But youâre almost living together. You [and Lewis] have engineering meetings together, youâre in the garage together, youâre at media day togetherâ
So as you can imagine, itâs maybe not the most comfortable environment.Â
So would you just not talk?
No talk.
But how would you prepare for that ? Because youâre notâthatâs not you, though.
Thatâs not me, no.
So what would you do before you were walking into what could be a contentious meeting? How would you prepare to be able to be the battle-ready?
Iâm not good at that, thatâs the problem. I was not good at that.Â
And I didnât have anybody to help me, because my dad was not there at the track because we agreed that was better, âcause I put a lot more pressure on my shoulders when my dad was there, âcause itâs so important for meâI want him to be proud and I want to impress him. I wantâI need his recognition.
So when he was there, I always got a little bit extra pressure. And we kind of realized that and so thatâs why he then stayed back and didnât come so much to races anymore which is great.Â
Yeah, so itâs never really a strength of mine to know exactly what the right thing to say, the right version of the truth. You know, remember, Lando can say âperfect lapâ or âI messed up turn 10,â Both is the truth. And I was not good at that.Â
And Lewis was very, very good at thatâlike in meetings, saying the right thing. So that, and itâs a battle off the track, itâs a huge battle, âcause itâsâdo you have the team on your side or not, and if you say the right thing, then you got the team on your side. If you sayâ
Did you feel the team was on his side?
No, it was divided. Some, some people were camp Lewis and some people were my side, which was important and helpful of course, but it remains tough when you haveâwhen youâre up against the people who are camp Lewis.Â
One of the things that I felt most difficult about was Paddyâbecause Paddy Lowe wasâŚour team principle I think it was called at the time? He won the championship with Lewis at McLaren. So they had an existing very deep relationship. I generally felt that Paddy would, if in doubt, he would be on Lewisâs side.Â
And that was one ofâfor me personally, subjectively, yeah, maybe itâsâyou donât know if itâs true or not, but it subjectively felt like one of the most difficult things for me to deal with. Because Paddy was then most of the time the one discussingâthe first person to discuss any incidents with us was him. Before any other senior people like Toto or Niki got involved, we would do a lot of the incidents just with him first, and that generally was difficult for me. Felt difficult.Â
By the way, Iâm fascinated what Niki Lauda was like in this situation like this.Â
Niki Lauda said, âRight. Tomorrow morning, Monday, I want both of you at my house in Ibiza. We are going to make a discussion around this.â He was the mediator.Â
He did a great job with mediating, âcause what he did as a mediator was, he pushed us each to take ownership of what happened. So to get to a point where you say âOkay, yes, that I actually could have done better. Yes, I understand. That was part of what caused our crash.â Whereas going into the conversation with Niki, itâs 100% the other guyâs fault. And then at the end of the conversation itâs âOkay, yes, I understand that part. Maybe yes, I could have done better and that is my fault actually.â And Lewis the same. And so that then, thatâs theâ
Who conceded first?
No, you donât go together, itâs one by one. So he goes into the house first, comes out, I go into the house.Â
And youâre both outside not talking to each other. Itâs like naughty schoolkids going to the headmaster.Â
And then most of the time, it would be though, not putting us together, but just getting us to a point where weâre calmed, because when we accept that we actually had part of the blame. And then sometimes itâs also then sitting us together and getting to a point where you kind of make a little bit of progress, just take a bit of the tension out, the air out.
