Question: Who is a more valuable asset to Red Bull at the moment, Max Verstappen or Adrian Newey?
Mark: That’s a really good question. I’d have to say that they’re probably weighted equally. On the basis of like, you’ve got one of the best, if not the best driver in the world at the moment combined with the best designer in terms of concept and vision and understanding of what makes a Formula 1 car quick. And that combination, as we’ve seen over the last season and already in this season, is really unbeatable. I think between them, they share, equal proportional asset value. I’m going to go with a split decision on that one.
Question: If you were to compare Verstappen to the all-time greats, who would he compare to in terms of driving style and personality?
Mark: I’d put him in there with Senna because he’s got this rawness and this little bit of aggression, which Senna used to have as well. And he’s also got the ability that is beyond what most have. You get these guys to come along every now and again, and they’re sort of in that 1% club, and definitely Max is in there. Some of the things he does and the way that he drives, they’re genius moves.
For me as well, in Formula One, the only fair reference is with your teammate because 90% of the time it should be that the cars are equal- but it isn’t always the case, perception says they are, but it isn’t always the case. So over the course of time, you’ve seen that he’s on top of his teammate time and time again. He probably got two tenths clear of him. That’s a huge amount in Formula One. As we’ve seen you start winning the Grand Prix by 20-second minimum margins. It’s a big thing.
Question: Who do you tip to come out on top in the Ferrari battle between Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc?
Mark: In terms of the future of Lewis going across there when he hits that seat? Yeah, that’s an interesting one again. I think he’s going to take Lewis a little bit of time to get up to speed. Not just necessarily with that car, but also just culturally with the Italians or the mentality and culture. It’s going to be slightly different from being in a team that’s not UK-based and I think there’s going to be a huge amount of pressure on his shoulders to deliver, and deliver in a way where he’s going to lead the team to the next stage, and that stage can only be winning Grand Prix and winning world championships.
I think that’s what they’re all expecting him to do. I’m sure his expectations are the same. I don’t see it happening quickly because of the limited amount of testing that you get in Formula One these days. It’s really tough to actually get underneath the car and find out what combined package it’s going to produce. You’re not really going to see it start until the beginning of the 2025 season. Interesting times ahead of us.
Question: Do you think Andrea Kimi Antonelli could be the next Verstappen?
Mark: Well, he’s the guy that everyone’s got on their lips at the moment as the youngster that’s got the ability and the capability. So, yeah, I think we’re all going to be watching him, very focused on where he starts out and his journey toward Formula 1 which it seems that he’s almost destined to get there.
He’s on the books of Mercedes-Benz, as I understand it, as a sort of young driver and reserve candidate in some ways. I think he’s got to establish himself in F2 first, if that’s going to be the case, and get that understanding of whether he can cut the mustard, so to speak. So, yeah, I’m intrigued.
There are a lot of youngsters coming through the junior formulas. Some of them have been around for a while, which is always a little bit of a concern for me, because I think if they haven’t quite got there quick enough, it sort of puts a bit of a question mark against them. And in this day and age, the budgets are so big in Formula One, it’s big business. People can’t take too high a risk on the driving talent.
Question: What do you think about the current state of F1? Do you think there are too many races, and would it benefit from a different style of racing?
Mark: I think 24 Grand Prix is a lot. I really do. I think it’s a huge amount. And my biggest concern is that we get – dare I say, used to it. We get used to seeing it on our screens and then it becomes not quite as exclusive and aspirational as it was. It was quite a treat to get ready for, almost like a Superbowl every other week with a Grand Prix. And now it’s kind of there every week. I hope it doesn’t get sanitized to the point where it’s lost some of its exclusivity. And we’re only talking about 20 drivers in the world sitting on the grid these days. It’s quite an exclusive club.
That’s my main concern. But saying that when you’ve got to Drive to Survive, Netflix- that’s driven some new audiences towards Formula One. I think they’re capitalizing on it by putting on Grand Prix, definitely opening up North America, which is a huge marketplace. 24 is a lot. I think that’s kind of getting to saturation point.
Question: Do you think Formula One should do something to artificially stop dominance from occurring within the sport?
Mark: I don’t know about that. I mean, how do you stop dominance? It’s a case of like, when everyone hits home and gets it right, it happens, and that’s the problem. We see it in Premier League football, with Man City at the moment. Even though I’m an Arsenal fan, and I hope we do something different, it’s really difficult to stop the steamroller.
Red Bull is on that journey, we saw it before with Mercedes-Benz and Hamilton, they were the steamroller before that, and we’ve seen it before with other manufacturers, and it’s for everybody else to catch up and try to surpass.
Artificially changing the way that the sport is, it’s quite tough. In saying that, 2026 brings new regulations in F1, that to a degree gives everybody a blank sheet of paper to start again. You would hope then that some people can make some inroads into the performance that we’re seeing currently with Red Bull.
Question: Who do you think is the ideal teammate for Verstappen considering he is so dominant?
Mark: I mean, I think it could do with somebody that is outrageously quick over one lap, just to try to put some pressure in the system and not to say that Perez isn’t. But Perez really, as we have seen historically, has been really good at the endurance side of things and time management and getting the most out of that package in that sense.
I’d like to see someone who’s a bit more of a one-lap guy that puts the pressure on the system. Who could that be at the moment? I kind of like the look of Oscar Piastri, the Aussie. I think he’s got real potential, so I think he’s one of those guys who could do something. I think there are a couple of other guys out there who also deserve a little bit of a chance as well. I rate Carlos Sainz. I really do.
I think he’s matured well, and I think he’s got something there as well that if he can have stability inside the team, could take it to the next level as well. Honestly speaking, I think there’s not really anyone that’s going to make, a dent into Max at the moment. So, we’ll probably have to wait for Max to catch a cold or something, so he’s off-colour.
Question: Do you fear Mercedes could be losing their pull after Hamilton’s exit?
Mark: I don’t know. I mean, as we stand here at the moment, we’re a couple of Grand Prix into the 2024 season, and Lewis is not the guy really heading the charge at Mercedes-Benz, it’s George Russell. I’m not sure that it’s going to make any difference come the end of the season. I think that the thing is, at the moment, Mercedes needs to produce a car that’s a winning car and at this stage, they don’t have that. You’d have to go basis of saying if they produce the car, then they’ve got two drivers capable of winning the Grand Prix. So, the bigger question sits behind the design and conceptual side to see whether they can make improvements there. I think the driver is the last part of the puzzle, and I don’t think they’re going to do anything different until they get the car working properly.
Question: What team do you see challenging Red Bull through 2024, or is it a bit of a foregone conclusion?
Mark: I don’t think anyone’s going to challenge them too much. I think it’s going to be a case of people trying to just catch up. Maybe a little bit of luck on the day and maybe conditions and so forth might turn it one way or the other. You’d like to see Ferrari coming through and making some real progress. You’d love to see McLaren doing so. I would like to see Aston Martin really coming to the fore. But at this stage, I don’t see anyone that’s really going to make a difference to where Red Bull sits on the grid and what the outcome of the result is. I might get proven wrong. There’s a long way to go, 22 more Grand Prix, but from what we’ve seen already last year, historically, and what we’ve seen already this year it looks almost like a foregone conclusion.
Question: McLaren has two exciting young drivers, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, tied down for years to come. How excited are you for the future of your old team?
Mark: I’m excited. I think they’ve got two great drivers. I think Lando has upped his game. I think he’s also got a really young and strong teammate alongside him with Oscar, who’s proven in all the junior formulas and I think he had an outstanding debut year in Formula One. So, I think from a driving side, McLaren has a really good, strong package in terms of what they’ve got ability-wise behind the wheel. Again, it’s down to McLaren to produce a car that’s capable of winning the Grand Prix and they’ve been making progress. They’ve been making inroads. I kind of get the feeling that expectations were higher to start 2024, and they haven’t quite come to that stage yet of making the progress that they believe they had made over the winter.
Let’s see, there are evolutions to come, there always are, but sometimes these things take a year, or two years down the line to get that final progress made and on track performance. In saying that, before we know it, we’ll be into the new regulations in 2026. So, they’re going to have to pull their finger out, so to speak.
Question: If Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri both have title ambitions, things could get a bit difficult for them. How do you think a team deals with that when you have two really good drivers vying for the title?
Mark: I mean in many ways, it’s a positive, because you’ve got two guys who are driving each other on and and extracting the maximum from each other. That’s the best way to have a team as far as I’m concerned, I think you’re gonna have two of them that are going to get the extra tenth out of each other, then fantastic.
We’ve seen it before, actually, even at McLaren, we saw the Senna Prost situation, you know, where they’re vying for a World Championship. A team at McLaren’s level should be able to handle those situations pretty easily. From the perspective of psychology, I think that’s a bigger thing, in terms of whether there’s a strength of the driver to out-psyche the guy next door in the garage. You can do it on the track, but if you can do it off the track nine times out of ten, it’s got a bigger effect.
I think McLaren would be only too pleased to be vying for a world championship with either driver. So I think they’d let that develop naturally.
Question: Do you think a relationship like that is sustainable in the long run?
I think over time, there’s always gonna be a bit of backlash there if someone’s outgunning the other, but I think over that period of time as well, the team will make some calls on whether they’ve got the right combination.
It’s also down to the drivers at that level to drive the team forward, you need one of them to take the mantle of being the team leader from a technical aspect and also motivating everybody in the team, making sure that they’ve got everyone pulling together to go out there and get the job done.
That’s done outside the car and there’s a lot of work that needs to be done from that perspective. You would hope that Lando is the more experienced driver in that team and is now understanding that that is a role that he needs to take on.
Question: Should Mercedes target an established top racer, or promote from within to replace Hamilton?
Well, I would have said before this weekend, they would have been looking at somebody with some experience. In saying that, when you see what little Oliver Bearman has just done at Ferrari at 18 years old, being thrown in at the deep end and producing an outstanding result, maybe that says, right, let’s bring in a youngster, let’s bring in somebody that we can mould and nurture- we know he’s got the speed and the talent, we just need to get him the experience.
You’ve got someone like George Russell who’s been there long enough to understand the workings of the team and can take it forward, maybe that combination is the way to go. It’s certainly a lot cheaper from a budget perspective. I don’t think the youngsters are gonna be too many millions of dollars compared to some of the big guys like Hamilton.
So yeah, there’s a lot to be said about the next time that Mercedes needs to make some driver choices, what will they do?
Question: If Lewis Hamilton does break Michael Schumacher’s world title record, must we conclude that he’s the best of all time?
We’d have to conclude he is in terms of what’s on paper, without a doubt. Over time, could you conclude he’s the best driver in terms of what we’ve seen in Grand Prix over the years? I think that will always be an open question that will be heavily debated forevermore. I would still go back to my generation, and it would be Senna because I don’t think I’ve seen anyone that had everything that was required, other than him.
Lewis for sure is one of the best drivers ever, but I’m also not sure that the eighth title is going to come his way. Not in the time scale that is available to him. I think that also might be an unfinished book.
Question: If Michael Schumacher was in good health, do you think he’d be rooting for Hamilton to break his record?
Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know whether anybody would be rooting for someone to beat their record. I’m not sure I would be. What’s a record if you can’t keep it? I really don’t know. Schumacher was a tough competitor, having raced against him myself several times. Yeah, very, very tough competitor.
I think also the dynamics have changed slightly. When we were doing it there was a lot of times where you were vying for a top six position, because that’s as far as the points got given out to, but now it’s the top ten positions. So it’s changed a little bit in the way that things work. I reckon Michael would still be saying ‘I’d like to keep my record’ and I think that’s probably where he’s at. He might respect Lewis, but I think he’d probably be saying, I’d like to keep the record in the Schumacher family rather than anywhere else.
Question: Is it harder, in your opinion, to win a Grand Prix or 24 hour race?
It’s a different discipline. So winning Le Mans is three drivers, sometimes four, shared contribution towards the race. I mean, it’s like doing 12 Grand Prix in terms of the aspect of performance. It’s a slightly different experience – also Le Mans 24 hours is like a six-month programme, you start way down the line to get to do one 24 hour run.
What’s more difficult? You wouldn’t really want to say. Having won Le Mans, I know that there’s a huge amount of effort goes into it. Having not won a Grand Prix but been on the podium a few times, I also know there’s a huge amount of effort, but I think ultimately you’ve got to boil down to – it’s not just the driver, it’s also the team. There’s a huge amount of effort and teamwork that goes in, so yeah, tough one that, I think they’re both proportional in their in their weights of what’s the most difficult.
Question: Red Bull again looked utterly dominant in Bahrain and Saudi. Is their supremacy becoming bad for the sport?
Supremacy is supremacy, and we’ve got to just suck it up, hope and pray for the future that someone can do something about it, but yeah, it does become a little bit boring to see the same people at the front and the same people winning and the same result in the paper the next day.
Yeah, there is an element of that. I think you also have to appreciate and respect that the dominance is there because they are the best at the moment, in every aspect. It’s for everybody else, as I say, to catch up, you know, there’s no point complaining about it.
You’ve got to get out there and put the extra bit in, try and come up with that wonderful idea that’s going to give you that advantage. Until anyone does that, we’re going to see this for another season or two.
Question: How are you finding post Formula One life? Do you keep yourself busy or do you enjoy more of the free time that comes with retirement?
No. I don’t think there’s any free time in my department, I’m running my own agency, we’re involved in lots of different things. We’’re still involved in motorsport. We manage 10 drivers as we speak at the moment, and we’re doing events and corporate programmes, digital marketing and no end of things. I’m plenty busy enough.
I have a very strong chairman that leads the way who’s quite a well-known guy in the UK. There’s a little bit of pressure in the system on my side, so I quite like it. I think there’s some parallels there, there’s always pressure on your shoulders when you’re a Grand Prix driver and it’s no different being in the boardroom these days.
Question: What do you make of the allegations around the president of the FIA, Mohammed bin Sulayem?
Answer: Honestly, I don’t really have a great understanding of what the allegations are and the understanding of what’s going on. I haven’t dug that deeply into it. At the end of the day, I’m a simple driver. I just refer to and reflect on what I look at on the circuit. The politics that go on outside of it don’t really have any interest in me. Maybe they would’ve if I was included in them, back in the day, but I’ve got other things in life now to take care of.
Question: Where do you see Carlos Sainz ending up?
Answer: Well, we know there’s going to be a slot at Mercedes-Benz. I really hope that there is a decent seat for him. I think he really does deserve it. I’m just concerned that he’s not going to get a drive that is going to give him the platform he needs. That really means that he might have to go somewhere, a little bit of a lower-down team in terms of performance. Which then becomes a little bit of a slippery slope because it’s going to be really tough to get back into a top outfit. He’s been in some great teams, I just don’t think he’s shown his full potential yet and that’s the bigger concern for me. But I’m really hopeful that maybe Mercedes will look at him and think he’s a good fit and the right fit, maybe that will come together.
Question: Given George Russell and his character, who would you say would be a good partner for him at Mercedes?
Mark: I mean, I think it would be good for George to have somebody who is maybe a little bit different in outlook. And I say that, that maybe it would be nice for him to have sort of a foreign driver that maybe has a different sort of way of going about things. I think he’s probably been overshadowed a little bit by Lewis, and rightly so in terms of Lewis’s credentials, but in saying that, I think George is now stepping up in terms of what he’s doing on track.
I think it would be good for George to be the team leader and actually take on that mantle and actually take the team forward. And for him to be the guide that puts the pressure on the system on the teammate. Because I think he’s been on the receiving end of that. So that would be the interesting part for me, to see whether he can actually take on that road and carry it.
Question: Where do you think it’s going wrong at Alpine? How quickly can they recover?
Mark: That’s a difficult one. I mean, they just don’t seem to be having any traction and making any progress on track or off track. There seems to be a lot of fanfare over the people involved in the team and the investment, and there’s the celebrity culture there. That seems to be something that they’ve gone through the winter and made a lot of noise about, but actually on track in terms of progress made, it’s not going in the right direction whatsoever. And it’s a big problem in many ways. It’s a big outfit. A manufacturer, and they really need to do something significant.
But I think even in recent days you’ve seen some personnel leaving there in the design team and the engineering side. It’s not going to be easy for them, they’re going to have to really regroup and restructure.
Question: What were your thoughts on the Saudi Grand Prix in general? How do you think it went?
Mark: I think it’s a little bit lackluster. I think it needed a bit of salt and pepper on it to spice it up. Some of that is down to the way that we’ve got Red Bull doing what they do and so the outcome of that result we kind of already knew.
The circuit is actually a good road, it’s a good street circuit, in respect that it’s not full of 90-degree corners, which most street circuits are, but in some ways, it still needs to be a little bit spicier, and I think some of that might be down to even the DRS zones and maybe taking some chances in evolving those side of things to get the guys a little bit more closer.
We’re still down to having a bit of a procession from that race and I hope that can change. Maybe a bit of rain in the desert would have helped, but I don’t think that that was going to be a possibility in Saudi.
Question: Do you think, on his current trajectory, Max Verstappen could be in the conversation for the greatest of all time in a few years?
Mark: Well, I think he could be in a conversation that we’re having at the moment about Schumacher and Hamilton, for sure. Yeah. Unless somebody knocks them off their perch, I think Red Bull and Verstappen as a combination are going to be tough to beat, especially over the next season or two. It’s definitely got some possibilities there of putting a name in the history books of the big scorers. But I think Max is an interesting character.
He’s one of those guys that you could very easily see him go and do something and actually just walk away from it and that would be the end of that. I don’t kind of see him at the moment being one of these guys is going to stay in for the rest of his days.
He doesn’t strike me as that person, I might be wrong, but it just strikes me that he’s all about getting done what he needs to do and the job at hand, and when he’s had enough, he’s had enough. We’ll wait and see.
Question: Lewis Hamilton’s move to Ferrari came out of the blue. What did you think about it at the time and how do you see it now?
Mark: I mean, it’s great for Formula One in many ways. It’s great for British motorsport that we got a Brit back in Ferrari, although we just had a youngster in there over the weekend, so he beat Lewis on that occasion, but I think you could look at it from many ways.
Is it one of the biggest marketing deals that’s ever been done in the pit lane? You could put a flag in and say, yeah, that’s been achieved even without them even turning a wheel together. The impact of maybe putting 6 or 7 billion on the stock price of Ferrari was sort of impressive.
Is there a bigger picture with Lewis and Ferrari after his time in the car? Does that go on to be a global ambassador role and is that something that’s going to stimulate Lewis in time to come? I really hope that the question is, can he deliver driving a red car which is every boyhood dream and every Formula One driver’s dream? I think to drive a Ferrari and do it where he can win the Grand Prix and win a World Championship. I just think it’s going to be a really tough task. I just can’t see it being an easy one, and I’m just hoping that he’s still got the motivation and the determination to go and fulfil that and that’s the biggest thing for me. Formula One is tough. It’s a tough season. It’s tough mentally, tough physically, and then a whole new challenge and one, what’s got pressure on it, like beyond. It doesn’t matter where you go in the world, everybody knows Ferrari. Everybody has a Ferrari flag. And it’s pretty much the same when you mention the name Lewis Hamilton these days. It’s going to be a formidable combination, but one that really will have expectations beyond what everyone’s going to expect.
Question: Lewis finished seventh in Bahrain and ninth in Saudi. Do you think the change of team and the change of car can propel him forward?
Mark: I think it’s going to be just down to whether he’s still got the appetite. He’s now near his forties, does he get up every morning with that vigor? And does he get up with that sort of determination to go and deliver? And as I say to you, it’s not just about on track, it’s also off track.
There’s a huge amount of work behind the scenes that people probably don’t get to see that often. A lot of that is motivating, that can I get to Maranello, and can I actually inspire everybody to be pulling towards where we all want to go? That’s putting in the extra hours and making sure that we’ve got the evolution in the car to take it to the next step.
And then for me to go and cap it all off on Sunday afternoon and drive a Grand Prix and deliver in my performance. That’s a grueling, tough job. Yeah, I’m saying it’s a grueling, tough job with somebody who’s getting paid tens of millions of dollars, but it is what it is. It’s still got to be delivered upon him. Those guys are at that level. It’s much more than just driving a Grand Prix car.
Question: Can you share the story behind your transition from sort of motorcycle racing to cars at the age of 17? What inspired that shift?
Mark: Probably more than anything, actually, the fact that my dad was a secondhand car dealer. So as a kid, I was brought up with cars. I was always around them, always loved cars, and it was only really that the local sort of motorized sport in my area, because I lived rurally, was scrambling/motocross.
There was kind of a natural progression of me getting onto a scramble bike and doing something. But, after doing bikes and being quite successful as a schoolboy, I kind of still hankered after having an extra two wheels. I needed those stabilizers. So, the car was really where I wanted to be, and it was only a family friend that sort of took me into understanding what motor racing was all about and took me to a local circuit and I watched some car racing, and that really was the inspiration of saying, right, this is something that I’d really like to get involved in. My family had no background whatsoever in motor racing. So, a completely new journey and one that thankfully one that worked out to be quite a positive outcome in the end.
Question: You’ve raced for quite a few teams, obviously McLaren being the biggest when you were actually challenging with the pack. What do you think separates racing for one of the big teams apart from the rest?
Mark: I think the big teams are big not just in terms of the volume of personnel, but that normally is one of the big factors. It’s the quality of personnel. And I think that’s the key thing. And it’s from the driver all the way down.
When you look at how big teams operate, when they’ve got the likes of Adrian Newey, somebody like that who is steering the ship from a design perspective. And then you’ve got a Zak Brown, who’s the commercial and leadership guy and sort of a team principal role, these are the guys that are really at the cutting edge.
And when you get that level of individual and you combine it and hopefully it gels, and that’s the really important factor, the gelling of all those people, that then produces something that in material form, is actually a really competitive race car, they become a powerful operation. That’s really what you’ve got to a red ball. That’s exactly what it is.
Could there be personnel changes there? Could there be effects that actually have a ripple effect and start to have an outside effect on the performance of the car? Yeah. There are some possibilities of that. It’s no different to other sports. You see it in football all the time. When the manager is sacked, the backroom staff go, and a whole different sort of production theatre is put in place, sometimes it cripples the team, or sometimes it actually lifts them because they’ve got a new challenge and a new way of doing things, and sometimes results come. So F1 isn’t any different from that perspective.
Question: Reflecting on your win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 92, what do you think set you and your team apart from the competition that year?
Mark: I think preparation. Preparation in terms of what we did before the 24 hours. We did a couple of 36-hour tests, we did something most teams didn’t do back then, and we put in the time and effort and made sure that as a collaboration of drivers and also as a team, we sort of really maximized what the opportunity was. A lot of that is just down to prep. To finish first, first you must finish, and a lot of that is down to the preparation side.
And I have to say, Peugeot back then was led by a guy called Jean Todt. Jean Todt was a guy then that went on with Schumacher at Ferrari and then led the FIA. He had a great understanding of people and a great way of getting the best out of them and that was one of those key areas of Peugeot back then, who were a successful sports car team in their own right, let alone winning Le Mans when we did.
Question: You famously raced THAT lap in the 1990 Le Mans race. What do you view with more pride, the win or THAT lap?
Mark: So, I would say from a personal point of view, the lap as a driver would be the best lap I’ve ever done in a race car. And I hold that really as one of my personal achievements because I know what went on at that time and I knew that I didn’t have any references. So, when I did the actual lap, I had zero references to understanding what the car was going to do, how it was going to actually approach the corner and in what state I was going to come out the other end if I did. That lap was a completely reactive lap. So yeah, that’s right up there for me.
In terms of career achievement, I would say Le Man is right up there as well because every driver, I don’t care who they are and what they are, would still love to have Le Mans 24 hours in their CV with winner over the top of it. So, yeah, I’ll take that one and rest on my laurels with that as well.
Question: As a Formula One driver, how do you manage the balance between risk and safety? You had that crash in 96, sowhat’s your take on that?
Mark: I think at the end of it all, racing drivers are people that don’t do it because they’re getting hit over the helmet to say you must go around in circles. They do it because they want to do it, and they’re passionate about it, and actually it’s a challenge. It’s a challenge between driver and machine, and trying to extract the most and pushing yourself to go to the limit and beyond.
And when you go to the limit and beyond and pull it back, that’s the really rewarding part. In doing so, it’s quite high risk and sometimes things go wrong, either your own doing or technical reasons. I had a big one in 96 with IndyCar because of a technical problem, brake failure, but I could have pulled the plug and said, like, I don’t want to do it anymore. But actually, the burning desire inside me to keep going was enough to sort of go back and start racing again. And I think that is the case for racing drivers. If they ever get to the stage where they are fearful or concerned about anything, that’s the time when they hang up the gloves and helmet. Not only are you unsafe to yourself, you’re unsafe to the others on the circuit as well.
If you get to that point, it’s probably gone beyond where you’re going to be competitive, so you need to go and do the right thing.
Question: How have you viewed the evolution of safety within the sport since you were driving?
Mark: I always come on no end. I mean, it’s huge in crew. Incremental changes in where the safety factor is. I know during my career; I think I lost 12 colleagues from junior racing all the way to the top. If you look at the fatality sort of levels now, they are few and far between, and most of that is down to circuit safety, which is really enhanced and safety within the cars as well where we’ve got Hans device, we’ve got the shroud that goes around the cockpit of the race cars now and the strength of what they have incorporated into them. It really is leaps and bounds. it’s no longer like the 50s and 60s, where things used to blow up and catch on fire, and you’d lose a driver every other race. Things have really changed for the better. But as it says on the back of a ticket, motorsport is dangerous, so it’s still got that element.
Question: What advice do you think you’d give to young drivers who aspire to have a career in motorsports?
Mark: I kind of get asked this quite a lot, actually, by a lot of drivers, and I think I would say to them, self-belief. Believe in yourself, and believe that you can do it. Because if you’re not in that frame of mind, then you don’t actually put that out there for other people to buy into it. Throw enough mud at the wall, and some of it will stick. Don’t give up. Get out there and do what you do best and believe in yourself, and make sure that you drag everyone along with you because there’s half a chance that you might actually get lucky and get to the top.
Cream always rises. Old sayings are still the best ones and they always make sense. If the talents there it will show through.
Question: You’re in and around the races constantly. What do you think the difference has been since Drive to Survive?
Mark: I think there’s a younger audience. I think there’s a more female-biased audience. When I’m having conversations with people, there’s even some of my buddy’s wives have said, oh yeah, I watch Formula One now. I said, well, that’s funny. You never used to watch it, but now you watch it, but I’m not sure that they’re always watching the racing.
I think they’re more interested in what’s going on with the drivers and the understanding of what’s in the background. And that’s really what Netflix has done. It’s opened up a whole new world. Anything like that is always going to be great for the sport, and it’s always going to be something that’s going to up the levels in terms of value.
We have certainly seen that. I mean, you’d almost say that some of these F1 teams now with these billion-dollar-plus valuations put on them, some of it’s down to what’s been supplied by Netflix.
Question: What are the key differences between the Italian culture of racing and the British culture, ahead of Lewis Hamilton’s move to Ferrari?
Mark: I think it’s just a lot more – dare I use the word passion? I’m not saying that the Brits are not passionate. They are, but I think it’s kind of a controlled way. I say that in that we are very structured, engineered-led, try not to get flustered and that stiff upper lip sort of thing. And I think with the Italians they are a little bit fierier and things do get sort of heated.
I think that’s sometimes where you’ve seen some mistakes coming in the Ferrari pit lane, especially where it’s just got a little bit over the top, and they haven’t quite controlled it and handled it. I’m hoping that that’s going to be something that Lewis can bring to the table for them, in just giving them a little bit of calmness and that sort of outlook from his side of things.
Just saying, guys, look, I’ve got the experience, I know how to win a World Championship; I’ve won enough of them. And this is what we’ve done over the years and this is what we’ve done that’s been effective. I can bring that with me and let’s see if we can go on the journey together.
Question: Do you it will haunt Lewis Hamilton if he doesn’t get that final title, that one thing that he missed?
I hope not, I really do. Let’s not take anything away from what an achievement it is already to have seven World Championships. The number of things that he’s done in Grand Prix is without question, so I would hope it doesn’t. Let’s be realistic, how old is he now? Although he’s still as fit as a fiddle and gets the job done, life changes, and responsibilities are there. You start questioning the decision to do that first turn at 150 miles an hour next to a Max Verstappen – is it actually worthwhile anymore?
I’m not saying that that’s coming into his head at the moment, but these are things that happen as you get a little bit older. I’m sure at some point that might be the case, there’s there’s also other angles in terms of where he goes in his future, and I think he’s going to be in a Formula One car for the next couple of years, but equally there’s a lot of life ahead of him that he’ll want to fulfil.
credit AceOdds as the source
about Mark Blundell
