2:12
is our lap time?
And how fast are you guys?
1:30 something?
1:34
But it’s...
you cannot compare
I'm pretty new to F1.
I like, I watch you guys right
We race a lot of times,
similar times that we're racing too
and similar as it is
because we're all racers, right?
And we have that in common.
But the way you guys go about
going to the racetrack
and getting ready
and your cars and your teams
and all that are so different
than what NASCAR is.
How many people are you in your team?
Pretty much
each car has about 20 people
that go over that weekend.
So now we have a 20 minute practice
and then 10 minutes after that,
we qualify.
On Saturday already?
Yes.
So you got to be like on
when you get there
20 minutes practice
and straight to qulaifying?
Straight in Yeah.
So you better be good.
And then we race Sunday.
Yeah.
So like seat time, like we don't
get in the car as much as we used to.
We raised 38 times a year.
38 races per year?
Yes.
But we're not going overseas like you guys
in different time zones.
All the races are in the US? I mean
Yeah. Yeah.
How many
oval races and how many like
normal road courses?
So the majority of them are ovals.
The only one that we both race
at is COTA, Austin in Austin.
I was thinking about like how different
it is to probably drive one of our cars
versus your car
at that track it’s gotta to be like
What are the lap times?
You got to look it up
Someone look it up
2:12, is our lap time?
Yeah, And how fast.
1:30 something
1:34
But you cannot compare it’s different disciplines.
If we jump in on NASCAR, you give us
you know, the first time we jump in second
spare lap, you know,
because we would
have no clue how to do it.
I think
the ovals, the ovals are super difficult.
Yeah, I think I mean
if you grew up a certain way
and you're
focused on
doing a certain thing,
you can get really good at that.
Does it get physical for you guys too?
It does probably in a different way
for you guys.
Like we don't have the G-forces
you guys have.
Obviously, we’re not going quite as fast.
You guys have a two hour race, right?
Yeah
but typically at the end of a race
You how long is a race?
Three and a half. Three and a half?
My god.
Yeah but that has to be crazy though
Like 3 hours
and a half on a
half a mile track going left.
You've got the spotter.
We have a spotter.
Do you guys not have spotters. No, no.
But it's crazy
how much they talk to them. That's crazy.
Have you heard the radios?
Constant communication
for 3 hours and a half
he keep talking to you like,
corner, right, left? Constant.
15, 10
There are a lot of differences
between the two sports.
I think at the same time,
we have the same partner.
How much do they help you on track
and how much do they support you
on track on the performance
and reliability kind of things?
I think it's kind of neat
because we get to watch you guys
and there's kind of like that connection
immediately.
That you have that.
For us, you know, we race a spec car
so everybody has the same chassis,
the same
shocks, springs,
like we can put different ones in,
but we have to buy it
from the same supplier.
And also
the cars are all the same,
except some little items. Right.
And one of the items is
the lubricants we use.
And so we work really tight with Pennzoil
and Shell to be able to develop,
you know, a lubricant.
That's something that gives us
obviously more horsepower
and more durability.
A big thing for us is running
your engines a little bit hotter.
We work with Pennzoil
a lot to develop that,
to try to find that advantage
because of all the cars that are same.
If you can find a little
a little bit for sure,
it stacks up pretty quick.
I mean,
we qualify on top
15 cars are within a 10th
most of the time.
Within a 10th? 10th and a half.
I mean, it's nuts.
So it's a little bit
like you stack a few of those together
It's noticeable.
Shell develops your fuels, right?
Yeah
And your lubricants
and everything in the car.
Yeah
and we've got like a small house
on track that follows us everywhere
which is called the Shell Track Lab,
where we've always got
like two or three scientists
from Shell
following us,
analyzing the fuel and oil sample.
After every sessions,
you know after every single run actually.
Every time we stop in the box,
we take a sample of that,
even if it's a two lap run. Yeah.
And they take a sample, they analyze it
and go back to the engineers
just to analyze
the way of the different parts
in the engine
and make sure
that there's nothing going wrong.
It's like basically a blood test
for our Ferrari engine.
That's cool to hear all that.
We don't get to
have as much of that stuff.
So that's that's interesting.
But the craziest thing to me
is that we are using
99% of the same fuel
as road cars, like normal road cars
in a Formula 1 car
which is which is crazy
and I think it’s great for Shell
because they can use Formula 1 to develop
new fuels and then bring it to the whole
automotive industry
with better fuel, better, lubricants.
So it's, yeah, that is amazing.
Right as you have a proving grounds
where you can
try things and develop things that are
I mean, I'm pretty sure
we're pushing cars
much harder than most
people are on the street
or at least I hope so.
I hope so too.
But you guys don't refuel during the
race, right? So you got what you got.
There used to be a time
where F1 did refueling,
they thought maybe it was better
just to change tyres
rather than also fuel
and the only problem that comes with that
is that the car
at the beginning of the race
is very heavy compared
to what it feels like in qualifying.
7/8 seconds slower,
but that's also tire management,
new tires, DRS.
It can get crazy.
That is way slower.
The car feels completely.
It's like you're driving
in different category.
4 seconds are coming from
the amount of fuel that the cars
from the weight of the cars
another 3 seconds comes from tires
Huge
So you can't just hammer down
the whole time and wear your tires out.
No no, we've got to manage
the tires like crazy.
we become tyre whisperers
What’s a direction
that NASCAR is taking
in terms of sustainable fuel
for the future.
It’s not just what we do on the racetrack
It's how we get to the racetrack.
We use renewable diesel in our trucks.
We do a lot of stuff inside our shop
to try to
help from that standpoint as well.
I think every every step that we can make
as a race team, we do
and then as a sport, you know
as a sanctioning body
they've approached
in a lot of different ways to try to
to help that piece of it as well
What about you guys?
We have the E10 fuel
that these 10% ethanol
that we’re
developing together,
with Shell for two years as F1
wanted to push the sustainability
and now for 2030 F1 wants to
become net carbon zero
which also involves
all the hospitality,
so all the paddock, all the traveling
and obviously the F1 cars
and I think it's developing
in the same direction
and together with Shell
we are pushing flat out
to try and make the fuel
even more sustainable
F1 is coming up now
with new regulations for 2026
to make the cars also more efficient
less fuel consumption during the race
even active aerodynamics.
So yeah, they're thinking
about how to to make of one
carbon net zero
for 2030 that's the main target
which I feel like
is really hard to do in motorsports
Yes it’s hard
Race cars going really really fast it’s hard to do but
they've done an incredible job
because when we switched to the
E10 fuel.
Yeah
to be honest
we didn't feel any changes on our side
in like in terms of performance
or drivability or reliability.
It was basically transparent for us
which was incredible work done by Shell
to make it
obviously more sustainable
and not changing
actually the drivability
and the power that we will get
from the engine
which in motorsport is important
We don't even know ourselves
how many horsepower we actually have.
You know, you're roughly somewhere,
we know it's around 1000.
No one says the real numbers
like the engine manufacturers
they don't reveal
Everyone says around a thousand.
So we get the same thing
they give us a graph
and if there’s any kind of upgrade
you know there's a
here's the baseline
and this one's a little bit worse
here, a little better here
Like, well, what are we making though?
like you know, they wont ever telling us
give me the numbers.
I know it's not enough.
How much horsepower you have?
More or less
we're like 750
Yeah. Yeah.
Well that's pretty similar to I think our
internal combustion
Internal combustion engine.
Then we've got the electric
engine that, that adds
like 200 or something like this I guess.
That's only with DRS?
No, we have
so we have the ICE
which is internal combustion engine.
It's around 750/800 horsepower.
Yeah.
And then we have the MGU-K
that is 160 horsepower
but this is fixed for all teams
so limit of the deployment you can have.
And then on top of that, on the straights
we are able to use
DRS on the main straights of the circuit.
Here is a
and opens
the wing and it gives us
another 30 kilometers an hour more.
That is bonkers to see how much faster
you guys go when that thing opens up.
20 miles an hour.
The last second like dive bomb in there
you can't defend it, you’re going
too fast.
You've got, you've got something,
not something similar
but when you spin,
you've got these things
that are opening to slow down,
to slow the car down.
A lot of those are more
a little to slow the cars
so we have roof flaps that come up,
and then we have a diffuser flap
that comes down, a lot of us
to keep car in the ground.
So they don’t go up in the air.
Like our superspeedway
So Daytona, Talladega is like a
two and a half mile track
we run our restrictor plate
we're just wide open all around
How many miles per hour?
We're like 200.
320, that is fast.
So you're in you're in a pack.
Because when you think about
everyone's wide open,
you can't go faster
and so then where you go faster,
how many cars in the race?
There's 40 in the race
and so it's a three wide pack
it'll just go in through there
and so you work the draft
that's where you just spotter a lot.
What do you drive?
Street cars
so I like a lot of old cars
I don’t know if you guys are in the classic cars
I like
My dream car is a 288 GTO. Okay.
That is my dream.
One day, maybe. What are you waiting on?
I mean, they are not easy to find.
They are incredible cars.
You might know a person.
Yes, yes I do.
Yeah, he does he does..
Yeah. Yeah. What do you drive, Carlos?
What I really use during
the weekends
is the Ferrari 812 Competizione.
They just released that car
and that's how I arrived there
and it actually
became my favorite car
ever that I had seen.
Like the look of the car is,
for me, the best road car
the look I've yeah, the line
and everything I'm saying to buy this.
And I bought it
and I bought another one now.
Since I knew that we only use
99% of the same products as in F1.
For that weekend
I go to the Shell stations and I don't,
I don't risk anything else than Shell.
You gotta take care of them.
You start getting the parts and all that
like when you put the right oil in it
and taking care of the maintenance
side of these things.
Well, if it works in your race car,
probably works in your street car
pretty well
and you Charles, what the car
do you drive?
Well, I've got a 488 Pista
but I've also got
the Competizione Aperta.
That arrived already?
No, not yet. In December
but my cars are like my babies
I need to take care of them
Shell Helix Ultra, Shell V-Power in it.
So I know the product
I know exactly how it’s been developed
because we are developing it.
So having said all that,
are you coming to the Paddock or not?
I’d love to.
I’ll sit in the car
and drive those things for you?
Come with us let’s go
Let’s do a ride swap. Let’s try that.