Latest / Rusty's Garage / The Motorsport Brief - Bruno Senna back down under

Transcript

The Motorsport Brief - Bruno Senna back down under · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:05
  Welcome to the Motorsport Brief.
• 0:06
  Today it's a bonus hit for you with a former F1 driver who these days is a proud member of the McLaren family.
• 0:15
  G'day everyone, Rusty here.
• 0:16
  I'm in Sydney for this one at the McLaren Sydney dealership actually near the airport.
• 0:21
  I've come in early one morning around opening time.
• 0:24
  There are some seriously cool cars around us here and a driver with a famous surname is back in Australia.
• 0:31
  He loves it here.
• 0:32
  He's going to spend time with customers and journos along the eastern seaboard as a part of his role as an ambassador.
• 0:38
  Bruno Senna has a unique record of being the first to win in every class in the World Endurance Championship in sports cars.
• 0:45
  He made it to Formula One with the likes of Lotus, Williams and Espana.
• 0:49
  Was probably scrutinised a bit too heavily because of his surname, which we'll talk about.
• 0:55
  He is the nephew, of course, of the great Ayrton Senna, who left us 30 years ago.
• 0:59
  Thank you.
• 1:18
  There is a nice human story that he shares here on growing up with his uncle, one that I don't think has been widely shared, so keep an ear out for that.
• 1:26
  I loved doing this chat.
• 1:28
  It came about by pure chance in some respects, but I am so glad that the diaries or the planets aligned.
• 1:35
  I hope you enjoy our chat.
• 1:38
  Welcome back to Australia.
• 1:39
  Oh, so such a pleasure to be here always.
• 1:42
  I mean, today the weather is not so pretty as yesterday, but you know, we'll excuse it.
• 1:46
  I wanna talk a little bit about your time in Australia, what brings you back and so on.
• 1:50
  But I have a little story for you.
• 1:52
  I work with a colleague, Richard Crail,
• 1:55
  who back in the day commentated very passionately Formula 3 in this country.
• 1:59
  And he commentates the Bathurst 12 hour now and things like that.
• 2:02
  Does a very good job.
• 2:03
  And his eyes lit up yesterday when I said you and I were catching up.
• 2:06
  And he said, I called his first Formula 3 win in Australia and things like that.
• 2:11
  So it is actually welcome back to Australia for you, isn't it?
• 2:14
  For sure.
• 2:14
  For sure.
• 2:15
  I mean, first time I was here was in 2008.
• 2:18
  and six when I came here for the F3 race support series for F1.
• 2:23
  And it was my first professional career win as well.
• 2:27
  So I got three wins out of four races, which was pretty good.
• 2:30
  Awesome.
• 2:30
  Good memories.
• 2:31
  Yeah, it was good times and obviously extra fond memories of Australia doing that.
• 2:36
  But now it's...
• 2:39
  Yeah, I can't believe it's been 18 years already.
• 2:42
  Crazy.
• 2:42
  It's unbelievable.
• 2:43
  Crazy.
• 2:44
  You were at Sydney Motorsport Park the other night, under lights.
• 2:46
  You were with some journalist colleagues like Daniel Gardner, Sam Childwood and others.
• 2:51
  Just tell people what you were showing them and what they got the chance to drive and to taste.
• 2:57
  Well, they had the very lucky opportunity to drive the 750S around the racetrack there.
• 3:02
  And Sydney Motorsport Park is a great racetrack.
• 3:05
  It's up and down.
• 3:06
  It's like a roller coaster.
• 3:08
  It gives you spa feelings.
• 3:09
  Not the same dimension, but really good, engaging drive.
• 3:14
  And driving a supercar like the 750S is something that not many people are able to do.
• 3:20
  But they had a few sessions with the car to get acquainted.
• 3:23
  And at the end, I took them for a hot lap
• 3:26
  to see you know to demonstrate what the car can can actually do and uh i think everybody really enjoyed it because you know it was at night as well so you get like this extra ambience you know it's a perfect night for it too i think wasn't it it was crisp it was cool and um you know the the the car gets extra power but the truck is very well lit so it's uh another one of those tracks where you have like dark spots so it was super comfortable we enjoyed it a lot i certainly did good
• 3:53
  It was only one stop on a tour through Australia for you.
• 3:56
  I think beyond here, you're off to Melbourne, you go to Queensland as well.
• 3:59
  And it involves, Bruno, a balance of customers and media, doesn't it?
• 4:04
  And you're busy the whole time that you're here.
• 4:07
  Yeah, I do this work with McLaren now for 10 years.
• 4:10
  So we do ambassadorial work.
• 4:12
  So I do events and we do track days.
• 4:14
  And I do luckily some car development as well.
• 4:17
  So it's a real amazing function that I have with McLaren because I get to enjoy all the sides of the company.
• 4:25
  And I came here to see some press, also some customers.
• 4:30
  So I get the whole thing and I get to drive on the track.
• 4:34
  So what else can you ask for?
• 4:35
  What main things, I mean, you talked about taking them for a ride in center and so on there, but is it Artura, W1?
• 4:41
  What sort of things are you mainly here talking about and covering?
• 4:44
  Yeah.
• 4:44
  Yeah, we're talking about the Artura Spyder, also 750S.
• 4:47
  These are the cars that are on the market right now.
• 4:52
  W1 obviously was released a couple of weeks ago, and we were there for the launch, and it was amazing.
• 4:57
  I mean, the reaction of people there when they saw the car on the flash was stunning.
• 5:03
  The car is such a technical achievement.
• 5:05
  It's such a beauty of a car.
• 5:07
  So I think McLaren has very exciting times ahead.
• 5:10
  Good.
• 5:11
  And of course, the race team doing so well on the track, this also brings a huge stigma and a huge aura to the team.
• 5:18
  Energy about it, doesn't it?
• 5:19
  Yeah, yeah.
• 5:20
  So it's awesome.
• 5:20
  Can I, before we get to some of the stuff about Formula 1 and just the company generally, there was quite a funny story I was told about you.
• 5:27
  And invariably, when you come and do these sort of events, you do work with media outlets, magazines, influencers, you name it.
• 5:35
  And did someone mistake you for Romain Grosjean?
• 5:38
  What happened there?
• 5:40
  Well, luckily this was not in Australia.
• 5:43
  This was actually in Brazil, embarrassingly enough.
• 5:45
  I was there doing the Brazilian Grand Prix and this was, I think, five years ago.
• 5:51
  I came out of the paddock and this Brazilian guy comes running.
• 5:55
  He's like, Grosjean, Grosjean.
• 5:57
  And I'm like, I looked at him and I was like...
• 6:01
  I'll just take a photo with him.
• 6:02
  I won't say a word.
• 6:03
  I won't ruin it for him.
• 6:04
  One day you'll find out that I was definitely not Romain Grosjean, but it's all right.
• 6:08
  Well played.
• 6:09
  Well played.
• 6:11
  Your uncle, of course, famously drove for McLaren.
• 6:14
  He drove for other Formula One teams, but the McLaren chapter is one that is remembered so fondly, right?
• 6:19
  For you to kind of have that connection, you talked about 10 years with them now.
• 6:23
  I think you do 50 days a year with McLaren going around the world with his stuff.
• 6:26
  To have that connection.
• 6:27
  that tie up and to keep that legacy, that connection going must be quite special.
• 6:31
  Yeah, it's an honor for me because my dream was to race for McLaren F1.
• 6:37
  That didn't happen.
• 6:38
  I was lucky enough to race in Formula One but never got to race for McLaren.
• 6:43
  And being part of the family and having this relationship extended is something that is a dream come true because we are able to achieve so much together.
• 6:53
  McLaren Senna is a fruit of this relationship that we have.
• 6:57
  So it's a real pleasure.
• 7:00
  I love the company.
• 7:01
  I'm such a fan of McLaren, not only on the racetrack, but also the road car part.
• 7:06
  And I think if I can be here and
• 7:10
  extending the history of the center name with McLaren.
• 7:12
  It's definitely a huge objective in my life.
• 7:16
  Cool.
• 7:16
  I spend a lot of time in New Zealand nowadays and they are equally very proud of the McLaren heritage there with Bruce and so on.
• 7:25
  Where...
• 7:26
  the business is at right now, both road car and certainly on the racing side is remarkable.
• 7:31
  Can we look at it from an overarching perspective here?
• 7:35
  Zach Brown has an incredible commercial background, but the way he's been able to sort of invigorate that whole thing and where its success points are at the moment is quite remarkable, isn't it?
• 7:47
  It is.
• 7:48
  I think from the moment he came into the team,
• 7:51
  to where we are, the arch of development has been amazing.
• 7:55
  And it's not only on the business side.
• 7:57
  I mean, he was able to place the right people in the right places and then get the right people to replace the people that were not right.
• 8:05
  And then all these people that are in the right places, they're able to do their jobs and also do their own organization.
• 8:11
  So Andreas Teller has been doing an amazing technical job for the team.
• 8:16
  And when you see a team that was struggling so badly, like even a couple of years ago, to be where they are now, it's so satisfactory.
• 8:25
  And especially in a...
• 8:28
  competitive environment like Formula 1.
• 8:30
  We talk about this a lot when we're talking to people about the challenge of Formula 1, because people look at F1 and they think, ah, the drivers are doing everything.
• 8:39
  Reality is that the car is 70% of the performance, no matter what you say.
• 8:44
  Maybe on a day where it's mixed, the driver can make a bigger difference.
• 8:47
  But on a normal day, the car is 70% of the results.
• 8:51
  So the fact that
• 8:53
  There's a finite number of engineers and talents that designed the car.
• 8:58
  And to have this all working together to make a car that's beating something like the Red Bull, which is designed by Adrian Newey.
• 9:05
  Adrian Newey is like Lewis Hamilton, Ayrton Senna.
• 9:09
  He's like one of those talents, like a singular talent that is able to bring a team together and make everything work.
• 9:16
  To beat something like this is a real team effort.
• 9:20
  And there's no words to congratulate him on.
• 9:23
  As you rightly say, the turnaround is incredible.
• 9:26
  I mean, in a period of probably less than two years, they find themselves now leading the Constructors' Championship and maybe with a good chance, it's going to be a fantastic final few rounds of the 24 Championship.
• 9:37
  Good for us.
• 9:37
  Good for you.
• 9:38
  I mean, it really is.
• 9:39
  And there are many factors to that, I know.
• 9:42
  Quickly, just on Andrea, I'm glad you bring him up.
• 9:45
  I think Zach had an attempt to try and...
• 9:50
  put him in that role a little earlier and he resisted that.
• 9:53
  He didn't feel... His sort of sense of humbleness combined with this sort of passionate direction is really infectious, isn't it?
• 10:06
  Yeah, it is.
• 10:07
  I managed to...
• 10:09
  I had the pleasure of meeting Andrea a few times now and he's such a humble guy.
• 10:12
  He's completely down to earth.
• 10:14
  I think more than that...
• 10:17
  he's like a really enthusiastic guy.
• 10:19
  He loves it.
• 10:20
  Like he's super, there's like, there's a difference between some engineers, which are, which are sort of like, they're doing their job and he's like, he's a fan.
• 10:31
  You know, he loves that stuff.
• 10:32
  And, you know, I think you can see his enthusiasm for the results they're achieving.
• 10:38
  There's like a whole sort of like,
• 10:41
  emotional side to it that you don't see from engineers.
• 10:43
  You know, these guys are like, their minds are so focused.
• 10:46
  Andrea is able to achieve that and, you know, have the emotion.
• 10:49
  It's amazing.
• 10:50
  And it then filters down through the organization.
• 10:53
  Aussie audiences listening to this will be interested in your view on Oscar Piastri.
• 10:59
  I was up at the Singapore Grand Prix a couple of weeks ago and a colleague said to me, there are elements that he is demonstrating that are
• 11:08
  And I know he was a great rival of your uncle, but are a little bit Alain Prost-like.
• 11:13
  And I think Australian audiences probably don't realize that we potentially have something very special in him.
• 11:20
  And we're just getting maybe a glimpse of that now, aren't we?
• 11:23
  Yeah, I think Oscar, I mean, surprised everyone in terms of not his talent.
• 11:27
  Obviously, everybody knew how talented he was.
• 11:30
  just how quickly he's been able to deliver.
• 11:32
  Even last year, you know, his first year with the team, he was already putting good pressure on Lando.
• 11:36
  I think Lando didn't have so much pressure on him.
• 11:38
  I think maybe since Carlos, you know, Daniel was struggling a little bit with, with consistency.
• 11:44
  So came last year, Oscar was like pushing Lando hard.
• 11:48
  And I think Lando, you know, Lando delivers.
• 11:50
  There's no, there's no doubt about it, but,
• 11:53
  Come this year, I think the step that Oscar had in terms of his consistency, but also his race craft.
• 12:00
  This is something that Oscar has been doing very well.
• 12:02
  You can see the thirst, the edge that he has, which is something that when you talk to him, he's such a polite, rounded guy.
• 12:11
  Come on.
• 12:11
  But on the car, I know he's like a weapon on the track, especially when it comes to overtaking.
• 12:15
  So great combination of characteristics to have.
• 12:21
  And I think with a little bit more experience, you keep putting the spice on there.
• 12:25
  I think it's going to be a very, very good time.
• 12:29
  Ultimately, it depends, again, on having the right car to deliver the job.
• 12:33
  So you can see that now that he has the car, he's doing everything to prove that he's able to do it.
• 12:40
  And I think this is important for him personally as a driver's career.
• 12:46
  So you have to take all the advantage you can have from the moments you, the opportunities you have.
• 12:51
  You don't know if next year the car is gonna be winning again or not.
• 12:53
  Hopefully it will, so we can have a good championship again.
• 12:56
  But every opportunity you have to take, and he's doing it.
• 13:00
  Timing is everything, and he's in a good place right now, which is terrific.
• 13:04
  You spoke with a colleague of mine, a good friend actually, and Trevor Long on the radio.
• 13:09
  And you two raised a really good point, and that is a lot of Australians thinking about what's happened to Daniel Ricciardo and so on.
• 13:16
  The Red Bull system is both unbelievable opportunity and yet incredibly brutal at the same time, isn't it?
• 13:23
  And we've sort of seen that there, haven't we?
• 13:26
  Yeah, the Red Bull system is tough because I think some people thrive in that ambience, like in that environment where you're...
• 13:35
  under so much pressure and you were able to deliver under that pressure.
• 13:39
  I think Daniel, when he was younger and he was coming through the ranks, he was comfortable in his ability and he was working for him.
• 13:47
  Once he went through this period where it was a bit of a struggle with Renault and McLaren, coming back to the Red Bull system and having to prove himself all over again, put him in this...
• 13:59
  mind state that was not his best, right?
• 14:02
  He was always second guessing himself, or maybe not even that, but just not thinking about
• 14:10
  being relaxed and driving.
• 14:11
  He was like really just trying to prove himself.
• 14:14
  And when you're doing this, you're never at your best because every mistake counts in your mind rather than every success, right?
• 14:21
  So I think ultimately that's what put him in such a difficult situation.
• 14:26
  And the mind is probably...
• 14:30
  80% of the sportsperson performance.
• 14:33
  And once your mind is not in it, there's no way you can recover.
• 14:36
  You can be good once, but then most of the time you're up and down when you can normally be at 100% all the time if your mind is in the right place.
• 14:44
  A break on this special bonus edition of the Rusty's Garage Shortcast.
• 14:48
  More with Bruno Senna on the other side of this.
• 14:53
  You're listening to the Motorsport Brief.
• 14:55
  We have some great Formula One guests in our Rusty's Garage library.
• 14:59
  Oscar Piastri to Liam Lawson.
• 15:01
  Mark Webber is in there.
• 15:03
  A great short cast recently with Stefanie Johansson as well.
• 15:07
  It is terrific to add Bruno Senna to that list.
• 15:11
  Let's get back to the convo now.
• 15:13
  Your time in Formula One, crazily, it seems like yesterday to me, Bruno, but it was over a decade ago now.
• 15:18
  In the ensuing period, drive to survive has become a massive thing.
• 15:23
  Liberty Media is now involved.
• 15:25
  Does it blow you away, the state of that sport, and how wide the reach is now?
• 15:30
  Oh, it's crazy, hey?
• 15:31
  Yeah, it is unbelievable.
• 15:33
  The revolution that happened in Formula One, because F1 has always been...
• 15:38
  uh sort of cyclic thing you know we had like periods where f1 was super popular and then it dropped off and then up and down up and it's always been the case but this rise has been higher than i think since ever the the 80s you know i think 80s and early 90s was previously the highest point of f1 and since then it's been sort of like up and down but this has been an incredible uh
• 16:00
  raise and popularity, but also in terms of spread.
• 16:05
  Because now the amount of diversity you have in terms of the people that watch F1 is something that never happened before.
• 16:12
  Before, you had some kids who love cars.
• 16:15
  They watch F1.
• 16:16
  Now people are really interested in the personalities in F1 once again.
• 16:20
  You know, since the 80s, people didn't care about it anymore.
• 16:24
  So it's a good time.
• 16:26
  It's a really cool time for F1.
• 16:27
  I have teenage daughters and they come to me all the time and they go, do you know he's got this new girlfriend?
• 16:32
  And I'm like, there's this whole layer of information that they follow.
• 16:35
  I wouldn't have a clue about it.
• 16:37
  I'm enjoying the racing.
• 16:40
  Can we get some memories of your own racing career if we can?
• 16:43
  I mean, from a Formula One perspective, Hispania, Renault, Williams in the very top flight of our…
• 16:49
  sport.
• 16:50
  I often wonder, Bruno, the weight of expectation of the family name.
• 16:54
  It is both blessing and burden in the same sort of breath, isn't it?
• 16:58
  Yeah, it was tough.
• 16:59
  I think in the beginning, particularly, the order is you start your racing, you become good and people start paying attention to you.
• 17:10
  I literally started racing when I did my first race in Formula BMW in 2004.
• 17:15
  I was 20 years old.
• 17:17
  And people were already like, I was on the cover of Autosport on my first race and my car was like flying because someone dive-bombed me on lap one and I almost rolled over.
• 17:27
  And you think, who cares about that?
• 17:30
  But actually, you know, that was the situation I had to deal with from the beginning.
• 17:34
  That's not easy.
• 17:35
  It was, yeah, it was tough, but, you know, it made me, in one way it made me sort of like completely stop, completely ignore racing media because it was all like this.
• 17:44
  It was always sort of like...
• 17:47
  comparing me to my uncle.
• 17:49
  A lot of people were like this, but there was a huge amount of positive support as well.
• 17:53
  And for me to be able to carry the legacy of Ayrton forward and I had opportunities, of course, to fund my career with sponsors.
• 18:02
  So that was a very good side as well.
• 18:06
  The mix was tough always.
• 18:08
  In F1, it didn't get any easier, of course.
• 18:10
  I have a huge amount of pressure.
• 18:12
  But I think the thing that's...
• 18:14
  really made it extra difficult is that no matter how well I did, I think when I look at my junior career, especially how compressed it was, it was very short.
• 18:24
  The results I was able to achieve, the progression arc that I had was really good.
• 18:31
  And I compare it to a bunch of people who had much better and longer opportunities in F1.
• 18:36
  You think, maybe I could have had a better opportunity in F1 than these guys did because they...
• 18:44
  They didn't have such an arc like I did.
• 18:47
  But everybody was not comparing me against them.
• 18:49
  I beat them, but they were comparing me against my uncle.
• 18:52
  There's no way you can win that.
• 18:53
  Unless I become a nine-time world champion, you're never going to beat that.
• 18:58
  So ultimately, it was something that was always...
• 19:03
  bringing me down in a way.
• 19:06
  And after a while, like in F1, it was so difficult.
• 19:09
  I mean, 2012 was Williams, it was a good team, we scored loads of points, but what nobody remembers that Bottas was doing 15 out of 18 of my FP1s.
• 19:19
  You know, if you're losing
• 19:21
  35% of your practice time against the best drivers in the world is not going to make it easier.
• 19:26
  Right.
• 19:26
  So in fact, when you look at 2012, the issue I had was qualifying.
• 19:33
  I was like, I had two sets of tires less than everybody else on a race weekend.
• 19:38
  And then I had to go to qualifying and I had missed all this practice time.
• 19:43
  And I was always struggling to make the tires work.
• 19:45
  And this was really messing with my head, a bit like Danny, you know?
• 19:49
  I was like, oh man, what do I do?
• 19:53
  And in the end, that put me on the back foot because in the races, I was always able to do well, score points.
• 19:59
  I scored, I think, 31 points.
• 20:01
  33, I think.
• 20:02
  I'm trying to remember.
• 20:03
  Anyway, keep going.
• 20:03
  I scored the same number of points at Pastor, and Pastor won a race, and he has been doing it with the team for a few years.
• 20:09
  So ultimately, yeah, it was quite difficult.
• 20:13
  I think it's hard to, it's easy to forget some of the conditions that were there.
• 20:17
  I mean, 2011, I raced only eight races with Lotus and still they put Roma in the car at the end of the year.
• 20:25
  So ultimately, it was always like half opportunities.
• 20:28
  And then after that, I was like, you know what, I'm going to go somewhere where...
• 20:32
  I can fight for race wins.
• 20:34
  And the next year I was winning races again in endurance racing.
• 20:37
  So it was much more pleasant to be back in winning race than before.
• 20:44
  I'm glad you bring up that sort of other element to your CV, right?
• 20:47
  I mean, there's time even in Formula E where McLaren has a presence now and so on.
• 20:52
  But I think statistically in terms of the World Endurance Championship,
• 20:56
  I think you were the first person to win in every class of that sport.
• 21:00
  Did you enjoy that chapter?
• 21:01
  Yeah, it was good.
• 21:02
  It was good.
• 21:03
  I started in the GTE championship category with Aston Martin.
• 21:08
  And we had a very successful campaign.
• 21:11
  We almost won Le Mans in 2013, which would have been amazing.
• 21:15
  But Le Mans is tough to win.
• 21:17
  And we won a bunch of races.
• 21:19
  I did a couple of races in the GTE AM car as well.
• 21:22
  And we won that race in Fuji.
• 21:25
  and then went to LMP2, which was such a great time.
• 21:29
  It was the first time I won a full championship and it was with Nico Prost as well and Julien Canal.
• 21:35
  So a huge sort of like family history thing going on.
• 21:39
  And then in LMP1, we won a few races as well.
• 21:42
  But by the time we got to the LMP1 chapter of Rebellion,
• 21:46
  It was tough because, of course, we were fighting against Toyota, and the whole thing was about balance of performance once again.
• 21:55
  So that was quite tough.
• 21:56
  But we finished second in Le Mans overall, beat one of the Toyotas in 2020.
• 22:00
  And at that point, I said, you know what?
• 22:02
  I've done Le Mans nine times.
• 22:03
  I think it's time to take a break from this and see what happens next.
• 22:08
  Have you stopped?
• 22:09
  I mean, you're in your early 40s now.
• 22:10
  I think you had your birthday on the plane on the way here.
• 22:12
  I did, yeah.
• 22:13
  You are ageless.
• 22:14
  You haven't changed one bit.
• 22:16
  Does racing still either from the chance to get behind the wheel of a race car or even to talk about it, you've done some television stuff over time.
• 22:23
  Do you enjoy that still?
• 22:24
  Yeah, I love racing.
• 22:25
  I watch every Formula One race.
• 22:27
  I watch a bunch of GT and endurance racing as well.
• 22:30
  I love watching it.
• 22:31
  Of course, I miss being behind the steering wheel of a race car
• 22:37
  The thing about racing now is that if you're not in F1 or in IndyCar or something like this, then you're in balance of performance racing.
• 22:46
  Yes.
• 22:47
  I mean, maybe you go to Japan, you can do it.
• 22:50
  Most of the racing around the world is balance of performance racing.
• 22:53
  And it's tough because, you know, you can do the... You and your team can do the best job.
• 22:58
  But if your car is not on the right day because someone turned it down or something like this, you won't win.
• 23:06
  And this is the experience I had when I raced in LMP1.
• 23:10
  You know, we had...
• 23:12
  There was the full opportunity to have good races between us and the Toyota.
• 23:16
  But it was either we were way faster than them and there was no racing.
• 23:20
  We had miles ahead of them.
• 23:22
  Or we were nowhere.
• 23:25
  Fighting with one arm behind your back kind of thing.
• 23:28
  I bet it felt the same for them.
• 23:29
  They were taking the performance away.
• 23:34
  So I don't see the point of this.
• 23:36
  I know that in GT racing is closer, but still like when you see some of the GT racing, you see like sometimes a faster car that gets stuck behind a slower car just because they have more power on the straight and there's nothing you can do about it.
• 23:48
  And you're like, for me, this is sort of like, this really takes away from the pleasure of racing because for me, racing should be,
• 23:56
  You're doing the best job, you have a chance to win.
• 23:59
  Not you're doing the best job and someone else is winning because they have a, from the regulation perspective, a better equipment.
• 24:06
  So yeah, balance of performance racing frustrates me a lot.
• 24:10
  I know it's a necessary evil for people to be able to race in different equipment.
• 24:14
  but you love the purity don't you?
• 24:16
  I love the purity.
• 24:17
  I love like, you know, Formula 2 was great.
• 24:20
  It was so much fun.
• 24:21
  LMP2 is great.
• 24:22
  You have the same cars.
• 24:23
  Teams are doing the best job.
• 24:24
  They are there in front.
• 24:25
  So it's, yeah, this is kind of what frustrates me a little bit.
• 24:31
  And maybe I can forget about it in the future, but at the moment I'm still sort of looking around.
• 24:36
  I'm conscious of time here because I know you have a busy day ahead of you.
• 24:39
  A couple to finish here.
• 24:40
  I loved...
• 24:41
  the documentary that Manish Pandy and the guys did some years ago now with all that beautiful, rare archival vision of you guys and your uncle and so on.
• 24:49
  There is a new Netflix drama, I think, coming out next month.
• 24:53
  I don't know what you can tell us about that, if you've seen it and how you feel about it and so on.
• 24:57
  Yeah, they did an amazing job.
• 24:59
  I think dramas are always sort of
• 25:01
  a bit scary when it comes yeah yeah when it comes to when it comes to like reproducing someone's life especially someone as complex as ayrton you know to represent it properly in a drama where you have actors and directors and like something that's being uh there's like a script that's written uh it's it's hard so it was it was a real like effort between everybody to make it true to to ayrton's character uh they the the
• 25:30
  the team at Netflix and everybody who produced the series did an amazing job.
• 25:35
  The cars, like the replica cars that they made in Argentina are so cool.
• 25:39
  Like they are so close to the real cars in terms of their look.
• 25:42
  So they could like make racing scenes.
• 25:45
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 25:46
  And they have some of the earlier categories as well, like the Formula 3, Formula Ford.
• 25:52
  Honestly, it's super cool.
• 25:53
  And I'm really looking forward to seeing the whole thing.
• 25:57
  I saw a little bit of it.
• 25:58
  My mother and my sister watched the whole thing to get a proper feel.
• 26:02
  Before, it had all the effects added to it.
• 26:05
  And they loved it.
• 26:06
  So, I'm looking really forward to it.
• 26:08
  It makes me excited.
• 26:09
  Can I finish with a little something if you're comfortable?
• 26:12
  And I sense from this conversation that you're okay with it.
• 26:15
  A memory of your uncle.
• 26:17
  I mean, a hero for me, for many people that are listening here in this country, always fondly remembered.
• 26:23
  It is unbelievable, Bruno, to think that we are sitting here now, 30 years on from his passing.
• 26:29
  You got to spend different time with him, not just racetrack time.
• 26:33
  What was he like?
• 26:34
  Nah, he was awesome.
• 26:35
  He was like a big kid, really.
• 26:38
  He was like every time, for us, it was, it's so different.
• 26:41
  Everybody sees Ayrton as this
• 26:43
  like super serious guy like focused like completely ruthless in some ways but when he was at home he was just like you know like a fun uncle you know we were like up to no good the whole time literally the whole time kid hey
• 27:00
  I think this is a story I don't think I've ever told anyone I used to be on the jet ski and he would be skiing behind me so I was like the conductor of the jet ski as he was like skiing and there was this I think in Australia it was probably popular in the 80s and 90s there was this air chair so it's like a board with like a little bench and there's like a foil underneath you know like a key with a foil and
• 27:28
  And it was like a really nice thing.
• 27:30
  So he used to do this.
• 27:30
  He had one in Brazil and he used to do this.
• 27:33
  And one day we had a dog there in Brazil.
• 27:36
  It was a very famous dog in Brazil.
• 27:37
  It was like a black dog that you've probably seen in some pictures.
• 27:41
  Her name was Kinda.
• 27:43
  So he decided every time we went on a jet ski or any nautical equipment, she was there like barking and like trying to get on.
• 27:51
  And he took her on this air chair.
• 27:54
  So she was like on his feet.
• 27:57
  Unbelievable.
• 27:57
  And he was like riding this thing.
• 27:59
  And we did a couple of rounds of the bay.
• 28:02
  And for some reason, he decided to do a jump with her.
• 28:06
  And of course, they had a massive crash.
• 28:08
  It was like a huge crash.
• 28:10
  I remember seeing distinctively, I was like maybe nine years old.
• 28:14
  I remember this so well.
• 28:15
  The dog was just like skipping over the water because we're doing maybe 40 kilometers per hour.
• 28:21
  And we were maybe 100 meters away from home.
• 28:25
  He was trying to get her to go back on the ski.
• 28:29
  She just like swam back home, straight back home.
• 28:32
  I'm done.
• 28:32
  She was having none of it.
• 28:34
  So this is like the type of thing that we used to do at home.
• 28:37
  It was so much fun the whole time.
• 28:38
  And I think he enjoyed his time.
• 28:41
  I think that's why he spent so much time in Brazil whenever the season was off.
• 28:44
  He just came to Brazil to recharge and
• 28:48
  have fun with the family because that's the person he was.
• 28:50
  Thank you for sharing that.
• 28:51
  I think that's a really nice story for fans of the sport.
• 28:57
  I love the fact that you're tied up still with the name, iconically connected to McLaren.
• 29:03
  My colleagues who were with you at Sydney Motorsport Park the other night told me it wasn't just like...
• 29:08
  uh and this is no disrespect to to um to oscar or lando but they said what was different when you took them for the ride is the passionate connection that you have so it was a racing driver showing them around but you acutely knew um what the cars had to offer and i'm excited to think that there is more good stuff in the pipeline after 10 great years with the brand thank you for talking to us today thank you my pleasure
• 29:30
  Gee, I enjoyed that.
• 29:31
  I was in Sydney for the broadcast of round six of the Shannon Speed Series at the time.
• 29:36
  And I also caught up with TCR Australia champion Josh Buchan while I was there.
• 29:41
  That's a two-part feature episode that will drop in the days ahead.
• 29:44
  Great story, that one.
• 29:46
  Some of you might go, who's that?
• 29:48
  Well, he's come from a very humble background.
• 29:51
  driven some epic machines at World Time Attack, including for road and cars, and how Josh defied the odds to win the TCR crown.
• 30:00
  We caught up while he was fighting very closely to become the first driver to go back-to-back for that TCR title too.
• 30:07
  Gold Coast Supercars coming up this weekend.
• 30:09
  There is a fantastic ep of the Supercars Drivers Only pod in our Rusty's Garage Library, where the Bathurst winners, Brodie Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood, join James Courtney.
• 30:19
  Some fantastic revelations in there, including how crook Brodie was during that massive week at the mountain and what he drove through for that somewhat fairytale win with Todd Hazelwood and Erebus.
• 30:32
  Enjoy that.
• 30:33
  That is it for today.
• 30:34
  We'll catch you next week, everybody.
• 30:35
  Bye for now.