Transcript of Susie Wolff (Managing Director of F1 Academy)

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Shepherd. I'm joined by Lily Padman.

Hello.

We got a fox in today, but her name is Wolf.

Oh, good job.

Yes.

Suzy Wolf. Oh, oh, we love her.

She's so incredible. We love her.

So cool.

She's so incredible. Coolest person on Earth.

Yeah.

Yeah. I felt really lame. I said it.

Yeah, well, I did too.

It's hard not to feel lame. She makes me feel lame, but she is also so sweet and nice and kind and inclusive.

But her gift is to make you feel lame. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's her gift. Um, Susie is a former professional racing driver and current managing director of F1 Academy. She's also one of, I think, either the only one or maybe one of two women to ever drive an F1 car on a track on a race weekend.

Incredible.

And if people remember the Toto Wolff interview. That is her husband, and he said she's a half second faster no matter what he does. When he cheats, he uses different tires, puts weight in her cart. He can't get anywhere close to her. She has a new memoir out called Driven. Very appropriate title. Please check that out. Suzy Wolf is a blessing on planet Earth. Enjoy. You ever fucked with a Topo Chico though? This one bites hard.

How sweet does it bite?

A lot of carbonation.

Yeah, yeah, it's good, it's good, it's very good.

Yeah, and I didn't know they had different—

and there's a shortage. This is only gaining value as we sit here.

Well, now I feel really bad that I'm taking one.

Oh no, no, you must take it, you must take it.

If I only had one, I would want you to That's right.

No, it's a whole world sparkling water, like the size of the bubbles and the volume of the bubbles.

Well, Koto only has sparkling water because he has this theory that he doesn't need to get up for the toilet in the night if he drinks sparkling water. Only sparkling? I'm not convinced.

Okay, yeah.

How successful is this technique? He's still up, right?

He's still up.

He's still up.

He's still up.

He and I are both old men.

Yeah, I think it's an age thing, but I'm not going to tell him that. I'm just like, you just keep drinking that sparkling water.

He's just going to hear it on the pod.

I will tell him. I will tell him.

But it was so funny because I flew in last night and he's like, oh, where are you going? I said, I have Dax and Monica. And he's like, I've been there. I was like, yeah, I know. He's like, you're going to really enjoy it. I was like, oh, that's so nice.

I think you called him while we were interviewing.

You did.

We have this bypass where we can always reach each other.

I know.

Which can be embarrassing.

No, I've adopted it since that interview. I didn't know that was an option because in general, phone's just off, right? It's so annoying. Who can break through to you?

Toto?

That's it.

Okay, Jack doesn't have a phone yet.

No, he doesn't have a phone yet, but it's a good point because I should put my mom on it because she's on duty this week. Okay, but sometimes Jack grabs her phone and he calls me to ask me trivial things like, do I really need to have a bath tonight? Yeah, like, yes, Jack, just do whatever your grandmother says.

Oh my God.

But also, he doesn't need a bath. The older they get, you know, he does.

He might be stinky bad, and there's nothing worse than smelly boys. I know, and they need to learn early.

They don't want to hygiene. There's nothing worse than smelly boys.

Thank you.

I'm with you.

Now I'm paranoid that I smelled when I gave you a hug when you walked in.

You didn't. Don't worry.

But I have girls, so maybe I've been misled because we were bathing them every single night more as the routine to get them sleepy.

Yeah.

And at some point we're like, they're not getting dirty enough to justify a bath. Now it's pretty, you know.

No, now they bathe, right?

They do, but not every day.

We need to get, I think, because we're getting into some hormone territory.

Well, yeah, yeah. Now it's probably time to pick up the—

It's time.

It's time. Yeah.

But I think they'll They come to the realization on their own.

Of course.

What was standard in Scotland?

You were bathing every night?

There's no way, right?

What happens in Scotland is not really relatable to the rest of Europe.

Yeah, what's the vibe in Scotland in the '80s as a little person?

The vibe was, we were discussing recently memories of your birthday parties when you were younger. My memory is my dad bringing in an ATV, like a four-wheel terrain vehicle, home with a trailer, 9, 10 kids on the back of the trailer hanging on for dear life, and him going through huge mud on this mountain mountain behind the house, or a big hill. And I was going, "Faster, more mud!" And then we got home and he just sprayed us all down, him and my mum, with water. It was a really outdoorsy life. Yeah. It was, if I look back now, a brilliant, brilliant childhood. None of the pressures of, like, city or expectations. It was just so wholesome.

It's a little town on the western edge of Scotland on the water, right? It's a tourist town.

Well, it was where everyone took the ferry to all of kind of the Outer Hebrides, so it was more like a hub where people would arrive.

Did you say Hebrides?

Outer Hebrides. Yeah, what are Hebrides?

Outer Hebrides?

It's not like some remote island.

Oh, island!

It's like there are all these little islands there. I thought it was my accent at first.

Who knows? I mean, some of me knew words, some of the accent.

Yeah, well, the Hebrides are like a whole area of Scotland off the west coast.

Okay.

And you took the ferry from Auburn.

Would there be transient boyfriends? Like a new boy comes into town in the summer. He's with his family. They're on vacation. You fall in love. They have to return home.

What kind of girl do you think I am that there was a transient boyfriend?

One that's driven, focused, aggressive, determined, the kind that could snag any kind of boyfriend she wanted.

Not at that age. No, I was completely— You were a boy crazy. Uninterested in boys. You were. And my dad, I remember so distinctly when I was younger, around the age of 12, and my brother was only 15 months older, and he said something about a girl in his class. And then my dad looked at me and said, you are way too young to have a boyfriend. And I was like, yeah, you're right, I'm way too young to have a boyfriend. And then there was this moment in my childhood that this person will never know what an effect they had, because one of my dad's good friends who owned a pub, his name was Mario, And he said a throwaway comment to me, and I must have been like 13 or 14. He said, "You'll be pregnant by the time you're 16 and working in your dad's shop." What? Oh, big time.

Also, that is a crazy thing to say to a young girl.

Maybe he did it as like a reverse engineering. I was like, "Absolutely not." So then it was like, "Stay away from boys." Okay, you have kind of my dream childhood.

Not even kind of, you have my total dream childhood in that your father owned a motorcycle. Dealership. Let's start with Grandpa. It probably starts with your maternal grandfather. Yeah, being into motorcycles and whatnot.

So my mother's father was a Works motocross rider in the 1950s.

Wow.

Yeah, and he was an English daredevil. Anything he did, he was really good at.

Did he ride trials bikes?

Yes.

And he was sponsored by BSA?

Yes, he was a BSA Works rider, which in his day was like, he's a god.

But what, for, you know I have to do this for people who don't know what that is.

Triumph, BSA, this is one of the like historic motorcycle brands.

Okay, great.

Okay.

And he had a shop also in England that kind of sold the bikes, and when the Japanese bikes started to arrive and kind of took over the market, he realized it wouldn't be a proper sustainable business.

They couldn't really compete with the influx of— and he didn't adopt selling them.

No, because he's a staunch loyalist. Yeah, nationalist and loyalist.

Now His motorcycle shop was in Scotland, or no, he moved there to open that?

He moved to Scotland to do diving. He was changing completely his career.

Diving into water?

Yeah, he was a commercial diver.

Was he welding underwater?

No, no, I think he was more like in the west coast of Scotland. There's a real industry there to go and collect propellers which had fallen off. Okay, because there were so many boats and ferries and stuff like that. But then I don't really know much about that period because of course he got the bends and became paralyzed.

So yeah, he lost the use of his legs. Yeah.

Oh my God. He had done a dive when he hadn't been feeling well and came up too quickly. And he tells the story of them dragging him onto the boat. Now bearing in mind, he's a super athletic guy, very, very sporty. And he remembers lying and his leg was falling off the edge of the bed. And he said, there was a moment where I realized I couldn't bring my leg back up.

Oh my God. Oh yeah, yeah. Well, that's panic-inducing.

And he said, that's when I realized this is not good. So I've only ever known him in a wheelchair, but you shouldn't think that that stopped him. I mean, I never once heard him complaining. He did paragliding as he got older. He opened a caravan. So he very much pivoted around.

He even had crash landings in his paraglider.

Broke his ankle. Yes, my poor grandmother.

My God, I guess it doesn't matter.

But just to add in there, my grandmother never got a carer.

Wow.

She looked after him all on her own and dedicated herself, which if I look back now with the perspective I have with age and obviously becoming a wife and a mother, incredible.

Yeah.

Really incredible.

So the results of having that risk-takery of a grandfather is that your mother herself was also quite a risky young woman. Yeah. And she rode motorcycles from what age on?

Well, my uncle kind of took after my grandfather and did trials biking, nearly won the Scottish 6 Days Trials, and was very talented also on a bike. But when the accident happened, it was difficult for them because suddenly the whole family dynamic changed. I think my mum lost quite a lot of confidence because suddenly this father figure who so many people looked up to at that time came back home a different man. Yeah, in a way, and relied so much on my grandmother, so She lost a couple of years of her teenage years to that whole dynamic changing. And I think when she was 16, my grandfather said to her, "Go down and see John Stoddart and get yourself a bike." And she loved speed, and she is very much, you know, get up and go like my grandfather. And that, of course, is where she met my dad in the bike shop.

Oh, wow. This is such a great story.

Love story.

I love this. Mícheál.

I just wouldn't be who I am today without my mum, because you say, oh, role models, but she set the foundation. You know, she had her own business, she raced bikes. It was such an equal marriage between the two of them, and she had as much get-up-and-go as my dad. It absolutely shaped who I am.

Yeah, so she was in a motorcycle, they meet and fall in love. What's the age gap? She was 16 when she went to buy a motorcycle.

And now you're testing me. Yeah, not make them look bad here. Well, She got her first— so you have to be 17 to drive a motorbike in Scotland, so she was maybe 16 turning 17. So maybe she went at 16 to get ready to buy the bike for when she was 17. She was dating someone else, one of my dad's friends.

Oh, scandalous. Small town.

He was not treating her well.

Oh.

And it was a really good friend of his. They went on bike tours together, everything. And then it became clear that my mum and dad were better suited.

Simmering.

Simmering.

Yeah, yeah.

And then I think actually quite similar to me. I think it was my mum was the first one to say, actually, John, I'm in this direction. I think you and I fit.

Yeah.

Okay, so yes, they fall in love, they get married, and then father's running a motorcycle shop, but he's selling everything presumably because you're getting quads and jet skis.

Yeah, and outboards for the fisheries and the fishermen. And basically in a small town, you know what it's like, you sell whatever anyone needs.

Yeah, right.

So it was motorbikes in the summer. A lot of motorbikes would tour through, do the whisky tour up through Scotland because it's beautiful scenery but then the all-terrain vehicles for all the farms.

But so basically you had access to every single thing I wanted as a kid. Your first bike's a PW50, yeah?

Yeah.

How old were you when you got that?

Well, no, my very first was a little three-wheeler. Oh, okay. A Yamaha three-wheeler. And then PW50, I must have been 5?

Yes, right.

5 or 6?

This is when my daughter got her first PW50.

Love it.

Yes, yes, yes.

And then PW80. Loved that PW80.

Sure, sure. Now you're shifting gears with the cars.

No, that's an RT100. The Peugeot 80 doesn't have a clutch. No.

Oh, okay. Here the '80s all had clutches.

No. And I remember the first time I tried with the clutch, I was just like, oh, took me a while to get used to.

It's a humbling experience.

Do you have brothers and sisters?

The older brother.

Yeah. 15 months older than me.

Oh yeah. Yeah. So I would imagine it's kind of a perfect storm for you because similarly I have a little sister and I think if you have a little sister and she likes you, she's just gonna trend a little bit more into, I don't know, conventionally boy stuff. What do you think about that?

I think so. And I think it was also my character, like, well, anything he can do, I can do. I was very competitive. And he was a wonderful brother. He still is a wonderful brother. So he kind of took me under his wing. There wasn't a huge rivalry of, you know, I don't want her around. If he went on his motorbike, he was on his RT100, I was on my PW80. He was on a PW80, I was on a PW50. It was always that we were together.

He was probably proud of you. It's cool to have a little sister who rides.

I'm not sure he'd go as far to say he'd be proud.

That's too much.

But we definitely did a lot of things together. And my parents never really differentiated between son and daughter. It wasn't like I ever had the feeling that I shouldn't be on a bike or that I was doing anything unusual for a girl. It was very much, if you want to do it, you do it. And if you don't, you don't. There was no real pressure or feeling that I was doing something unusual for a girl.

We do have to take 1 second to worship your father, because for people who aren't super into motorsports, the craziest form of racing is definitely MotoGP. It makes the F1 drivers look cowardly. So that's just start there. And then the scariest thing in the motorcycle world by far is the Isle of Man TT. And for people that know, they're racing on a public road on the circumference of an island. What is it, like an 80-mile, 90-mile loop? Every single year someone dies, pretty much without exception. Is the most dangerous motorsport imaginable.

And your father raced in the Isle of Man and lost his best friend there.

Lost his best friend. Just standard.

It's so funny you say that now. He literally is going there this week.

Oh, he is?

Yeah, because it starts, I think, this weekend.

And he now goes and obviously—

he had a team for a while, but this year there's no team. He's just spectating. Have you ever been?

I haven't. I've been invited by Ducati and I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna go, but I know I'll ride on Saturday.

You need to go.

Wait, you're gonna ride in it?

On Saturday the public can take a lap.

Yeah, but you can take it easy there.

Yeah, yeah, you need to take it easy. Yeah, well, that's my concern is how easy I'll be able to take it. But yes, I do want to do that very bad.

I ended up taking Toto, and it was an incredible experience because you just cannot comprehend the speed and the bravery until you get there.

The sides of much of the public road are cobblestone walls. So if you come off, you're going into a cobblestone wall. There's numerous—

You're not into it at all, Monica.

No!

Monica, there's numerous hills and dips where the people are at 195, of getting air for like 130 feet and landing. It's full on. It is truly the most hair-raising, scariest motorsport in the world.

It is.

Your dad did that. He's a warrior. I just want to worship him for one second. So I got to imagine if dad is doing that, it's hard to take anyone serious if anyone's saying like, be careful. Or maybe that wasn't even being said in your household.

It wasn't being said, but it wasn't like we were kamikaze either. I guess there was a structure to it that it wasn't just like, go out on your bike and go flat out. We built a little track kind of in the hills behind where we lived. And of course we got the stopwatch out and it was who could go quicker. But we weren't kamikaze.

Okay.

Because there was an element where you always had to have your helmet on, you had to have your proper boots on, and you had a respect. You cleaned your bike when you came home, you put it properly away in the garage. So we weren't kamikaze, but we loved speed and we loved that life of being out and that feeling of, you know.

Yeah, adrenaline.

Were you scared when your dad went to do this thing?

I was too young to even realize.

Oh, you were too young.

And actually my mom made him stop when he lost his best friend and when we were young kids, because I think for her she felt, well, that's way too risky now that we've got children.

I also doubt they said like, okay, so Daddy's going away to the most dangerous lethal race in the world this weekend.

Well, yeah, but like—

They probably kind of hushed that part a little.

There were pictures up on the wall, but I never really comprehended until I went I never really comprehended what he did.

It's madness.

Promise me you'll go.

Oh, yes, yes.

Because you would really, really love it.

Okay, when do we get into a kart? 8 years old?

Slightly before, because my dad had a bit of a midlife crisis and went back to racing road bikes. For his 40th birthday, he got himself a bike. So we would spend a lot of time at Knock Hill, the only track in Scotland. But because we were not really that interested in just watching my dad, there was a kind of perimeter road to the track where we would be doing laps in our PW50 and PW80s, taking on RT100s, and water-cooled 125s, and there was a little kart track there. And I remember distinctly it was £5 for 15 minutes. Well, we hounded my parents for 5 and another 5 and another 5. And then eventually I think my mum said to my dad, listen, we come to these race weekends, it's all about you. I think it's time that the kids did something.

Yes.

So we got a go-kart kind of around our 8th birthday.

A shared go-kart between you and David?

No, 'cause he was bigger than me. I mean, they were secondhand. They were, I'll never forget, Swiss Huttlis. It was red. Quite rusty and peeling with paint, but I was so in love with this thing.

Yeah. And did you show more aptitude in that relative to David? Like, you had to be mildly competitive with your brother. And did this feel like something— shit, I might have the upper hand here?

At that time, no. We would, like, be out on the hire carts smashing lumps out of each other to see who could win. And then suddenly, when we got to our very first race, we were a bit like, oh, there's like 100 kids here.

Yeah.

And it wasn't anymore me versus him, it was more like, this is big now, we've got a lot of competition.

Intense.

And we never really had— well, no, that's not true. I was going to say we never really had a big rabble, but we did have one race where I should have won, he took me out on the last lap.

Okay.

And we didn't speak for the whole way home.

Oh gosh.

And after that, my dad always made sure we were in different categories. So he moved my brother up and I stayed, and then we never raced each other again.

Your father had and Venus on his team. Yeah!

That was smart.

So were you receiving instruction or were you just kind of learning as you went?

I definitely wasn't a clear talent at the beginning. I mean, it was quite daunting being on a much bigger track and lots of other kids out there. I always tell the same story. I went out the first time and it was like scary. And I came into the pits and I said to my dad, "I really don't like it out there.

I mean, that's a lot." A lot of chaos going on.

A lot of chaos and they're kind of like getting hit as you were getting past and it was just—

Aggressive little boys.

Yeah, lots of aggressive little boys.

Yeah.

Are you the only girl there?

I was, but I never realized I was.

You didn't clock that?

No, because we're all wearing helmets. Nobody really spoke about me being a girl at that time. I was just Susie and my dad said, well, we got two options now, Toots, because his nickname for me was always Toots. We put the cart back in the truck and we head home or you go back out there, you try and go quicker and when they hit you, you're gonna hit them back twice as hard. So me being the character I was, I was like, I'll go back out there. I will get faster. And then it was something that just became all-consuming in a very good way.

You're so cool.

Yeah, she's so cool.

Oh my God, I feel so, so lame.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm lame.

Yeah. You're not lame.

No, no, you're not lame.

You're not lame.

No, no, I am. I think it must be a mental— like, how do you not have fear?

I'll let you answer your own question. Both of you can answer. It's funny enough, I'm watching it right now. So I went to our eldest daughter when she was about 7 or 8, and at that point she already rode dirt bikes. She had an off-road RZR, like a vehicle.

I love that you give her options.

Great at driving that, like a real immediate aptitude. And I said, hey, we could get karts, you and me. We have a tour bus. We could just start hitting races. I'm ready if you're up for it. And she was like, well, take me to the kart track and let me see if I like it. I take her to the kart track. She go, go to one of the juniors. It's all boys who've already done it a bunch of times. She does one session, she comes back and she's like, I don't like it. And I'm like, okay. Heartbroken. All I wanted as a kid was just someone to support me doing that. I now have the money to do that. And she just was not interested. Fast forward to like maybe 8 months ago, she's like, I want to go back to the kart track. Take her back. Now she's super into it. She's 13. It's too late for anything competitive. It's not.

No.

Okay, well, that's encouraging.

It's definitely not.

Point is, is what I got to observe, which was the most rewarding, was in soccer. When she played soccer, she didn't have that like, I'm going to kill this person for the ball. She didn't have that, which I could care less. But within 3 sessions at the track, when she started getting good and there were slow adults out there, I started noticing like, oh, she wants to kill these people to get by. That magic thing has just kind of happened. And yeah, you kind of either have that one of us is going to the center of this turn and it's going to be me.

But you know what I'm doing now? With F1 Academy, it's because of girls like your daughter. Because I'm pretty sure if that little girl at 8 at her first time at the kart track had seen another little girl out there, it could have changed her whole experience of it. But because that first experience was daunting, like mine was daunting, but I had that older brother, I was like, well, she's like, he's doing it, I'll figure it out. And now she's 13, she's got a bit more confidence, she's a bit older, she asked to go back there. It's in her.

Anyways, it's not about her.

No, but this is And that's so encouraging for me because that, I think, is the shift that's happening within motorsport now. Because before it's always seen as this egoistical, macho, male-dominated world. It's changing and it has to change because there's so many talented young drivers that are female, like your daughter out there, that just need to be exposed to it because they've got that passion within them.

You were saying in a different interview I listened to you in, which I hadn't thought of this, there's only really 3 sports where the men and women are together and it's horse jumping.

Riding or jumping. Oh yeah.

Sailing and driving.

Motorsport.

Whoa.

Involve either a big piece of equipment or a big animal.

Yeah, that's true. Weird.

I definitely don't believe, and having been in this sport for as long as I have, that there's any reason why women can't compete at the very top. It just comes down to the talent pool and the kind of pipeline.

Well, let us— for the most skeptical audience member, what about someone who's like, well, what about just testosterone as an aggressive hormone that boys at 18 have an excessive amount of? Do you think there's any deficit for not having that.

Listen, I would never claim to see a man and a woman, or a young boy and a young girl, are the same biologically, right? Clearly we're all made up differently, but it also comes down to individuals.

Exactly.

And it's so funny you mentioned testosterone, because when I was racing— I won't say what age I was— I had a medical and I had high levels of testosterone. We were just never taking supplements or anything like that at that time. And immediately the medically— the guys that did kind of assessment said, oh, this is an outlier. You know, can we do some more tests and studies? Because I think this is maybe why you're a racing driver. And I went away and thought about overnight and came back the next day and said, no, I don't want me being singled out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I don't think my results are the basis or should form what a female racing driver—

Exactly.

Because I think it comes much more down to characteristics of the individual. There are some girls who are really tough.

Also, they were chicken and egging it. And I would argue your participation in it your body starts reacting.

And you're training.

We have tons of data on stockbrokers. When they make riskier trades, their testosterone goes up, which begets more riskier trades. It's working in both directions.

Yeah.

So yeah, your body could have been like, oh no, we're in a situation where we need more testosterone regularly.

But I don't think that the aggression is something which can stop a woman not being successful in the sport, because you can also argue that red mist and overaggression is a real negative.

Exactly. Yes.

Unless you're somehow Max Verstappen and you're bulls-eye.

You're on the edge.

Whatever that thing is, it's like, I'm willing to do it.

Did you watch the Nürburgring 24 Hours?

Yes.

Incredible.

He's such a god.

It's crazy.

Yeah, it was impressive.

I know 13 is a pivotal moment, but between 8 and 13, when you're starting to kart a lot and you're starting to race, walk me through some of those challenges. Slowly, I bet it starts occurring to you, oh, I'm the only girl here, or one of very few.

Not at that age. I wasn't your stereotypical tomboy. I loved pink. I played with Barbie. I asked for pink sideboards for my go-karts. I had a pink race suit.

Your father was using Barbies as leverage to get you to do things. He offered to buy you a very specific Barbie.

The Cowboy Barbie.

Cowboy Barbie.

I still have her.

Oh, so cute.

And it was when I was 13, I was taken to watch a Formula 3 race at Donington. There's an English driver at that time called Jenson Button, who of course went on to be a World Champion.

He's also fucking gorgeous.

I just—

sorry, I can't judge drivers as hot or not.

You can't?

I always had this rule I would never date another driver. And even now, when obviously there's a lot more interest in F1, they're like, oh, he's hot. I'm like, is he?

Yeah, it is a stable of the cutest boys in the world.

Really?

Yeah, it's asymmetric to any other sport where it's like, why are they all— well, I kind of have a theory on why they're all so good-looking. They're often the children of rich people, right? I mean, that's just a fact.

No, not always.

Oh my God, let's go through the current—

this is not from—

yeah, keep going.

He's an exception.

Kimmy Antonelli is not from huge wealth.

Okay, you're right.

George Russell is not from huge wealth.

Huge wealth. Okay, okay.

No, no, no.

Okay, okay.

No, I mean, his father sold his business recently, but he didn't have a lot of money. That's why he relied on junior programs.

Lando's family, Charles's uncle, uncle who was supporting—

his uncle helped, but he comes from a very humble background.

Okay, yeah, okay, yeah.

But he's just so— he's a model.

Yeah, he's—

he is a—

oh my God, oh my God, I wonder if this is a thing she plays for Toto. Like, she doesn't— I wonder if—

what I will say is his wife is beautiful.

Yes, she is beautiful. They're a beautiful pair.

Great couple.

But Toto's so hot.

Oh, Toto's definitely hot.

He's the hottest. Okay, so back to F3. You saw an F3 race. Jenson Button— I interrupted you.

And that's when I think it all changed in my head, because suddenly what was just a hobby, I suddenly thought, oh, wait a minute, I can do this. And that environment, the car— I'll never forget the first time I walked into the garage. Everything was so immaculate and precise, and the engineers, and I just thought, this is where I want to be. And suddenly I was like, okay, I can be a racing driver. I can get from karting, move to single-seaters, and get to F3, and then maybe get to F1. And never once did I question why there was no woman in F1. I simply had David Coulthard on my wall because he was Scottish, Jack Villeneuve because he was in the Williams. And at 18, we'd done the World Championships. Lewis Hamilton was there, Nico Rosberg.

You also had Wayne Rainey on your wall?

Wayne Rainey, Kevin Schwantz.

There we go.

In the Kevin Schwantz fan club. Love him. With the yellow bandana. Oh, I loved him so much.

So once you saw that and you got more focused on, okay, I want to do this as a career, did you start taking your time the weekends at the race to start educating yourself. Like, I want you to explain to people what you had to learn about the mechanics of the kart and the engineering of the kart. Your job's not just to get in there and drive the car. You could do that. But the great drivers in history have been able to give really important feedback to their mechanics and their engineers to make the car faster. And if they don't have that vernacular, there's gonna be only so much you can develop the car, the kart. This is kind of a big component of it.

It really is. And then when you get to European and World Championship level, it comes down to the finest details, like what toe you you're running, what camber, what sprocket. It's not like you need to sit down and really educate yourself. You live it. So you're trying different things with your karts to get the small advantage, like different thicknesses of rear axle, tire pressures, how many— what do we call them again? Seat supports, because that changed the way—

where your weight distribution was in the car.

And I always had to carry extra weight, so we would move the weight around to see which was the optimum.

Which could have been nice because you could put it on the weak inside wheel.

We talk the same language. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But some people don't. I want to give you credit. Some people don't take the time to How do you do that?

Sometimes it's exhausting. I'm a real perfectionist. So I was the one that curated all the folders that had the setup sheets from every race, so that when we came back, I knew exactly where to start from, what we changed, my notes on each track. I loved, like, the color-coordinated folders and all the setup sheets.

I also want to introduce— When is juggling the pros and cons of being the only girl at these races? 'Cause there's upside and downside, and I want to explore. What those tensions were.

I think the only moment I really— because I'd grown up racing with Lewis and that generation.

Let's talk about that. So for a while you were in the Scottish league.

Scottish, then British.

And you won Driver of the Year 14? No.

Yeah, but that was only national.

That's so cool.

But then you step up to the British karting.

Yeah, and had a bit of success in the British karting, which allowed me to qualify then for the European Championships.

And where do you meet Lewis? At what rung of this?

Oh, very early on. Like, I think I was only 9. We'd gone down for our first British race, and they were all talking about this little boy with the yellow helmet who was outstanding, and it was Lewis.

How old was he?

He would have been 8.

So you're a year older than him.

I'm nearly 2 years older than him.

A little boy with a yellow helmet.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's a really cute picture.

And did you race against him?

In karting, we were at the age of kind of 14, we ended up in the same class because then became 14 to 16-year-olds. So we weren't always direct competitors, but then became competitors towards the end. And then when he moved into single-seaters, We were always nearly, but I was sometimes the category above.

Because you're a little older.

Yeah, but there's the famous Formula Renault podium where I made P3, he won the race, and I couldn't get my champagne open. And he was a lot more used to winning than I was, so he grabbed the bottle from me and opened the champagne for me and gave it back to me.

Oh my goodness!

If I go back to the World Championships, I'd finished 15th overall, which was solid because there was over 130 people there, but I was called to the podium ceremony And when I was called, the awning, the team where I ran, there was like maybe 20 of us in the team. We were all like, why are you being called? I'm like, I hope I haven't had an issue with my card or something, or I'm disqualified from the race. And it was really weird that they were calling me over the tannoy. So I run over, the podium ceremony's happening, and I'm called up on stage to receive an award for top female in the world.

Oh my God.

And I was like so embarrassed in front of my whole team. And my first thought was, I don't even remember seeing another girl. And there was actually, there was like, there was 4 of us.

What if you had won the best and worst female driver?

I mean, seriously.

Slowest and fastest female driver.

It feels like a pat on the head.

And I think the organizers, they were probably just trying to be nice.

Yeah, I'm sure.

But I think that was definitely the moment. And of course everyone made jokes afterwards with the fact that, oh, you're great, you beat 3 other girls.

Right.

But it was the moment I definitely thought, oh, I thought, this is going to be different than I thought.

This is a thing.

They see me as different. When I moved into single-seaters, it became the topic. There was a girl trying to make it in racing.

Yeah. Wow. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. Not checking what the warning light means before pulling out of your driveway, you absolutely convince yourself it was probably just sensor thing right up until you were standing on the side of the road waiting for a tow. Yeah, checking first is the right move. So check Allstate first for an auto quote. It could save you hundreds. And for fast, reliable help when you need it, add an Allstate Roadside Plan today. You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary. Insurance and roadside assistance plans are subject to terms, conditions, and availability. Insurance provided by Allstate North American Insurance Company, Northbrook, Illinois. Roadside assistance plans provided by Allstate Motor Club Incorporated, an Allstate affiliate. Up. Now again, there's trade-offs with that, right? Is it fair to say maybe you would have gotten a sponsor easier?

Definitely. I got a lot more media attention. Didn't always know how to manage it.

Yeah, that's a lot.

You kind of need it commercially cuz racing is expensive. But on the other hand, I remember going to some photo shoots and there was stuff— I'm not wearing that, you know, I'm a driver. At that time, the sport isn't what it is now and And there was very much stereotypes of you were a girl that had leather on and posed in a car, or you were a girl that drove the car.

Yeah.

Right, right, right. And I would imagine too, you wanna be asked about driving and they probably wanna ask you about being a female.

All they wanted to ask me about was being a female. And that's fair enough. And I always thought talking about it can help others maybe be inspired by, or not be inspired, 'cause at that time I was never out to inspire others.

You wanted to win races.

Yeah.

Yeah. You didn't have a car.

And I realized pretty quickly that it was all about the performance on track. Yes, you could talk about my gender, but it made it even more important that I went out there and showed what I could do because everyone seemed to have an opinion that I was either not gonna be good enough or not physically fit enough, or she's just there 'cause she's a girl, or she's only got the sponsor 'cause she's a girl. So for me, I needed to go out and have the validation of a result sheet to say, no, this is why I can do it because look, I'm quick enough and I can compete. So it was always that validation through results. And that's what I love about sport. It's so pure.

Yeah, it's empirical. It's objective.

Not subjective. I would struggle in your industry.

Yeah, this one is pretty subjective.

Yeah, but sometimes you hit the hot streak of the subjectivity. You're like, "Fuck it, I'll take it." You ride it.

You ride it on a roll.

I don't think I'm better than that guy, but I'll take it. Yeah, what kind of neuroses arise in this period? 'Cause you're young, and you're asked to, yeah, represent all girls in racing, which you didn't sign up for. You're a token. I'll just advise you to listen. Do you know who Malcolm Gladwell is? He's like a very famous American writer, and he has a great podcast called Revisionist History. And he did an episode called "The Token." token. And talking about the weight of being a token and how it's not fair to judge someone like Sammy Davis Jr. because he was first one through the door and what he had to deal with just to be there so other people could walk through. I don't know, it's just until you take a minute to stop and think about the pressure of being a token, I think it's a really isolating— did you feel very isolated in that experience?

I remember real periods of loneliness, but it's difficult because I only have my own experience, so I don't know how different it was to someone else that wasn't a woman or feeling lonely anyways. But I definitely struggled sometimes in the environment because it was very much of a male kind of macho, egoistical. And that's why I decided I wouldn't date another racing driver, because I would overhear the way they spoke about women and girls. And I thought, well, I never want to be spoken about like that. But I didn't feel like in that situation I could always be the one saying, hey, don't do that, stop saying that, or that's not fair on her. So I just detached myself from it, but thought, I never wanna be spoken about like that. I just had a love for the sport that meant I didn't want everything around my gender to take away from my love for just doing the sport and achieving.

But you're giving up a big chunk of your life when you're a kid. All your weekends are that, you're traveling. So if you don't have friendships at the races, then you're really missing a big opportunity or a big chunk that you would. Did you have friends in the race world?

I had, I shared a house with a bunch of Irish drivers and they became like my big brothers. And there was a lot of camaraderie. I did have friends who looked out for me and who we had a laugh with, but there was always just that invisible line. Yeah. Looking back now with the perspective I had, I think there was definitely moments where I would walk into a garage, especially if I joined a new team, and I could feel the skepticism. Many people say, well, what did they say? I said, it's not just a direct comment. I feel the skepticism or this idea that, oh, we have her, we didn't get him. And then when you have a bit of success with that that team, first of all, they're a bit like, "Oh, oh, you can?" But then the minute you get them with you, they are loyal. The environment and everything that comes with racing aside from being in the car and performing, you just become used to, well, that's part of it and that's part of the game and it's an important part of the game. 'Cause if you're not doing the media and the sponsorship commitments, you're not racing.

Yeah, talk about the financial stress of that whole period.

Well, I'm giving away my age here 'cause my main sponsor was British Telecom 'cause they were launching something called broadband.

Okay.

That's how long ago it was. But they were my saviors. And actually, I had a really tough year in 2005 because they were my main sponsor for Formula 3. And then I was at home visiting my grandmother, went out to buy her milk, slipped, broke my ankle.

Oh no.

And those were dark months. I lost my race license, I lost my sponsor, I lost my seat in the F3.

And you were how old then?

22. And you'd already left because you went to University of Edinburgh for a Yeah, I was a very conscientious student because my parents always said, can't race unless you do well at school. I'm a grafter. I don't have the natural ability, but I have no problem to work really hard. So I ended up second in my year in high school, and there was a lot of expectation that I would go to university. I picked international business, the easiest thing when you've really no clue, but really felt like a duck out of water at university. They were all partying, drinking. I'm like, what am I doing here?

Is that because you had a certain immaturity because you hadn't been hanging out on the weekends and going to dances?

I think maturity is—

Maturity.

Because you've been doing something so adult.

You don't feel like you had missed out on childhood at all by racing?

Aspects of it, like boyfriend-girlfriend stuff.

Yeah, right. Social stuff, going to the bar.

I'm not a big drinker at all, even to this day. So I would see them all go out and get blind drunk and I'd be like, what are you guys doing?

Yeah, yeah.

And then I would have races on the weekend, so I would be kind of training and I was just in a different different planet to the planet I got transported to and did never feel right there. So when I left after one year—

was that hard? Do you feel like you were disappointing mom and dad?

It was more hard that it's what everyone expected me to do, to have this backup plan. And I remember going into the economics lecture in the first day of my second year— I'd gone back— and I just thought, what am I doing here? I'm here because everyone tells me I should be here. I'm just a sheep that's following the flock. I just I don't want to be here. And I called home and one week later had all my possessions in a little Golf TDI, which was my parents' car. I rented a room near Silverstone, worked as a marshal waving the flag in the little shop that sold racewear and focused fully on racing.

You get into Formula 3 in 2001, 2001 to 2004.

You were with Formula Renault.

I'm sorry, you were with Renault. So now you've gone from karting to a single-seat race car and And you do pretty good there. 2004, you finished 5th overall?

Yeah, and I nearly got 3rd, and that's the breakthrough year because I got nominated for British Young Driver of the Year, and not just girl, and that was the first time a girl had ever been nominated.

Wow.

And that's when Toto Wolff first heard my name.

Oh, wow.

Oh, really?

Wow.

We were a support race at this big festival, and he tells a story of coming over the loudspeaker, the Formula Renault race coming, this girl that was fighting for the podium. And at the time, there was just no girls racing, never mind fighting for a podium. And he remembers thinking to himself, I need to come find this Susie.

Yeah.

Just because he was interested, because he was driver managing at that time.

Yeah.

Right.

But let's just say I wasn't a very polished version of myself then, so I'm glad he didn't find me.

Okay, so you break your ankle. I read jogging. Now you're saying to help Grandma.

I was exiting the newsagents with the milk and the bread, and I slipped.

Oh, were you so mad at Grandma?

No, you couldn't be mad at my Grandma.

No, Grandma had taken care of—

I know.

Grandpa. She deserved one.

No, it was the other side of the family.

Oh, it's the other side.

Yeah, you can be mad at her.

No, you're good. Okay, so what was the Formula 3 experience? You were on the feeder for Formula 1.

Yeah, it's F3, F2, F1.

If we had to like make an analogy to US sports, to go from karting would be like you're on a state champion high school team and then to go to single-seat Renault, you've gone into college. And now when you get to Formula 3, like you're in the professional league.

Yeah.

This is very serious.

You're bubbling.

You're close.

How many female drivers were in Formula 3? 3 at that point, or had been?

There were a couple racing at the time, like Catherine Lake, who's in Indy 500 now. She was racing at that time.

And how would y'all get along when you saw each other? Because this might be counterintuitive, you might think, oh, you would get along so well, but maybe not, because often the tokens are pitted against each other.

Exactly. We were always pitted, and I felt it was unnatural to try and form a relationship with someone just because it was another girl.

Yeah, yeah, right.

And I remember distinctly then when we made it to German Touring Cars, they would always arrange these photo shoots just with the girl drivers And I was always so against it. It's like, why do you pit us against each other when we've got everyone else that we need to beat?

Exactly.

Right. Okay, so how did Formula 3 go?

Well, it didn't because I was testing and then the ankle broke and I didn't ever compete in a race. I lost everything that year and went through a really, probably the toughest time of my life. And then I got from an old team boss, I was testing World Series, which was like a competitor to F3 with the thought that I would be racing that the following year under kind of like a sponsorship agreement. But I got called into a meeting in February, 6 weeks before the first race and got told that they kind of miscalculated the marketing budget and I'd need to bring €250,000 or pounds, which just was completely unrealistic for me at that time. I walked out of the meeting and I remember like yesterday I was sitting in my Golf TDI and I called my dad. It sounds like I only speak to my dad. I speak to my mom a lot as well. It was just in those moments it's my dad. And I remember saying to him, well, what am I going to do? He's like, I don't know, Toots. And as I was kind of not really knowing what to say to him, a German number was trying to call my phone.

So I said, oh, Dad, there's another call coming in. I'll take this and I'll call you back. Back. And I picked up the phone and this gentleman in a very thick German accent said, this is Gerhard Unger from Mercedes-Benz Motorsport. What do you think of German touring cars? Now, I had tested the car in the British Young Driver of the Year Award, so I knew the car. It was 500 horsepower, yeah, mega touring car, a C-Class Mercedes, right? Yeah.

Monica, this is your car. Ding ding ding!

I have one of those.

You have a—

well, it was a gift.

C63?

She has a C43. She's not—

he didn't think I was ready.

You're a good colleague.

It was, it was, it was.

I mean, Monica, I don't know if you're into cars or not, but that's a really nice car.

She's not, but she was making a lot of money and I borrowed her car one day and it was this fucking beat-up Toyota Prius and I was driving in traffic in this car and I was like—

You're not fine with it. Don't say that.

I was. And then he was like, you can't have this. We're doing too well for you to be driving this car. And I was like—

He's just going to cap your—

It says so much about you which car you drive.

I did not grow up like that at all. So it didn't. But all to say, I love my car and I love driving.

And I can hear her coming through the gate when she goes to her house across the street.

And you really mean that. You get the joy now of—

I understand what it does to you internally. Not the speed, unfortunately.

But it does something to your identity.

It does.

It does. You infuse its muscularity and its agility.

And it's too confident. It says something about me.

It's a signal.

Yeah. I think it's more than a signal because I give you the counterargument. I live in Monaco, which is really superficial. Portugal, and everybody drives supercars. So what do I drive? A 1972 Pagoda. I buck the trend of everyone trying to outdo each other. Yeah, I get my Pagoda with the roof down, and it's like from the 1970s, so you can't like bounce along. But I love that I'm not trying to—

you guys are also in a 300SL lot, I see.

So yeah, okay, I'll give you that. I'll give you that.

The nicest Mercedes in the world. I know, that's her dream car, funny enough.

I know. And Toto's said he was going to give me a ride.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was exciting.

Come to Monaco, I'll give you a ride.

I know.

Come to Monaco.

I will.

Now that you're into cars.

Exactly.

Come to watch Formula 1. Formula 1 Academy.

I love watching Formula 1.

Okay, so you get this call, we got to get to Williams, but you have a long road to Williams.

Well, the DTM years, everything hung on that taste. I got myself out to Barcelona. And one story you will appreciate, I arrive at the track and the Germans are very direct. Picked. So I got my seat fitted and they're like, okay, and then we'll do a warm-up. I say, yeah, can I just do a lap of the track? Like, a lap of the track? Do you not know this track? It's like, no, I've never driven Barcelona before. And they kind of looked at me and then Gerhard Unger kind of said, okay, Mika, come over here. And it was Mika Häkkinen, two-time F1 world champion, show this girl around the track. So there I am in a hire car, Mika Häkkinen showing me the racing lines.

Is he sober?

Oh, I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. So I obviously give it the all in the test. They leave me waiting 10 days, but then finally I get called over to Stuttgart, get offered a 1-year contract, and then of course ended up staying for 7 years and chose to leave off my own back. Met Toto there. I thank my lucky stars to this day. That was my big break.

Such a sexy car you were racing. Way different though, right? So heavy, so big. Was the transition out of 1-seater easy for you?

No.

And because I'd missed that year of F3, I was up against really, really quick drivers who were after F3 level. So I had a lot of catching up to do, but that's where I I come into my comfort zone. I drilled down and I kind of had a great engineer at the time, HP, who got me so well prepared for the season. 'Cause I knew this is my one shot, a 1-year contract, and managed to pull off a couple of really good races.

Now here's where we get into the fun. This is your history with Barbie and your history with pink. You've at times had to kind of silence your femininity or felt inclined to. And so they put you in a pink car or you had a pink race car. You had conflicting feelings about this?

It's a really good one. Water.

Good bubble density.

Strong, right? And you've let it cool for a while too.

Bubbling. Yeah, I think in my teenage years I went from that little girl that loved pink to feeling that my femininity was seen as a sign of weakness. So I kind of boxed it away. And then it was really by being made to drive a pink car in DTM because the sponsor was a magazine that had a logo that was pink. But then realizing that, I think because I was older by that point, I was more confident in myself. And suddenly all these little girls started appearing at the track and dressed in pink and they all asked me, "Is it the Hello Kitty car?" Because it was a big Hello Kitty time then. And I think that made me realize that, well, actually, if pink is going to inspire little girls to come and see my car and to like racing, I can drive a pink car.

It's cool.

And I think it was also a transition in my life where I got married, and Toto was so good at— he never wrapped me in cotton wool. He was tough, but we were a team and I wasn't on my own anymore. And when we got married, The Mercedes comms and marketing department like, well, you can't change your name. I was like, oh, I'm absolutely changing my name. I'm not on my own anymore.

I'm a wolf. It's a good name to take on. You kind of hit the jackpot. It can go sideways.

And that also gave me a confidence that it just wasn't me on my own anymore.

He tells the story. So he had crashed at the Nürburgring and he was in the hospital and that you came to see him in the hospital.

Well, no, we were testing in Portugal because this is the start of our love story. We were testing in Portugal in a track called Estoril and Hans-Joachim And Mattijs, who was a team manager, he came into the awning where all the drivers were because I had 7 teammates, and he said, "Toto Wolff's had a really bad accident." Now, I remember the first time I even saw Toto in the hospitality, I was— well, I can share with you the very first time. So we were sitting at a team dinner, and Mattijs Lauda, Niki Lauda's son, was opposite me, and he was a very good friend of mine, him and his brother Lukas, even to this day, but in a brother-sister way. And Toto walked in, and I'm following him thinking, "Who is this guy? I haven't seen him here before." Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Mattijs is watching my eye, and then turning around to see what I'm looking at. And he was like, "You're looking at him." And of course my face went bright red. I said, "Well, no, who is that?" He's like, "Well, his name's Toto Wolff and you've got no chance. He's dating Miss Austria." Oh my God!

Oh my God! This is when all your friends are men. This is how they talk to you.

So I'd obviously noticed Toto, but he was off bounds. And then when Hans-Jürgen Mates walked in and said, "Toto Wolff had a really bad accident in Nürburgring," I was kind of like, I hope he's okay. It hit me.

Yeah.

And he said, well, I think it'd be really nice if one of the drivers you called as a group. And Gary Paffett, who was kind of de facto more senior driver, said, yeah, that's a really good idea. Susie, you should call him. Oh, I was like, yes, I'll call him.

I guess I have to.

Yeah, I guess I have to, right?

I'll do it on behalf.

And I suddenly had his number. Oh, and a reason to call.

And then you go see him in person?

No, I called him.

It was just a call.

I called him and it should have been like a 10-minute— the drivers are all wishing you well— but we were on the phone for like an hour.

Oh.

And then said, I'm going to get better in the next kind of 10 days. The doctors say I'll be fine, and I'll see you in Düsseldorf for the big presentation of the championship. So of course I'm counting down the days till Düsseldorf, outfits, thinking this is going to be brilliant in Düsseldorf. So we have this big dinner, haircut the night before. I did everything, like everything. And I'm sitting at the dinner, he's not there, and I'm thinking, okay, he's going to walk in any second. Long story short, he doesn't turn up to the dinner. Oh, Jesus.

Toto.

Toto.

Thank you. Come on. So comes to breakfast the next morning and I say to myself, I'm not even gonna get in dress. Straight into my race suit, hair tied back, who cares about—

This arrogant Austrian.

Exactly.

Shithead.

So I go down to breakfast and he comes over to the table all jolly and kind of sits near me. I said, well, what happened to you at the dinner last night? He said, yeah, I called one of your teammates to check where it was and he said, don't bother coming, it's boring.

Oh.

I'm looking at the guy that he called.

That person was in love with you.

No, he wasn't even.

Yeah. Yeah. Take.

Yeah, yep, that's what I—

oh, you don't want to come, everyone just left, bye.

It's really boring here. It sounds like almost like an S in like, it's boring here, like don't come, everyone got food poisoning, uh, it's a mess, don't come.

So we talk a bit and all the butterflies come up, and then I go off to do my thing and he's off to do his thing. And then at the lunch break, all the drivers and kind of the management are around and they're talking. Of course, comes to people's love lives, and I was actually dating someone from another team but who was a manager, not a racing driver. Someone then said to Toto, you know, how's it going after Miss Austria? And And then someone said to me, "Well, isn't it time that you dated someone at Mercedes, Susie?" And I kind of said, "Well, there's nobody at Mercedes." And then Toto, in front of everyone, said, "Well, sure there's me. What about me?" Of course, my face. And I'm looking down at the ground, trying to laugh along. So I didn't really see him for the rest of the afternoon, but when I left to drive back to Switzerland, I had one of those thoughts where it's now or never. So I got my phone, I pulled into a fuel station, 10 times drafted this text message, and it basically said, if it had to be someone from Mercedes, it would only ever be you.

Oh, wow, Susi!

I put it all out there. I put it all out there.

I'm so ready.

I know, I'm jealous. I want this text once in my life.

Wow.

So I sent it and then got back on the motorway and got a reply pretty quickly. And I remember, because it could have gone either way, like, oh, you're so sweet, but no.

Yeah, get real, Miss Germany has become available, it turns out.

I'll circle back after I get through all the misses.

I know, I've got a few more countries to go.

Yeah, but no, the message back was something about, I'm getting in a plane. Oh, that's nice, I'll call you. I'm like, uh-oh, what? Oh boy. So it wasn't like a no, it wasn't yes, but then he called 2 hours later and that was—

that was it. You guys were engaged 8 months later, then it's fast.

He bought the ring 6 weeks later.

Oh my gosh.

And we were engaged 8 months later. It was an immediate click. Quick.

Okay, quickly. Are you sensitive at all about talking about Toto or no?

No, zero.

Great, great, great, great. Because I wanted to ask, tell me about the cultural chasm between the Scottish and the Austrians, right? So you've already hinted at a couple of them. It's like very direct.

Very direct.

Some of the things he said to you over your— we'll get to— but when you drive for the first time in Formula 1, he's like, don't be shit.

It was like giving you a pep talk.

Well, I thought it was going to be this big pep talk, and he just looked me and was like, don't be shit.

Did you get in a fight? Did you say, hey, you need to be a little softer, or no?

No, that fires up something in me.

I felt to myself, well, yes, your whole life is about saying like, you think, okay, yeah, you think I can't?

I will.

It's her fuel. Like Jordan.

Yeah.

Did you watch The Last Dance? Yeah. And he just has to come up with an enemy. He's like, I'm gonna pick this guy from the team, you know, he makes up a story. Why he hates this guy.

Yeah, it's a good—

I could share with you just how direct he is. Yeah, the night before our wedding, well, the day we were signing the paperwork, he was very quiet. And the next morning I said, is everything okay? He's like, yeah, I think so. I've done a positive and negative list. Oh my God, and there's more positives than negatives.

I'm like, oh my God, that's not very romantic.

Excuse me, I was like, I don't care what's on that list, we're getting married.

We're getting married tomorrow.

Okay, too late for that list.

Throw that list— oh my God, that is so funny.

I think I was really lucky that Toto is nearly 10 years older, or just over 10 years older than me, so been married once before. He had two wonderful little kids, so he'd kind of been through it and knew exactly what he wanted.

Probably what to do differently, hopefully. Exactly.

And I come from such a wonderful family who really embraced him. And, you know, he lost his father at a young age, so I think through me he saw this sense of family and this loyalty to each other that we stick together through thick and thin.

And probably his dream dad, fucking racing motorcycles, owning a shop, speed, speed, speed. Yeah, that's a good family to click into.

Yeah. And I definitely struggled, and I have obviously speak to my stepkids about it now. I struggled at the beginning because I was this selfish race a racing driver who suddenly on certain weekends would have to be a mother. And I just had no idea how to be in that situation. And, and I knew from my childhood, and obviously the respect to his ex-wife, that I didn't want to come in and pretend to be like a second mother. So that took a bit of navigating.

But then things come up and you are mothering.

Yeah. And there was a little girl, I mean, Rosie, the cutest little girl you could imagine. And you feel so much affection, but then you don't want to overstep.

Yeah, it's a fine line.

And we weren't married then, so you're just trying to navigate. That wasn't easy at the beginning, but he was very understanding of it. And then when we got married, it all became just much easier because we knew, okay, we're a unit and we'll figure this out. It wasn't like I was going to disappear or anything.

I'm going to talk in broad stereotypes right now, so forgive me. There's going to be tons of exceptions to this rule that are Austrian. There's tons of exceptions that are male. But, but a very common tension with men and women around me is the woman says the man hears, oh, she's asking me to fix this problem, and then they start laying on, I'm gonna fix this. And the woman's like, hey man, I just wanted some compassion. I wanted you to just be with me with this. So that's like already a male-female thing that kind of exists. And then I think Austrian Scottish— Scottish are much more fucking Gaelic. We got flutes, we're very expressive, right? We're dancing around in the kilts. You know, it's a different culture. So I feel like that would even compound this male-female thing A little bit.

Completely. Because I'm someone that's pretty tough. Like, I give you an example. Like, when I get ill, Toto's like, do you need anything? I'm like, no, no, I'll be okay. Okay. So he just disappears.

Oh my God.

Like, 6 hours later, he comes back. I'm like, did you have a nice dinner? He's like, yeah.

Are you better yet?

Do you think of bringing me anything or checking on me?

Oh my God.

Well, are you better yet? I'm like, no. You're like, oh, well.

He's like, no, you said you didn't need anything.

It bores him. Whereas if he gets ill, the world stops.

Oh my God.

The world stops. And he's like, no, but what you had can't be what I have because it's so bad.

I can't.

Certainly this is It's the same virus. I gave it to you, now you have it, and how do you like it?

Exactly. I definitely have to say he's got better with age. I arrived here yesterday and he wanted to surprise me by coming to the airport, which after we've been married 15, together kind of 17 and a half, and obviously he had a car booked to pick me up and he wanted to surprise me, but he didn't realize that one of the group chats that he was speaking to our office on, I was also on. So he's like, I want to surprise her. I'm going to cancel her car. I'm coming to the airport. And I'm reading this in the airplane. I'm like, that's so sweet.

Good intention. Such a good intention. That is sweet.

It's very sweet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. So now back to your racing.

Back to racing.

After racing for DTM for 7 years, I guess, how do you get called to Williams?

Frank Williams had come to watch a German touring car race, DTM race at Brands Hatch. But at the same time, Toto was looking to possibly enter Formula 1 by investing. He looked at Toro Rosso at the time, was looking at Williams. So I don't shy away from the fact that I was on the radar, obviously also being Toto's wife. And Frank, I remember at the time—

Because his daughter was Your daughter hadn't started running the team?

No, she was simply working in the team. Okay. And it was actually, Toto was a big part in picking Claire up and saying, "You need to be on the board, you need to be more involved, and you're a Williams." But let's just say for Frank, he came from the era where women definitely didn't go out on the track to race. You know, they were very much behind the scenes. And I was teammates at that time with David Coulthard and Ralf Schumacher, former drivers of his. He was always so interested in asking me about my racing, "How did you start?" And, "You're Scottish." And he went to boarding school in Scotland and hated it. So we always had this joking thing talking about how I loved Scotland and he hated Scotland. And I said to him in one of those conversations, well, it's my big dream to drive a Formula 1 car. And at the end of the weekend, he called over Adam Parr, who was the CEO at the time, and they said, we've got something to tell you. We're going to give you 25 laps in an F1 car. And that's all it was ever supposed to be.

And at that point, you had not been in a single-seat, massive aero car. So, like, you're rusty for this.

Rusty, but DTM was a high level, so it wasn't like it was completely detached.

But just open-wheel, nose wheel, tons of downforce.

A Formula 1 car is completely different to anything else.

Yeah. We've interviewed a few drivers at this point, but just to remind people, the easiest way to say it is like the car is creating so much downforce. It's a reverse airplane. It has a lot of aerodynamics to create the opposite of lift. And so it's pushing the car really far down, and the current car weighs like 980 kilograms or something.

I love how informed.

He's very informed.

But the car's creating 2,000 kilograms of downforce. So for real, the car at a certain speed could drive upside down just fine. So you just got to remember, that's the element in F1 that's not in other racing.

Yeah.

And that's why at Silverstone you can take a right-hander in 7th gear going 190 miles an hour, a sharp right-hander, and be stuck to the fucking— and that's a leap of faith.

It is, because it's counterintuitive that the more speed you have, the more downforce you have, and the more you're going to stick to the ground.

Yes. You got to unravel everything you've learned almost.

But the great thing is, and I was really lucky because as soon as that decision was made, I mean, really hats off to Williams, I was put through my paces in the simulator, straight line tests, everything to get me ready to perform in that test. There was no way I was getting in without being really ready for it.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. Let's talk about the physicality.

The physicality was harder to prepare for. I ended up getting access to the machine that Michael Schumacher built at the end of his career to build up only your neck muscles. And interestingly, when I stopped racing, within months my neck had just shrunk in size. Neck muscles build up quickly but shrink quickly.

Suzy wears her hair always down to cover her neck. She's insecure about how big her traps are.

Not anymore. I mean, with the ball—

Back in the day.

Back in the day, yeah.

My Botox guy says I have a thick neck as well.

Oh, is he— Botox guy? But you don't.

But I guess I do. We work to keep it small. But maybe I could have driven F1. Oh my God. I missed my calling.

But in a nutshell, so yes, your body at rest, if you weigh £150 at 1 atmospheric pressure, you weigh £150. But as G-forces go up, there are moments on the track. I know the one that got you really hardcore was braking. You'll hit 4.5 G's braking.

And it's like something coming behind you forcing your head forward. Because you're strapped so tight into the seat, and the seat's made for you, and everything's down to the millimeter. So you're really well strapped in. You need a very, very strong braking leg because the brake pressure is important. And then there's power steering in the car. So it's not actually your arm muscles that take the strain. It's your neck. But Lewis had said to me, "Put a neck pad in. Paint it white so people can't really see it. It fades into the car." This is in Barcelona.

There's one really, really long turn, and he's like, like, use it, because if your neck goes— you had to do 72 laps at Barcelona.

It was a test to see if I could do a race distance. And he said, if your neck goes, which means you just can't hold up anymore, he said you'll have to stop, and you don't want to stop. So he said, use— he said, I do it at the beginning of a season as well, before my neck muscles get built up. And that was one of the best tips, because he said, as you just entered it, right, lean. So don't even try, because it's like being on a roller coaster but trying to keep your head straight. It's nearly impossible.

20 turns for 72 laps, it's like impossible.

Yeah.

Yeah, if your head weighs £18, it now weighs £90 in the turn.

Yeah.

Those very first 20 laps, it was a damp track to begin with, which helps g-forces, but it's more challenging to be on a damp track. But there was never a moment on that day where— because they'd done such a good job in the preparation, and obviously there was so much media around the fact that a girl was getting back in an F1 car, which they had underestimated and I didn't even think would factor. But to your point earlier, it then worked in my favor because they realized I did well in the day and this is a big opportunity. Community because this amount of interest for the team is hugely valuable. So they developed a role for me because it was in November and the team was already set for the following year, development driver, which is a common term in F1 now, a development driver.

Yeah, so what were your duties as a development driver?

Lots of simulator work, lots of straight-line tests, and then some testing throughout the season because it wasn't as limited as it is now.

Okay, so when you get called and told you're gonna drive in practice at Silverstone, Stone for the British Grand Prix. At that time, it had been 22 years since a female had been on a track in an F1 car.

Wow.

How'd that decision come about, and what was your response?

So I did that one test that went well, and then I became development driver, and I was doing steady work of not crashing the car, straight line test. And it was all kind of a natural development, and I was obviously also pushing to say, "Well, what's next?" Because you're getting used a lot in the media, and there had to be an authenticity to it. And to be fair to Williams, they also just didn't want it to be a show. It had to have substance.

Well, people were accusing it of being some kind of a promotional media stunt.

Completely. So we felt then, well, there had to be substance to it. And that's why it just kept progressively getting to be more opportunity.

So just talk about the morning waking up. I can already imagine this. This, you'd love to go into that day very rested. But of course the brain is like, there's no way you can sleep the night before, right? And Toto's next to you. He has a race as well. He's now principal of Mercedes in this time. And so you're just up all night, right?

Yeah, it was really difficult because there was so many thoughts going through my head. And the first thing I did when I woke up is you immediately check the weather because that plays such a big and if it was gonna be damp. And the very difficult thing with FP1 sessions is that I was taking Valtteri Bottas's car, and if I caused any damage, it had a huge impact on his race weekend. So you're very much told by the team, "We're gonna let you go for a fast lap," because it means nothing to me if I can't go out and do a fast lap. Everyone's looking, and I'd rather not drive than just drive around slowly.

Be 20th on the—

Exactly.

Yeah.

But the golden rule is there's no way you can crash that car.

Yet the amount of stress that you're taking on on, it's not even a real fair test of what you can do. This moment that people that aren't into cars wouldn't understand, but like the most humiliating thing you can do is fucking stall a car. So even just right there, you getting out of the garage is like packed with stress.

No, yeah, got out of the garage and it was the first thing my dad said to me when I came in. He's like, thank God you didn't stall.

Oh my God, you're either gonna stall or spin the tires, which you don't want 'cause then you're all outta control leaving the garage. There's like this tiny little window.

Yeah.

But you get out, you gotta be like, okay, phew, middle of the head stall, right?

First hurdle.

And then you get out there and what is the experience like once you're on track?

Well, my very first test was a great experience, the FP1 at Silverstone. My wonderful Mercedes engine blew after one lap and that was such an anticlimax.

Oh yes, yes, yes. Okay, but then you go back back out, you do another practice session in Spain.

Hockenheim. That was where I made my German touring car debut.

Now this is a big day because on this day you ended up finishing the practice session just 2 tenths off of Felipe Massa's.

Was it 2? I thought it was 1.

Okay, the internet says 2.

Okay, it was probably— no, I think I probably— my head, I have is 1.

It was probably 2.

2 tenths of a second next to the team driver is fucking awesome.

But that was such a different mentality to Silverstone because I think the disappointment of Silverstone, I got to Hockenheim and I was in such a different statement. I was like, yeah, let me get out there. I have to use this chance.

Pissed off. Yeah, it's a good fuel source.

And I was so thankful I had that other chance because I thought if it had just been that and the engine had gone. So I was so greatful. And there was just one corner I knew that there was a chance of hitting the gravel, so that's where I lost about a tenth and a half. Everywhere else on the track, I was on the limit.

Aha.

The feeling of driving an F1 car on the edge, I think there's nothing else that comes close.

Everything's happening so fast. There isn't a single stray thought about anything else. It requires such concentration and looking ahead nonstop that it is a unique state to find yourself in.

Completely. And if you ask some of the current F1 drivers, some Some even prefer qualifying because it's all down to that one lap. Whereas in a race, you're always having to think of, okay, when the pit stops, where you are in the race, everything. Whereas in qualifying, it's everything into one lap and it's such a hyperfocus. It's a special feeling.

How fatigued did you feel at the end of Germany?

Zero. Oh really? I was so hyped and pumping with adrenaline. The neck was huge. I would say that by the—

yeah, it was huge. I feel like it's like bad that you're—

You need to tell your Botox doctor, if he wants to see a big neck, I'll send him pictures. I mean, don't get me wrong, by the evening I was completely— the adrenaline had worn out. But for me, it was the best day of my career.

You ultimately retire in 2015, although you do have a race in '16, Race of Champions.

Yeah, that's more like a fun event for current and ex-drivers.

You have Cute Jack in '17.

Best thing I've ever done, yeah.

Oh yeah, what could be better? You become the team principal in Formula E for Venturi Racing.

It was a team that was at the back, losing a lot of money, and I was searching for what to do after stopping my racing career. I was fighting a complete lack of identity.

Yes, I'm sure.

I'd fallen— as much as I love being a mother, very quickly realized that I can't only be a mother. So I was searching to find that thing, and then the Formula E opportunity came, and I was a real skeptic of Formula E in the beginning because I was like, electric racing cars. That wasn't my era, but it gained a lot of momentum when Dieselgate happened and electrification became a big thing. And a tough challenge.

Yeah, because team principal is a much different role than driver.

Hugely different.

Yeah, you're a manager, you're an inspirer, you're so many things.

And I had a lot to learn, but I had watched Toto closely start to become very successful in F1, and I kind of had a front row seat of hearing what his challenges were, of watching him do it. So I knew what the job entailed, and Formula E obviously is this much smaller scale. In F1, and my business partner who offered me the role and took a real leap of faith in me, Gilles d'Opastre, was someone I just had a good connection with and felt, okay, I can trust him. And we turned the team around and then nearly won the Formula E World Championship.

Yeah, and then you became the CEO of that team. Why did you leave? You left in 2022.

We sold the team. Gilles wanted to exit and move into the space industry. He wanted to build an electric rover to go on Mars.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Which we were set to do together again until I got I got the call from Stefano Domenicali for F1 Academy.

All right, so tell people what F1 Academy is.

F1 Academy is a series started by F1, which is for all female drivers. We nearly fully fund the drivers and the series, and it's basically a platform or series to give female talent the opportunity in the sport to break down the preconceptions that it's a man's world and to kind of inspire the next generation to see that there's a place for women in the sport.

And it's a response to noticing, right, the demographic of fans was changing pretty dramatically. Like a lot of young females were coming in as spectators creators of the sport.

It had shifted massively because of the show.

I bet that's the show.

Part of it, it definitely got a lot of people who didn't know about F1 to be—

I'm into Formula 1 because of Drive to Survive. I was like, oh yeah, I was like, that's the boringest racing in the world. They don't ever pass each other, who cares? And then once I found out like how much is going into the nobody passes anybody, I'm like, oh, there's so much going on that I just didn't know. It's a science fair. That's one.

It completely is. And then there's drama off track as well as on track, the politics.

Yeah, what a show, what a show.

Yeah. So yeah, they had all these new female spectators and a very young female demographic. And I have to give credit to Stefano, to Liberty. They said, okay, we need to create something that gives opportunity to young women because they recognized that it was shifting. And would I have started an all-female series. I mean, we're the only race series in the world that over 80% funds our drivers. So basically we're giving half a million euros to every driver in order to do a season and really have the possibility to nurture their talent and allow them to develop.

But in some weird way, did you have to step over the notion that this is going backwards? We're trying to get women and men to race together, so if we split this off, is that lowering the bar for the women?

Yeah. And there was someone that had tried and failed before called W Series. And people would always say, oh, why didn't you get involved in, in support? But I didn't get involved because I didn't understand the business model. I didn't understand how they were going to make it work. And they were doing it as a business venture. So it was more that I didn't understand the sustainability of how to make it into a business. Whereas with F1 Academy, it was backed by F1. It had the investment from Liberty. It was set up very differently.

I think we should talk about that. When you got there, the driver was responsible for a third of the budget. Liberty was gonna give a third and then F1 gives a third or someone else gives a third.

The driver one third, the team one third, and Liberty one third.

Right, so this is a lot of onus on a young driver and there's not a lot of sponsor money flooding into this new thing. So when you got there, it wasn't actually tenable.

It wasn't tenable at all. And I will never forget the first time I, 'cause there was a lot to get the contract on board. I obviously had to exit from the space project and I was letting Gildo down. So it all took a bit of management. So by the time I got to my first race, I remember getting near, it was Paul Ricard in South of France. Thinking there's no cars around, why is this so empty? And I got to the entrance and there wasn't even a security guy on the entrance. I'm thinking, it's really strange. And I get to the paddock.

You thought you had the wrong date, maybe?

I thought I'd said something wrong.

Calendar debacle.

And I get out of my car and I'm immediately met by drivers who say, you know, I just want to give you the heads up, I can't find the one-third sponsorship money. It was €150,000. Then some of the team managers came and said, we're not finding any sponsorship out there, so we're out.

Oh boy.

You're finding out you've taken on a role where it's collapsing, basically.

And I called Stefan, I said, listen, this is not working. He's like, okay, well what do we need to do? I was like, I don't know just now, but let me figure it out. Give me time. And that's when I quickly realized, okay, we need to race with F1. We need to get the F1 teams on board and we need to get commercial partners on board and bring all the assets in-house.

And so then you go through this precarious building of commitment from the teams and you go to Toto first.

Who's like, get everyone else and then you come in.

I can be the first one in. You're gonna have to get 6 and then I can be the 7th.

Tell them.

Never lie.

No, you can't show favoritism.

Exactly.

And I completely get that. It wasn't even that I felt angry about it. I completely understood.

So you were able to do that though. You got 6 teams. You had to go to Horner, which is its own unique thing because of the, the rivalry between Toto and Mark.

But to be fair to him, he was great.

He was quick in.

Yeah.

You were able to make this kind of a viable offering. And then how has the success of it unfolded?

With the F1 teams, I didn't sign them up long term. I said, listen, if this doesn't work, you can all leave. I'm not obliging you. Because what I didn't want it to be was a charity. Yeah, a charity, but also like a feminist crusade. It's us against the world. It wasn't. I said to them, you know, I think this will be for the greater good of the sport. We have this new fan demographic, but it's got to work. And if it doesn't, you're all free to leave because this is not something I'm obliging you to do that you feel you have to do. And then within the year, it kind of started gaining momentum. And then when I kind of, at the beginning of this year, went to all the teams, it was clear that they wanted to sign up for the long term. And we have commercial partners, but it's just really gone from strength to strength. But I don't take all the credit for that because I I do think the sport in itself should take the credit because they've created this opportunity and they've all got on board with it.

And they made some compromises they hadn't in the past. Like, they're letting you use the logo in a way that other teams can't. They've carved out some provisions to be helpful. And then you got some major sponsors. You got Hilfiger, you got a makeup brand that I don't know the name of.

Charlotte Tilbury. Now we have Sephora. We have Pepsi with Gatorade. We have American Express, LEGO.

Marquee.

The Made in F1 Academy car.

Cute!

The commercial partnerships were very strategic in that I want your 13-year-old, or however old your daughter is, to feel some affinity. Well, I can belong there. There's a place for me in this sport. So when she goes to a kart track, or another little 8-year-old goes to kart track, she's like, I can do this, because she's seen others doing it and she sees the pathway. And it just takes one, but it can change everything.

It makes that reality possible.

Yeah.

Do you have any part of scouting who will join the academy? Do you have fun observing? Are you observing young racers and thinking who would be— are they already coming by way of the teams?

It's kind of a mixture. I get a lot of fun, and that's a little bit why I wrote the book, of passing on all my learnings, because I really feel as women, especially when you have knowledge and experience, it's so important to pass it on to the next generation because it can help so much for others not to face the same battles you did. So I do love that I'm giving them a chance because I got chances in my life that I'm kind of focusing on the challenges that they can learn from, they don't have to go through themselves. And I love being on the race weekends and seeing them take this opportunity. And we still have our skeptics, and we still have our egomaniacs in the paddock who will always be negative about it. I know them, and I know their opinions are never going to change, but that's okay because I feel the momentum of it as a whole. And I think ultimately, you know, we see more young girls turning up at karting tracks.

And a lot of the young women are very popular, like they'll outpace the popularity of some F3 drivers. Like if I look at Instagram and stuff, you have some drivers that are pretty wildly popular, which is cool.

That's cool. Which is very cool.

Yeah.

Now, if you had to distill everything you know of your last 30+ years navigating a fully male environment, what advice do you have as far as like, no, you can be out loud and be pink, but also here's a reality that you're not gonna get around.

I mean, do you think you can be out loud in pink?

Now I do. Looking back, you know, it was so funny because at the end of the book my brother kind of said, oh, what would you tell little Susie? And when I sat down, it was like, not what I can tell her, it's what that little girl, that belief she had in herself, that fearlessness, that ambition, that little girl who said at 13, I want to make it to F1, despite the fact there was nobody that looked like her doing that. And I sometimes think that if we go back to the child in us, what would your life be if you had no limitations, if you didn't have society's preconceptions shoved on you of what your life should look like and what you should be. For all my years, and, and that's where the book's given me so much perspective, because I think I compartmentalize. I'm always looking forward. I never really looked backwards to think, okay, well, how was the journey? What did I learn? But I think it's having that belief in yourself. And sometimes there'll be moments of your life where you do doubt yourself. There's moments where I'm not sure I've got this all under control, but you've got to have that belief.

Are there like domains that you've seen where it's like, oh yeah, that's how it is, and this is where I can make progress?

I think where we are in the sport now compared to even just 5 years ago, even 10 years ago, there's been a huge shift culturally. And maybe it's linked to society and the whole MeToo movement. And some say, oh, it went too far. It helped industries like ours because let's say the behaviors of certain individuals, and I don't want to say it's blackmarking everyone, but the culture changed. You don't get away with it anymore.

You're seeing it everywhere across the board. You're seeing these older figures in Formula 1 putting their feet in their mouth pretty regularly, like in the last 5 years. There's all this residual racism that you're like, whoa, what'd he say? A German driver has a different mind than a Mexican driver. You know, there's been a lot of rapidly evolving cultural changes.

And I think Lewis should take some credit for it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Definitely.

You know, he's someone that the easiest thing to do is just follow the trodden path, but he chose to be different. He brought a culture into the sport. He made that entry into the pits like a catwalk for all of us, which has been great for the sport. But he chose to stand up for what he believed in, and he chose to to be different because that's who he was.

And that also helped move it all forward. Yeah, when your most valuable asset is being out loud about racism, what choice do you— you can't silence that person.

And he's the GOAT.

Yeah, yeah.

So if he says it, people are forced to listen.

Back to the objectivity. You can say what you want, this guy's won 100 races, he has the goods.

Yeah, but definitely what I see now, the minute I go into an important meeting, I can tell within the first 10 minutes if the man at the table has a have a daughter or not, because it's such a different view when you're a man with a daughter at the table, because it's as if you're able to see the situation through what your daughter would experience.

Yeah, and you want the world to be the most inviting place for her.

And even some of the decision makers in the sports who maybe their daughters are not going to come into the sport, but you can see them understanding, yeah, I get that, because actually, would I want my daughter to be treated like that or not get that opportunity? No, I wouldn't. And so they're much more proactive and I think that's also changed 'cause the leaders now, they're the next generation and they want this sport to be in the right place.

Yeah, Stefano's just a good dude on top of everything else. He's very good. Yeah, he's not like some of the previous heads of F1.

No.

Yeah, he's an evolved guy. You've been fearless. What has it been like watching your son be in karts?

Well, it's so interesting, your story with your daughter, because Jack is really into racing. He has been from a young age and you could argue, well, he's surrounded by it. But Toto was very against him getting into racing because he kind of felt, why would we do that to ourselves, you know, with the name and it's our industry. And I kind of said to him, I get that, but I got given that chance. And if he really wants it, I'm not going to not give him the chance.

Yeah, he got scared. Toto got scared by one accident.

He is a parent that has fear for his kids or just anything happening in general. Yeah, but he also, when we started going to the kart track, he could see how much Jack got into it. And now we have the life of the motorhome, the racing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And those are some of the best weekends we have because it's back to basics and it's together as a family. And it's seeing this little guy have to dig deep in moments. And yes, his name makes him a target.

Yeah.

But I say to myself, well, it'll toughen him up because no matter what he does in life and whether he's good enough or not, he'll have to figure it out. But I think sport for a young person just teaches you so life skills.

How about you driving? Do you still get joy out of driving? Do you do track days?

I don't have capacity because now every weekend that I'm not on a— if one weekend it's with Jack on the kart track, I kind of feel I had my turn.

Okay, great.

I still love driving fast. Toto and I, I think if we would have a free weekend, we would love nothing more than to get on a racetrack with a GT car or something. But then it can always end up with us not speaking to each other because we both want to beat each other.

Yeah, but he was very honest about he tries to cheat every time and that you're you're always a half second faster no matter what cheating.

Oh, I love that.

He put different tires on the car, he put ballast in your car, can't be beat. No matter what, you're still half second always faster.

Yeah, there will be a moment in time where we will be the old ones out on track.

Oh, I hope we're best friends.

Hanging on and still getting it.

I'll be there with you.

So cool.

Well, I'll tell you what your book does a great job of. The book's called Driven. Is you really do a job of helping people understand what it's like to be sitting in the car strapped in. The experience of it is so unique, and you do a great first-person job of explaining what that feels like. That's a very unique perspective.

Well, that's a real compliment coming from you.

Yeah, yeah. No, it's so unique. And I think it's so applicable to any situation where it's like, okay, I've been aiming at nothing but this. We're now here. Oh, fuck. You don't have to be into racing to have that experience. You're pitching for the first time as the head of your department, and this is the day. I think it's highly relatable. I adore you, and I'm really glad I got to meet you.

You're gonna make me blush.

This is so great.

But Driven is out now. Also, people can listen to it, which I advise.

You read it? I read it, yeah.

Nice.

Was that daunting?

You know, my publisher said, "Oh, you need 5 days." I was like, "I don't have 5 days." So I did it in 2. Yeah.

So it's like, "But I read it." I found it therapeutic in a way.

I kind of got into a rhythm. I really enjoyed it.

And did you have this moment— I think sometimes when I've read what I've written, it helps me integrate what happened in my life.

I found it was a lot more work than I anticipated, and we were perfectionists. We got to 9 drafts, my brother and I. But I found the whole experience really enjoyable and therapeutic, definitely.

Yeah, like it helps you take a minute and recognize, oh right, I really did go through all those things, and I survived all those things, and I can survive a lot. Did you get unexpectedly emotional while reading it ever?

Oh yeah.

What parts?

The hardest was the letter to little Susie. I took like 5 attempts because I kept welling up. Yeah, because I guess it was the moment where I was speaking to myself in a way, but it was very emotional.

I bet I know what was going on, which is Susie's been talking so mean to herself since she was a little kid, and you got to be kind to her, and you probably deserved a little kindness from yourself.

Yeah.

And that's really hard It was always more. It was always, "You gotta keep going. This is not good enough," and keep— And suddenly, I look at that little girl, and I want to give her a hug. Yeah.

Just take a break for a second.

Yeah.

And aren't you proud of her?

And so thankful to my parents, looking back. But this little girl who had this dream and drive and ambition, it's like, I just want to hug her and say, "You did okay." Yeah.

It's stressful having a huge dream.

Oh, God.

Well, Susie, I adore you. This has been so fun.

Everybody, we— Thank you both so much. —driven. I'm so glad you're here.

I'm so glad you wrote it. You're so good for the sport. And I hope we get to talk to you again. I really hope we're like in our 70s driving the Nürburgring together on a weekend.

I think let's do a trip to the TT and then from there go straight to Nürburgring, do a few laps.

I'm in. I took Kristen to the Nürburgring in a rental. But do you know the track? I didn't. That was my first time there. I rented a car at Avis Rental Car at Frankfurt Airport. And I asked the German Avis Rental guy, could you put into the nav, 'cause it was all in German, put in the Nürburgring. Oh no, you must not drive this car on the ring. I said, oh no, no, I would never drive this. No, you must not. I go, no, no, I'm gonna go spectate. I just want to look at it from far. Okay. He reluctantly put it in. Sure enough, we went and just bought laps. And yeah, went out and we were in a pack between a GT2 and a GT3. We were in like base 911, but it was so fun. But anyways, Kristen was like reading a magazine the whole time. On the Bulls coming up, you got to look at them. But she could care less.

She's just like reading Yeah, I just have one funny story to share with you. When I just joined Mercedes-Benz for DTM, we'd done preseason testing, we'd done the first race, and then I got told to go to Nürburgring. And I was a young Scottish girl that really only in single-seaters had driven nationally in the UK. So Bernd Schneider, who was like the king of DTM, he's like, oh, let's go and do a lap of the Nürburgring. And I'm like, what's the Nürburgring? He's like, come with me. Oh boy. Yeah, okay. Get in the C63, the barrier goes up and he takes off and I'm like, And because I didn't know what it was in the corners, this is a never-ending racing track.

It's like a 12.8-mile lap, and there's every different surface. You're almost on cobblestone at one point. It's like you're in a cement bowl, then you're on asphalt, then you're in the woods. Incredible. Then if it starts raining, things get really exciting, which happened to us. Okay, I adore you. Thank you. Thank you both so much. This was great. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Unfortunately, they made some mistakes.

Well, I don't like Time Again. Why? Because that was so sad and sweet.

That made you miss the time that's gone by? Yeah. Should we play the audio of that? I don't know if it's good enough audio. You really see the face. She looks like a mix between Rumpelstiltskin and throw Mama from the train.

Yeah, Dax. Okay, Dax found an old video of Delta.

Yeah, and she's being interviewed for the quote documentary that Lily's making.

I wish we could show it. We can't.

I know. God, you know, Delta just said to me the other day, if there's ever a way I could be on the Fact Check again, I was like, I miss you on the Fact Check so much.

I know. We can put a bag over her head. Yeah, that seems—

so, Delta, um, why don't you tell us what your favorite thing to What's your favorite thing to do? My favorite thing to do is play basketball. She's never played basketball.

What, um, is your— what are your talents?

Multiple. My talent is I try to be like Lincoln because Lincoln does good stuff. Oh, that's sweet. That's what I'm trying to do.

It's too much to handle.

Rethinks. Lily says, what are your talents? And she says, my talents are— my talent is— she switches it to singular.

Oh, so good. Be like Lincoln, cuz Lincoln does good stuff. Good stuff. God.

Yeah, I guess it's heartbreaking, but it's— but thank God for videos. I know, like there's no video of me doing anything either. None of you?

You guys had probably camcorders, right? Camcorders. And you know where you put the tape in? So there was some tapes, but they're all gone. They haven't been digitized.

Uh-uh. That feels like something your mom would have done in her retirement is digitize the VHS. She needs to call BlockBox. Yeah, our old safe box. Yeah, what is it, Rob? I'm trying to look it up. Jesus. No. Well, I feel less bad. Anytime Rob doesn't know something, it was called like Safe Lock. No, Legacy Box. Legacy Box. Are they still with us? Uh, they're, they're alive. Yeah. Oh great. I don't know if they're with us though. You should yell to your mom, make her digitize our stuff, Mom. Make me a milkshake.

Yeah, make me a sandwich. And a sandwich too.

And digitize She should. She really should. Yeah.

But also it might be like lackluster back then. Like, I can't— I bet it was a mess. There would never have been a two-camera— like, it would have been like a sixth grade, some singing or something, you know, something like that. In a van. In a van.

There wasn't just random candid B-roll being shot like it is now.

I don't think so. Yeah. But this is a ding, ding, ding because time is sad, as we know. Uh-huh. The passage of time. Yeah. And, um, Father Time.

Yeah. Mother Nature, Father Time.

He is the father, because he's just so mean.

He's strict.

Yeah, he's strict. His word is final. He won't lay up. Like, he won't just, like, give us a break.

No, his word is unwavering. When he says the time has passed, it has passed. There's no going back. Yeah.

Yeah.

So rude. Rigid. Rigid.

Very rigid. Yeah. Stuck in his ways.

But I think it gives our life its meaning without it? What's the meaning? I have a rec.

Oh, let's hear it.

And a curiosity. I hope you are— are you watching Widow's Bay?

Oh yeah, I think we— I think I told— did I not tell you? Yes, I am. But okay, so pin in the— that. Okay, um, well, pin in whichever, I guess. Which one do we want to move forward with? We can come back to the other one. Um, Widow's Bay, yes, I'm watching. I'm I'm not caught up.

Okay, no spoilers.

No spoilers. Everyone's dead. Great. Um, it's like a comedy horror show.

Oh, the comedy is comedy, you know? Well, so funny.

Well, it's Katie Dippold, who is so funny. She— I used to watch her at UCB in the— in my heyday all the time. She was a big star there. Yes. And, um, she created it, and she is so funny. She wrote for Parks and Rec, and just like— I think she's written some stuff for Paul that Paul Feig has directed. She's just brilliant. And so when I saw that it was her, it's like, oh, I gotta watch this. Um, and it's fantastic.

Well, what I was so pumped about is Nancy, um, from Bless This Mess. Do you remember Nancy on Bless This Mess? She works at the museum, at the, um, Widows Bay Museum.

To the museum.

If you've seen the first episode, you saw her. They go to the museum and it's the history of the island. And what's so funny is, of course, witch burning is a real black mark on Salem. But when she's walking this reporter through the museum, they get to this bloody outfit from a burned witch. And she said, "Well, here's a source of great pride for us. We found 'em. We burned 'em." discovery of—

she was in Blessed This Mess.

Yeah, she was one of our neighbors, and she was so— I loved her so much. She was so fun. She needed me like a couple of, um, scarves and stuff. She was a knitter. That's so cute. Yeah.

Wait, who's the actress? Nancy Lenihan. Oh cool.

And she's so good. Well, it's also shot—

a lot of it's directed by, um, Hiro. Yeah, who did a lot of Atlanta. Yes. So it's just, it's brilliant. Powerhouse crew.

Yes, can't recommend it enough. It's so silly.

It is, but it's also getting scary. It's Matthew Rhys, one of our faves. Oh, we love him. So good. He's so, so good.

A Movable Feast, that's the name of his boat in Manhattan.

Oh my God. Yeah, check that episode out in the archives.

Give it a listen. He's so charming. He was— he was COVID though. He wasn't in person, was he?

Yeah. God, so I really want—

I want to sit with him.

Okay, so back to what I was gonna say about time. Yeah. Okay, so yesterday, I can say this because it's been announced, um, Elizabeth came over because she's moving. Her and Andy are moving to France for a whole year.

What's the opposite of wee-wee? Nono. Nono. Nono, not a wee-wee.

I know. And like, it's gonna be great for them. They're gonna have so much fun and it's a beautiful thing to do. And I'm—

Will they be podcasting from France?

They will be. Okay. So that's so fun. Yeah. And like, it'd be very fun to listen along on their adventures. You know, that'll be great. But I hate it. You know, I really hate it. But then it's, you know, Elizabeth is kind— is, is a crier. Okay. Her tears come easy. Okay. And, you know, she like gets out of the car and she's like already like, I didn't bring— I didn't wear mascara like on purpose. I know I'm going to cry.

This is to tell you that they're moving?

No, like it's just the last time I'll see her.

Wait, they're moving tonight?

I leave on Friday. Okay. And then they leave like a couple— they leave like a week later while all— while I'm gone. Oh yeah, I should say. So this is last time I'm going to see her before they leave.

Until you go visit him. From where are they moving in? From Bordeaux. What? Tell me about Bordeaux. That's the wine country, I guess.

I don't know.

Yeah, it's like there's wine there.

And is it on a river? Should be.

I don't know much about it. I've never been. How did they pick that place?

They just want to be so close to the wine?

No, they don't even really drink much. So they went last summer. It's always been a dream of Elizabeth to live in France. So last summer they they went to just test the waters. Yeah, they went to test the waters and try it out, and they, they loved it, but they had to come home a little earlier than expected because unfortunately Andy's father passed away. So they, they, they came home, they loved it, but I didn't think they loved it that much, right? Like, I wasn't like, oh, like there's unfinished business.

Everywhere I'm at on vacation, I'm certain I want to live there for a year. I mean, everywhere I go, virtually.

I know. So she— so So I didn't expect this really. I thought they kind of got it out of their system last summer. Mm-hmm. Or like maybe they go back for another summer break. Yeah. But like living for a whole year, I didn't expect it. Um, and so anyway, she came over and she was, she was like, I'm gonna cry.

You know, just, and I was like, ooh, I've come here to cry.

Yeah. And there was another friend there, Sophia, who's kind of a new friend. Uh-huh. So it was good. I was like, well, Sophia's here. She'll buffer. And Elizabeth is like, you know, she's kind of like, well, I don't— that's not going to stop me. And also, like, I don't need that. Yeah, let's go. Right. And so, you know, we talked a lot.

And then does it make you nervous that she's going to cry because you feel obligated to cry in return?

So, okay, this is what we started talking about because I was like, you felt pressure. Well, I think Elizabeth was like, you better cry.

Oh, well, that's direct pressure. That's not even in your head.

At one point she said that, and I was like, uh-oh, I'm not gonna— I said, I said, I'm, I'm not going to. Yeah. And then, and Sophia was like, you better cry for her. Oh my God, oh my God, a lot of pressure. Oh no, oh no. And I, you know, I didn't.

Yeah, sure, I knew that.

I didn't the whole— I didn't. And, and she, you know, at the end—

in 10 years, I think I've seen you cry like 3 or 4 times.

You—

4 of the 7 cries— have seen me cry cry like disproportionately than most people, right? Um, and even still, yes, not that often, correct? Yeah. Anyway, so I didn't cry at all. And then, you know, we were hugging, bye, and I still wasn't crying.

Were you trying to make yourself— could you feel yourself like focusing on your eyes? A little, sure, a little.

She was like, wow, not even, not even a little— not even a little water in there.

Yeah, not even a well up.

Yeah. And I was like, well, it's, it's there, it's there, it's on the inside, you know. And it's a ding, ding, ding to the graduation, Delta's graduation, where everyone was crying and I wasn't crying. Yeah. And everyone, um, and I was like, some people are performing here, but really they weren't, you know, they just cry.

And you were just self-conscious that you weren't crying?

Yeah, of Of course. Yeah. And I, I, but I was sad at the graduation and I was sad last night. Yeah. But I have a problem.

Look, I know this very well. I'm like, you know, deaths and people getting arrested and friends dying. And yeah, I feel the pressure of someone like waiting for me to have this expected reaction. Reaction. And then kind of once that occurs to you that you're supposed to, for me, train's left the station. There's no reaching the cry point because you're now self-conscious about not crying. Right. And that's just not the frame of mind to cry. I know. Like they say, you know, the trick in acting is to try your hardest not to cry.

Exactly. I love that trick because I can do that. Yeah, yeah. But then, but I'm— I was never good at crying as an actor.

I'm caught between wanting to give another recommendation but also wanting to talk about an actor I saw that was using menthol, and I don't ever want to give it away. Exposed of who I use menthol in Employee of the Month. I would have felt unethical about doing that like in Parenthood, but I did not feel unethical about doing it. Yeah, because I had won like— I had won a ring competition and, and I thought it would be be hilarious if I was just like uncontrollably sobbing at this victory. Yeah. And yeah, I used a lot of it and my eyes were fucking on fire and I was supposed to spray more. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I, I don't, I don't know. I just don't think I cry when I'm sad. You cry when you're mad? I cry when I'm mad and frustrated. Frustrated. I cry wolf. No, never. I don't cry wolf. Liz is at the window. She was there. Oh my God, I might cry right now because I'm being frustrated. I'm misunderstood.

I don't want to frustrate you, um, not before the break.

Yeah, so yeah, I think I cry when I'm angry, and I cry when I'm frustrated, and I cry when I'm embarrassed. That's—

oh yeah, that's the first time I saw you cry.

That's the first time I told you, right? And I ran into the window. Yeah, because I ran— I went to the car and then I cried.

Oh, you held your crying until the car?

Yeah. I mean, I was walking to the car. Oh, so it was probably— it was probably starting immediately, but no one had—

when you turned back, I thought I saw what was the beginning of a breakdown. I could be wrong. I definitely thought, ooh, like, who cares about banging in the glass? But the look was like, oh, we got— we're gonna have some crying. Yeah.

Yeah.

And some people—

what was the event that night? There was some— someone was in town.

Bob Mervac was in town. And it was the first time I ever met him. It was a long time ago. Yeah. Um, and, uh, some people are quick triggers for me. Like, are quick— like, um, I, I— as I said, I've cried in front of do a fair amount. Yeah, I've cried.

My parents can get a good cry out of you. Get me to cry. Well, then this is consistent. Dads. Yeah, I mean, Bill so far hasn't.

He hasn't? Yeah, he will. I hope not. I don't want to cry in front of him. Okay. Um, I want to be— will you let him hold you? No, I don't let my dads hold me. No, no, no, No. Um, yeah, so, so anyway, just— but I did— she left and I was like, God, like, I need to cry more.

I can't—

I just— I, I wish I did. I wish I had cried then, but it wasn't going to happen.

I don't cry out of sadness. I cry out of my heart being touched, as you know, a lot.

Yes. Yeah, me too. I think that's more— that's definitely more likely than sadness. Like, if something Everything's just so overwhelmingly sweet or beautiful. Like, Life is Beautiful. Yeah. I cry at Life is Beautiful. Oh, that's good. Not the movie. Never seen it.

But just the beauty of life. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Like sports moments. The last phase, I think, for me to be a complete crier is I have had 2 or 3 different moments in the last couple of years where I was so frustrated that I did I did have the feeling in my body of like, oh, if I could just ball right now, I would feel so much better at the end of this. Or sometimes there'll be the occasion where, again, in my mind, whether this is happening or not doesn't matter. I feel like all 3 of them are coming at me and I am biting my tongue. Yeah. Overwhelmed and maybe ganged up on, and I'm biting my tongue because I don't want to make anything worse. And I do reach a point when I'm biting my tongue or I can feel my eyes are going to betray me, like I'm going to start crying out of my anger and frustration. You should let yourself, because then everyone will stop being mean to you and be like, oh, maybe we should throttle back.

Oh no, he's like crying.

What's so funny is I think half the time they'd have no idea because they don't know necessarily when I'm like fighting my hardest not to get involved or to say something. That's really really hard for me.

Do you ever just decide to walk away?

Like, I know— oh God, yeah. I go upstairs. I quote, go upstairs for something fucking all the time. Yeah, yeah. It's a real patented dad move.

Yeah, it's good to go upstairs as a dad.

Or go out to the garage. I always have to go out to the garage and just do one thing, and then I get like— I can return. Yeah, sometimes you need Wait a minute, I like how generic I am. Some part of me, I like that I'm like doing what all dads do, and then I'm, you know, it makes me feel like I grew up.

Was your like quintessential image of a dad?

Well, that's what I was gonna say. I've never seen— I never saw my father parent in a relationship. I only saw him operate as a lone wolf, and my mom, and then my stepdads, they didn't hold their tongue, you know. They, they yelled all the time. Yeah. Screamed and, yeah, uh, swore and, and, and said really nasty character assassinations of us a lot. Um, but I've never seen the healthy version where it's like, oh yeah, Dad's going out to the garage to check on, you know, a blank, right? And now he's back and he's— now he's calm, you know? Like, I don't know, interesting. But I guess I've seen it in movies and in TV shows, and I've seen it maybe in other people's family. And I just know I'm a part of like a great tradition.

When I think of dads, the first image I think of is in a store, a dad just sitting in whatever seat there is, makeshift seat. There's always a dad sitting on the floor. Yeah, they're just sitting there waiting for everyone else to be— the mom and the daughter to be done shopping. I mean, we would all go to the outlet mall.

How could I can't even do it.

He would— he wants to do it too. And then he's not going— most of the time he's not even going in any stores. He's just waiting outside the store while we go in store after shopping is miserable. But then why does he want to go?

I don't know. To be a good— to be a good dad, to spend time. That's right. Sitting and getting exhausted in, in stores and watching— so hot— and watching the saved money disappear.

Exactly. He's just sweating out there. It's like actually so sweet that he's just like going real mensch. Yeah, just going to these stores for no reason. And even he's never like, let's go. Like, he never says let's go.

He's thinking it over and over again, and he's resisting. I wonder if he's ever had a solemn tear you missed, like, and he's sitting in that chair. It's just— well, this is just like he wants to go like, oh God, no, like, let's leave, please, let's leave. But then he doesn't. He already feels that, that complete angst of being stuck somewhere.

He doesn't.

That's the thing about him. He's really—

well, he's a better man than I am.

Yeah, well, maybe it's his Indian-ness. I don't know. But like, it's pretty wild.

He just like really— he'll spend 7 hours out with you guys and he doesn't buy one thing, right? He doesn't pick anything up. Fuck that. That's like being in an 8-hour-long fucking cricket match.

I couldn't do— well, nothing's happening. He likes cricket. Maybe that's why—

that's maybe Maybe that's what— well, he played— formatted him to be so tolerant of boredom.

I think they are just— I think Indian— well, I shouldn't say— I don't know. I just think, well, maybe Indian men from Kerala, they just like know to go along with the women. Yeah. And they're like, it's fine, like, it's fine, just let them do.

I guess my question is, why would— why— yes, why doesn't— why would any of the women want us?

I think he He wants to be nearby because he only sees you on the weekends and you guys want to spend the whole weekend shopping.

Yeah. Uh, yeah.

Although now when I go home, um, he doesn't really come with us. Like if we go to TJ Maxx, he doesn't come. Yeah, good. He just meets us at dinner or whatever. Yes, it's better. It's better.

Do the lunches, drive two cars. He can stop at Home Depot.

It's better. But, uh, yeah. Can you imagine going to Home Depot with him for 7 hours? No, I would— I just—

I would never do Yeah, and think about how much pain—

I did have to do that as a kid. It felt like 7 hours, probably 20 minutes.

Yeah, 20 minutes, cuz that's how guys shop. They like already know what they want before they walk in. I hated it. No, imagine like really put yourself in a situation where you were at Home Depot for 7 hours, 3 and a half movies.

Well, he must not hate it or he wouldn't come.

Or he's just like, he's like a monk. He, he can like just ignore the pain.

He can. I do think like really just like— he just like doesn't complain about anything.

Yeah, it's pretty wild. Yeah, it's hot, it's attractive. I guess like that's what you should be as a guy. Yeah, no complaining. Complaining. That's right. My therapist said to me, you should never say, what about me? That's not your domain. Well, I— and I like— that's right.

Well, no, you're still a person, but he doesn't—

I've never heard him say that. Yeah, it's It's not— you can do that. You are free to do that. And then there are certain outcomes of that, and I don't want that outcome.

Yeah, but you also don't want resentment.

Well, I'm not going to get resentful. But some people could.

No, you could build a resentment. Like, nobody's thinking about me. No one's even noticing me. No one cares what I think.

Well, you're not allowed to do that either, because that's not grown-up behavior either. Right. That's going to be hard for some people. Yeah. But, like, in pursuit of being a man, the definition my therapist and I have, For me as a man. Yeah. Includes shutting the fuck up. No resentments, no pity party. No, what about me? That's the strength that you're supposed to exude as a man. You're supposed to bring strength to this. And that's— we think that's just screaming and shoving other men. No, no. The strength is restraint. The restraint. Yeah.

Well, this is good because it's—

oh my gosh, it's Father's Day. Is it this Sunday? Yeah. Oh my God, Rob, are you being spoiled? You're traveling too? Yeah. Don't you feel like traveling nullifies the event? Yeah, I am. My birthday always is right on it too, right by it. Oh, so you get triple screwed. I have Saturday, Sunday.

Okay, what would you want to do this year?

Well, I don't know if it was last year or the year before, but I hosted a Father's Day party and it was tournaments. It was a volleyball tournament, a pickleball tournament, and sideline shoulder massages.

That's nice. And food.

And it was really quite fun. Yeah, I didn't know about sidelines. You know about the food? Yeah, when you weren't playing pickleball, you were getting a shoulder massage.

That's cool, right? I'm— wow.

Because for Mother's Day, I bring in all these people. You do? Yes. And And so we're not going to get pedicures and manicures, although we could, and they're fun. They are fun. I did, um, and you kind of need one.

I need one. Well, you always complain about your toes. You're always complaining about them.

I don't even know if I would in good conscience let someone touch my toes.

They probably want to. They're like, you know what, this is like Everest, you know? Like, they really— they want at them, and they want to see what they can do.

Remember I spoke about— we could look this up now. Uh-huh. Um, Rob Do you— can you control the TV?

Yep, sure can.

Will you look up Malala and Zarna Garg?

Oh, Zarna, she's very funny.

Do you know her? Remember I was telling you about the video? Yeah. Well, someone was nice enough to tell me what video I was watching.

Oh yeah, yeah, that's cool. So she's very funny. She's— people really love her.

We might be able to connect it to Dax's Mac Studio.

What if porn just popped up?

Oh, I'd love it. A man and a horse.

That's your thing these days?

That's my thing, yeah. Nice. I'm watching exclusively men and horses, but only kissing.

Oh, you draw the line? Yeah. Oh wow.

Got to figure out how to get this audio to go through there though.

Oh boy, this is hard. What happens if you hit play?

Let's find out. Yeah, no audio. Doesn't— yeah. All right, never mind.

Okay, we're not as techy as we appear to to be.

I guess I could have just looked it up on my phone. It would have been a lot easier.

So, Malala, I'm the world's leading almost therapist. Whatever your problem is, I can solve it. Just tell me what it is. Let's go. When I was 15, I was shot by the Taliban in Pakistan. Okay, that happens. And then I moved to a different country in the UK for my surgeries. Okay, that sounds fun. New culture, new environment. I joined the school, but I couldn't make any friends. I was really lonely. Oh, because you were— you were the problem. So by the end of my school time, I had only made one friend. One friend, huh? That's sad. Yeah, sad for the friend who was stuck with you. And I was joining college at Oxford. I said, I'm gonna make as many friends as possible. Oh, Oxford! You went to Oxford? See, yeah, what happened? You You didn't get into Cambridge? That was my dream place to go to. Oh, see, right there we just identified the first problem. You have dreams. Why do you— you know, I'm really sorry to just bring this up, but you sound like you complain a lot. You're coming across a little whiny about the whole girls need to be this and that situation.

Like, you got shot once, you're fine. The other side of your face looking great as far as I can tell. Everything is fine. You're welcome. The other side of your face.

You're fine. Thank you. You're welcome. So you got shot in the face. Yeah. I love that accent. It's so pleasing. Do you like it or does it make you nervous?

I mean, it makes me nervous, obviously. It makes me nervous when you listen to it, that you won't be able to help yourself to do it.

There's something so pleasing and melodic about it.

I mean, it's very Malala. Tick. It is melodic. It's sing-songy. That's the— I think is maybe a pejorative way of saying it. Maybe. No, but it is. But it's sing-songy. It has like a real— That's as close—

that's like as safe as I can—

You want me to—

it's Father's Day. You want me to let you do it? Go ahead.

No, it's not appropriate.

You want to see me cry?

No. No, no, no, that's not my Father's Day wish. What is? Horse porn.

Great. Kissing.

We can make that happen. Really passionate kissing between a man and a horse.

Oh my God. All right, let's do some facts.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

Zuzi Wolf. I love her. What a stud. Uh, what a gorgeous— he got her. Awesome, awesome.

Good job, Toto.

They're such a cool couple. They are really.

You seen them in their 300SL Mercedes?

That old-ass Mercedes, the one that he said he would take me in?

Yeah, they drive around Monaco in it and they're always dressed to the nines.

What color is it? Silver. The one we saw on Instagram that time was green. Yeah, that was like a—

I won't bore you— a restomod version of one. So they were free to make it any color they wanted. They had already altered it. Now they can't. Well, no, if you have a mint condition, um, unaltered, you don't want to change the paint color.

Oh, you would be degrading the value. Never made green originally.

Correct. That was— and nor they had put like a cool engine in it and bigger, you know, they did what I do to cars, right?

Yeah. So am I supposed to want an original or a souped-up one?

It's a tricky one because those cars— I'm ballparking, but I think a Goldwing 300, that's got to be like a $3 to $5 million car, I think. Holy shit. And if you chopped it all up and put all this cool stuff in it, it would probably be worth like $800,000. So you would be losing $2.5 million of the value to have the car you wanted. Yeah. Like, if I take my Lincoln, it's not gonna— it wasn't worth a lot of money before I did all that shit to it. Yeah, none of my cars.

But now it's worth more, it feels like. Oh, you're saying because it wasn't worth a lot?

Exactly, because you're not getting it to be completely pristine, right, and original.

Well, this is interesting because I've never been in this position. Normal— I'm normally— I'm on the other side of this where I like don't care about the value. Like, I I want to like what I'm driving in and what it looks like. That's how I feel. Yeah.

That's why I don't get those kind of cars. All right. I would never want to get a kind of car that I'm making it less valuable by making it better.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. All right. I'd rather just buy. So if like Toto and Susie buy me one, uh-huh, and then I have you soup it up, uh-huh, they'll probably be mad about that.

They will be bummed. Yeah. That you made a couple million dollars disappear.

Okay. Now I'm in a pickle. Okay. Anyway, she was amazing. She was, she was amazing.

Sounds like a fun family too. I know. I remember she was talking about Isle of Man TT. Yes, that started last weekend. Did you watch it? And Brad was there. Oh, and Channing, and they were filming. No.

Yeah, for their news.

I think they're making a movie about— I don't know if it's both of them, but I think Channing was filming something for a movie about Isla Man.

Oh my God, I wonder if it's a doc.

Oh wow, I doubt it'd be a doc with Channing in it. What would be the point, right?

Oh, he was starring. I thought you meant like he was like directing it.

No, he was on a motorcycle in leathers, I'm presuming, filming him. Yeah, yeah, cool.

Okay, some facts. The Topo Chico shortage. Yikes. Crisis. Yeah. Okay, a nationwide shortage of Topo Chico original mineral water is affecting store shelves and bars in the U.S. Coca-Cola suspended production of its flagship sparkling water at its Monterrey, Mexico facility to perform well stabilization and facility upgrades. Supplies are expected to remain extremely limited through late 2026. Yeah, this is a big boy.

This is— I feel like the well went dry.

I'm not telling us. I know. CNN said America is running out of Topo Chico mineral water.

Oh, we love Topo Chico. I know. Um, we have bottles in that fridge just accruing.

What are we gonna do when they're— I know, we're gonna auction them.

Remember people paid an insane amount of money for original Coke? Oh yeah, when they switched to new Coke, people were spending like preposterous amounts of money on a 12-pack.

Just like LaBerte. It is. Oh my God.

And we're sitting on a stockpile of at least 6. I think 2. 2. We're down to 2.

No, not even one for each of us. Fuck. No, no, no. This is horrible news. Okay. Oh, if you drink sparkling water, do you not have to pee as much? Sure. That was Toto's theory. It actually says fizzy or sparkling water contains dissolved carbon dioxide. This results in an acidic solution that may increase urinary urgency, irritate your bladder. Irritate your bladder. Our advice is to let me Limiting your intake of one of these to one glass a day.

Oh wow. I think, well, Toto's only drinking bubbly water, but look, do I believe that what you just read or just looking at the man? Whatever he's doing or—

It's true, but we don't know about his peeing. Proof is in the pudding. That is true. Do you have any sparkling water?

I don't want to wake up every night to go pee and wake up and then I can't concentrate on the team. I'm the cutest little boy ever made. Jump, watch me play. Oh, do you think he ever said that song?

Um, oh, okay. I said something out of school. I left it in, but I want people to know I know it was wrong.

What did you leave in?

So her grandfather was paralyzed, remember, from the— yeah, from the waist down. And then he got in an accident, broke his medical or something.

Okay.

And I said like, oh, I mean, like, doesn't really matter or something. Um, but it does. Like, you still— I then I looked it up, like, if you're paralyzed and you break your leg, uh, do you still have to do anything? And you do. It still requires medical treatment. I just feel like maybe if there's no pain, it could just heal on its own.

That's definitely the silver lining of getting a broken leg. You're paralyzed, right? But it's not nothing. It's not nothing, but it's definitely less than if you're fully able-bodied. Yeah.

The current F1 car, you said, weighs about 980 kilograms. A current Formula 1 car has a minimum weight limit of 768 kilograms. This limit applies to the car and driver combination but excludes fuel. 2026 reset. The current generation of cars is noticeably lighter than the previous era, dropping 32 kilograms from 800 kilograms minimum seen in 2025.

Ask it how many kilograms of fuel they carry. I think, I think they have like 100 kilos of fuel.

Fuel does an F1 car—

I think filled up they're in the 900s.

Okay, it carries a maximum of 110 kilograms of fuel. Okay, because mid-race refueling is banned, this maximum amount must last the entire race, taking the cars about 300 kilometers. Did my Botox guy say I have a thick neck? I don't think he used the word thick like I did, but he did comment. He basically was like, it's the equivalent of strong muscles, but he was saying that because the neck was thick.

Oh, so he said you have really strong muscles and you heard my neck's too thick?

Well, no, because we're trying to make it smaller. The whole point of the Botox was to—

I'm trying to imagine if you succeed at giving yourself a pencil neck how wild that'll be.

Well, it's more— it's not really about the neck so much as it is like this in here. Yeah, exactly. But this is like very strong.

Wow, that's an elite— your elite muscle mass is all in your neck.

Exactly. He grabs it.

He grabbed it. Oh, he manhandles you.

I gave him permission.

Okay. I like him a lot. He processes you like a chicken.

Yeah, he does, and I appreciate it. Okay, was she 2/10 or 1/10 away when she, um, finished that practice session, you said 2— it— yeah, 0.2.

That's what I see as well. Um, Kimi and Max's qualifying lap at, um, Monaco, second to last qualifying lap, 0.003. No, 3 thousandths.

I can't even—

no, 3 thousandths of a second.

How can they even measure that? No, that is so— I mean, losing Oh, that makes me want to die, actually.

By something that's way less than a blink of an eye. Exactly. Way, way less.

You can't even do it. We can't even, like, initiate the blink of an eye and you're at 0.003.

Whoa. That's the margin, man. It blows my mind. You have two different teams. Each team has 1,000 employees. The cars are completely one-offs. They're not— they are original part. Everything's original for each team. All these variables, I know, and they land 0.003 often. That is so— that doesn't feel real. I know.

Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah, those are the facts. We have a story.

Yeah, we have a little bit of a story about Susie, which is when we walked her out, Lincoln was hiding in the bushes. She knew Susie was here and she wanted to meet her. Yeah, she's super in F1 now, which I thought was so adorable. Yes. So she comes out and she meets Susie, and they're chatting, and Susie says, like, who's your favorite driver? And she says, Kimmy, of course. Kimmy Antonelli. And for people who aren't following F1, there's the cutest human being on planet Earth is currently destroying. He's 19 years old. Kimmy Antonelli. He's Italian. He lives with his family at home in San Marino. Oh, my God. And he's a little boy. Yeah. He's dominating, and he's so cute and friendly. So anyways, Lincoln says, Kimi. And Kimi drives for Mercedes, right? Which Toto is the team principal of. Yes. And Susie said, oh, well, we're in town because we have a Mercedes event tomorrow. Would you want to meet Kimi? Yeah. And Lincoln immediately started crying.

Wow, it's a powerful was like, I love—

her response was just to start crying.

Yeah, it's, it's like an overwhelming offer. Yeah, yes.

Yeah. So we went, so then we were going to go to the event, and then the next day you and I were recording all day long. So it was like I wasn't able to connect with Susie, but all these flurry of texts I had missed, I now see. By the way, they all do, um, WhatsApp, right? So which I forget to tag. Check. So anyway, Susie's like, okay, bad bad news, the event's 21 and over, so Lincoln can't really come to the event, but we're going to be hanging in this hotel room for an hour before the event. Do you want to come by the hotel room? And I'm like, well, this is so much better. Yeah, it's been like being at a big noisy event and standing around awkwardly. And so I go, yeah, absolutely. Oh, tell me what time. It's like at 5. And I'm like, perfect, I'll be there. It's downtown. So then they come in and I linking, like, okay, so this is the situation. It's not the event, but we're going to go hang. And she goes, no, I can't. That's too much. It was too stressful for her. And I'm like, listen, love, I don't really push you to do much, but we're going to meet Kimmy Antonelli.

This opportunity ain't coming around ever again. There's so much funny stuff. We ride down there on the motorcycle because traffic's fucking horrendous and we got to go downtown. So it's like, we're going to take the motorcycle. We get to the event. It's at the Soho House warehouse, which I didn't even know they had. It's so cool. There's a really cool warehouse downtown that the Soho House has. Oh, so we parked the motorcycle. It's a pain in the ass to try to get two helmets in the, in the back bag, uh, the top box on the motorcycle. So of course I'm just gonna carry them. And Lincoln's like, no, no, put the helmets away. And I go, wait, why? I don't wanna— I don't want us to have helmets. You know, like, the stakes were so— but that's cool.

I told her that.

I go, what are you talking about it. It's so much cooler to walk in and we're both holding helmets. Yeah, you ride motorcycles and you're on a motorcycle. No. And here's where, as a dad, you just got to go like, okay, that's what she wants. Yeah, this is great lessons she's teaching me. Yeah, she's wrong, right? I know she's wrong. Yeah. And who cares? That's how she wants to do it. Yeah. So we put the motors— we put the helmets away. We're not even going to talk about the fact that we were— when we can't talk about the fact— oh my God. We go into this room and And also, look, I hope I'm really conscious of the fact that I don't want to bum a famous person out. I don't want to complicate his downtime before he has to do this event with me and my kid. And so I'm planning on being like, whatever, man, we'll talk to Toto and Susie or whatever. But we walk in, he immediately comes up and introduces himself. He's so likable and outgoing and kind. He engages Lincoln right away in conversation. And they sit on a couch.

Yeah. And just chat. And he's showing her pictures on the phone. He's talking about how hot the race car is. And I'm just hearing little glimpses. And it's just so cute to hear my little girl like, oh, I know you're up so hot. You know, just how she's just responding. And so then Toto's videoing them. Yeah. Secretly. Secretly. Yeah. And he's like, shut up, shut up. Because I'm talking to the other guy from Austria. He's like, shut up, shut up. He goes, we're going to show them this video at their wedding and embarrass them.

It's so—

in that moment, oh my God, what if Lincoln married Kimi Antonelli? And then I just thought, oh my God, what if my son-in-law is an F1 driver?

That fucking fun we'll have. And not only just an F1 driver, like an incredible legend, soon to be a legend F1 driver. Oh, I really hope she marries him.

I was starting to lock into how these like kings felt in France, where it's like, you're gonna pair up your kid with somebody that you're gonna love this family. It's It's easy to do. Slippery slope. It's easy to arrange marriage.

It's a whole thing. That's so cute. It was the sweetest night.

And I just, I want to scream from the rooftops, this generosity that this young man showed to my daughter, I am so grateful for. He's such a little gentleman. Love him. He's so kind and sweet. And it just was a real fucking— It's incredible. Gift of all gifts.

Thank you, Susie, for the invite. Thank you, Susie. What an incredible— oh, one more funny Toto thing.

So then they had to go do stuff. They're in and out of the room, right? Yeah. What's funny is all the Kimmy stuff happened before Susie ever arrived. So then as soon as Kimmy had to leave, Lincoln's like, let's go, let's go. Like, basically, like, we got the yes, you know, like it was a success. Let's get out of here before I embarrass myself.

Yeah, I understand this.

So then we, Lincoln and I, are leaving, we're departing, and we're getting on the elevator, and he goes, where are you going? Have the event. And I go, oh no, it's 21 and over. And he goes, no, no, no, no, you, you're staying. Come here, everyone out. Come on, you're staying. And we go, no, we don't, we don't want the rules broken. Also, she got homework. He's like, no, no, those aren't the rules. He got into total mode, like, you're coming to this event. Oh my God. We did not. We went home. Do you know who was at the event? Brad Pitt.

And that's why Kim Kardashian, K AK.

You ever heard of Kardashian? Not like that. Tricky too, cuz she's dating Lewis Hamilton. He's at Ferrari. Oh yeah, but she was at the Mercedes. Interesting. But you know what, it might have been a different Kardashian. I'm not sure it was Kim or Khloé or Kendall or—

oh, don't say that, cuz we want all of them on the show. Okay, Bernice. Um, okay, well, uh, that sucks you didn't get to hang out with Brad. It was probably the moment he was going to ask you to be be in his movie.

He's like, hey, are you busy next weekend? I'm going to Iowa, man, to shoot this movie. I need you. And then— but I was there. But it was great because the whole night was for Lincoln. You don't want to bring helmets? Great. You want to pretend we took a cab here? Cool. We're gonna get out of here.

Okay. Wow. Well, what a good time.

I love her. I love her so much.

Love her. We absolutely love her. Um, and I hope Lincoln and Kimmy get married and put that out there.

We're doubling I don't mind. I'm signing off.

Yeah.

All right, love you.