The race is on.

2020 is here and it won't be long before we hit pre-season testing and hopefully head to Australia

for the first race of the season. And with rule changes, car upgrades, some big driver transfers,

it's going to be far more than just part two of the 2020 season.

I'm Ed Straw and joining me to look ahead to the big stories of the next 12 months as Scott Mitchell and Mark Hughes.

Scott, hello, how's 2021 treating you?

Yeah, yeah, hi Ed, happy new year. How about those final days of December, eh?

Oh, they were great. Or they were not great.

The December ended. Welcome to 2021. I think there, Scott, you might be revealing a little bit that we're not strictly recording this in 2021. But we'll keep up the pretense. How was your New Year's Eve, Mark?

Oh, I loved it. I watched Jules Holland's own Houtnani, which is recorded in August, I think. So, yeah, I think you can see the similar theme that's going on here. The most bizarre thing about Jules Holland's Hootenny is when Ron Dennis turned up on it, not performing, but just in the crowd one year. That just seemed a little bit unnerving, I found.

Yeah, I think the performance of the B-52s was sub-optimal at that particular performance.

Excellent choice of the B-52s. I can't see Ron Dennis at the Love Shack.

The idea of Ron Dennis doing anything remotely social is confusing to me.

As someone who sort of grew up seeing McLaren and Ron and that sort of era,

being someone who, when the Grand Prix weekend finished,

he was just quite neatly packaged away until having to roll out for the next bit of business

or F1 related.

I can imagine seeing Ron Dennis in that capacity being a little bit like when you're at school and you see like your teacher in the town or in a shop somewhere and it's like just such an unusual clashing environment. Yeah, a little bit unnerving. You just think he goes home and washes his gravel or whatever it is he does. I do remember actually that that famous story about him washing his gravel, remember he gave the, I think it was the Watkins lecture at Allsport International one year, which I attended. And it was a good, a good speaker and an interesting character. But this question about washing his gravel came up. And he said, no, that, no, that's just one of those stories about me. But then he went on to say that, in fact, he did do it once, because when he got his new place, the gravel was a little bit dirty and he realised it was quicker to get it washed than to replace it. So he did that. So while it's ridiculous to say he gets it sort of taken up once a month and cleaned. He still did do it once,

which I quite admire. Yeah, there's plenty of good stories about Ron Dennis. And not for this

podcast, but I'm sure perhaps we'll revisit it one day because he's, yeah, an amazing story,

Ron Dennis and quite a character. But let's get on to 2021, which is, of course, this year, just in case anybody's

confused. So, Mark, it's well known. The cars are being carried over for next year, but it's

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