Driver61 Podcast

This podcast is a conversation with Willem Toet, Head of Aerodynamics at the Benetton team in 1994.

I wanted to talk with Willem to understand exactly what was going on in the team at the time, whether the allegations of cheating with traction control and launch control were true, and what was really going on underneath Benetton’s engine cover.

This podcast is a conversation with Dominic Hale, project lead at Alpine, where we talk about Fernando Alonso driving a Formula One car at Le Mans in 2021. 

I wanted to know if Fernando Alonso was really pushing, how they adapted the car for such an unusually long and fast circuit, and what was the lap time—would it be quicker than LMP1s or Hypercars? The team also shared the lap time data with me - and it’s fascinating. The team were very well prepared - they’d run many simulations and had engineered the car to be as fast as possible on this incredible circuit. 

This podcast is a conversation with Ralph Hogenbirk, Dutch Drone Gods, where we talk about how Red Bull recently raced a Formula 1 car against a drone - and it wasn’t just in a straight line, it was around the Silverstone circuit - one of the fastest tracks, with the fastest corners on F1’s calendar.

It’s a circuit where Formula 1 cars are very much at home, a track where they’re 42 seconds a lap faster than a McLaren Senna. 

But, in this race, the drone was WAY faster. 

This podcast is a conversation with Stephen Mitas (Technical Project Lead) to understand exactly HOW the Porsche was faster than F1, and smashed a 35-year-old Nurburgring lap record.

It’s crazy stuff, they took their already, extremely fast LMP1 car, and made it over 12 seconds faster at Spa -- that’s 11%, a huge amount in motorsport. 

This podcast is a conversation with Rosco McGlashan who is trying to break 1,000 miles per hour on land. He has so much passion and grit for motorsport and engineering, that I think he might just do it. 

I spoke to him to understand how he has gone from a rocket-powered, 250 mph go-kart to designing a 200,000 horsepower vehicle with the potential to break 1,000 mph - and the engineering behind it.

This podcast is a conversation with Willem Toet, Ex-F1 Aerodynamicist, about the hypothetical question, what would you do to the aero of an F1 car if there were no rules?

F1 or motorsport with no rules, is something that engineers dream about, and the questions have been asked before, we'll cover all of this during this conversation.

This podcast is a conversation with Eloi Roset from team AMZ Racing, who recently broke the 0 - 100 kilometres an hour record, launching from a standing start to 100 kph in 0.956 seconds. 

We break down how the team designed and built the world's fastest-accelerating car and the challenges they ran into. Eloi explains the details of the aerodynamics, suspension, powertrain and tyres, and it’s a fascinating conversation. 

This podcast is a conversation with Willem Toet, an ex-F1 aerodynamicist who worked at Benetton, Ferrari, and Sauber, and is now working with us on Project Inversion - our project to prove that a formula car can drive upside down on the ceiling of a tunnel.

In this podcast, we talk about how Willem approached designing a car for such an unusual project, how he developed through 38 versions of the car's design, and how we're protecting the driver, me, if it all goes wrong.

The podcast also includes a familiar face, Callum McIntyre, who has been researching, writing, and presenting on our Driver61 and OVERDRIVE channel for the past three years.

It's a fascinating discussion, and the podcast gets better and better as you get into it. So, this is the Driver61 Podcast, and here's our discussion with Willem Toet.