Latest / Rusty's Garage / Will Buxton (Part 1) - Australian GP Special

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Will Buxton (Part 1) - Australian GP Special · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:14
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust, and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:27
  This episode, I would ordinarily be talking to my guest from pre-season Formula One testing or an early race somewhere.
• 0:34
  But this year, he's decided, given that there is a massive 23 events on the calendar, to cut back a little.
• 0:41
  So he's at home in the UK and I'm chatting to him from my place on the complete opposite side of the earth, effectively.
• 0:49
  Will Buxton has been immersed in F1 since high school, writing about it, learning from some of the most respected journos who he kind of pestered to get some experience.
• 1:00
  That enthusiasm helped open doors and later on he would venture into commentating and broadcasting, not just on F1 but IndyCar and more.
• 1:09
  Will has been at the forefront of the sport's new digital era too on all sorts of platforms.
• 1:16
  Many of you will know him from post-race panel shows on Twitter, all kinds of content for motorsport.com, and, of course, the Netflix Drive to Survive series.
• 1:25
  There are two trophies, two championships at stake, one for the individual drivers and one for the teams.
• 1:33
  And with both within reach, everyone's pushing themselves to the absolute limit.
• 1:38
  Over the four seasons so far, he's become their main storyteller, decoding aspects of the sport for new followers.
• 1:45
  And there is a lot of new fans, thanks to the incredible success of this series.
• 1:50
  It's helped to unmask the stars of the paddock and give the world a little more access to a game that for so long has had this almost impenetrable veneer the closer you got to it.
• 2:02
  We'll talk about Drive to Survive in more detail and what it takes to bring this doco series together.
• 2:08
  It is quite an undertaking.
• 2:10
  We also cover a couple of yarns contained in his book on greatest defeats and the learnings that some legendary drivers took from those moments and more.
• 2:20
  This pod and a couple of others we have in our library are all part of a special drop to celebrate the return of the Australian Grand Prix.
• 2:26
  So make sure you check that out when you get a moment.
• 2:29
  We begin this ep with a lasting impression, literally, that motorsport had on Will Buxton from an early age.
• 2:38
  The first time I experienced motor racing actually physically affected me.
• 2:42
  I still have a scar on my shin from the Prescott Hill climb when I was, I think, four years old.
• 2:52
  And my dad's
• 2:54
  took me to the Prescott Hill climb.
• 2:56
  And being a little kid and not really watching where I was going, I tripped over one of those huge metal tent pegs.
• 3:04
  You know, the ones with like the bird edges where it's been slammed into the ground about a hundred times and the metal's all kind of sharp and curled over the top.
• 3:13
  And I tripped over it and gashed my shin.
• 3:16
  And I still have a scar on my skin from it.
• 3:18
  So I can say that my first ever memory of motorsport
• 3:22
  is is forever etched into me crazy um and i just i you know how it is mate you just you fall in love with the with the sound and the the color and the speed and the smell um and and the the sort of the terrifying nature of it certainly as a kid just just how kind of scary it was um and
• 3:47
  how impressive these people who were driving these cars, you know, up a hill as fast as they could in whatever they brought were.
• 3:55
  And I just sort of fell in love with it there.
• 3:58
  And, you know, my dad wasn't a massive racing fan, but we lived near the Prescott Hill Climb.
• 4:02
  So we went to that and then started watching Formula One on TV and we both kind of got into it together.
• 4:09
  And it was very much a ritual.
• 4:11
  You know, my mum would cook lunch on a Sunday, traditional British Sunday roast lunch.
• 4:16
  We'd eat and then we'd sit down in front of the TV and hear Murray Walker and watch Formula One.
• 4:23
  So that would have been about 1985.
• 4:26
  My earliest memories of watching Formula One were, you know, probably around 88, 89.
• 4:30
  So it's Senna, Prost, you know, just that incredible era of the sport.
• 4:36
  And that's what's got me hooked.
• 4:38
  This is amazing.
• 4:39
  Senna goes off at the first corner.
• 4:41
  But what has happened to Prost?
• 4:43
  He has gone off too.
• 4:44
  So you're an early 80s child, right?
• 4:46
  So is there one car maybe in that late 80s period there that you're referring to that you really have a special or fond memory of?
• 4:54
  Maybe it's one of the McLarens that Centre raced at the time, perhaps.
• 5:00
  Yeah, from a racing perspective, it would be those late 1980s McLarens, you know, in the red and white Marlboro livery.
• 5:07
  And just something about it with that yellow helmet, you know, flashing under the trees at Monza or Hockenheim or something like that.
• 5:14
  You know, even now, looking back on them and watching footage, it was just the way they, you know, they bounced around and they were so nimble and light and the sparks kicking out the back.
• 5:24
  And, you know, they looked and sounded terrifying.
• 5:27
  And there was this person in the middle of it who was just an absolute hero to me.
• 5:33
  Yeah, it was an incredible era and just a great time to fall in love with the sport, you know.
• 5:39
  Definitely.
• 5:40
  You've blended a lot of things in your life and career together in some respects.
• 5:44
  I want to turn a little bit left here in the conversation, and that is your love of music.
• 5:49
  Yeah.
• 5:49
  And it pops up regularly in your social media and things like that.
• 5:54
  And there are people, you know, in the current area, in the Formula One paddock.
• 5:58
  I mean, Dan is a massive, Daniel Ricciardo is a massive lover of music.
• 6:02
  I mean, Lewis Hamilton's often talked about that as well.
• 6:05
  Is that something you get to talk to people in the paddock about, that shared love?
• 6:09
  I wish it was, you know, and I wish we could spend more time talking about the things that people actually like rather than just talking about what compound tire is more suitable to this track this weekend.
• 6:23
  Yeah, actually it's funny because when you interview someone like Lewis, he gets so sick and tired of talking about racing and fuel levels and setups and tires, that if you do go down a different path and talk to him about something else, you actually get really good answers out of him and something that he's kind of engaged in and feels passionately about.
• 6:45
  But it's very difficult because on our media days, you have two questions, maybe three questions,
• 6:52
  in a media pen environment.
• 6:54
  And, you know, doing the job that I do for Formula One right now, I've got to get the kind of information that is going to go out on the F1 website, or it's going to go to the news feeds.
• 7:03
  So it's going to go out to the channels that maybe don't have the rights to show Formula One, and they're just going to show these quotes on their news roundups.
• 7:10
  So I've got to kind of get more newsy type stuff.
• 7:14
  But...
• 7:15
  I wish there was more time to talk about it because I love trying to draw out what these guys are about and what they love and try to make them a bit more real and a bit more human to folks at home.
• 7:25
  And, you know, those things, their interests.
• 7:27
  Yeah, dude, I wish we had more time to talk about that.
• 7:31
  From your side, mate, is it singing and do you play an instrument?
• 7:34
  Yes.
• 7:34
  Okay.
• 7:35
  So my, my musical background is, is really crazy.
• 7:38
  I, um, It's a choir, wasn't it?
• 7:41
  Yeah.
• 7:41
  I was, I was a chorister, um, at Worcester, Worcester Cathedral, um, for, I want to say about five years and we toured the world and we recorded albums.
• 7:53
  I'm actually, believe it or not, a, uh, number one, uh, selling recording artist.
• 8:01
  uh officially uh our our christmas album was in the classical charts at number one fantastic i've had a christmas number one how mad is how mad is that it's ridiculous but it's cool right because i'm like i'm 10 years old okay and i'm a chorister and um you get you got paid if you if you did recordings
• 8:22
  So you'd get paid like 60 quid each to do a recording session.
• 8:26
  So I remember being like 10 years old, 11 years old, and saying to my dad, you know, all this money that I'd sort of accumulated doing these recordings, which you'd put into account.
• 8:36
  I was like, dad, there's this new thing out, and it's called a Game Boy, and I'd really like to go and buy it with some of the money.
• 8:43
  And so he did, and he let me take the money out, and I went and bought myself.
• 8:46
  So my first Game Boy I bought with my own money that I'd made.
• 8:50
  You know, recording these albums.
• 8:52
  It was it was it was really cool time.
• 8:53
  But that, you know, I've always been quite musical.
• 8:56
  I've always loved music.
• 8:57
  I come from a very musical family, certainly on my mom's side.
• 9:01
  She's incredibly musical.
• 9:03
  And I, you know, I sang, I played the piano, I played the trumpet, the French horn, and I was classically trained.
• 9:10
  But
• 9:12
  But then my love of, you know, sort of popular music really sort of stemmed from that.
• 9:16
  And I guess sort of sitting in the car and my dad playing me the Beatles literally every day as a kid.
• 9:21
  My earliest memories are sitting in the car with my dad listening to the Beatles and and and loving it through that.
• 9:27
  And I I.
• 9:28
  I stopped learning piano at age 12, but I've played consistently since.
• 9:33
  And when I hit 17, I bought a guitar, taught myself to play guitar.
• 9:37
  And I just find a lot of peace and relaxation comes from just sitting down, picking up a guitar, playing.
• 9:45
  Or sitting at the piano and playing the piano.
• 9:47
  I find it super, super relaxing.
• 9:50
  And it's lovely now because my daughter's at an age, you know, she's going to be 12 this week.
• 9:56
  And she's at that age, you know, that I was when I was getting into music and she's getting into music now.
• 10:01
  And, you know, and the other day she says, you know, Alexa, play Nirvana.
• 10:05
  And so I'm sitting there singing along to the songs and she's like, oh, dad, how do you know Nirvana?
• 10:09
  And I'm like, I'm sorry.
• 10:11
  How do you know Nirvana?
• 10:14
  But it's great because, you know, like when I was her age, I was listening to The Beatles and The Stones and James Brown and stuff from 30 years before where, you know, where I was.
• 10:27
  And she's listening to stuff from 30 years before where we are now.
• 10:30
  And I love it.
• 10:31
  And that's opening up her ears and her enjoyment of what is current as well and influencing everything that she kind of listens to.
• 10:39
  So it's all cyclical and it's just, it's great, man.
• 10:41
  It's beautiful.
• 10:42
  That's terrific.
• 10:43
  She's got that broad appreciation.
• 10:44
  I think that's excellent.
• 10:45
  Did it sort of, I mean, that leads me, I guess, to the fact that your early work in Formula One was around sort of magazines and writing.
• 10:52
  How did the opportunity to, you know, to do that come about?
• 10:55
  Were you pestering someone at a magazine?
• 10:58
  How did you get the break?
• 10:59
  How did that happen?
• 11:00
  So I was 13 when Senna was killed.
• 11:04
  And that week, my dad bought me my first copy of Autosport and Motoring News.
• 11:08
  So I was reading guys like Nigel Roebuck and David Tremaine.
• 11:12
  And, you know, their words kind of spoke to me as a 13-year-old kid whose mates didn't necessarily really understand why I was so upset about Senna being killed.
• 11:24
  And I immediately knew from the age of 13, that's what I want to do.
• 11:28
  I want to write.
• 11:28
  I want to be David Tremaine.
• 11:30
  You know, and I went to the auto sports show in Birmingham in the UK, which is sort of a big trade show and lots of racing teams from around the world sort of use it to launch their cars or.
• 11:44
  Which you've just hosted recently, which is amazing when you think about where life has come for you, you know.
• 11:49
  Don't, don't.
• 11:49
  Crazy, crazy, crazy.
• 11:51
  And, yeah, and there was a tiny little stand at the Autosport International Show that was for a new magazine, the official magazine of Formula One, which is F1 magazine.
• 12:07
  There used to be two.
• 12:07
  There used to be F1 Racing and F1 Magazine.
• 12:10
  And sat on this very small stand, literally at the back of the hall,
• 12:15
  was a guy I thought I recognized, and it was David Tremaine.
• 12:17
  And I went up to him and I said, Hi, David, my name's Will.
• 12:21
  I've always wanted to be a Formula One journalist.
• 12:22
  I don't know if there's anything I need to do or any advice you could give me.
• 12:27
  And he gave me his card and he wrote his personal home phone number on the back and his email address.
• 12:33
  And he just said, send me a thousand words on anything you want on Monday.
• 12:38
  So I went home and I sat there and I typed away and I typed this article and I sent it to him.
• 12:44
  And he replied and he just said, yeah, look, it's a little rough, but there's something there.
• 12:50
  Let's keep in touch.
• 12:52
  And we did.
• 12:53
  And I went through university and I decided to write my dissertation.
• 12:57
  I studied politics and I decided to write my thesis on the politics of Formula One.
• 13:00
  And David helped me with that and put me in touch with Joe Sayward.
• 13:03
  And Joe said, you know, David says, you want to write?
• 13:05
  Why don't you send me an article a month and I'll put it on my website?
• 13:09
  So I started writing for Grand Prix dot com while I was at university.
• 13:11
  And then I left uni and DT said, hey, why don't you come and do two weeks work experience with us?
• 13:16
  Help us put together our news review of the year for the Formula One annual.
• 13:20
  So I said, OK, cool, you know, came in, I worked for two weeks, you know, just so, so hard, worked really, really hard trying to impress the guys.
• 13:27
  And at the end of the second week, I took a pillow and a sleeping bag into the office.
• 13:35
  And DT said, what's that for?
• 13:36
  And I said, well, I'm not leaving.
• 13:37
  And he said, don't worry, we weren't going to ask you to.
• 13:40
  And took me on.
• 13:41
  And that's where it all started, mate, 20 years ago.
• 13:53
  Lights out and away we go.
• 13:55
  Will, feel free to tell the Netflix guys they can use that.
• 14:00
  So some writing and magazine work to begin with.
• 14:04
  What about the foray into some form of broadcasting?
• 14:07
  How did that opportunity come about and what was the very first sort of time you gravitated to picking up a microphone?
• 14:12
  Mate, it was all a mistake, you know.
• 14:14
  They always say television's where journalism goes to die.
• 14:20
  So I worked for Formula One magazine until the plug was pulled from it.
• 14:25
  And I freelanced for a year.
• 14:26
  And at the end of that year, I was offered the job to go and be press officer at GP2, which was just starting at that time, now known obviously as Formula Two.
• 14:34
  So I did that for three years and I loved it.
• 14:37
  And then I came back to writing in 2008.
• 14:45
  And at the end of that year, GP2 Asia was supporting at the Chinese Grand Prix.
• 14:53
  And they suddenly realized they didn't have a commentator for the world feed.
• 14:56
  And they were scrambling around, oh, who can we get?
• 14:58
  And Tony Dodgens, who's a brilliant journalist, was doing some spotting work for F1 officially and said, well, why don't you guys give Will a call?
• 15:07
  You know, he used to be the press officer for the series.
• 15:10
  He never shuts up.
• 15:11
  Maybe he'd be all right with a microphone in his hand.
• 15:13
  So they gave me a call.
• 15:14
  I went down.
• 15:15
  I did the practice session, not going out live.
• 15:18
  I've just, you know, commentated over the top or just talked over the top of it.
• 15:22
  And they were like, that's great.
• 15:23
  We're going to bring you in for commentary.
• 15:25
  So I did commentary.
• 15:26
  I did the races by myself, standalone comms for first ever comms.
• 15:30
  And yeah, and then they said, well, we'd like you to come back and do the full main GP2 season for 2009.
• 15:39
  Yeah.
• 15:40
  And that's where it started.
• 15:42
  Just a complete chance event.
• 15:45
  And I did the 2009 season doing commentary on GP2.
• 15:49
  And at the end of that year, I got a call from Speed Channel in the States.
• 15:52
  And they said, you may not know this, but we've been getting your World Feed commentary.
• 15:56
  We've been putting our own commentary over it.
• 15:58
  But in the production room, we listen to you as you're commentating and we love it.
• 16:03
  And it's really fresh.
• 16:04
  It's really fun.
• 16:05
  And
• 16:06
  Peter Windsor, who was their pit lane reporter in Formula One, was going off to set up the USF1 team.
• 16:11
  And they said, we need a new pit lane reporter.
• 16:13
  Do you want to be our pit lane reporter?
• 16:15
  And I jumped at it, mate.
• 16:16
  And that was, God, 12 years ago.
• 16:19
  So it all, you know, you know what it's like, mate, in this sport.
• 16:25
  It's the crazy thing where...
• 16:27
  If you're around and you keep pushing and you keep showing your enthusiasm and your will to work, sometimes these little things come that allow you to move on to the next stage.
• 16:38
  I was really lucky that happened for me, and I've made 12 years now broadcasting.
• 16:44
  I still pinch myself over it because growing up and listening to Murray Walker, broadcasting was something I never dreamed of doing because that's what Murray did.
• 16:52
  It never seemed like there would ever be an opportunity for...
• 16:56
  you know, for a little English kid to do that.
• 16:58
  So I'm incredibly, incredibly thankful that I ever got the opportunity to pick up a microphone and talk about this thing I love.
• 17:06
  The conversation so far, mate, we have largely framed around Formula One with a little bit of talk of early hill climb experiences and so on.
• 17:15
  But the love of IndyCar sort of creeps in here with, I mean, you got to work with our mutual and very good buddy, Lee Diffie, who's in my podcast library here and I've known him forever.
• 17:27
  But you got to go and play in that space too.
• 17:29
  And you, you know, you have a proper love of Formula One, I know, but you thoroughly enjoy that IndyCar experience and still do, mate, don't you?
• 17:36
  Oh, dude, I just love racing, you know, like all of us.
• 17:39
  I just love racing.
• 17:41
  But IndyCar has a very, very special place in my heart.
• 17:44
  It's just such a vibrant championship.
• 17:49
  You know, the fact you can go into any weekend and anyone of like 15 to 20 drivers has got a shot at winning the race.
• 17:55
  It's...
• 17:56
  And it's the main event, you know, and such a phenomenally skilled group of drivers, great tracks, you know, the differentiation between road courses, street courses, ovals.
• 18:06
  It's brilliant.
• 18:07
  It's genuinely brilliant.
• 18:09
  I think it's some of the most exciting racing in the world, criminally underwatched, criminally underappreciated, but just phenomenal.
• 18:18
  And if you're ever lucky enough to go to a race, be it...
• 18:22
  in the media, you know, as we are, or as a fan, you get the same access.
• 18:26
  You know, you can just walk up to a driver and just be like, hey, how's it going?
• 18:30
  And they'll stop and they'll talk and it's just, dude, it's mega.
• 18:34
  Like, it's so fun and open and accommodating and it's wonderful.
• 18:40
  I can't say enough about how much I love IndyCar.
• 18:43
  Now, there is on the CV a little bit of race driving.
• 18:47
  Oh, mate.
• 18:47
  I want you to tell me a bit.
• 18:49
  Come on, come on.
• 18:50
  Tell us about this, how it came about.
• 18:52
  You did a few races too, didn't you?
• 18:53
  Tell us more.
• 18:54
  I can't say I raced, right?
• 18:56
  I can say I...
• 18:58
  Participated, like me.
• 19:00
  I shared a racing track with some racing drivers.
• 19:03
  LAUGHTER
• 19:04
  Yeah, I mean, look, you know what they say, those who can do and those who can't talk about it.
• 19:09
  So I'm very firmly in the second grouping.
• 19:12
  But it feels like forever ago now, and it is nearly 10 years ago, 2014, Ferrari invited me out to the U.S. to take part in a junior championship that they were running called the Florida Winter Series, which was using the Tatus F4 car.
• 19:29
  And it was for young kids just coming straight out of karts to get a first taste of racing.
• 19:33
  And there was a pretty decent lineup of drivers.
• 19:37
  Ed Jones, who went to race in IndyCar.
• 19:39
  Tatiana Calderon, who we know very well, who's now in IndyCar this year.
• 19:45
  Kids like Raffaella Marcello and Antonio Fuoco, who were part of the Ferrari Junior Programme at the time.
• 19:51
  And a couple of kids who went on to be all right, actually.
• 19:55
  Nicholas Latifi, Lance Stroll.
• 19:59
  And a certain young man by the name of Max Verstappen.
• 20:05
  So it was crazy, man.
• 20:08
  It was crazy.
• 20:09
  And I loved it.
• 20:10
  I loved being able to see these kids literally raw, straight out of go-karts.
• 20:15
  stepping into single-seaters for the first time, watching how they raced, watching how they learnt, how they adapted.
• 20:21
  You know, at my first session, I was like 18 seconds off the pace.
• 20:25
  And then by the end of the weekend, I was running...
• 20:27
  I think my fastest lap was like two seconds off Verstappen, which I'll take, you know, I'll take.
• 20:32
  And I will forever have on forex.com, which is like the industry website of every result in history ever.
• 20:41
  It will be forever written on there that I finished ahead of Nicolas Latifi in a race.
• 20:45
  So I'm all right with that.
• 20:48
  But I can't say I raced.
• 20:49
  You know, I think Nicholas had a had a wing problem or something and ended up ended up behind me.
• 20:54
  But I held him off.
• 20:55
  I held him off for two laps.
• 20:57
  So that was good.
• 20:58
  But yeah, you know what, man, just we talk about it so much, but just to be in the car and to gain.
• 21:04
  I'd always understood the theory.
• 21:06
  of slipstream.
• 21:07
  I'd always understood the theory of dirty air or picking up rubbish all over your tires or whatever.
• 21:14
  And I got to experience all of that.
• 21:16
  And I got a real firsthand appreciation of what it felt like.
• 21:20
  So to be able to talk about it and not just know the theory, not just know
• 21:26
  you know, why it happens.
• 21:27
  But to know what that feels like was, you know, to know what a flat spot feels like and how violent the shaking is in the car once you flat spotted the tyre.
• 21:36
  It was absolutely huge.
• 21:38
  And I'll always be unbelievably thankful to Ferrari for giving me that opportunity.
• 21:43
  Massive, mate.
• 21:44
  Massive.
• 21:44
  So, at some point here, Liberty Media becomes involved in Formula One.
• 21:50
  Things change in the American broadcasting landscape and unfortunately your time and connection with those networks comes to an end.
• 21:57
  But a new opportunity emerges on the digital side of the business.
• 22:02
  On paper, Will, it was perfectly timed because they have believed in this space.
• 22:08
  They have invested in this space.
• 22:10
  They wanted to give it a youthful feel, a different feel.
• 22:13
  And you were very much at the forefront of that, weren't you?
• 22:17
  Yeah.
• 22:18
  And Formula One was really behind the curve on it.
• 22:22
  And I think it's because Formula One was actually really ahead of the curve in the digital space.
• 22:29
  They had a digital television network network.
• 22:32
  years and years and years before it was the thing to do.
• 22:37
  But it was so early that it was a massive, made a huge loss.
• 22:42
  So Bernie pulled the plug on digital TV and all of that.
• 22:45
  And it was, they had essentially an over the top television offering a decade before it was the profitable or fashionable thing to do.
• 22:58
  So he was always then I think very careful of
• 23:02
  or protective of not moving into something which he saw might be a fad.
• 23:08
  As it turned out, social media really wasn't a fad and was to be the future.
• 23:13
  And, you know, digital programming was to be the future.
• 23:16
  But Formula One had invested nothing in it.
• 23:17
  And it was one of the first things that Liberty Media did was... And I think they realized that, you know, with the move towards so many countries having their Formula One coverage behind a paywall, if they were going to increase eyeballs and increase the sort of fan space...
• 23:34
  of the sport, they needed to create almost a free to air TV through the digital domain.
• 23:38
  And that's everything that we've done over the last five years is creating that free to air through YouTube, through Twitter, through Instagram, through all of those outlets.
• 23:49
  And creating content which hopefully would be good enough to go on any network anywhere in the world to engage, excite and bring people in and teach them and tell them the stories.
• 24:01
  Not just about what's going on now, but about the history to give it context.
• 24:06
  So, yeah, it's been a real thrill to be a part of that, to be kind of at the heart of that and to tell the stories.
• 24:14
  We want to get to drive to survive because there's lots of interest from a listener point of view, obviously.
• 24:18
  Yeah, of course.
• 24:19
  Can we dabble, Will, briefly in a great writing experience for you, which listeners of the podcast can still buy at places like Amazon, for example, and that is My Greatest Defeat, Stories of Hardship and Hope from Motor Racing's Finest Heroes.
• 24:35
  Don't, I mean, there's a lot of them in there and some fantastic backstories, which I love the notion of.
• 24:44
  Two, maybe give us two that perhaps stood out for you.
• 24:47
  I mean, Nicky Lauder opened up about the tragedy involving the airline, for example.
• 24:51
  He's now very sadly left us.
• 24:53
  There's others in there as well, even beyond the Formula One sphere.
• 24:56
  I mean, there's Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson and all sorts, mate, isn't there?
• 25:01
  Yeah, so I wanted to write a book that wasn't a traditional motor racing book that wasn't really about racing, but was about personal experience and personal difficulties that drivers had been through, how they'd got through them and what it had taught them, whether, you know, their racing experience had allowed them to get through that or, you know, whatever.
• 25:22
  Mostly just to show that racing drivers under the helmet and under the overalls are just people like us.
• 25:29
  And to then hopefully allow us, if we're in a space where we're struggling or finding life quite hard, that we could look at our heroes and realize that they'd experienced those difficulties too.
• 25:37
  And that it's very normal and it's okay to talk about it.
• 25:41
  And I was really humbled with how open a lot of the drivers were, the stories that they told and the lessons that they really sort of provided for all of us that we can take into our lives.
• 25:53
  Nicky, as you said, was amazing talking about the plane crash.
• 25:58
  One of his planes went down when he ran loud air and he made it his mission to...
• 26:03
  Not just prove that it wasn't the fault of his pilots, but to figure out what had gone wrong, why it had gone wrong, and ensure that it could never happen again.
• 26:10
  Because Boeing were adamant that there was nothing wrong with their plane, but Nicky had been to the crash site and had seen on one of the engines that the reverse thruster was engaged.
• 26:20
  And they just passed it off as, oh, well, you know, things happen in crashes, and so you don't read too much into it.
• 26:25
  And Nicky was just like, no, that's not right.
• 26:26
  And it turned out an O-ring had failed and allowed the reverse thruster to come on at, I think, like 35,000 feet.
• 26:34
  So essentially it put it into an unsavable spin because one engine's pushing forwards, the other one's pushing back.
• 26:40
  And it just, whoop, just pushed into a spin.
• 26:44
  And there's a great story that he told in there about, you know, he had tried this in the simulator over and over again himself to pull it out, and he had never been able to do it, and none of his pilots could.
• 26:56
  And he was just like, right, this is crazy.
• 26:58
  So he went to the board of Boeing and said, this is what's happened, and you need to accept and admit culpability, and you need to make a change to the design of these planes.
• 27:06
  They wouldn't accept it.
• 27:07
  So he said, okay, no problem.
• 27:08
  I've got one of the planes on the runway right now.
• 27:10
  We'll go up.
• 27:12
  All of us, right now, come on, let's go.
• 27:13
  We'll go up.
• 27:16
  We'll kick that reverse thruster in on one side and not on the other.
• 27:19
  And if we all come down safely, fine.
• 27:21
  You know, we'll accept that it's on us.
• 27:24
  But we won't.
• 27:26
  And obviously nobody got on the plane.
• 27:28
  And within a week, I think Boeing had accepted that they needed to do an investigation, then admitted fault, made a change.
• 27:37
  And now every airplane in the world has this safety feature on it, which means that can never happen again.
• 27:42
  So that was pretty good.
• 27:43
  But I mean...
• 27:45
  I think the story that really spoke to me the most was talking to Jeff Gordon and talking to him about his life outside of racing relationships.
• 27:56
  He had a failed marriage, how that had affected him and his family and his friends and really coming through that.
• 28:05
  And it ended up Jeff and I were kind of finishing each other's.
• 28:09
  sort of sentences.
• 28:12
  And we really kind of engaged with one another because we both experienced something quite similar.
• 28:18
  And yeah, that was amazing.
• 28:21
  And Jeff, and it got really emotional.
• 28:22
  And at the end we were both kind of on the edge of being quite emotional.
• 28:26
  And he was just like, well, I know why I'm emotional.
• 28:28
  Why are you so emotional?
• 28:29
  I was just like, dude, like,
• 28:31
  because I've been there, man.
• 28:33
  I've been there.
• 28:34
  So it was, yeah, it was really amazing.
• 28:36
  Really, really amazing.
• 28:37
  And I was very, very grateful that they opened up.
• 28:40
  I was really hoping to write a second volume of it at some point.
• 28:45
  And there were so many drivers that I wanted to talk to, one of whom was Vic Elford, who we've just very recently lost.
• 28:51
  And so, you know, I really want to try and tell these stories and talk to these guys before, you know, certainly some of the ones who are getting on a bit before...
• 29:02
  before I lose the opportunity to.
• 29:04
  That's the end of part one of my podcast with F1 broadcaster and journalist Will Buxton.
• 29:14
  Don't forget, this is part of a special release of episodes to coincide with the return of the Australian Grand Prix, and they are in the library right now.
• 29:23
  I hope you enjoy them.
• 29:24
  If you're keen for more on Will, part two is all parked and ready for you to fire up.
• 29:30
  From Drive to Survive, the runaway success story doco series on Formula One, how he came to be a part of it, and some behind-the-scenes observations on what it takes to bring each season on Netflix together.
• 29:42
  Plus, some thoughts on the season ahead, and his impressions of Oscar Piastri, an Aussie waiting in the wings who is seriously talented.
• 29:52
  This is a kid who's Lewis Hamilton good.
• 29:54
  You know, Charles Leclerc good.
• 29:55
  He is... No, but he is.
• 29:57
  You know, you look at what he's done.
• 30:00
  What he's achieved so far.
• 30:01
  Yeah, and how he's achieved it.
• 30:03
  Year on year, just in.
• 30:04
  Championship.
• 30:05
  Pow.
• 30:06
  Step up.
• 30:06
  Championship.
• 30:07
  Pow.
• 30:07
  Step up.
• 30:08
  Championship.
• 30:09
  You know, there aren't many drivers that can do that.
• 30:18
  Listener.