I think when we decided to give him the race seat one and a half years ago, we hoped for this trajectory. The ups and downs you expect from a young driver aged 18 in the first year, and eventually by the second year [we hoped] the success would materialize and I think this is happening.
When I was younger I was frustrated, I was getting angry, especially when I was at Williams and finishing second to last every weekend. I was pissed off. I worked my whole life to get to F1 and now I'm at the back, and doing nothing. So I had to work on that, how do I deal with that and I came to the realisation that I just need to focus on my job.
We've been involved with the business for five years now. It's an incredible brand with lots of legacy and great values, and there's a long-term plan here. That was supported by two things last year: Carlos joining us, who obviously saw the opportunity when it came to wanting to win; and finishing fifth. And that just supported our story of going back to the top.
You don't have to know a thing about cars, racetracks or Formula One regulations to guess where this epic of male aggression is headed. But if the overall arc of F1 is fairly predictable, the movie is good at keeping you off-balance from moment to moment.
Apple and Netflix have entered into a rather surprising partnership. The dynamic streaming duo will share Formula 1 programming, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The deal allows Netflix to stream the F1 Canadian Grand Prix in May, along with Apple TV. On the flipside, Apple TV and Netflix will both air season eight of the docuseries Drive to Survive.
In the short term, expectations are brutally realistic, but this is still a team intent on making noise from day one. That intent will be made clear when Cadillac unveils the livery of its first F1 car during a Super Bowl commercial Sunday. Such a move is a statement and arrival aimed as much at mainstream America as at a paddock that, for years, questioned whether the brand belonged on the grid at all.
In the 2021 Italian GP, Lewis Hamilton nearly had his head crushed when Max Verstappen's car literally climbed on top of his, with the car's bottom grazing past his helmet and onto the protective Halo. Later on, Toto Wolff of the Mercedes team breathed a sigh of relief, also reflecting on how much he fought against the addition of the Halo to the F1 car design. This isn't the first time a Halo has saved a life. Leclerc's helmet showed the battle scars of Fernando Alonso's tire from a similar incident in the Belgian GP in 2018.