Paddy Lowe On Leaving Williams And Winning With Mercedes | Beyond The Grid | Official F1 Podcast
Paddy Lowe’s career in F1 took him from Williams to McLaren to Mercedes and then back to Williams. Over the course of that journey Paddy developed some of the biggest tech innovations the sport has seen - including active suspension - as well as working with the likes of Senna, Prost, Hakkinen, Mansell and current superstar Lewis Hamilton. On this week’s show he’s open and honest about it all - including his departure from Williams in 2019 and the new mission he’s on…
Topics in this episode:
0:00 - Wise words from F1 modern great, Paddy Lowe
6:00 - Records, rivalries and tense radio exchanges with Lewis Hamilton
14:01 - Paddy compares Hamilton, Mansell and Hakkinen
20:11 - The pub chat that took Paddy from a packaging company to Formula 1
27:09 - Race-winning inventions and a bizarre moment with Patrese
36:27 - Paddy’s big move from Williams to McLaren
47:34 - Hunting for championships with Mercedes
59:17 - Why Paddy’s return to Williams didn’t work out
1:07:17 - Paddy’s new project: replacing fossil fuels
1:14:52 - Tom reads your messages about Jost Capito’s Beyond The Grid interview
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Paddy Lowe was painted as the scapegoat by the F1 media, but Williams problem is more deep rooted than that. By cross referencing this interview with Jost Capito's interview, we can see one of the main issue was particularly the company's leadership and how it ended up affect the funding, organizational process, and moral. Unfortunately, most F1 viewers allow media sensationalism like Netflix to form their belief.
As a pole I blame mainly C. Williams not Paddy
Money was Williams problem. They were running on fumes for years.
Well said . Paddy is a boss he did his shift time to move on.
@@OOpSjm And the lack of funds was primarily the Boss' (Frank) fault.
It’s almost impossible to change a corporate culture unless the newly appointed leader begins a house cleaning. To me , Williams staffs having no clues what was wrong on the process looked very much like the typical illness of established corporate with long history . And it also has something to do with Sir. Frank’s respectful and humane personality. I don’t think Paddy is not a type of guy who is cold blooded enough to purge old staffs of Williams.
Drive to survive portrayed him as such a bad person, deserves a bit more recognition for what he did in the 90s
Dts is a joke
nah i think they were fair tbh. they said he was a legend and responsible for a lot of the success of williams back in the day (and thats why he kept his place as long as he did).
You make a HUGE and obvious mistake as he did, you deserve the bad press. Always read the rulebook... No denying his technical prowess in the 90s
He went from designing a championship winning Mercedes to designing a Williams that was almost 2 seconds a lap slower than the next team. Probably one of the biggest mess ups in F1 car designing history.
One of the biggest cover ups in F1 was Lewis getting Paddy fired when the appalling reliability on ONLY Lewis' car lost him the title by 5 points whilst the other 7 Merc power units were faultless.
Wow! What an interview,,, This is definitely one of the best chats that I have heard, for a long time! Hat´s off to both of you! Paddy Lowe,,, I knew that you are an amazing engineer and person,, but never realised, just how much!
“Lewis this is paddy” “We need you to pick up the pace”
The absolute scenes if that happened today
To win this race, that's an instruction
“The race is leading me “ “I’m not loosing
Paddy, I'm actually in the lead right now, I'm quite comfortable of where I am"
Nobody wants to admit it but this was essentially a team order for Hamilton to give the championship to Rosberg in the final race of the season when Mercedes had already won the constructors and guaranteed that no other team could win the drivers title. They had zero reason to intervene but did exactly that and gave an order for Hamilton to let Rosberg win. That's a fact. But everyone knows that was a dodgy season. The Hamilton hate brigade will never admit it but Mercedes clearly wanted Rosberg to win. It was a sympathy title for his years of service, which makes the fact that he left them high and dry at the end of the season even more hilarious.
"Lewis, this is Paddy, we need you to pick up the pace to win the race. That's an instruction"
I totally understand why he was saying that the car was holding him back with traction control. The scenario is that he wants to apply more power, but the traction control is denying him (because it's about to slip). In the end he is painfully aware that there was more power that could have been used, but the fact that he would have slipped (and lost time) is only apparent as a possibility.
What a fascinating podcast. I feel like I learned decades of F1 in 1 hour. Well done
Paddy has most systematic way of answering questions his approach to them is what caught me. I loved it kidos to f1 and tom for this podcast✌🏿👊🏿
Whenever I hear the name Paddy Lowe, I remember of the famous "Lewis this is Paddy, We need to puck up the pace, to win this race"
When?
Definitely one of my favourite Beyond The Grid episode. He gave us so much gold.
I am ready for the TEA
😆
Have much more appreciation of Paddy's career and success after listening to this. Thanks
Brilliant chat. I loved the history but the highlight for me was the last seven minutes on synthetic petroleum. Have been following this development for some time and how it could relate to motorsport in the future, and then road cars. So was fascinating to learn that he's putting his decades of F1 experience to work in this direction.
Paddy brought Williams to new levels of Lowe
😂
Claire is to blame. Her fault
@Micro Soft 😂😂😂
Amazing interview, what a great career in F1 Paddy has had …
I need a trasncript of this. "Display of energy." Will be thinking about that for a while. Brilliant.
Paddy was great. Thanks, Tom.
That was brilliant, thank you !!
I met him in Mexico, very happy to take a picture with him!
One of the best interview I’ve ever heard, great job Tom!
Brilliant interview as always Tom 👍
"Nigel... STAND UP" Hahahaha... what a wonderful episode.
Thank you for this insight, entertainment and wisdom F1 and Paddy 🙏
What a interview for F1 fan:) Thank you!
I like they way he analyzed to find the gap to improve.
Great interview
pls release the video too
What a great person! Wish he was back in F1 but loving that he involved in synthetic petroleum .
This was one of the best episodes of BTG yet. Thanks for the great interview Tom. I feel Paddy was painted in an exceptionally bad light after his spell with Williams, particularly in Drive to Survive. I respect his decision not to go into the details in this interview, but feel like he provided more than enough context for why things didn't work out without necessarily getting into the nitty-gritty of what actually happened. Feel like everything he said rings true regarding Williams, and I guess the sale really didn't come as a surprise to him. As a lifelong fan of the team, I hope they are on their way towards the front of the grid. I also massively appreciated the final few minutes regarding the future, technology and climate change. He is an engineer at heart and is ultimately right, in my view, on the often short-sighted drive for ever-"greener" technology. Pleasing to hear someone break it down in such a simple way while still providing a great deal of optimism for the future and the fundamental human ability to innovate. Wishing him and yourself all the best, and thanks again for a fantastic interview.
Fantastic interview! Really enjoyed that, and how exciting re zero petroleum!
oooh just seen the title. Time to get the 🍿
Great angle of Paddy’s nose.
Paddy the Dracula
What has that got to do with his career and Formula 1. That comment of yours is considered hate speech. Really....
@@Lionsraws66 lol it’s a joke. Not much of a sense of humour or are you one of those woke folks.
@@Lionsraws66 oh shut up how is it hate speech 😂
*Paddy's front wing
I would be awesome to hear his honest opinion about who’s the best driver. Senna vs Mika vs Nando vs Lewis . Race engineers are the very ppl who can say it precisely based on datas and experience with drivers.
I don't usually comment but I am now because that was brilliant! I learnt a lot. And Paddy spoke so honestly, I guess because he's currently not working in F1 representing a team, sponsors etc. FYI F1 A lot of people like this more grown-up longform content. I know you are getting the views and growth on KZhead with the kind of content you produce... (not really to my taste... it's like watching Saturday morning TV made for teenagers). You need more stuff like this - and in video. It's weird how sport like Boxing (Matchroom etc) produce KZhead content that's made for everyone. It's just feels more grown up. Not like Saturday morning teen magazine shows, which is how a lot of the official F1 content feels these days.
Great interviews. I'm glad Paddy could have a go after what seems he was thrown under the bus.. Listen to every pod yet there is one missing. Nigel baby! come on Nige do it for the fans...
Great podcast 👏. What a fascinating insight in to Formula 1. Thanks Paddy 😊
Great to hear his thoughts and memories on f1. But he’s a lot to learn about the future of the planet.
What a fascinating man. Honest but not disparaging of others when perhaps one might ought to have been. We can often draw the wrong conclusions as to why someone suddenly leaves a team but when it's someone with 30 years of a experience contributing to a successful winning formula then there has to be other factors at play. I loved the interview.
The Silverstone 1992 story is hilarious 😂
Vert interesting and revealing interview. Thank you for posting.
One of the better interviews in this series. And interesting to hear how much better Mercedes was all these years..it does take some luster away from Lewis’s championships though. And telling how the Williams years were more or less skipped over. Wisely....No point in starting a war of words. I appreciate Pady a bit more now😅. He has had a rough time. Hopefully smooth sailing from now on.
He is right about “Synthetic petroleum, airplanes and racing!
Sensational this
1:06, late nineties & early naughties...😁
Paddy Lowe is a true racer at heart. The competition he had in Williams and McLaren in his early days did not allow him to enjoy the ride at Mercedes as much as he would have liked. Winning was just too simple and going back to Williams then, where winning was simply put impossible, just killed the passion he had for the sport. Should he come back he must pick RedBull or McLaren to go hunting for championships and victories, where being creative can give you some sort of upper hand. I see maybe he could go to Aston Martin as well.
Awesome paddy, we miss u
That was brilliant. Thank you!
best podcast.👍👌
I wonder what that one line of code was
Paddy Lowe was and is a genius !
Definitely one of the best podcast in the series
Active suspension = BADASS
Oh look, Paddy confirmed what i said since 2016. Lewis lost 2016 because of reliability. Not because Nico outdrove him. Not a fan of either but the statistics showed that.
That is also a part of racing though.
Lewis lost 2016 because Nico beat him. Anybody listening to you would think that no other driver suffers from reliability issues during a season. Matter of fact you can say that Max lost the 2020 championship owing to reliability too. Were it not for his 5 DNFs there's no telling how the season would have panned out. Give Rosberg his due and move on.
What about all the reliability problems Nico had in 2015 when he out drove lewis.. Lewis groupies are all sore losers...poor sportsmanship that comes from lewis.
The same way Fernando, Kimi would have won more titles
Paddy has shown his class in this podcast
I still don’t understand how he was the one to displace Ross Brawn but now has no place on the grid. How is that possible, what is the story behind this?
Mess up of 2019 Williams.
He has a big impact in ending the Williams legacy
He messed up the Williams car so bad and lead them down a road they're still recovering in, I think. Also note how easily Mercedes let him go there? Why would Mercedes let their technical director go so easily if they were happy and believed he was a big contributor to their success?
@@lowfeelsblvd I don't think it was him. It was more so the organization as a whole and lack of funding. They were only winning before because of the merc engine.
@@legendparitosh exactly, they have only improved once Williams was sold and more money was injected
"Hi claire"
54:06... Mercedes were sandbagging then and even now... only now its fine quality sand
get this man an award
Race week everyone!
did you mean rawe ceek?
''Claire Williams has just subscribed''
You won't see Paddy in the pit lane again. unless he is there as a supplier of his fuel.
Paddy is a gangster
F1
Wow this is going to be interesting
Impression of supreme greyness and standard haircuts on a Friday 😭😭😭😂😂😂😂
I thought this interview came up before. 🤔
Remember his face at 2016 Spain Grand Prix.
When Paddy moved to Williams, the car became the slowest. It's a fact.
Correlation doesn’t equal causation
@@DRDREAMYBULLMDSBROTHER You can't expect every person on the internet to understand the basic principles of life, you're forgetting the majority of humans are morons
When Claire Williams came into the scene Williams died. Without an effective leader a team WILL fail.
@@SuperIceman44 Frank was the head of Williams till they sold the team btw. When Claire got a lot more power in 2014 Williams actually recovered after a horrendous 2013 season.
@@Bahamuttiamat you can't contribute the failure of the whole organisation to just one person.
Williams will have a big comeback
Key mistakes in Bahrain were made by Lewis (T10 in qualifying & race), RedBull strategists and Masi.
That was a really interesting talk with Paddy. Please interview Nigel Stepney next!
Stepney died a few years ago :(
and... after that... Adrian Newey.
"...it is, of course, Paddy Lowe". Yes, we know. His name is in the title.
Lewis, this is Paddy!
It was a great episode to listen to. But I must admit, I was a little sad that he didn’t ask Paddy about last year’s DAS and what he thought about it.
This podcast should be 5 HOURS LONG lol.
Championship (s) with Williams Championship (s) with McLaren Championship (s) with Mercedes
Returning to Williams and turning up at the first test of the season without a car is kind of not great.
mild understatement
@Alan ALI 12 It was his job to get the car ready. He is definitely partly to blame.
i forgot that happened, horror stories.
Hi
Zoom video wouldn’t hurt
That's like telling the radio station you want footage. That's called television buddy. This is a podcast.....
HEY FORMULA 1 IM EARLY
What do you want? A medal?
_Williams_ could do with him...
Claire ran Williams into the ground
These are great interviews it’s just such a shame about the interviewers voice and personality.
13:30 yeah but don't expect haters on social media to understand that. All of them pretend to be engineer's
mans a legend. full stop.
Okay Cyril
“Let’s bring both cars home”
He created a car that was not only slow and fundamentally flawed, it was unfinished for the first test and illegal as well! There is no excuse for that.
The return to Williams was a very sad and puzzling affair... I write this before listening to this episode...
...stories of Williams Renault traction control... while people pre programmed ride heights metre by metre at McLaren...
...from running on the smell of an oily rag at Williams, to peak financial efficiency at McLaren, then throwing money at problems at Mercedes before returning at Williams as the great hope before being blamed for a decade of decline and no budget. Clare expected a miracle over a single Winter by hiring one man... her last desperate throw of the dice... Clare made all the right management noises, but seems like she ran Williams on a hope and prayer more than ability. Ironic. A bit like Boris and Brexit. Must be an English thing.
He'll always be remembered for Abu Dhabi 2016. The irony of telling the race leader to speed up so that he can win the race.
That wasn't for Lewis himself. It was intended towards Rosberg not getting swamped by Vettel
@@aniket4062 Why didn't Rosberg overtake, then? And if intended to Rosberg, why say it to Lewis? Rosberg getting swamped by Vettel was Rosberg's problem, not Lewis'.
@@quillian_5662 Lewis pushed during Sector 1 where the overtaking opportunity is, and then sandbagged during the other sectors. Shows how bad a track Abu Dhabi is that even when the leader deliberately isn't pushing for 2/3 of the lap you still can't overtake.
@@yapX001 I disagree. The two obvious overtaking places (both straights) are in sector 2. Rosberg could have overtaken many times, but didn't. Of course though, 2nd place was enough. That's why the message from Paddy is silly, because he told the race leader to speed up to win the race, even though he's winning already?
@@quillian_5662 Rosberg getting swamped by Vettel was Mercedes' problem too. They wanted a comfortable 1-2
Please please please get Will Buxton on one of the podcasts!!
Drive to Survive should be ashamed.
He failed badly at his last stint with Williams and that’s what he’ll be remembered for unfortunately.
Sadly true everyone only remembers your failures especially your last one 😞
😍😍😍😍😍
imho a current F1 team has more than de equivalent processing and manpower as NASA had for taking ppl top the moon
I think Paddy saying Lewis lost the title in 2016 because he "didn't have enough in him" must be one of the most insulting hypocritical things I've ever heard. PADDY was technical director and not once has he taken responsibility for the pile of junk that on his watch he gave Lewis to drive in 2016 and is now implying that it's somehow Lewis' fault and he left races on the table. What a load of garbage. Lewis' driving in 2016 was one of his strongest years ever. He had to contend with terrible power units and a teammate who's driving was less than ethical imho (and I'm being polite). The fact that Nico had perfect reliability and only managed to scrape the title by 5 points with LESS wins than Lewis shows you how amazingly Lewis drove that year and how undeserved the title was for Nico. The media and pundits constantly try and gaslight the fans and rewrite history trying to paint Nico as some sort of amazing driver who got into Lewis' head but anyone who witnessed that season knows the real truth.
Williams was an Engineering lead company whereas McLaren was a marketing lead company. Jesus Christ.
Synthetic petroleum....v10s back and simplifying the engines?
Owed it to Nico?! Bull****!! The team had no interest in the finishing order at that point. The constructors championship was already won. The call was abismal and will go down in history as so!
Reading the comments makes me lose hope for humanity.
Max max max super max max