The art of communicating with F1 drivers - A race engineer shares his secrets with Damon and Johnny

The Race F1 Podcast

The Race Media Ltd

Sports

4.5 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 May 2026

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On the latest episode of Stay On Track, Damon Hill and Johnny Herbert go deep on the most important relationship in F1 - the one between a driver and his race engineer.

They're joined by special guest Pierre Hamelin, who listeners might recognise as Arvid Lindblad's race engineer at Racing Bulls. Pierre has developed a reputation as a man who nurtures rookie drivers, having previously engineered Alex Albon, Pierre Gasly, Carlos Sainz, Daniel Riccardo, Liam Lawson, Isack Hadjar and others. But how does he go about helping a young driver get the best out of himself and the car?

Pierre shares his secret tips and tricks, plus Johnny and Damon discuss the evolving F1 title race and why Canada is such an important grand prix for George Russell...

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The Athletic
0:02.7	Well, we had some sad news, very sad news,
0:07.7	and I think we'd like to dedicate this episode of Stay on Track
0:11.1	to former colleague and a former teammate of mine, Alex Zanardi, who sadly we lost.
0:19.3	Great man, big, big heart and a big talent. Incredible what he did
0:24.3	after his accident. Obviously he was a lovely guy as well. So Alex, you will be missed and
0:30.1	but never forgotten. Welcome. Welcome back to another episode of Stay on Track.
0:45.2	Looking forward to this one because we have an exciting show today because we have a special guest who's going to be coming on, who we're going to be chatting to.
0:53.4	This will be our first ever guest.
0:55.0	Yes, it will be.
0:56.1	I'm so excited.
0:56.6	I'm very excited, yeah.
0:58.1	Pierre Hamlin, who is Arvid Lindblad's engineer, but of course he's been through quite a good list of drivers.
1:05.7	So we'll be speaking to him during this episode.
1:09.3	So looking forward to that.
1:27.6	Nothing's happened since we've been away. Ah? Excuse me, something has happened since we've been away. The Miami Grand Prix? Miami Grand Prix, yes. I saw you doing that with your cap a moment ago. Winners' cap, yeah. Now you want me to ask you about the cap, don't you? Yes, please. Can I leave it till later? No, now. I'm supposed to ask Johnny why he's wearing a cap. Yeah. Now, you want me to ask about the cap, don't you? Yes, please. Can I leave it till later? No, no. I'm supposed to ask Johnny why he's wearing a cap. John, why are wearing a cap? Well, I'm wearing a cap because I was down in Miami over the Grand Prix weekend. I didn't see it. I was there for three weeks. No, it was too much traffic. It was too much traffic. It's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot of traffic. So I didn't, I didn't do that. My boss, Till from Lola,
1:47.7	we,
1:48.0	he involved. I was too much. It was too much, too much traffic. It's a lot of traffic. It's a lot of traffic.
1:44.8	So I didn't, I didn't do that.
1:45.8	My boss, Till from Lola, he invited me to his house. We went down there and actually what's the Grand Prix on the television, which was much, much better. But we were tested with a beer, T70S. I think there was. I think there was in my hand. How nice. Yeah, the only 270s, yes.
2:00.2	But while I was there, it was the Concourse Club.
2:02.1	Yeah.
	...

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