00:00:00.760Okay, so a thing you should know about me is that I started watching Drive to Survive.
00:00:04.560I got really into F1, so I have gone like down the rabbit hole.
00:00:09.220I have exhaustively researched tire compounds and all kinds of other stuff that I never
00:00:14.760thought that I would be super interested in.
00:00:19.200This is the Culture Study Podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson.
00:00:23.080And I'm Nicole Washington, recovering sports addict and newly minted F1 obsessive.
00:00:29.300The reason I asked you on is because you don't hide your F1 fandom. In fact, it is a major feature of your stories. And I feel like I have gleaned things about F1 just through exposure to your stories.
00:00:44.840So before we get to your story of F1, for me, who I will say and preface that I have watched a couple of the Drive to Survive episodes during the pandemic, maybe at some point, that is about the extent of my knowledge.
00:01:01.300I've watched all of the seasons at least three times.
00:01:04.940Good. Okay. Right. So we have the bona fides in place.
00:01:08.820can you explain drive to survive really quickly because that's my access point and i think a lot
00:01:14.100of other people listening that's our access point sure uh drive to survive is a series on netflix
00:01:20.920it has five seasons i believe each season follows a racing season uh the first couple of seasons
00:01:27.980are sort of designed around following one team over the course of the season so like
00:01:32.440well and the first seasons don't have the two of the bigger teams ferrari and mercedes they show
00:01:38.560up a little bit later i guess after they decided it was worth their while but that's that's the
00:01:42.880general premise is that it's the the season follows a racing season each episode is usually
00:01:49.540focused on one team all over the course of the season although that changes a little bit as you
00:01:54.540go uh through the seasons i will say just as a side note that this formula for a reality television
00:02:02.080show has become incredibly popular and i think you know the the fact that f1 bought in to allowing
00:02:10.860this amount of access to their stars unprecedented access right and as you point out like that has
00:02:16.200to do with ownership switching but like there's one for golf there's one for tennis there's one
00:02:21.580for cycling i believe now yes my f1 group chat became obsessed with the cycling one after we
00:02:29.220moved on from f1 so yes our f1 group chat is the vroom vroom boys and the cycling one are the bike
00:02:36.000boys and they are i think remarkably effective in expanding the fan base of these somewhat niche
00:02:44.680sports interests whatever you want to call them um and have done really well on netflix so that's
00:02:50.520just people i think have entered in different like have started watching one and then they expand and
00:02:55.780they watch all the other ones too. Yeah, it's general enough to give you sort of an overview
00:03:00.140of the sport and sort of how it operates, but also goes deep into a particular person or a team
00:03:06.700enough that you get like a real hook. What is F1 if someone has never heard of it? Formula One
00:03:12.700is a car racing championship. It's that simple. You can go a step further and say that there are
00:03:20.840actually two championships. There is one for the people who make the cars and one for the
00:03:25.620people who drive the cars that's it it's really just that simple and we're talking about like
00:03:31.220really nice like all of the luxury brands that we've heard of like those companies are making
00:03:38.780these cars uh sort of so it is what i believe is referred to as open wheel racing um because the
00:03:47.180actual part where they sit is open like they don't have windows and windshield wipers or just sort of
00:03:52.580like clunk down in a car think of it as like a very fancy version of those little tykes race cars
00:03:58.940like that's what we're dealing with here not a lot of uh amenities for the driver and there are
00:04:05.220a couple of constructors so the championship for the people who make the cars is called the
00:04:10.160constructors championship and the whole the reason why it's called formula one is because there is
00:04:15.180like a formula to building the car there are all kinds of rules and regulations like how far you
00:04:22.240can be off the ground how much the car can weigh how much the drivers can weigh like i'll just like
00:04:26.060everything that you can imagine there is a regulation around and they switch them up and
00:04:30.840make changes and stuff like that all the time to make the cars go faster to make it more exciting
00:04:35.140to make it in theory more uh carbon neutral but we'll come back to that um and also just to shake
00:04:41.820things up a little bit uh but yes so there are a couple of constructors mercedes red bull um and
00:04:48.920Ferrari are sort of like the three big ones. They have their own teams, and then they also make
00:04:53.860components for other teams' cars. The fancy sponsors or logos that you see, the Rolex, the
00:05:01.860Tag Heuer, I'm probably mispronouncing that, I'm not a watch girl, those are actually sponsors for
00:05:07.940the team. Got it. And there's a whole other series of kind of lore around F1 sponsors, because
00:05:13.480there's like a lot of things a lot of corruption a lot of weirdness also a lot of sponsors that
00:05:19.240like no one really knows what they do outside of sponsor f1 so totally consultants let's
00:05:26.400like hedge funds like something with group at the end and then do you like compete as a team
00:05:33.980as individuals does it depend like the olympics on where you were born or where your citizenship
00:05:39.620is like how does that all work so the way that the teams break down is that because f1 started
00:05:49.040in england almost all of the teams have a presence somewhere in england like sort of
00:05:55.260close to each other even if they are like say red bull which is i didn't know this until i
00:05:59.500started watching drive to survive red bull is an austrian company i knew this i knew this they're
00:06:05.240like really they're really big in Europe yeah yeah also Red Bull's so disgusting that I just
00:06:10.840assumed it was American but whatever uh you know Mercedes is a German automaker but they also have
00:06:18.060a presence in England uh so it just sort of depends there's a team called Haas that is in
00:06:25.140theory the American team because it is owned by Gene Haas who also owns a NASCAR team and so they
00:06:31.220have a headquarters in England but also one in Kannapolis North Carolina but their drivers are
00:06:38.340German and I don't remember what Kevin Magnussen's nationality is but he's Nordic of some sort
00:06:45.780and then their their team principal is a Austrian Italian named Gunther who also has some really
00:06:54.420great memeable moments so it's sort of like a real big patchwork the thing that I really love
00:07:00.520and where I think a lot of the drama of Real Housewives of Monaco,
00:07:29.480So you would think that if you are winning the Constructors' Championship, you are also winning the Drivers' Championship, but that's not necessarily true.
00:07:38.940And sometimes you will have drivers come into conflict because the team wants to manage the race and have them do a 1-2 finish or a 2-3 finish.
00:07:47.580And let's say number three driver actually wants to be number two and so does something dumb during the race that ends up taking both of the drivers out or causes some other issues.
00:07:56.640So they are a team, but they're not necessarily always working as a team.
00:08:03.620And Drive to Survive had some pretty spectacular examples of that.
00:08:07.280Okay, so just to use my antiquated, very basic sports analogy here, it would be like Michael Jordan's the MVP.
00:08:16.760Maybe he's already been voted as the MVP.
00:08:18.180they get to the championships and like either he sabotages scotty pippen in some way or scotty
00:08:25.040pippen sabotages him because they're in competition it would be like if michael jordan and scotty
00:08:33.160pippen are both on the bulls and the bulls are trying to win a championship but the mvp race
00:08:41.340is still open and so they're both fighting with each other to be the mvp got it okay got it
00:08:48.080got it got it and they would like maybe be sabotaging each other yeah there's something
00:08:52.680in f1 called team orders which is basically when orders come down from the team that are like hey
00:08:57.460stay in this place or let your teammate buy or something like that and so a lot of the conflict
00:09:02.300you see is when someone doesn't listen to team orders and it's like and you get a lot of whining
00:09:06.860on the radio or like no i'm faster i should get to go by or like no he should let me buy and just
00:09:11.840it's a lot of a lot of like sort of very toddler-esque drama that i love okay so let's
00:09:17.420backtrack how did you get into f1 i had a couple of friends who were watching it who were like
00:09:24.500you should really watch this thing it's funny the two teammates in this episode keep taking each
00:09:30.160other out of the race it's like if you and i were racing against each other and i was like
00:09:33.360i want to watch a bunch of white dudes minus lewis hamilton and alex elbon uh i don't want
00:09:39.660watch a bunch of white dudes racing expensive cars and that doesn't it doesn't appeal to me
00:09:44.800and to be clear we're talking about the netflix series right yes we're talking about drive to
00:09:49.000survive the netflix series i was like it doesn't really it's not curling over all the way for me
00:09:53.880and i say that as someone who really loves sports who gave up watching the nfl because i just
00:09:59.940morally for me i couldn't do it anymore also quit watching uh ncaa basketball which i am
00:10:06.780contractually obligated to love being from North Carolina during the first wave of conference
00:10:12.720realignment. So like I love sports and I was just like this doesn't really sound appealing to me
00:10:18.820and I finally sat down and watched one episode and I was absolutely hooked. It like scratches
00:10:26.600all of the itches for me. It's interesting. It's fast. I love fast. I love cars. I love all of the
00:10:33.720like internal drama and dynamics and it's also very technical so like you can go on a very deep
00:10:40.860dive about almost any topic like from brakes to wheels to tire compounds to the history of how
00:10:48.920the tires happened to the history of the different tracks and just like there's so many little
00:10:53.000nuances and like bits and pieces i just think it's fascinating is it like a lot of sports where
00:10:57.440you can be a casual fan or does it like really reward intense fandom i think it rewards either
00:11:04.540one like you can be a casual fan and just like maybe watch a race to see who wins and call it
00:11:09.740that or you can have um not that i necessarily do this but you could have several group chats
00:11:17.080and like subgroup chats where you are analyzing the nuances of uh what the drivers are wearing
00:11:22.940and whether or not their recent breakup is affecting their driving and talking about the
00:11:27.780rumors that you see on some sort of like godforsaken deep cut f1 fan account on instagram
00:11:34.520you you could do that if you wanted to so this this is a good segue into my next question because
00:11:40.700i think part of it to me and part of the reason why the the series was so effective in turning
00:11:46.000people into fans is that they are very good celebrities as well so who are our top like who
00:11:51.680are the people who are the players uh so i will say that now they are very good celebrities um
00:11:58.360drive to survive happened when formula one was sold to an american company called liberal media
00:12:02.900uh and because it's an american company the drivers were allowed to do more on social media
00:12:08.480to like kind of be celebrities more before that when it was owned by bernie ecclestone there was
00:12:13.160like a he put the kibosh on lewis hamilton used to get penalties for like posting like pictures
00:12:18.220of him on snapchat with like his niece and nephew on like christmas morning are you kidding so
00:12:22.800yeah they have like a very strict lockdown and they're a lot more accessible now and that has
00:12:28.660directly coincided with drive to survive which is also directly coincided with like the big jump
00:12:33.800in f1 fandom at least in the u.s yeah yeah basically the drivers were celebrified by
00:12:40.120opening up their social media and also i mean the decision to do drive to survive is part of
00:12:44.600that celebrification okay so who who's your favorite uh so the most important person that
00:12:51.480you need to know about is lewis hamilton in my opinion uh he is the lead driver for the mercedes
00:12:58.120patronus formula one team which is hilarious if you watch drive to survive because he always
00:13:02.880forgets the full name of it uh he is the only black driver on the grid and one of two drivers
00:13:10.000of color on the grid the other being alex alban whose mother is ty he is an absolutely incredible
00:13:18.740racer both technically and he's also a very good celebrity in the sense that he's like very online
00:13:27.080but not in an annoying way so like he's online just enough to give the fans what they want
00:13:31.180yeah uh he recently launched a non-alcoholic tequila and like dropped enough little bread
00:13:36.040crumbs before the launch that like people were just frothing at the mouth to speculate and try
00:13:40.600and figure out what it was uh so like he knows how to play the game also his fashion sense is
00:13:45.540impeccable he has a rihanna like gift for wearing things that do not seem like they should be
00:13:52.640clothing that should be put on a human body and looking incredible in it just like also he has a
00:13:59.760bulldog named roscoe that he is obsessed with and you know i love anyone that's obsessed with their
00:14:03.860dog uh i'm just googling right now just to make sure that i'm yeah and so he's pretty young uh
00:14:11.100he is actually i believe close to 40 he's 30 he's one of the he's not the oldest but he is one of
00:14:17.180the oldest drivers on the grid and he he's five nine they're actually almost all very short kings
00:14:24.860because the shorter you are the easier it is to like fold up and get into that seat you know what
00:14:29.260Talman have, they have a lot of possibilities of other things that they can do. So this is a great opportunity. So my question is, like, you don't, like, do F1 in college. Like, there's no, like, how do you get started? Like, what do you do as, like, a teen?
00:14:45.300very very young like seven eight years old doing go-kart races and working your way up from there
00:14:53.820which is why most of the people that are in it are rich because that's a lot of time and a lot
00:14:59.520of money uh lewis hamilton actually did not come from a super foolish background and he talks a
00:15:04.960lot about how his dad had like multiple jobs to try and keep him on the track and was like doing
00:15:09.860a lot of the work on the go-kart himself just because they couldn't afford it otherwise there
00:15:13.820a couple of other racers like that I think Esteban Ocon came from like a a normal like
00:15:19.500middle class background but most of them come from wealthy backgrounds a lot of them had parents who
00:15:25.600were racers my memory from the few episodes of drive to survive that I watched was like they
00:15:30.160went to one of their like familial homes and it was like a palace uh yeah that I believe is the
00:15:37.220episode with Carlos Sainz whose dad Carlos Sainz senior is a very famous very good rally car driver
00:15:43.360also I should confess that I thought I was like coming new to formula one but I realized as I was
00:15:49.720watching it that number one I grew up going to the jackship a lot but I also used to be really
00:15:53.460into rally car racing and like my early teens I don't know why but I was why why were you why
00:16:00.060did you get into it I just thought it was really cool fascinating you know like this is some one
00:16:06.000of those things if it's around and you're kind of bored as a teen you get into it right like I
00:16:13.180got obsessed with baseball box scores when I was a kid because I was so bored in the summer and you
00:16:19.820could like collect them and cut them out and put them in like I put them in like a photo album or
00:16:25.540I like I really liked going to the rodeo because there wasn't anything else going on and so some
00:16:31.840of it is just like oh this is a thing and so maybe for some people it's like this is what is on the
00:16:37.020TV when I'm growing up. And then I get interested that way. I come from a car loving and a fast car
00:16:44.700in particular loving family. So I think that also probably had something to do with it. Totally.
00:16:49.900So I asked culture study readers to send in their questions about F1. And I've got a few that I want
00:16:54.760to ask you. And several of those are about just this overarching, like, why? Why are people into
00:17:01.400it so what do you think just as like an overall you've said a little bit about this but i'd love
00:17:07.920to hear your grand theories um so i made a rule pretty early on after watching drive to survive
00:17:15.780and starting to follow like various social media accounts and stuff that i was only going to get my
00:17:22.120f1 podcast my news my information my analysis from women and that has made a big difference for me so
00:17:30.480there are so many great female fan focused podcasts and not to leave anyone out but I'm
00:17:40.000just going to focus specifically on women because I am a cisgender woman and this is a part of
00:17:44.880sports fandom that I have always struggled with because there is nothing a cis man loves more
00:17:50.760to be like oh you like this sport please name these 16 esoteric facts or you're not a real fan
00:17:56.160there is none of that in this universe there are these incredible creators like uh lily herman who
00:18:02.760writes a really great newsletter and has incredible analysis on uh her instagram stories
00:18:08.380uh there's two girls one formula there's fan behavior so that has made uh it it feels really
00:18:17.260welcoming to me um going so far as there's a place here in new orleans where i always go to watch
00:18:23.780f1 uh and it's a pretty female dominated space the group of people that show up and it just is like
00:18:31.240it's very welcoming as a female sports fan in a way that i have not found any other fandom to be
00:18:37.720so that is a big part of why i like it so much um also i like i mentioned i just really love all of
00:18:43.580the like weird technical aspects of it and how many teeny tiny things can shift in a race so
00:18:50.140there are things like you start the race with all of the fuel that your car will need for the race
00:18:56.360which means that it's heavier at the start of the race lighter and therefore faster towards the end
00:19:02.660also as you were going around the racetrack the tires are all leaving rubber so the track gets
00:19:07.740grippier as you go on and they're just all these different variables and so I think that there's
00:19:13.320something for everyone if you want to be really technical you can be really technical if you want
00:19:18.360to just like look at the vroom vroom boys go fast and various sort of circle shapes fine you could
00:19:25.520do that if you just want to be interested in like the wags they have gotten like you know they're
00:19:30.780very social media savvy so it's got it's got something for everyone all right our first take
00:19:35.660slash question is from emily my husband has been into f1 racing for a while and recently i was
00:19:41.360asking him about it why he likes it what even is it etc i found it interesting to learn about
00:19:47.260because every time we discussed it, he mostly talked about drama between crews, staff, or racers.
00:19:53.060I'm not into sports, but I am into rich people gossip. So is F1 basically just Real Housewives
00:19:58.860for cis men? Why do I love rich people gossip so much? And why is it such a cultural phenomenon?
00:20:04.780Yes, the answer is yes. It is 100% Real Housewives of Monaco. That's what I call it. 100%.
00:20:12.540I mean, I think about this a lot in terms of like the ways in which celebrity gossip is always feminized, but somehow sports gossip is masculinized, right? When it's about the same thing. It's oftentimes about...
00:20:25.540There's a whole offshoot about Travis and Taylor here that I'm not even going to get into.
00:20:30.100right and i think that maybe f1 gives an opportunity to map some of those more uh fun
00:20:40.180components onto like it's more seamlessly integrated into the sport does that make
00:20:46.560sense what do you think here i think that is correct and i think that part of it is that a
00:20:51.040big part of the sport is whining it's whining on the radio it is whining to try to play the refs to
00:20:57.960say hey the refs that's not what they're called they're called the stewards but going to the
00:21:02.140stewards and say hey we got flagged for this but this other team didn't get flagged for this or
00:21:05.920this looks suspicious you might want to go to like there's a whole lot of tattling and like that kind
00:21:10.940of um interpersonal drama and conflict is baked into actually the way that you run the team and
00:21:17.480how you're always looking for every advantage and it's i think a lot more visible than it is in
00:21:22.800other sports, and so you get more access to it. This, I think, highlights my ignorance, but
00:21:29.520how long has it been around? I'm sure there's some dude on the internet waiting to well actually me,
00:21:37.560but generally speaking, it started right after World War II because there were a bunch of
00:21:43.020abandoned air bases, and so naturally someone was like, you know what we should do? Drive some cars
00:21:47.880really fast around them and that's how it started and so i wonder how much too is part and i see
00:21:54.320this a lot in golf which i'm more familiar with is like how you have these structures that have
00:21:59.740been in place that have at least historically really favored people with money or access to
00:22:04.760money or like this is something that people with money do and then part of the narrative that i
00:22:09.640think particularly americans like is what happens when we like new people and whether that's people
00:22:17.160of color that's people who didn't grow up in those incredibly high echelons of power like
00:22:23.400enter the sport and then that becomes a narrative what do you think about that yeah like this year
00:22:28.840uh logan sargent who is literally a florida man is the uh first american racer on the grid
00:22:36.860which is a way of saying he is the first american racer competing amongst the 20 drivers on the 10
00:22:42.580teams uh in many many years and so there's been like a whole lot of talk around that about him
00:22:49.920being an american also about him being a rookie how that relates to this like historically like
00:22:54.840epitome of british racing team that he is on williams so yeah i i think that you were absolutely
00:23:01.500spot on with that so the part of the question where she says why do i like rich people gossip
00:23:07.340so much i mean it's just for me it's the like oh even when they have all of their other needs met
00:23:15.700there's still drama like there is always going to be drama yes i i don't know how to answer that
00:23:22.880other than to say that i also enjoy rich people gossip because i really enjoy drama that does not
00:23:28.880involve me and i think the thing with rich people is that because they have all of their other needs
00:23:34.600met most of the time the drama is like incredibly low stakes so like you're watching it thinking
00:23:42.380how am i gonna pay my rent and like kim and courtney are arguing over who copied who's like
00:23:46.860italian dolce and gabbana wedding like it's the absolute and utter just ridiculousness of the
00:23:56.120things that some of these folks are actually worried about compared to the grand scheme of0.98
00:24:00.480things and the fact that they don't like I worry about stupid things all the time but I am fully0.76
00:24:07.360aware that like no one cares what color the hand towels in my bathroom are except for me like I0.74
00:24:12.860know that that's a ridiculous thing to worry about Kim and Courtney to use an example are out here
00:24:17.720fighting about who copied whose wedding like the future of the universe depends on it so
00:24:24.060So the analog there is the very high stakes retiree gossip on Nextdoor, which, as you point out, their other needs are met in many other ways.0.56
00:24:36.080And so what they are doing with their spare time is they are fighting with each other.
00:24:40.120There was a huge fight last year about a woman who kept putting out food for the deer.
00:24:45.520And so they have a lot of time to think about this.
00:24:48.660And as an observer, I have to use Nextdoor because it's the place where, like, all the news about the island that I live on, that's where it lives.
00:25:18.660So, OK, we have a question from Megan about the world of racing and what sets F1 apart.0.99
00:25:25.300Thoughts on how Formula One is the cool new sport, but NASCAR is still largely seen, as far as I know, as quote unquote white trash culture.0.94
00:25:32.840As someone who doesn't watch either, they seem similar.0.99
00:25:35.520Is it that Formula One has more expensive cars, that it's global, or is it about drivers and fans?
00:25:41.100Cannot wait to hear your answer to this, Nicole.
00:25:42.840um so this is actually a really interesting question for me because uh as i hope many of
00:25:49.860you know but if you don't nascar stands for the national association of stock car automotive
00:25:55.360racing yeah i think uh but it started out as bootlegging and it started out like in the south
00:26:00.380in the carolinas is like you got to build a really fancy car based off of or really fast car out of
00:26:06.340whatever parts you have around so that when someone discovers your moonshine still you can
00:26:10.120get away like that's that is the i did not know that origins yeah that's the origins of nascar
00:26:15.720so i actually grew up because i was in north carolina like being around nascar a lot my mom
00:26:21.700went to nascar races i watched my uh friend's brother like go to drag races so i'm not sure0.84
00:26:29.180if i'm the best person to ask this just because i i don't think that nascar is white trash because
00:26:36.320i am not white and i and a lot of my family have been not necessarily involved in nascar but in
00:26:41.820things that are sort of like related to it so like motorcycle racing and like that kind of thing
00:26:46.060um i think the appeal of formula one over nascar is that it's perceived as being fancier because
00:26:51.980it's like european right like right i took a trip to italy this summer slash fall and i have been
00:27:00.160doing and my best like annoying girl that came back from study abroad voice like oh my god the
00:27:04.920honey there was just so much better than it is here like that's it it's it's just that it's from
00:27:10.620somewhere else and so that makes it seem cooler than whatever it is that we have here yeah that's
00:27:16.220a large part of it at least that's all i can figure because there there aren't really a lot
00:27:20.240of differences there's also um a racing circuit called indycar that i don't know as much about
00:27:25.460that it's kind of like partially between formula one and nascar in terms of uh like rules and setup
00:27:33.000and stuff like that I do want to get more into IndyCar but I don't know if I have time in my
00:27:37.800busy F1 focus schedule you know I grew up where I grew up there was a lot of demolition derbies
00:27:43.920which are essentially you take old cars that you've kind of made look cool and then you smash
00:27:51.820them into each other in usually at like a rodeo grounds they're pretty great but they also like
00:27:59.120there's something about the whole structure of the event that is meant for mischief, right?
00:28:07.180Like there are just, there's a lot going on. And, you know, I think that what I really appreciate
00:28:13.500the point that you make about how NASCAR maybe signifies to people outside of the South in0.99
00:28:20.420particular as something that is white trash culture in quotes, but it's almost like how0.59
00:28:27.460evangelical has become this shorthand for a certain type of politics which completely excludes like an0.94
00:28:33.660entire population of evangelicals right yeah especially when we're talking about race so
00:28:39.040yeah i think that you're right i think that the f1 thing is that it's global and that i don't even
00:28:45.240think it's that it's global i think it's that it's european like it is european in origin and then0.91
00:28:49.880while it might be global now right i think that people think of it as like oh this is our dumb
00:28:54.420american racing and this is the fancy european racing like right right right i think if there's
00:28:59.360the divide that's that's the way that folks are thinking of it you were right in pointing out
00:29:03.580however that it is global like the race this weekend uh is in brazil which interestingly
00:29:09.460is basically like a home race for lewis hamilton brazil has like claimed him as their own which is
00:29:14.680kind of cool to see someone asked this question they were like how is that working how is it that
00:29:19.400he's like is he secretly brazilian that we don't know about or is it just that brazil has claimed
00:29:24.200him. I think it's that Brazil has claimed them. I think it's probably because he's black. And it's
00:29:29.060nice to see someone who looks like the people in your country. There's also a fascinating backstory
00:29:35.380here, which is that Max Verstappen, who is the world champion and lead driver for Red Bull,
00:29:43.340is dating this woman named Kelly Piquet. Kelly Piquet's father and brother, Nelson and Nelson
00:29:50.560jr were both formula one racers and also raced in some other series they're bolsonaro supporters
00:29:59.040nelson pk senior has made some vile racist comments about lewis hamilton um that kelly
00:30:07.720has like not really ignored or spoken on so uh my formula one group chat has done a lot of
00:30:14.140speculating about how mad the pk family must be that they are and this is an important part i
00:30:18.920left out they're all actually brazilian like born in brazil uh we've been talking about how mad they
00:30:25.040must be that like lewis comes to town and everyone is just like he's home and just like completely
00:30:31.280how much of the fandom this is a good follow-up question has developed since the netflix series
00:30:37.000and is there a divide in the fandom of like oh well i was a fan before drive to survive
00:30:42.040yes there is uh it breaks down a lot of long gender lines a lot of long like
00:30:48.260uh some of the drivers have even made comments about how uh the upswing in fandom particularly
00:30:54.460in female fandom is just because they want to look at the hot guys and they don't care about
00:30:59.120anything else also hilariously in my opinion the driver that said this is not one of the most
00:31:04.560attractive on the grid if we're really going to start talking about things like that so like i
00:31:08.440know what you mean sir um so yes there is a divide there is always a divide in sports because we've
00:31:14.340touched on gendered sports fandom and how dumb it is but there's been a lot of talk around what f1
00:31:21.080is going to do with this upswing in american fandom because they tend to see other non-american0.71
00:31:27.980like leagues and teams and sports tend to see the u.s as a cash cow because they can make a lot of
00:31:34.000money here um and there's some talk about this in the context of the race schedule so there uh for
00:31:41.200a while was one f1 race in the u.s it's held in austin at circuit of the americas which is a
00:31:46.720purpose-built track it is built for racing um they added a second one that they run in miami which
00:31:52.840is has a reputation for being like a place to see and be seen and not really being for like actual
00:31:59.040fans. And this year, in a couple of weeks, they will be running a race in Vegas that actually
00:32:04.160goes down the Vegas Strip and has caused all kinds of drama in Las Vegas. There is no place to watch
00:32:11.840the race for free, even though they will be going down the Strip. They're putting up barriers so
00:32:17.660that you can't actually see if you're just walking along. You have to pay to watch the race. There's0.71
00:32:22.880nowhere really to catch a glimpse of it otherwise. The people in the city of Las Vegas are pissed
00:32:28.600about this because they're essentially it would be like if a race was happening on your street and
00:32:32.560all of a sudden they blocked it off and were like hey you gotta pay us a hundred and fifty dollars
00:32:37.320to look outside your window and see anything right it's made like a traffic nightmare it's
00:32:42.620been a construction nightmare i've actually seen a little bit of it because i have family in vegas
00:32:46.400so i've been there uh twice this year but it's a money grab because the tickets are expensive the
00:32:52.680packages you can imagine like being in vegas with the big hotels are expensive so it makes f1 a lot
00:32:58.580of money. And so there's a real tension between trying to actually cultivate an American fan base
00:33:04.800that like is very online and loves memes, love merch, like that kind of thing, and just using
00:33:11.280it as like a cash grub. Okay, so next question is from Hannah, and it's about the ethics of being
00:33:17.540an F1 fan. So I'm, again, excited to hear your response. This is an F1 question, but also a
00:33:24.400question about ethical consumption as a fan in general. I've been a longtime fangirl of many
00:33:29.340things, one of them being Formula One. It has brought me so many lovely things, including a
00:33:34.220community. Cheering while rich dudes drive in circles really does bring me joy. But there are
00:33:39.640some times when I grapple with being a fan of a sport with mixed morals, to put it lightly, you
00:33:43.980know, racing in places with dubious human rights records, impact on the climate, etc. I was wondering
00:33:49.820if there is a civic duty aspect of being a fan, or should there be? And how can we wield nuance
00:33:55.320as fans of the things we love? Oh, it's just like asking about how to be a person in the world.
00:34:00.800What is your answer to this one? I have a lot of thoughts on this. As someone who gave up her two
00:34:07.300favorite sports fandoms, the NFL and NCAA basketball, over what I felt were moral grounds,
00:34:12.960you can quibble on conference realignment, but that was just a money grab, so I feel like it
00:34:17.220was kind of immoral and then we can talk about college athletes and all the money and blah blah
00:34:20.540blah anyways uh yeah cheering for a bunch of mostly white rich dudes to win a race that is
00:34:28.100using up countless resources does that feel great no but without being too dismissive like all of
00:34:37.960our faves are problematic right like i just i feel very strongly that you gotta get your joy
00:34:46.220where you can find it. And there are ways to be an ethical fan. It's funny that you should get
00:34:52.800this question. There's actually a driver who is no longer on the grid, world champion, very famous
00:34:58.220Sebastian Vettel, who quit and retired from F1 last year, in part because of the environmental
00:35:03.980concerns he had about it. He stopped doing like private jets, he would always like bike to races,
00:35:09.800stuff like that and was actually along with Lewis Hamilton sort of two of the most vocally
00:35:16.500progressive drivers in the sport and F1 has made some commitments towards being more sustainable
00:35:23.540but I don't think it's any more immoral than watching any other sport right like you can
00:35:31.340argue about the place that sport in general deserves in our lives but you could be doing
00:35:36.600something else something more productive for humanity arguably with those resources but
00:35:42.500so what like we need sports we need play we need those sorts of things and so
00:35:48.360i don't know i think that by being conscious of how sort of weird it is in fields you're already
00:35:56.000a step ahead of most people um and i think just sort of like do what you can like for instance
00:36:01.880there are a lot of great creators on etsy and other places who make really cool merch um that
00:36:07.480is not like officially f1 sanctioned also most of the official merch is not that great anyway
00:36:11.420so like if you want to buy something buy from them like support your local coffee shop when
00:36:16.700they're showing the races or asking to do it there like there are ways to sort of
00:36:20.520nibble around the edges but like well and i don't think that like condemning f1 is going to
00:36:27.100condemn car culture in the united states do you know what i mean no like it's one of those things
00:36:33.220that's similar to oh you should be being incredibly mindful about sorting your recycling and like
00:36:40.280rinse closely every single item because that is the only way that you prevent climate change
00:36:45.520right it puts the impetus for change solely on the individual right and on on the power of your
00:36:50.560individual fandom i do think i agree with you i don't watch football anymore either because i also
00:36:55.600reached a point where i was like there's something fucked up about the way that we are incentivizing
00:37:00.600yeah this pipeline for the hits over the middle anymore i just got to a point where i was like0.83
00:37:07.400oh you're not going to remember your kids in five years because of that like i can't i can't watch
00:37:11.940this or even the tension for me that's that's difficult is like i want to watch football but
00:37:16.380i would never let my kid play football what does that say whereas i think that most people watching
00:37:21.540everyone would be like i mean if i had a billion dollars and could get my kids started doing this
00:37:26.680driving i've often thought like maybe it's too late for a career for me yeah okay i gotta get
00:37:32.080one of my friend's kids into it like i'll backroll them it's fine one of your child army also a
00:37:38.020dangerous sport just to be clear no one has died in a formula one race but there are sort of um
00:37:44.260lower levels like formula two and three and people have died in those races there have been some
00:37:48.700really serious injuries i mean these cars are going you know 200 miles an hour around like a
00:37:55.120very flippy racetrack like there it is still a dangerous sport absolutely also it makes me mad
00:38:00.360that people who say that they're not athletes because to be able to drive a car at that speed
00:38:04.400just the like actual physical forces that you are subjected to like right it's very similar in a lot
00:38:12.000of ways to golf in so much as you are using your musculature and your um reflexes and your mental
00:38:17.800game and so we can think of that as a sport so and also all of those fights like what is it for
00:38:23.800why does it matter what are the stakes if we're talking about skill yes there is absolutely skill
00:38:30.460there all right so we have a couple of questions now that i'm going to be honest i don't even know
00:38:35.320if i know exactly what they mean so can you translate them for me and then tell me what
00:38:42.000you think so this first one is from camille i've been following formula one since getting hooked
00:38:46.700with drive to survive. My favorite driver is Lando Norris, but putting more thought into it
00:38:52.740and it starts to feel gross. Is the FIA corrupt? Why were Hamilton and Leclerc disqualified after
00:39:00.020the race in Austin? A part on the underside of the car was out of specification tolerances.
00:39:06.340Help me understand the nuances. Help me understand the nuances.
00:39:11.880all right uh yes the fia is corrupt in the same way that every major governing body of sports
00:39:21.060is corrupt that goes without saying i think it is it's just it's what happens when you give a
00:39:28.060bunch of people mostly men a lot of power to regulate something that makes a whole lot of
00:39:32.260money so yes is my answer to that question uh why were lewis and charl disqualified so this goes
00:39:40.480into the technical aspects of F1. But like I mentioned before, there is a formula and there
00:39:47.220are very specific regulations for every single part of the car. My understanding is that they
00:39:53.060were disqualified because there is like a plate on the car that scrapes along the bottom of the
00:39:59.920racetrack. And if it wears too thin, you can get disqualified. Because if it wears too thin,
00:40:05.720that means your car is sitting too low, which means you have an unfair advantage in being
00:40:10.100able to grip the track and stay on it better than the other cars got it that's like my understanding
00:40:16.580it's like an indicator that something in your formula is off uh it is an indicator yes that
00:40:22.260something in your formula is off and whether that is intentional or not is a whole separate thing
00:40:26.700i think a lot of the drama around that particular disqualification was that the fia does random i'm
00:40:33.720using air quotes here spot checks and they just happen to check those two cars and so there's
00:40:39.640some like conspiracy theories about that what are the conspiracy theories i just like because
00:40:46.600so there's a whole lot of stuff between max who is racing for red bull red bull has seen
00:40:51.260a lot of dominance following a period of lewis and mercedes dominating charl leclerc races for
00:40:57.480ferrari which is the other of like the big three teams so there's just let's it's also i should
00:41:02.940have mentioned this earlier the conspiracy theories in formula one are both wackadoodle
00:41:07.880and also accurate in a way that is really entertaining.
00:41:11.980There was a whole conspiracy theory about Ferrari cheating
00:45:39.260Maybe it was just not wanting that record to be broken, period.
00:45:44.300Yeah, it's speaking of all the rich texts in Formula One, that one race, like someone is going to write a book about it and I'm going to buy it and read it over and over again.
00:45:55.120What are your favorite places besides your group chats for F1 gossip, speculation, conversation, discourse?
00:51:58.140It sounds like we've reached the end of our dog's tolerance for us recording on a Friday afternoon.
00:52:02.880Nicole, thank you so much for joining me.
00:52:05.440And listeners, if you're a paid subscriber, stick around for advice time because Melody and I are going to answer a question about a sticky friendship situation.
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