team, but they get behind one driver or another. There's a bit of that sort of like rivalry piece Can you explain how that works and sort of the significance of that for McLaren fans and the fandom. Yeah, I think there's a lot of different ways fans kind of take in sports and racing. So you have people that are fans of teams I'm a McLaren fan, I'm a Ferrari fan Mercedes fan. And when the driver moves, they've got to remain loyal to the team a favorite driver or two, not necessarily an either or And then you have fans that are fans of the drivers and if the driver moves, they maybe move with the driver. Take Louis Hamilton is in you know the most famous for of the w. I do know about Louis Hamilton. Yeah. so you have people that, you know, or Lewis fans in front of Mercedes who was driving for so we at the Ferrari, they're now Lewis Ferrari fans. And you know, I think when you have two drivers competing for the worldor Championship, they have a huge fan base. So it's interesting that where, you know, I'm cheering for McLaren, but I want Oscar to win or I want Landa to win. And when they become each other's biggest rivals then naturally when you're a fan of one, it kind of makes you not a fan of the other because you want your guy to win. So it's an interesting dynamic where fans can at times get grumpy with the team We love both our drivers. So you know, we try and get our fans to be papaya fans And maybe if you have one drivers' your favorite, maybe the other should be your second. But when they want to win, they then start to see them as the the rival, even though we're inside the same team different than stick and ball sports, right? If you're Yeah, you know, I'm a St.t Louis Cardinals fan but you I know again, we're in New York. You're a Yankees fan, but you're kind of cheering for everybody on the Yankees because it's a Team win and why Aaron Judge might be your favorite player on the Yankees probably don't dislike anyone else on the Yankees because you want the Yankees to win. where our sport, you've got a team aspect to it, but then you have an individual aspect to it and that sometimes conflicts fans where they're for your driver, but grumpy with the team if the other drivers' winning because they somehow see it's kind of your fault Right. Yes. I am's a weird dynamic. I'm wrapping my head around this. I mean's a different dynamic. Do you think about these for the fans in the context of storylines, like are there narrative arcs that you're thinking about as a season progresses? All we try and do is we are very principled on our racing values. Yeah. We stay the course I think in sport, and it's a beautiful thing because it's such a popular thing. Has there been anything in the time that you've been with McLaren that has surprised you about the fans? Well there's good and bad. Let's start with the good, the passion people have, the notes I get from the strong majority of fans of the love they have for McLaren and our drivers And I got a note, you know, and I read them all, try and read them all of kids that decorated their rooms and we try and reach out for every fan as much as we because I remember, you know, the nineteen eighty one Long Bes Grand Prix meeting my driver. So those are the awwesome stories and that is the strong majority of it is people's love for the sport. And when they convey that and you see the birthday cakes, we've seen people pose at McLaren, we've seen weddings like you know, that is Awesome one we that much ingrained. So that's the beautiful side two percent, which sometimes are louder than the ninety eight percent are quite frankly are shocking. You know, as far as the language, the allegations, the death threats, the Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen seen it all. and that's u That's pretty disappointing. You gott to just ignore it and kind of go, maybe there's just something wrong with some of these people some of the two percent and some of the two percent and then they can be pretty Its pretty loud but I think that's the world we live in. Oh sure. it is. I same with journalism. I think we all see it around all a variety of topics. and so the haters if you'd like are pretty loud, but I think you just got to blow them off and realize that's not really our fan. Yeah. ye. you know, as fervent and passionate as this fan base is, I know that you have aspirations still to grow it. And you've talked before about women and sort of the gender dynamics of the sport Talk to me about how you plan to grow the audience for F one racing, especially in the context of women. How do you get more women excited about the sport. To be clear, plenty of women in the wired newsroom really wanted to be here today. So it's not like it's amazing. It's already happening. Yeah kind of wind back when Liberty acquired the sport in twenty sixteen, seventeen There was three things the sport needed to kind of go to the next level. It needed North America. And I think we're, you know Five years ago I wasn' sitting in New York, doing an interview forormula One. Yeah. So it's tackled North America. I think driververs Survivive played a big role because I think we opened up the sport. We went from being exclusive to inclusive, showing people how the sport worked. It's got a big soap opera. drama element to it, which everyone loves and get to know the characters, I think. Bands want to engage and Ustand in Formula One for a long time was look, but don't. tch and we don't want to show you what's behind the the wizard of Oz robe or what have you. So we opened that up. thenen that also brought in women diversity and youth. and that was what the sport needed to go to the next level. We have a racing interies with only a team that has two female racing drivers in what's called the F one Academy So racing driver's obviously get everyone excited, but then also lots of engineers. We have programs with our partners around STEM. So we're trying to get women involved. know, actually working at McLaren and those numbers are dramatically increasing. And then same thing with the fandom side. And now when I'm stopped often It's mostly from women or it's from guys who go, my wife, my daughter, that're a fan of Olando. So it's happening. It probably has much more of a balance than people would think. you know, it's about sixty percent male audience, forty percent women and the audience is getting younger, which is great. seventy five percent of our new fans are women and youth. so that's exactly what the sport needs to have a really strong future, you know, just being accessible to all fans and I think Th these events are Awesome and exciting. Yeah. They're glamorous. They're global And then something that we're putting a lot of effort in is only one percent of our fan base actually makes it to a race. So we're trying to make sure we pay as much attention to the ninety nine percent that don't make it to a race. So we did some live events in Trafalgar Square in London We did Miami liive and in Miami, as he says on itsin. We've done events in the Apollo Theater. So we want to be the most exciting and most engaged sports team in the world. We want everyone to feel of McLaren It probably doesn't hurt that we have two pretty cool racing drivers that are do you know Multimillionaire loves racing around the world. Ver nice guys. So they they they definitely draw attention. putut all that together. We just have an awesome fan base. we want to keep doubling down on it We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back L week on New York Radioour is it possible that the American Revolution wasn't really all that it seemed to be a parade of quite boring men talking very earnestly about Lberty Battles that involve twenty people in a field somewhere in the great vastness of North American continent. I'm joined by the host of the podcast, The Rest is History on the New Yorker Radio Hour from WNYC. Listen wherever you get your podcasts ask you about Formula One's deal with Apple, actually, Apple. My understanding is now has exclusive rights to broadcast Formula One races How do you think about that kind of deal in the context of building up a new fan base in terms of access, right? The need to subscribe to watch the races? Is there a liming factor there or do you see more opportunity in that dynamic? Definitely definitely opportunity and that's proving out. I think there was concern by some myself included Yeah that anytime you go behind Paywall Are you going to lose an audience? The reality is they've now gone public with their numbers, they're up over I think thirty percent. So I think that was the biggest concern. The production quality, the content is amazing And I think reality is the way we're all growing up today is a technology world And pay to play is a thing, right? Netflix and Apple TV and I think Pople want content, they're prepared to pay for to go that extra step and everything's on your phone now or on your tablet or on your top or your teeth And so I think people are comfortable. you know, for me, it would have been it's an extress step B want live live sport and now with technology partners like like Apple, they're able to distribute the sport in different ways. And I think because we're such a technology driven sport, there's a lot of different ways to watch our sport. Pe sometimes just watch it via kind of data. And so I think it's a great opportunity. And I think the concern of are you going to lose audience when you're behind a paywall, that's proved to not be the case You're talking about technology. which brings me to a very interesting conversation, I think we can have in a very wired conversation, which is actually around cars themselves. I mean, this is an incredibly technical technologically sophisticated sport Tk to me about the teams who actually build the cars. likeike how How does one of these cars get made? And what are the key considerations in that process team effort. You know, as I mentioned we have a thousand I mean that is aall shocking number of people for two race cars now probablyrobably a thousand people for two cars T race cars. Now let's take out probably three hundred of those that aren't responsible directly. They are responsible, but directly for building the race car. When I say directly, know our comms team, our marketing team, our commercial team, our HR team, our finance team, which are those three, three hundred plus people They've got to opportunity to hand it over to the race team to design it. So they're the ones that are raising the money and engaging with the fan base and creating culture and spending the money wisely. So they're very much as important as anyone on the racing team. But once you get into the racing team, it's pretty much an aerodynamic game So it's about putting as much arerrow in downforce. So you've got your aerodynamicists, you've got your design team, you've got your vehicle dynamics team. It's amazing watching a race car that has eighty thousand parts that lives in a prototype world. so we don't just build it and go, that's what we're racing for the year We build it and by race one By race two, it's changing. Race three, it's changed. So it's constantly evolving. If you take the car at the beginning of the year that qualified first and you didn't touch it by the end of the year it would be last. So that's the pace of development of the entire ield So we live in a protype world. We're chasing perfection But you never actually catch it because you can always, we're done with that. Let's put it on the car. Now let's keep working on it to make it Better, lighter, faster, more air, whatever the case maybe. And so it's amazing watching it all. come together, you know, it's close to one hundred million just to develop and build these race cars. Want one car? Two cars. youltate end up building up about four or five over the course of the year because the chassis will flex out Okay or have accidents, things of of that nature and you need Bears We have three hundred sensors on the car. We pull down one and half terabytes of data over the course of a weekend We run fifty million simulations over the course of a race week, so the technology is absolutely insane, which is why we have so many technology partners is they are very much integrated into the team So you look at the Dell we're running their servers and their storage you know, high performance computing, you know, Cisco is responsible for our communications, you know, Google and Gemini are around AI activities. And so that's why I think so much so many technology partners we just announced Intel gravitate towards the sport is it's a place for them to showcase, design and develop their technologies. And I think that's why it's such a fertile playground for these great companies Have there been any breakthroughs in car design or manufacturing or testing or anything in that space that have been particularly exciting for you in recent years Yeah, I mean, it dates back to the seatbelt in the rearview mirror where these are good ones. Yeah, those you know That started in motor racing. You know, then you get into carbon fiber Chassis safety is a big aspect in racing that gets transferred to the The road car, materials. Now you don't take something off formal one car and put it on. Road car wants it to go two hundred thousand miles. we want it to go. two hundred miles and then be done with it and move on. but materials, you know carbon fiber chassis was something. We were the first former of the O team in the early eighties to have the first ever carbon fiber chassis Now every road car we have C carbon fiber chassis and that's a safety performance, light weighting. So a lot of innovation there, paddle shifts, that's something that is now an everyday car. We're big into hybrid and electrification. We're now running sustainable fuels. So we are kind of ten years ahead of what you might start to see in road cars Our materials have been involved in the medical industry around prosthetics because we know show absorption in materials. So we actually have piece of our business, we work with in Australia, the coral reefs about reproduction. so we have some knowledge and know how that we've used to do good around the world around sustainability. We've had a product on the Mars lander. Wait, what's the product on the Mars That was before my time. Okay So like I said, I'm not an expert in everything N not an expert in st. But that would that would have been materials. But I don't recall specifically which material, but that would Wow. Okay. And so you said that at this moment, you would describe these cars and the technology as sort of maybe ten years ahead of what's on the road for the average consumer. Can you give us any insight into what you are lookingoo into investigating considering right now in terms of technology that might be twenty or thirty years down down the pike? Materials are always a thing. Sustainability is very much a thing. And so using materials that, you know, you can recycle things of that Nature would love to have a fully recyclable race car. That would be kind of our moon project. And I think that's possible. And then AI. Yeah, tell me about the AI piece of it. Well, so we're using AI everywhere around you know strategy so both on performance of the bracing team, you know, it's one of the big things that Gemini brings to the table, design of the race car and then enngagement with our fans And then operational efficiency and productivity. So it's kind of like it is in most businesses now all across all areas of our business. And it's early days, which is exciting because I think we continue to discover and racing teams naturally want to know what What's happening tomorrow? We don't live in yesterday. we live in tomorrow land. And so I think AI is going to continue us learn quicker and I think that will ultimately end up in new discoveries as well So you think that AI, I mean, in sort of analyzing all of that data you're pulling out of these cars, you're pulling out of every race The materials involved in the car, how the car is designed, could actually help create B better McLaren vehle of the future. one hundred percent Ccert about. That is fascinating That is really fascinating. It's amazing now. when you You go and you see a formula One team and you see the technology and the data flying around Sver and theI It's pretty mind blowing. And when you take the engine cover off and you look at what propels these race cars It's not like popping a hood in in your everyday road car, you look at it and it's like what is going on here? It is definitelyly flying to the moon stuff. That is so wild. Now, I want to talk to you about money a little bit. You've talked about revenue here and there throughout the conversation, My impression is that there is Just a massive amount of money pouring into F one right now Talk a little bit about that, brereak it down for us. Where is the money coming from? Is it primarily sponsorships big is this sport becoming, particularly in the United States? It's primarily sponsorship. You do get a good revenue stream from the league itself. Our numbers are public, evenven though we're a private company in England, you have to file a company house. our revenues are around seven hundred million pounds. so on the kind of exchange, right? was that? I'm like billion. billion. not qu And then and then bottom line north of a hundred, that kind of puts us in the NFL category when you look at what NFL teams generate from a revenue and a profit Our shareholders are all about winning in our people and brand And then the revenue follows. The value creation of Formula One has grown immensely, But when you look at what an NFL team is worth, there's eleven Formula One teams. It's a global business It has it NFL type revenues for the teams, not the league, the NFL league is in a different league. It is the best. business of sport in the world and hats off to them. I think we all look up to the NFL and go, we want to be like the NFL when we grow up. I would say probably three quarters of our revenue is sponsorship, then you get some licensing and merchandise. and then you do get from Formula one itself pretty healthy check that's based on. there's kind of three different categories. There's kind of an appearance fee that we all get the same for you're in the sport. And then it's performance based on how you finished last year is another piece of the pie that you share. And the better you do, the more you get. So the revenue streams are pretty simple Now let me ask you this. let's say someone listening. I'm sure many listeners already know and love the sport. Maybe some like me are trying to figure out how to get into it What would you tell a new or aspiring fan? someomeone who's like, this sounds interesting, this sounds fun I don't even know where to start. Where should they start? I think it's, you know, if you can go to a race Yeah because then I think it like most sports that makes the television experience that much better because seeeeing a car go two hundred miles an hour in real life. lookooks a lot faster than seeing it on TV. Yeah. So I think if someone can get to a race now that's that's you know, currently the one percent, can we get ninety nine The other ninety nine percent Probably not. so I think The more, you know, you could use almost a second screen experience because there's watching the race, but then there's watching the strategy of the race and the technology. So if you just turn on the TV and you're watching race cars go around, You're only kind of getting half the experience, you know, the more you can kind of understand the strategy how how the race is playing out. And so it's a great second screen experience. I think our sport probably more so. you got the TV on and then you got your tablet open and you're watching telemetry and laptimes and sectors, listening to radio. You can have in carart cameras from your different drivers. So you can kind of that's fun You can set up on your kitchen table kind of a h whole scene and I think once you get immersed in it, it really draws you in because you start to Fllow the stratey and here's what I think they're going to do. what tires are they on. So there's a lot of strategy as there is in all sports, but I think ours is quite complicated. So the more you get immersed in it, the more you understand it, the more intriguing it is And so you were a driver And now you run McLaren Do you ever get Fomo? Do you ever wish time? Yeah, you wish you were behind the wheel? Yeah all time. Do you ever get beind the wheel? I do get behind the wheel. Do They they let you test the car? I can't know because of regulations, I can't drive the new stuff, but I drive the old stuff Yeah, especially like on the grid And I think that's an area that I contribute a lot to the team is our driver relationship. So there are areas I can't contribute sitting down with our aerodynamicist trying to suggest how we put more downforce on the car It's good to know what you don't know. I don't know that at all. I listen and I don't say a word. But then when it comes to drivers and maybe some strategy and things of that nature, that I know the commercial side, I lean in on a lot. So you know my view is I work for the team. they don't work for me. so I go around trying to see how can I help everyone be better at their job Somehing things I can help get my hands dirty on and really dive in. other it's kind of tell me what you need and you know what support you need and let me get that. That's one of the reasons coming back to, why I joined McLaren is I love being in the race and I still definitely am in the race. I'm just not driving the race car. Yeah, I mean, perk of the job occasionally driving one of these Yeah one the It sounds great. They are amazing machines. No judgment here All right, another quick break here and we'll be back with our favorite game Hi, I'm Nicole Fhels, the global fashion News and Fatures Director and co host of Vogue's podcast The Run Through Each week on the show, our listeners get an all access pass to the world of Vogue with the latest fashion news and the most exciting voices in the industry On Tuesdays, join me to hear interviews with influential leaders in the industry like Calvin Kleine, Daniel Rosebery, and Jonathan Anderson On Thursdays, join head of editorial content at Vogue, Chloe Mao and head of editorial content at British Vogue, Chom Minati. as they explore style and culture through the lens of fashion with guests like Martha Stewart, Kamala Harris, and Tracy Ellis Ross