Earlier this year, No Grip's executive producer Max Miller, the only non-F1 fan on our team, made an observation: People seem to have a lot of issues with Mercedes driver George Russell, far more than they did four years ago when we last worked on a Formula 1 show. What's changed since then? Is George himself really a different person nowadays — or has the perception from the fanbase shifted away from what he represents?

To get to the bottom of this, Lily talks to Luke Smith, Senior Formula 1 Writer over at The Athletic, about the upbringing and motorsports career of George Russell to see who he is in — and out — of the F1 car.

Over the past three years, there's been a noticeable uptick in the number of Formula 1 romance novels coming out from traditional book publishers in the U.S. and abroad, not to mention an explosion of F1 romances in the indie and self-published markets. Lily became so fascinated with this phenomenon that she picked up a few F1 romances — and ended up reading over 30 of them. But that's just the tip of the iceberg with this subgenre.

For today's episode, Lily chats with romance author Andie J. Christopher, author of numerous romances including the F1 romance novel Faster and the forthcoming YA novel Formula He's the One, to talk about where Formula 1 fits into the genre at large, why it's become so beloved by scores of readers, and what it says about the F1 fandom.

F1 romances mentioned in this episode:

- Slipstream by Madge Maril
- Crash Test by Amy James
- Crash Into You by Simone Soltani
- The Bump in Their Forbidden Reunion by Amanda Cinelli

During Formula 1's 76-year history, few teams have had quite as many highs and lows as Ferrari, the Italian racing outfit known for its iconic prancing horse, passionate fanbase, and sky-high expectations. It has a long history of scandals and sagas going back decades, but it most recently found itself under fire during a series of incidents in the late 2010s, which culminated in cheating allegations in 2019 that may be haunting the team to this day.

For this episode, Lily got to chat with Ben Bowlin — the podcaster known for numerous popular shows including Stuff They Don’t Want You to Know, Ridiculous History, and CarStuff — and dive into all things Ferrari. What happened back in 2019, and what does it mean for the future of this team?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Queerness has always had a strange relationship to Formula 1, with homophobia still being a big issue in the sport and just a handful of drivers past and present openly identifying as LGBTQ+ throughout its 76-year history. Despite the lack of formal representation, queer fans have long been among F1's most fervent evangelists, but their presence leads to important questions. What does it means to be an LGBTQ+ fan of Formula 1 in 2026? How do those fans feel during race weekends? And which drivers do queer supporters tend to gravitate towards and why?

In this episode, Lily sits down with Tasia Johnson, an F1 content creator who's also openly queer, to talk about her experiences going to races and working with brands, as well as which drivers she and her circle of fellow queer F1 fans have put their weight behind.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Senna versus Prost. Hamilton versus Rosberg. Schumacher versus...well, a lot of people. Rivalries have been at the heart of Formula 1 since its founding 76 years ago. But it's been roughly half a decade since the sport's last iconic rivalry, and now that F1 is facing a bizarre season of much-maligned rule changes and a schedule upended by global conflicts, a new series of questions are popping up: Would a good, old-fashioned rivalry go a long way to fixing this strange year of racing? And what does this sport lose when it doesn't have those stakes to lean on?

In this episode, Lily talks to livestreamer and podcaster Ashley Kalita, known to online audiences as AshVandelay, about what's at the heart of the sport's great rivalries — and why, try as Formula 1 and the media may, it's never going to be able to build that kind of narrative between Mercedes teammates George Russell and Kimi Antonelli.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's now summer, marking the perfect time to relax with an ice-cold beverage and dive into one of the greatest mysteries in Formula 1 history: What happened to the diamond that was lost at the 2004 Monaco Grand Prix? It's a winding tale that includes a backmarker F1 team desperate to get out of the sport, a glamorous movie partnership full of Hollywood A-listers, and a sketchy diamond sponsor.

This week, Lily sits down with guest Byrd Pinkerton to go through what culture was like in 2004, what led an F1 team to put two uninsured $300,000 diamonds on their cars, and what we know in 2026.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After a very public multi-year saga to get on the grid, Cadillac is currently making it way through its first season in Formula 1. On the surface, its results seem lackluster, to say the least. But is there more to this crew than meets the eye? And could it mark a turning point for U.S. teams in the sport?

For this week's episode, Lily talks to The Athletic's Formula 1 staff writer Madeline Coleman and American F1 fan Zach St. Clair to get to the bottom of why Cadillac is deserving of a second look, why there's so much emphasis on having an American team on the grid, and what it even means for a team to be "American" in spirit.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

These days, conversations about women in motorsports are never complete without mentions of Susie Wolff. Susie is the last woman to participate in an official Formula 1 race weekend more than a decade ago, and now runs F1 Academy, the highly visible Formula 1 support series. She's long been held up as a paragon of motorsports girlbossdom, but is there more to her story?

In this bonus episode, Lily and her pal Indiah Porter go over Susie's new memoir 'Driven,' which came out in the U.S. in late April, to unpack more of her background as both a racing driver and a business executive. But as they soon find, what Susie doesn't say in her book ends up being just as important — and much more interesting — as what she does.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When it debuted in 2023, the women-centric support series F1 Academy (F1A) was branded by Formula 1 and the greater racing ecosystem as a giant step forward for visibility and opportunity in motorsports for women. It even came with its own digital broadcast channels, major corporate sponsors, and attention from F1 teams. Three years later though, the promising championship has drummed up more questions than answers. Is it actually helping its participants level up in their careers long-term? Does anything about this series give these teen girls and young women the skills needed to transition to other racing series? And who's actually getting all of this corporate money?

This go-around on No Grip, Lily talks to Katherine Legge, the iconic racer and Throttle Therapy podcast host who's taken part in what feels like almost every motorsports series under the sun and has plenty to say about what's missing from conversations about F1A, sexism, visibility, and mentorship.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Formula 1 has gone through several major cultural shifts over the past decade, from its acquisition by Liberty Media in the mid-2010s to the 'Drive to Survive' boom that followed a few years later during the pandemic. But there's a major cultural event that doesn't get talked about as frequently and yet really helped bring the sport's current cutthroat capitalist era to new heights: The 2023 phenomenon that Lily has dubbed WAGageddon.

For this episode, Lily is joined by Kate Byrne, one half of the podcast and brand Two Girls 1 Formula, to explain why some people care so much about professional athletes' romantic partners and how following them can actually explain a great deal about what's happening in the paddock.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.