But I think the thing we probably should talk about is where is that trust? Do you think that trust has broken down between Lewis and the pit wall and that he's taking matters into his own hands?

Well, you know, we look at this week, we had that race where Lewis started on the medium tyre, which is one of the things he actually came out and said he thought in hindsight was the wrong decision, but was his decision.

He decided to go that way strategically at the beginning of the race.

He started on the medium tyre, he stops earlier than everybody else.

So instantly when we're watching at home, we're thinking, okay, he's probably on a two stop here because he's the first of any of the cars really to stop.

He puts on that soft tyre, then they get this perfect opportunity with the virtual safety car to stop again, take another set of soft tyres.

You could see the soft was a better tyre and you could see that, you know, it was going to be much faster to put a new set on.

If this one hasn't worked as they would like, it means that because of the rate of development that we see in these early parts of rule cycles, you tread water and the others will catch you up very quickly if you're the one that's leading.

Someone's gonna, someone's g- I'm a worried that someone's gonna get run over by a golf cart, Bernie.

There's a lot of golf carting about.

I think from a team side, like if we look at the Cadillac one behind us, for example, this building which we normally see in the paddock opposite the hospitalities, this is where a lot of the engineers work.

A lot of these teams now actually have their driver's room in this building.

For example, the tires is normally on the bottom floor.

So I think from a team side, engineers will be based here, then they've got a short walk into the, into the back of the garage like they normally would.

So the biggest disadvantages is really on a Thursday you'll go over to the hospitality paddock to have your lunch and your dinner.

But how do you think about it, Bernie, in terms of what they both need to do this weekend, particularly as you were talking about qualifying?

We know he has, but Lando is getting more out of that package right now, and Piastri just seems to be struggling with overall outright performance, and then the race is just not going his way.

Yeah, I think we've had a few drivers this year across teammates that one driver has performed unexpectedly well or unexpectedly poorly with this new set of regulations.

Oscar Piastri's one that's not performed as well as Lando Norris, given how close they were all of last season or, or, you know, over the course of the season.

Qualifying this week, I think he took a s- real step forward.

You know, was actually really quite close in pace to Lando Norris.

The race is really interesting for me from Oscar Piastri's point of view.

We had the red flag.

Um, how harsh do you think he's gonna be on, on those making the strategy calls and, and those on the pit wall who at times sounded like, "Hey, come on, you got the data, you tell me"?

What are the domino effects of Max's signature here?

Well, yeah, I think one thing I think we've all learnt over the years is never say never.

You know, there's never...

You know, I, I think back a few years ago, Lewis Hamilton really surprised us with his move to Ferrari.

None of us expected that.

That was a year down the line.

So yes, it does...

So perhaps it's less disruptive in a way for the team to do the decision now.

Uh, you would think he's, he's just gotta, gotta find himself somehow.

Yeah, I think, well, the first thing is I w- I wouldn't rule Russell out.

I think Russell's a very consistent driver.

He's proven to be very strong over the years, so a bit of a summer reset and, like I say, more races in the second half of the year than there has been at the first.

Reliability seems to be their downfall, if anything.

So, you know, if Russell gets, um, a bit more luck on that front in the second half of the year, it's all to play for.

So I wouldn't rule George Russell out versus Kimi Antonelli at this stage.

[laughs]

But what does it do for him as a driver at this stage in his career, and this stage actually in the championship? Does it, does it really kind of motivate, galvanize these guys to go for a title?

Yeah, I think it does, you know, and we, we lived on that dream last year of Lewis in red, what could happen, what could it bring? And, you know, it was a bit of a disappointing year really, and it's coming to us this year, isn't it? And I think that they're starting to get the belief, Lewis is getting the belief back that he knows he's still a good driver.

These regulations are suiting him.

Ferrari are starting to put it together.

You know, so many times we're so critical of Ferrari's strategy, and actually that really playing into their hands in Barcelona, and I think that that's gonna bring the whole team together behind Lewis.

You know, he's been critical of some of the things that Ferrari have done through last year.

He's got the team behind him now.

Do, do you share that sentiment?

Do you think that's something that will be improving soon? I

think the new regulations, as we had it this weekend for Miami, are stepping in the right direction.

Now, should they go more in that direction? Uncertain.

I think that certain tracks are going to be more or less of a limitation.

So basically what the drivers are talking about there, and it's explained pretty well, I think, is that...

At the moment, because of how the energy management is working, they're basically trying to regain energy just before the braking zone.

So the car, through its electronic energy management and through a bit of lift and coast, if the driver's doing that, is... taking top speed off before they get to the braking zone of the corner.

Do you think that could be impacting, you know, potentially people's positions on the grids, potential podiums?

Tell me about Women in STEM, because it matters a lot to you.

Yeah, it does.

And I think that like I was recruited.

I started the McLaren graduate scheme.

It's just an example.

I started McLaren graduate scheme.

McLaren at that stage had recruited a lot of people exclusively from the sort of Oxford and Cambridge universities in the UK.

Some of those, I guess you would maybe call it modeling, and all those bits and pieces might have come in the last few years as things have changed.

Mm.

A lot of people reevaluated life.

Um, we ended up then after that, we were doing three races in a row, so the triple headers that we now do.

So you go away on a Monday, you don't come back till three weeks later.

So you get back and you're, the week that you're back you're just absolutely wrecked from all the time zones changing and stuff.

My other half was doing a l- a lot of F1 at, at that time as well.

So we were just like, "Well, this isn't life.

Yeah.

But that's not necessarily actually a, a, a fixed all, is it here? I, I think there were, as we understand it, some more complex situations that were on the table, but for the moment they've gone, "Let's just be pragmatic and see where we get to."

Yeah, I think that that's right.

I think they've made small changes.

All the changes that they have to do, uh, can only be electronic.

They can't make big sort of, um, infrastructure changes to how the engine is built or how it operates with the battery or the size difference, 50/50 split between the engine and the battery.

They can only make these sort of electronic changes.

I think to pick up on Ann's pri- point, that the start line, the reason that they don't use the battery at the moment off the start line is, one, to put some of the emphasis on how the driver uses a clutch and how he uses the engine, but second, to prevent any team using anything that's close to traction control.

This is should not be about engine upgrade, meaning you're leapfrogging a team." Um, so, so what do you, what do you take of this, and how big is it going forward?

How has strategy changed this season, particularly race strategy?

Yeah, I think there's been quite a few changes this season.

We're only a little bit into it.

I think it's continuously evolving as teams learn, drivers learn, et cetera.

I think what we're seeing is that, let's say, the strategy up until race hasn't really changed.

What teams and drivers do in qualifying is largely the same if we think of that as being strategy as well.

Um, it's maybe more susceptible to errors because the cars have less downforce, so we see more lockups or more mistakes from an engine management side.

Carry on.

It's a world champion forever, like a president forever.

Yeah, exactly.

And, you know, it's nothing that he's done wrong this weekend that means that he's not in that position he would like to be.

The car development is behind the development of Mercedes with the same engine in the back.

So that means that it's the chassis or getting the maximum out of that power unit.

I think there was a few times they admitted that through qualifying... because i guess the thing to point out is although they have the same engine they have their own engine engineers so their engineers are trying to optimize their engine for their car they'll have different levels of downforce different levels of drag whatever so they'll be trying to optimize the mclaren the mercedes power unit in the mclaren so that can lead to different deployment to what's in the mercedes just because of how the engine engineers work And, you know, McLaren admitted they didn't get everything out of it in qualifying.

Their qualifying should have been better.

So is that a factor? Is that something that you think you don't really want to have 100 percent battery at any point?

If McLaren are behind Mercedes, then why do you think they're behind Mercedes?

Good question.

We've got a very different aerodynamic platform in these cars.

We speak a lot about the engines, but they have the same engine.

So it has been an overhaul of the aerodynamic regulations.

And if anything, that is the thing that's making the difference between them.

McLaren has a non-customer team, so they're taking the Mercedes engine.

i just wanted to ask you that how sort of what is the time gap that you get from say that mercedes will have had on this to the time they give that engine to mclaren for them to work on the car around it

What does it mean? And also, I mean, they're all going to vote on this and whether or not that's going to be allowed from mid-season on.

Yeah, I think the first thing to say is this isn't new in F1.

And this is one of the things I love about engineering and innovation in F1.

Everyone reads the rule books and they think, what do the rules say? And more importantly, what do they not say? And how can I pass the test? how they the scrutineering is done with certain tests same with the rear wing we had it last year with rear wings where we changed the test midway through the year put an extra load in the rear wings to stop the flexion compression ratio is the same so compression ratio with the engine you take some air and fuel together you compress it that's what gives you your bang out of the engine the more you compress it the bigger the bang that's pretty simple We believe that, or the belief is, that Mercedes are compressing it more.

The original measure was to do it cold.

And then when it gets hot, they find a method of compressing it slightly more when it's hot.

These engines run very, very hot.

So that lost time, does that account for any of it? And also, I suppose, the distance between Japan and the factory in Silverstone.

[laughs]

A seven and a half Grand Prix for the Spanish Grand Prix for Mercedes, and I guess one thing to point out is, just for anyone that missed it, teams have only ran three days out of the five.

So that 500 laps for Mercedes is across three days, and there used to be a time I remember testing years ago where crossing 100 laps was a big target for teams.

So to have averaged more than that on every day of a new generation of cars is Phenomenal from any of the teams that have gone over 300.

I think that's really, really good running.

I know Williams have come out and said that they're doing, you know, their virtual track testing back at the factory, but you cannot beat testing a car on track with the proper tires, with some bumps and curbs and all these things that, you know, play havoc on all the different temperatures that they're running, for example, as well.

So I think Williams are very much on the back foot.

N- why is it not painted? Uh, and, uh, it's got the Honda engine of course, and Aston Martin's own gearbox for the first time in a long time.

What are your feelings about the job that Aston have got ahead of them?

Yeah there's a lot of excitement around the Aston Martin team but I think the concern is and maybe that's a little bit what we're seeing now is bringing all of these new aspects together was never going to be plain sailing you know they've got a new power unit they're building their own gearbox for the first time in quite a few years historically they've taken either McLaren or more recently Mercedes gearboxes and ran that so this is the first time they're building their own and they've had to do all the dyno work around that.

They've obviously got Adrian Newey, a new wind tunnel, new simulators, lots and lots of aspects to bring together.

And I think we're seeing just the merging of those potentially delaying the programme and delaying the getting that car out on track.

Now, if they do manage to get the two days this week, you know, that's still two days more than Williams.

So they can get a lot of running.

And I think Even if they can just get Friday or half of Friday, any little faults that you pick up in those few hours of running are very, very valuable head start rather than just getting into Barbie.

Your thoughts on those three, Audi, Cadillac and Alpine?