James Allen On F1

This week we meet top F1 race strategist Bernie Collins, who has made a successful switch to TV, becoming a hugely popular presenter on Sky Sports coverage of F1. Bernie gives viewers the inside track on crucial decisions on the pitwall, bringing a new level of enjoyment to the fan experience.

Bernie grew up in Northern Ireland and started as an F1 performance engineer with McLaren, before switching to Force India and latterly Aston Martin as chief race strategist.

Bernie explains how she could make split second decisions under intense pressure during races and why we see teams like McLaren and Ferrari sometimes get key decisions wrong. We also explore why many women can reach the top ranks as strategists, but not yet in race engineering and other senior team roles. She also reveals which driver has the best understanding of race strategy and who is the hardest working.

James is joined in the studio for chat and analysis of this fascinating topic by Autosport Editor-in-Chief Rebecca Clancy and F1 Writer Jake Boxall-Legge.

Bernie Collins’ book, How to win a Grand Prix is published by Quercus.

Email your comments or questions to: [email protected]

This week we take the audience into the heart of an F1 team and look at how crucial decisions get made that can push the team up, or down, the grid; from where to spend the budget to get the best results, to hiring and firing drivers. 

Otmar Szafnauer is a very experienced F1 team principal of Force India, Racing Point, Aston Martin and Alpine, with strong track record of getting bang for buck. He was fired by Alpine year ago, over a disagreement with Alpine management on what was the right pathway to success. 

We discuss what data teams use to choose their drivers, whether hiring a rookie for 2025 is a smart idea and what has made McLaren competitive this year. Plus Otmar gives us a teasing view on new teams coming into the sport. 

To break this all down James is joined in the studio by Autosport F1 Editor Jon Noble and Chief Motorsport Writer Ben Hunt. 

Email your comments or questions to: [email protected] 

This week we welcome one of F1’s most charismatic figures: Guenther Steiner. His expletive ridden rants on the hit Netflix show Drive to Survive turned him from a cameo role in F1 into one of its most recognizable figures.

Guenther brought Haas into F1 a decade ago with a different model, using as many components from Ferrari as possible. They achieved 5th place in the 2018 Constructors’ Championship, beating legacy teams like McLaren, Williams and Sauber.

But in the 2020s Haas languished in the bottom three and team owner Gene Haas didn’t renew Guenther’s contract for 2024. He is now on the sidelines, with plenty to say.

We discuss the importance of personality in modern F1, what he misses about being a team boss, whether F1 is now a show and what advice Guenther would give to Andretti as they struggle to break into F1 as a new team.

James is joined in the studio for chat and analysis by Autosport Chief Motorsport Writer Ben Hunt and Will Buxton, narrator of Drive to Survive and host of F1TV.

Email your comments or questions to: [email protected]

This week we have a British GP themed discussion, with special guest Damon Hill, the 1996 F1 World Champion.

Damon knows all about how an F1 driver goes from winning their first Grand Prix to winning multiple races and contending for a championship. We get into that in detail with him, with particular reference to Lando Norris and George Russell.

F1 sparked into life in Austria with a controversial clash as Norris and Max Verstappen fought for the win. Russell was the main beneficiary, taking his second Grand Prix victory. All of which sets us up for a fiercely competitive weekend at Silverstone.

There hasn’t been anything like the animosity between Norris and Verstappen that there was in 2021 between Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. The pair have been good friends up to now… so what happens next?

In the studio this week to help read between the lines are Autosport Editor-In-Chief Rebecca Clancy and Chief Motorsport writer Ben Hunt.

To find out more about Damon Hill’s fundraising cycle ride and the work of Neuro UK, go to https://www.justgiving.com/page/damon-hill-1718188619747 and if you'd like to see the video version of Damon's interview, you can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBnS7kYz8p4

Email your comments or questions to: [email protected]

This week we speak to the man with arguably the hardest job in F1: Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur.

Fred is bringing Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari next year. We get into that with him, what (or who) else Ferrari still needs to win a world championship and how Fred uses humour to get his way. He talks about managing the fragile confidence of Ferrari team members and how he is pushing them to take more risks. Former Ferrari F1 engineer Rob Smedley of “Fernando is faster than you” fame helps us read between the lines along with Motorport.com Italy’s F1 Editor Roberto Chinchero.

Fred Vasseur, 56, has been in motorsport for 35 years. He had huge success in F3 and GP2 (the forerunner of F2) with ART – making champions of drivers like Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Nico Hulkenberg. He came into F1 in 2016 as boss of Renault F1 team, (now known as Alpine) he joined Sauber in 2017 and gave Charles Leclerc his F1 break with the team. He transferred to Ferrari for the start of the 2023 season and is now a multiple F1 Grand Prix winner.

Get in touch with the show at [email protected]

This week we welcome none other than Greg Maffei onto the James Allen on F1 podcast. Greg is the CEO of Liberty Media and the man who had his eye on F1 for many years before he bought it.

F1 has changed a lot in the seven years since; bringing in millions of new, younger fans around the world. But how do they get the balance between those younger fans and long-standing fans, who aren’t so keen on all the showbiz?

Greg reveals how F1 plans to have a more direct relationship with its fans. He tells us which new countries could soon host Grands Prix, why F1 teams could soon be worth as many billions as NFL and Premier League teams and reveals the threats to F1 that he worries most about.

James is joined in the studio for chat and analysis by Autosport F1 editor Jon Noble and Sam Agini, Sports Reporter of the Financial Times.

Email your comments or questions to: [email protected]

This week the James Allen on F1 podcast comes face to face with the most powerful woman in F1; Renee Wilm.
Renee is Chief Legal And Administrative Officer of Liberty Media, the company that owns F1. She has played a central role in the way the company has shaped and grown F1 since 2017. But she is also the CEO of Las Vegas Grand Prix, which meant she was in the hot seat and responsible for delivering F1’s most ambitious race in barely a year from the announcement. 
There were a few hiccups to say the least, from locals irate about road closures and grumbles about unsold hospitality units, through to the manhole cover that lifted during practice, damaging Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari. But it yielded a spectacular race and gave Willm a notebook full of ideas on how to improve for year two. 
Uniquely for F1, Renee heads a female dominated leadership team at Las Vegas GP and we discuss her mission to create opportunities for women to grow into whatever role they want to be in, whether that's an engineer, a mechanic, a business executive, a team principal, or the ultimate goal: an F1 driver.
We discuss why she thinks F1 has only scratched the surface in the US and how Renee felt when the local authority told her that the economic impact of the race on the city had been $1.5 billion, more than double the Superbowl that took place three months later. And she explains what F1 learned from being the race promoter itself for the first time.
James is joined in the studio for chat and analysis by Autosport GP editor Jon Noble and Joshua Robinson of the Wall Street Journal.
Email your comments or questions to: [email protected]

This month the F1 world is celebrating Ayrton Senna, the three-time world champion who died 30 years ago.

For many lovers of the sport, he remains the greatest driver of all time. His story and passionate, intense character are captured in the 2010 documentary Senna, a movie that crossed F1 over to mainstream entertainment audiences. This wasn’t a film about cars and race results. It was about a human being. Without the Senna movie would Drive to Survive have been the crossover hit it has been? And would F1 have the fanbase it has today? In our main feature interview the writer & producer of Senna, Manish Pandey gives us his take. 

Senna’s niece Bianca gives the family’s point of view and reveals how over 36 million children in Brazil have been given educational support by the Ayrton Senna Institute. Joining James in the studio to discuss all things Senna are Autosport Editor-in-Chief Rebecca Clancy and Brazilian journalist Julianne Cerasoli. They also go behind the scenes on the bombshell story that Adrian Newey, the designer of the last F1 car Senna raced, is to leave Red Bull at the end of the season.

Get in touch with the show at [email protected]