[Music] breaking news here at Mist Apex podcast we are responding to the absolute shock announcement and the not at all leaked news that Adrien NE is going to be joining Aston Martin and it could have been it could have been a sensational news story dropped in from The Ether but it's been leaked by just about every press outlet for the last couple of weeks and to be fair Joe completely called it not only on the show um last week but also in Miami so around May time uh he's rejected the advances I think most notably of of Ferrari who he was in serious talks with but we now know that the 2025 car is going to have some Adrian Nei influence mid-season and also uh is going to be he's going to have a major stake in the 2026 car joining me is Matt to rumit to say what he thinks about all of that kind of thing hey Matt hey just ignore the uh lry backing up in the background and all the it's all right that's not the worst thing that's happened part of the charm because we're doing breaking news only half of your face is on the YouTube so that's the least of our problems I'll fix that while you say things yeah no it it is the I mean like my wife was sending me this news so that's how leaked it was it was a very open secret which uh most things in Formula 1 get to sooner rather than later I don't know to respond to it personally I find this the worst of all possible outcomes and maybe it's just my background but it looks like once again the richest person gets to play with all the toys yeah it's um I like you don't want to say oh it's a a waste because then we're assessing the chances of this actually making a a massive difference for for Aston Martin my suspicion is it doesn't matter if you which designer you brought in to Aston Martin I don't think they're in a position to be a championship winning team well yeah certainly not right now it's as we've seen even when you get everything right let's say let's take Red Bull once they got the Honda engine going it was it was several years to really get to the point of contending or take McLaren how long have they been in the wilderness it's not an overnight journey and newie as good as he has been at his best it's not like every car he ever designed was automatically so much better you immediately have a championship winning car he has a history of being occasionally inconsistent with his designs I'm I'm thinking of the McLaren test design that they never were able to even race because it kept on catching on fire but you know you can you can go back through his history for all his championships he's had plenty that were not true but he also hasn't been at a team where he hasn't won races so Williams U McLaren Red Bull he he has always designed a race winning car at some point so it's certainly hope but also we don't really know about the role the role that's been announced makes it almost sound more like a a a a business partner like it's Nei Inc coming in so he owns shares he's obviously going to be Consulting but I think if you're a stroll fan or an Alonzo fan you you're hoping he's in there with a sketchboard and a pencil and paper designing it from scratch and I'm I'm not getting that that impression that he's going to be there in the in the workshop in the lab going you know with a light bulb moment going ah we just need titanium bolts yeah and you have to wonder to an extent um you know the the stock ownership uh I think we're seeing increasingly as being a way to uh tap dance around cost cap restrictions um he would be exempt as one of the top three employees anyway unless they're completely circumventing that altogether but I'm also hearing well I mean cost cap rules are changing but I I think that it's it's going further down that that that stakes in and stocks are being offered in lie of salary which is a very American sort of thing to do at a certain level at a senior level that would allow them to financially out compete other teams uh but I I still to me the most exciting thing and it would have been legendary would have been Hamilton and newie at the same team at the same time I I'm just feeling that I guess as a formula one fan as a sports fan in general is a bit of a loss I I I get what you're saying because it's going to come across as an insult to ason Martin when I said oh it's a bit of a a waste I think what we're saying is if you are looking at Adrian huie go to an extent top team now and go and make that bit of a difference to push it over the edge go and work with L Clerk and Hamilton or remain with the stappen or go across with to Mercedes who are going to be coming back with a bang with Russell and Antonelli that feels like a more present operation than a team that is currently struggling behind the Williams's fighting haes and it's frankly nowhere this season that feels like too big a turnaround to say right we're going to go into this regulation set and knew he's just going to Magic us to the front of the grid I'm not saying that can't happen and we saw with Brawn that story that leap up the grid but it's definitely it would be a low percentage so if Aston Martin was to come out in 2026 all guns blazing with a a championship winning car that would be extraordinary and would totally justify the decision but if you if we're going to bet now we're not going to bet our houses and our mortgages on on that happening no and I think crucially if we're going to talk about a situation link Braun first of all that that was years of Honda development that they capitalized on at the end but importantly you're dealing with absolutely stable and mature power unit regulations all the engines were about in the same place and as we saw in 2014 when Mercedes showed up with the best power unit if you've got the best power unit at the start of a new set of reg ation that will forgive an awful lot of aerodynamic s he might design by far the most efficient Arrow but Red Bull had a Rena power unit in 2014 and where were they exactly Y and that was nowhere near so the new power unit regulations I think are going to be the biggest most important thing when they show up if you've got it right and you're at the sharp end then that's going to be a huge Advantage for the first season or two help me with something here right so Red Bull Red Bull power trains right like they had tag Hoya engines back in the day when there's a problem with these power units they go to Japan to Honda because let's be honest it's a Honda power unit that Red Bull are running so is the Aston Martin Honda going to be basically the same as the Red Bull powertrain just that the Red Bull one's got a Red Bull badge on it or or is it now another branch is it like a so Red Bull power trains are taking control of that operation with what is essentially the Honda engine but this new Honda power unit that's going in the as Martin is that a different team of people different team of Engineers I'm very confused um you've asked a question that I cannot fully answer in terms of personnel but I think in terms of intellectual property uh the Honda IP is massive and has a lot more Formula 1 exposure than let's say board whose previous engagement ended I don't know I mean maybe through Cosworth they were in through the early 2000s but Anda has been here and they have been on top of a lot of these you know the um what is it the TDI sort of the the the double combustion chamber that they've been using and a lot of the efficiencies and certainly if you look at the um ra 21 you know they borrowed plating from the motorcycle division they borrowed turbine Division and and yeah Aston will be getting a Honda power unit Red Bull will have branched at the point at which Honda stopped being the name and given the fact that the power units have been frozen there's not a lot more for the Red Bull team to be learning from Honda they're on their own as comes to the next set of regulations they've gotten what they got up to 21 and they have they will have those learnings with them but from 21 to 26 that development is now the Honda power unit is now the Honda property and what Red Bull will have gone its own way where did Ford slip into this well they were originally brought in to help with the electric side of things because they they do rally which is hybrid now and um that was to be a good fit but they seem to be stepping into more of an equal partnership based on just the occasional news article that floats by uh really hard to say Ford is a massive company they will have divisions and years and years of research and and and as we've seen um a lot of times someone we'll go look in a dusk drawer and find something from 70 years ago that winds up being very relevant again Ford will have that history and they they do compete in a lot of top uh Motorsport series but but my money would be on Honda being better but obviously the person to bet on here would be Mercedes they have a real habit of showing up at the beginning of regulations with a with an advantage yeah I think over everybody else I think Honda can make a power unit um is your your conversation with tomk young that I was definitely awake through um yeah I completely yeah I'm still recording yeah this is the dangers of working from home is there anything I can help you with my sweet okay uh can you use a different Zoom account oh yeah okay thank you very much I'm just going to leave that in that's the hazard of working at home in the it does yeah and um we still we have to share a zoom account um so help us afford two Zoom accounts by supporting us at patreon.com Miss Apex U oh by the way we're going to do a patron show we haven't done one all summer we are going to do one Watkins Glenn we can we can sit and record um one on our phones or something yeah right uh trying to remember where I was so I your interview with Tom young that I was awake through most of with at mobile one and you know he heavily insinuated that it was easier working with Red Bull with the Honda power unit than it was for for Honda working at McLaren and he was alluding to that size zero contemp being particularly restrictive I I I don't want to put words in his mouth but that's the sense I was getting so I think Honda can make a power unit so um that I don't think that's going to be a massive Factor on an equal uh footing surely the regulations are going to try and avoid a 2014 situation surely F1 isn't going to sleepwalk into a 2014 type situation where just one power unit manufacturer runs away well now that Renault may not be on the grid for 2026 I think you can probably admit that it'll be a bit closer amongst those that remain but don't forget Audi is showing up for the first time in a long time and Red Bull Ford is a brand new partnership as well so it's yeah it's very possible we could see a widespread especially the first season and I don't uh recall off the top of my head how restrictive the the development is but I know that much like they put uh wind tunnel and cfd testing um into increasingly restrictive frames I know that there's now limited amounts of dinno time they have there'll probably be limited amounts of developments that they bring because the the whole point is to keep the sport on an even Financial Keel for the teams rather than the fastest biggest most impressive engineering developments that we couldn't really afford but had no choice but to try and make anyway all right so 30 million a year is I think the figure 30 million a year that is spicy plus shares as well that that that is y and so you go well why didn't he go to to Ferrari I think we're still on the question of how much of a difference can he make so I I think we danced around the power unit but I think all things being equal you're still going to you're going to find the Ferrari team is going to come out with a decent power unit you know this if Ferrari can do anything just make engines my goodness so if he'd have gone to Ferrari I think he makes an immediate impact because his main role isn't there on the the board you know drawing wavy lines his he would go to Ferrari with a decade's worth of Secrets from Red Bull and could go in there fault Find Tinker consult and and really have made a difference and really push Ferrari back to the front like that's my my feeling but it looks like the conversation with vour he said well Adrian knew he wanted more control I think the rumor is that he wanted hiring influence as well so that he could you know influence who the team brings in so basically he wanted Ferrari to be much more of a a team Ney thing and look the sir is the is the king there so it's up to him whether that fits in with his management structure I I wonder how that has gone down then at Aston Martin so does he have hiring and firing power at Aston Martin can he veto a certain personality or engineer coming in can you get them to sack someone has he got that level of control because if he asked for it at Ferrari surely he asked for it Aston Martin as well but just my overriding feeling is he could have gone to Ferrari and won championships and I it's a much longer shot to do that at Aston Martin yeah I think you'd be correct about it I would I would argue that his impact at Ferrari would be even simpler is that people would be willing to move to Ferrari from the UK if they set up if he was if he was located in Italy and if not they would have set up a design office in the UK which would have meant more top Engineers more talent to choose from across the board because at a certain level who wouldn't want a chance to work with newie while that's still something you can put on your resume you see what I'm saying and um but you're right I think Aston is a longer shot because they're farther away right now because the power unit has to be right and has to be best and even then like I said as good as NE he is and he's very very good he's not always right he doesn't always get everything right and if he gets it wrong sometimes he gets it catastrophically wrong which is I think the flip side of him also designing championships personally I've just looked this up so if this is wrong um let me know but he was reported to have been getting 10 million a year at Red Bull obviously we don't know what the figures would have been at Ferrari but Ferrari have got a budget but if Aston Martin this alludes to your point of you know one team getting all the toys if they can afford to Triple his way already massive massive wages plus you know a shares deal which makes the business side lucrative it does show the power that the strolls have and the power they're willing to throw at at what it must be project Lance stroll right they're still looking at making Lance world champion let's say they do come out with a championship winning car in 2026 are they going to sit there and watch Alonzo win the F1 world championship with Lance stroll politely clapping at the bottom of the podium they're not going to let that happen how does this work I don't I don't get it well I mean that assumes Alonzo continues to drive for them until they get a championship winning car which we're now going to say is going to be what 26 27 and the earliest which would put Alonzo close to 50 how old is he now he's he's 43 I think he's just about your age when renan retired that he was the last driver older than me so so now that's how I can track it so Alonzo is like the school year below me so he's like 43 U so yeah we're talking about yeah into his late 40s I think he's he's surely he's retiring come 46 um but he can't be at his Peak at 46 no it's not it's not going to be the case he's going to he's going to reaction times are going to diminish enthusiasm is going to diminish the ability to get through a season it is it has to it has to or f1's just not difficult enough or he's super human so are they just hoping that he'll diminish to the point where L stroll eventually beats Fernando Alonzo I don't know unless Fernando it's going to take some more diminishing because Alonzo's and and this this regulation set in particular it might be different uh going forward but this regulation set aerodynamically speaking really puts a premium on experience Alonzo has good racecraft he's got loads of experience and I think that's why you see him outp pointing him not just pure paie in eight the last eight seasons L stroll has only beaten sokin and beaten sokin in uh you know when the Williams it was a rubbish Williams wasn't it um it was Q3 out in q1 sorry but you know with better drivers it might have been a Q2 car that was an argument we had at the time but basically in that that level you know you had Cubit cubitz uh beat Russell and nobody seriously thinks that Russell wasn't the better driver in that team but it's just you know you're relying on cars dnfing or having accidents up front so there's there's a lottery there so that's the one time he beat a teammate other than that he failed to beat Perez has failed to beat vetle and obviously failed to beat Alonzo which I don't think is a surprise so he's now at what you would imagine would be the peak of you know the natural peak of an F1 driver at the height of his powers perfect age perfect amount of experience he's not going to get dramatically better so this is the level that Lance stro is at for him to be a champion which must be the point of spending 150 million on an Adrian Yi contract yeah if you look at his whole history in the sport you'd think that would be the point yeah that that has to be the point so at some point you need a teammate that Lance stroll can beat and so you look at the current grid now and that would be limit there's a limited field of drivers you go like let's bring that driver in and stro is going to beat that driver and the driver's probably going to have Team orders against him anyway and I think there's a history of the strolls imposing team rumor history I don't know how Pro proven it is but you know the the things with stroller are always those rumors will follow him around that he's had teammates that were ordered not to pass him and that he's had way more preparation than anyone else could afford which if you have the money I you can't fault necessarily them for doing that but it does distort the picture but if if neie built a car that stappen would win the championship in or Hamilton would win the championship in or L clerk would win the championship in stro isn't necessarily going to win in that same car so it's going to have to be a massively dominant car yes it's got to be a 2014 Mercedes Gap you'd think with no competition from a a teammate I mean either a teammate who's just like yep show me the money I've already won my things I don't need to I I have no ego need to be faster I'm just here to make a paycheck and enjoy the atmosphere or genuinely a teammate that is not yet capable of beating Lance on I guess experience but but then if he's not capable of beating Lance is he going to be there to pick up the constructor's point that you also want I just don't know it's weird if stro takes a massive Improvement in general pace and ability then fair play and then new he comes in Championship winning car uh you got okay the hands up but that doesn't seem like the most likely thing and you know I've got a big workingclass chip on my shoulder which is I I know you do I've got a big middle class chip on my shoulder when it comes to people who who have that level of advantage um it it's hard not to just automatically let it get under your skin but I will say I watch the wrong sport for for for that to have that yeah you definitely picked the wrong sport for that what I will say about stroll though I don't think it's Pace because he can drive the car fast the thing to me that he misses the reason he doesn't beat Alonzo is its consistency and I think a bit of mentality uh he he has yet to mature on that level to be the kind of consistency we saw Norris and we saw piastri growing into now with McLaren and and like finally this summer he's starting to hit the kind of consistency you need to really be a potential champion in terms of Tire management and stuff like that in terms of not getting impatient in terms of understanding what's the most I can get out of the situation I'm in right this second and then making sure you extract it stroll is impatient he doesn't always stick around to make sure that happens and when he gets frustrated he he he increases his error rate massively those if you put him in a car that might win a championship it would be an interesting Journey for me to watch him go on to see whether or not he could get on top of that or whether anyone could convince him that's what needs to be done yeah if it was to happen I think I'd be quite upset I think if it would be this story of like Decades of unparalleled access to Advantage via wealth a scale not seen before in Formula 1 and and if we think the buying of a team for your son was excessive than tripling the wages of a legendary designer and giving him shares to bring him in to bring that advantage in uh and then I believe to make that happen to get to the the driver's Championship uh it would have to be a dominant car and you also would have to have that compliant teammate if all that happened and L stro became world champion I would be like Beyond disappointed for the for the sport as from a fan point of view I'd just be gutted that that's possible because it's it was already I know well well Out Of Reach of like most most middle class people but to take it to that step it would be extreme and so I still have a little bit of faith in this Sport and in Motorsport in general and its competitiveness and the standard of the drivers that even at this point I don't think this will work I still think you've got stroll in a new car I'm still putting all my money on Ferrari with L Clerk or Hamilton or Mercedes with vapen or Antonelli or Red Bull with oh who's going to even get be left at Red Bull but do you know what I mean like I still think that this is a leap too far despite the excessive extreme wealth and privilege and advantage that's being thrown at him yeah I mean and the obvious answer there is Toyota who spent untold amounts of money and just got absolute bubus for it yeah although we did get Kobe ashy so at least we got that oh I'm a asy fan I don't I I don't think they're going to quit so there's all there's been these rumors of while stroll is going to disappear off to sports car um I don't think they're going to quit I think they believe that L stroll can be world champion that's the mission and they're doing everything they can to drive forward at it so yeah I don't think stroll is going anywhere I think I'll predict that Alonzo will be replaced at some point soon um because yeah you're right it's going to take a lot of diminishing and I think that this is going to be a long-term project so get used to stroll Nei and papa stroll pushing for the world drivers Championship whether they can do it or not I think it's a stretch too far but this has got to be one of the most you well it's a unique proposition in Formula 1 it is indeed all right I think that's all the news that that's breaking about it missed opportunity for for fans to see you know Nei alongside Hamilton and thecla at Ferrari but Money Money Talks not having to travel talks and then there's behind the scenes so you know maybe Aston Martin are letting him have Fridays off you know and and for you never know yeah he gets his own refrigerator in the uh company snack I bet the cafe is better at Marinello than is yeah I would imagine thanks for joining me Matt thanks for for breaking and everybody who listening to this there's going to be a strat Corner out uh by tomorrow morning for your lead up into into the week so we spoke with um Mike corfield and we had a guest drop in from 2311 NASCAR strategist J.R Houston who is a big F1 fan as well but he's like the equivalent to Mike in in the NASCAR world so he had some questions for Mike too gave us a little bit of a preview of Watkins Glenn and then we spoke to Mike extensively about the last couple of races strategy stuff it's really fascinating conversation and um and looking forward to Singapore and back backu so go and follow mat mat pt55 me spanners ready until next time we will see you later [Music]