Who is F1's best team principal?
The Race F1 Podcast
The Race Media Ltd
4.5 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2026
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Who is F1's best team principal? That's the central question that host Edd Straw and guest Mark Hughes and Nate Saunders (from ESPN) tackle in the latest episode of The Race F1 Podcast.
They scrutinise the 11 contenders across six different areas of expertise before arriving at their decision - politics, team building, media skills, technical understanding, driver management, and commercial acumen. But who will come out on top?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Athletic |
| 0:02.7 | The Race is on, and with Formula One's team principal line up more volatile than ever, |
| 0:16.4 | we ask what makes a great leader and how much has the role changed over the years, |
| 0:20.5 | all in a bit to decide who is F1's best team principle. I'm Edshaw and joining me to take on this challenge are Mark Hughes and Nate Saunders. Well, mate, we'll have to come to you first from ESPN F1, of course. Should we get the painful bit out of the way? Yeah, absolutely. The cringe-worthy bit. Do you want me to... |
| 0:38.0 | I should have magiced it up out of nowhere. |
| 0:39.7 | Yeah, if you're a professional book promoter. Yeah, absolute nightmare. I was halfway here and realised the one thing I should have bought. I do have a book out at the moment. Like, I assume most people you have on at the moment can plug similar. Lando Norris book on his championship winning season last year. |
| 0:53.3 | 100 pictures as well from Getty Images. |
| 0:55.9 | And yeah, just a really nice kind of journal, I think, of... Lando Norris book on his championship winning season last year. 100 pictures as well from Getty Images. |
| 0:55.9 | And yeah, just a really nice kind of journal, I think, of his title winning year. |
| 0:59.8 | So lots of photos, not so much of your business. |
| 1:01.7 | Basically, yeah, they just said, look, we just need words to go with these photos. |
| 1:04.0 | That's all they wanted. |
| 1:05.0 | So yeah, so hopefully the words do it justice. |
| 1:06.7 | Excellent. |
| 1:07.1 | Well, we've got the plug out of the way. |
| 1:07.9 | Exactly. Obviously, a regular Formula One journalist, so... |
| 1:11.4 | But that's what, yeah, that's the first time someone said that, so that's nice. Yeah, you are part of the club, as it were, so regular in the media sense. And last time we did this show, the only time I've been on the race podcast, we talked about how Carlos Sines hadn't had a podium or a good result for Williams. and then the next week he literally seven days later went and got one. So maybe you can bring some similar magic. So you're a good omen. Well, hopefully. |
| 1:31.7 | Or maybe that was it. Maybe that was got it all out of my system there. Well, let's do this as a test, |
| 1:35.6 | see if we can replicate the results. And Mark Hughes, we're going to talk about team principles |
| 1:40.0 | today. It's an interesting topic, isn't it? Because the team principle, it's very nebulous as |
| 1:44.5 | an actual job title, isn't it? It's evolved, hasn't it? It used to be the person who founded |
| 1:50.1 | a team and who owned the team and who was boss and, you know, he'd do whatever his, he saw |
... |
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