No Ordinary Monday

Braking Point (F1 Engineer)

• Chris Baron • Season 1 • Episode 16

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A tiny part failed, a race unravelled, and a dominant team learned a lesson that reshaped its season. We sit down with engineer and technical leader Ruaraidh McDonald-Walker to trace the arc from childhood curiosity to Mercedes’ hybrid breakthrough, then step into the heat of the 2014 Canadian Grand Prix where creeping temperatures and unseen constraints forced brutal clarity. What failed wasn’t the obvious component; it was an overlooked piece in the electronics. The fix demanded humility, predictive tools, and a culture strong enough to ignore blame and choose action.

We unpack how Ruaraidh pivoted early to electrification, why nobody knew what a racing-grade electric motor should look like, and how Mercedes fused chassis and power unit thinking to create a single, coherent system. Ruaraidh takes us trackside to describe the reality behind the garage screens, the cadence of remote factory operations running on Australia time, and the difference between dyno confidence and race-day chaos. The Canada story becomes a leadership case study: avoid decision stasis, derate early when the data hints at a slow-burn failure, and keep an open mind when physics contradicts assumptions. From there, we zoom out to thermodynamics, energy efficiency, and why electrification isn’t fashion but physics.

For future engineers, Ruaraidh shares practical advice: build things, question sources, volunteer at circuits, and treat creativity as a core engineering skill. Music, Lego, and pinball machines become tools for recovery in a high-pressure world; recovery, in turn, sustains performance. Along the way, you’ll hear how a blame-free culture enabled bold ideas like unconventional turbo layouts and how predictive models turned panic into process after Montreal.

If you enjoyed the story, follow or subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next. Share the episode with a friend, and leave a quick five-star review to help more listeners find the show. Your support helps us bring you more candid conversations with people who build at the limit.

Ruaraidh’s Socials:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruaraidh-mcdonald-walker-1608a64/
https://www.instagram.com/f1ruaraidh/?hl=en

Formula Student Website - https://www.imeche.org/events/formula-student

Formula One 2014 Canadian Grand Prix Highlightsx - https://youtu.be/839YKsTnMns?si=IlB3pLBFWuUzvKZW

Dollar Academy Pipe Band  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc1gVYzFKB0

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SPEAKER_00:

Imagine you're a Formula One team engineer watching all the data streaming in from the car as it races around the track over 300 kilometers an hour. Everything seems fine until you notice something.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm sat there and these temperatures are creeping up. And they're really creeping up. So these temperatures are way too high, guys. We've got to turn this down. We've got to turn this down. They started gradually turning down. We just didn't ever get control of those temperatures.

SPEAKER_00:

Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg are comfortably leading the race. When everything starts to fall apart.

SPEAKER_01:

And that was when I wouldn't say the wheels coming off, but we certainly had a very solid awakening that perhaps we really shouldn't be quite as confident as we we were being at that point.

SPEAKER_00:

Nico backs off, but Lewis decides to keep pushing and unfortunately pays the price.

SPEAKER_01:

So his car failed completely and he burnt out his rear brakes, and that was the end of that. But it wasn't the bits we thought that would get hot. We tested all those, they were fine. It was the bits that we didn't think were going to get hot, and because we didn't think they were going to get hot, we didn't have a way of cooling them.

SPEAKER_00:

These are the kinds of situations you're faced with when you're pushing the boundaries of what's possible at the pinnacle of motorsport.

SPEAKER_01:

Nature's got a way of finding out what you didn't take into account and holding you up to account and going, yeah, see that bit you didn't think about adding sunshine.

SPEAKER_00:

We're going to explore how they got there, what it's really like behind the scenes, and then I'm going to ask them to relive the single most unforgettable experience of their career. Now before we dive into a very quick announcement, I just wanted to say a big hello to any new listeners to the show. We've only just launched about three months ago, and I'm so delighted at the growth of the show so far and all of the fantastic feedback we've had. I'm working super hard to improve the show week on week for you guys, so hopefully you stick around a long time with us as we have big plans for everything from guests to just the format of the show in general. Okay, so on to this week's guest. You guys are in for a real treat this week. My guest Ruri McDonald Walker has spent his entire life obsessed with figuring out how things work. Starting from taking apart toys as a little kid in Scotland to helping to design the most dominant Formula One engine of the modern era, leading Mercedes and Louis Hamilton to break all kinds of records. But as you heard in the intro, it wasn't all smooth failing. Rury released the infamous 2014 Canadian Grand Prix. It was a season where Mercedes were suddenly looking unbeatable. But in Montreal, something happened inside the engines that nobody predicted. Temperatures started to rise and things spiraled, and Rury was in the hot seat trying to avert disaster. A catastrophic double-engine failure was on its hands. What unfolded over the next few laps changed the way that Mercedes engineered their cars and changed how Rury sees pressure, leadership, and the importance of making the hard calls when everyone is looking to you for the answer. It is a brilliant story, and it reveals a side of F1 that goes beyond all of those documentaries we've been watching lately. You're listening to No Ordinary Monday? Let's get into the show. Ruri, what do you prefer?

SPEAKER_01:

Ruri, Ruri is why is the is the normal way, the little Gallic Gaelic pronunciation, but Ruri.

SPEAKER_00:

Anyone reading this episode will be like, how on earth do you say that?

SPEAKER_01:

But there's if you go on any American chat show at night, um night chat show and stuff, they get an Irish guest on and they're like, How do you pronounce this? That's Kiva, obviously. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's Shabon. Siobon is the always the good one, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

What's that age for? Well, it's just Gallic, it's just there it's confused. It's just there's a lot of things. Ruhr Rainer. I've had that one. Ruhrenaha, how are you doing?

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Alrighty, cool. Cool. Let's get cracking. Rury, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today, man? Good morning. I'm very good indeed. Yeah. Fantastic. Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_01:

Where in where in the world are you? So I am literally just north of Northampton, so about half an hour north of Silverstone, which is a home of Grand Prix racing in the UK. So right in the middle of the country.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Long way from the middle of the world.

SPEAKER_00:

A long way. We'll get into that, don't worry, don't worry. And I can't, I mean, for anyone watching this on YouTube, um, I cannot help but notice the incredible backdrop we've got with pinball machines and cars and all sorts of tinkery loveliness.

SPEAKER_01:

Engineers' hobbies, yeah. Engineers' hobbies. It's like electronics, 3D jigsaws, basically, that do things. Yeah, that's what Lego is to me. That's something I've done for years. It's very relaxing. Good way to turn your brain off. Just sit there.

SPEAKER_00:

Amazing. And then I guess this is uh, you know, it's when you're not tinkering in the lab or the workshop, you're at home tinkering with pinball machines and motorbikes and all sorts.

SPEAKER_01:

Motorbikes and old cars down in the garage and Lego and pinball machines, electronics generally. Uh so I'm a mechanical and electronics engineer, so a weirdo. I'm a mixture between both mechanical. I did a joint honors degree at Edinburgh. The only place that did it actually at the time was a mechanical and electrical engineering degree, just to really screw up the drinking time. Um did a double, double joint honors in mechanical and electrical engineering, spigrey. And uh yeah, so I enjoy both. But normally the engineering, you get mechanical engineers and electrical engineers and they kind of and electronics, and the two don't really make so much, though that's changing these days because of the rise of you know software and itch electric vehicles and all that kind of stuff. People are having to go and do things they hadn't normally done. So for me, that was great because I've been doing that all the time. So I thought, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Amazing. Cool. I mean, I guess um first things first is I want to start big and broad. You've got lots of um you know incredible titles and you work for amazing companies, you know, F1, other motorsports companies and big names, McLaren, Mercedes. But I guess beyond the titles and the teams and the the big names, how would you sort of describe to people not familiar with this world what it is you do for a living?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, gosh. Um so for me, what I do right now, I mean, what I've always done is develop develop solutions to problems. That's what engineers do. You you design and create things that that solve a problem that people have, whether it's a toaster or a faster car. Um and that's that's what engineers do. We go off and we create stuff and we take ideas and we turn them into something that can be made and and will help and improve people's lives or entertain people in the case of in the case of motorsport and racing. And you know, that's what engineers do. And that's what I've always done. I've always been fascinated by how things work, and one of those kids that likes taking things apart, and you know, you know, normal. Everyone's seen kids that, you know, have taken that, well, you've broken it now, you've got the skill of putting it back together again. And um and and that's what I've always done. And and so whether it's Formula One or or or racing more generally, it engineering is is creating solutions to problems. And if that problem is how do you make something go around uh a track faster, then that's how you apply it. So analyzing information, coming up with ideas, and latterly as a technical director working with resources, whether that's people, whether it's budgets, the amount of time you've got, because motorsport absolutely, you know, when the flag drops, as the old saying goes, the it stops. Um you've got a very time-bounded project. So hard endings, um, resources and ideas, and delivery of those ideas, working and organizing through complex businesses, uh, the ideas and output of very clever people. Um, F1 in particular is full, it's like a university of the world. You've got people from all around the world, Brazilians, Italians, Chinese, um, Australians, Americans, all in in one office together. Everyone driven, everyone very, very clever. And for me, organizing and pushing that forward and and delivering eventually something which hopefully is successful, that's that's the key part of what I do and what I've always done. But it's all ultimately about like a little kid inside you taking something apart. How does that work? How do we make it better? It doesn't matter if it's not working, how do I make it work again? Or it did work before it took it apart.

SPEAKER_00:

Doesn't matter whether it's just a a tiny Lego car or a hundred million dollar piece of machinery. The same principle applies, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Always, and and for me, one of the things, and which is why I wanted to do you know the podcast, one of the things for me about engineering, and particularly about science and STEM education generally, so science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, um, is forget for young people to see beyond I don't like doing that in school, it's not very exciting doing sums. But this is what it leads to, and this is what you can go and do with that, and this is really making that junction between our education system, which pretty much is goal-driven, you've got to pass this test, you've got to get this exam. Where can you go with that and how do you get there? And that's you know, that's what you're talking about as well. That's really why I wanted to to come on and discuss for you, because that for me is the future of where the business is, future of where um kids go, and and you know, and how they get to what they want to do and their and their goals. So, so for me, yeah, it is just that that simple. It's just a matter of whether it's a hundred million dollar machine or a piece of technical Lego, it's all fundamentally the same problem. And um analyzing, understanding, creating, synthesizing a new idea, manufacturing it and delivering it.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh I want to take it back a couple of seconds. So um you you said uh you know you loved you had that passion for applying the mass figure in why you've got the mass on a page and you could apply it to a real-world problem. And so you you built a career in you you left doing you know mech engine or uh you know engineering and mechanical engineering at university, and then you you joined motorsports building engines, right? What was what how did you what was that? Where where did that come from?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh I I think from a various I mean you can probably ask my parents. My my my father was a French and German professor at Stirling University, and my mum was a librarian and artist uh ultimate Sterling. And uh and so you know, here's me, this weird kid who's bumping around trying to understand how everything works and taking everything apart and not really that interested in the thing. We're all musical, which is kind of maths anyway. And yeah, and but yeah, mum and dad were like, well, where's this kid come from? This is an engineer, and and my grandfather, I think on my mum's side, was a was a civil engineer site architect, that kind of stuff. So I think there's possibly an aspect of that. But for me, it's something I've absolutely always wanted to do. I was always fascinated by trucks, by by lorries, by cars, from an incredibly early age. And I think I've got I've got this postcard here, I don't know. But that was one of my earliest Ladybird books. Mum bought me that, and I've got that's a postcard, but I've got the original book downstairs somewhere held together by by sticky tape, and literally um I've got little sketches of it, and I've drawn little curly things coming out of exhaust pipes. I was probably about three, two, three, I don't know, I have no idea. But that's one of my earliest memories, and but it also reminds me that which is why it stays up there above my desk, that you know, that's from little dreams, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to play with things that went broom from a very early age, and uh that's always what that's never changed, and uh and now they go, but they still they still move and they still chin on their own power. Uh they're a lot more electric now than they were. But uh it was that fascination with vehicles, cars, lorries, um, until that's we've sent planes as well through my dad, because he he flew in the war, and uh and so yeah, it was um always always something I wanted to do. So when I left school and went to uni, then I was casting around kind of halfway through uni and thinking, wow, you're trying to get jobs and very much more competitive these days. But in those days, I just used to wrote a few letters to people. So I'm really interested in doing a summer job or a job when I graduating. And I'd always wanted to work in F1, so I just I think I found when I was going through the library, remember those, and um there was an FT copy of the FT, which had a British industry special, was all about motorsports. And I just went through that article and went down all the companies. I knew I wanted to work in a couple, um, and in the late 80s, early 90s, when I was at university, um Ford um very famously had launched the Sierra Cosworth and the Escort Cosworth, they were absolutely in the press. Um, you know, we had Cosworth Cars and Formula One. I've watched Formula One since I was very, very young. Uh my dad, despite being uh uh a linguist, was definitely a a racing fan. And we sat and watched. It was a thing dad and I did. We we sat on a Sunday afternoon and watched a Grand Prix, but at that time Cosworth were the power supply power supplier. Um that was the most successful F1 engines that anyone ever seen. So um, so yeah, when their name was on the page, I thought, oh, okay, and you know, that's in Northampton. Okay. So wrote them a letter and uh and then went backwards and forwards a few times from Edinburgh to Northampton, which is a fair track um to do interviews. And uh very luckily, my friends, both being in education anyway, had made sure that I was well supplied with engineering dads. Um, I I my mum and dad recognized they were not engineers, couldn't answer the questions that this freak show of a child kept coming up with. And you know, one of my friends' dads, he worked in a foundry in Falkirk. He ran the foundry in Falkirk, so he told me everything there was to know about turning liquid metal into useful parts. So I was very well supplied with engineering dads and people around me that uh that I I was attracted to and uh in terms of learning from and uh to supplied me with all the information that this all thirsty mind needed to do crazy.

SPEAKER_00:

So you were super you were supercharged to go to Cosworth and all those guys, and you were like you were you were prime. Sponge. Sponge.

SPEAKER_01:

And uh so when I went to this interview uh at Cosworth in Northampton, I went through the first interview with the the the um the uh personnel manager and that was fine. Um we mostly talked about rugby because he was a big rugby fan, and my dad had been a rugby ref and and uh been to the internationals in Edinburgh and had rugby a dollar, obviously. Yeah, and then the second interview is the full board, and that was another, that was about a month later. I made it the second interview, the full board of of Cosworth, um, which at the time was a full-service company from rogue cars, F1 cars, all the machining, all the assembly, even the castings, they had their own foundry over in Worcester, so everything casting is important. That's Mr. Brown, the the that was the uh Falkirk foundry manager. So I got questions from all parts of the company, most of which I was able to answer. Um, and then I got a question from the foundry manager that castings is not something most people learn, and I'd be dead lucky because of Mr. Brown, and I was able to answer his question immediately, confidently, and fairly certain in the knowledge that I was not not not BSing in any way. I was absolutely happy that this was the right answer. And his eyebrows went up about half an inch, as did the and a few other people looked at him like, so I'm obviously thinking this was a good thing, because obviously no one else would be able to answer this question or even approach getting it right. So I'm I think that was probably a turning point. So thank you. And uh and yeah, that that got me um that got me into uh into Cosworth, which just goes that all those influences, all those people around you that you can pick up information from and learn from. That I'm pretty sure that got me the job and that got me into Cosworth, and then I spent 10 years learning all about engines.

SPEAKER_00:

So you you've got this good base of Cosworth building, you know, working with engines, engineering the the the I guess you call them the drivetrains in in that world, but essentially the engines, yeah. Powertrains, yeah, yeah. Um and then you obviously and you went to like other teams, Mercedes and McLaren, and you've got you know building engines with them as well.

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, so I had a um an epiphany of half halfway through my career, um, I think things are changing in the world. I've started off being an expert and building myself, an expert in turbocharged internal combustion engines, generally with the torque, torque management, so the way that the engines are managed, um, and what was in late in the 90s, early became direct injection, fuel injection, that kind of stuff. So, all of that stuff, lots of electronics, lots of software, um, all that stuff is kicking off. Uh, and I changed to a small company that were a load, a load of people left Cosworth Engineering after it was taken over. Um, a small company called Integral Powertrain, built in based in Milton Keynes, now called Helix. Um, and it was there for seven years. And during that time, they kind of did that transition that a lot of people are now seeing. They were really early, miles ahead of the curve. And uh, we transitioned from doing internal combustion engine work. I think I ran the first electric motor there in 2005, uh, doing a project called Supergen. And um, that was the first time that I'd used the electrical, well, not the electronic, but the uh the doing pure electrical stuff rather than combustion stuff. So that was 2005, and you know, Prius had been launched by Toyota in sort of late 90s, early, early knots. That hybridization thing was starting to come, it hadn't really hit the main manufacturers yet, but you could see that was the way things were going. I need to get I need to get go back to my joint mechanical and electricals degree and pull the electrical bit up to speed and spend some time doing that. So I think from 2005 onwards, so I spent the first 15 years of my career doing combustion, and I spent the last 20 doing doing electrical or hybrid. Wow. And um, and uh so yeah, so integral powertrain were miles ahead of the curve, and uh they were doing, as I say, small hybridized devices to go on uh on uh combustion engines. I spent a couple years doing that, and it was at this point that Formula One had said it was going to go hybrid. I thought because I've been a Cosworth that before one, uh get back into Formula One here, and uh so I applied to work for Mercedes, Mercedes Brixworth, so that's where their F1 engines are made, uh Mercedes and Brackley, which is the other side of Silverstone, that's where the cars are made, the two come together to the engine and car to make the to make the successful uh Formula One racing team together. But yeah, so I applied over to Brixworth behind me there. And uh basically they they was just starting the project where they were making those first Formula One hybrids, and that was for the 2009 Formula One season, so I sort of joined there at the end of 2007, beginning of 2008, um, a year to a year to get all that stuff sorted out. Um and that really was a fascinating time because I think if everyone looks at uh if you're a car person, you you kind of know what a road car engine looks like, and it's got a bit of iron on it, and it's all fairly heavy and and and manufactured. But if you look at Formula One engine, you're gonna see this beautiful piece of filigree and it's everything's machined all over and it's all exquisite. And if you look at an electric motor, like an industrial thing, you've got something with some feet on it and a little connection block on the side and a fan on the end and some ribs down the side, and that's an electric motor. What does a racing electric motor look like? Nobody had any idea because no one had done that before. And uh so that was a key learning experience. Nobody knew what a racing electric motor should look like. So when you take a bunch of Formula One engineers and apply some electrical constraints for other combustion, right, lads, let's go mad and see what we can dream up and make a really fast, light, incredibly efficient electric motor, and a lot of learning and a lot of failures and a lot of stuff going on to get to the point where you know we had a relatively successful electric motor, um, we had uh a battery that would fit in an F1 car that was robust, uh that that that failed reasonably benignly when you crashed it, which of course you kind of expect to be in an F1 car. And it was an incredibly creative time for you know, what does a high performance Formula One motor look like when it's electric? And so that was a that was a wonderful time. 400 volt motor, um, it was 60 kilowatts, 80 horsepower, um uh for about seven seconds of lap. So not particularly ambitious, but but nevertheless, a little boost F1 was doing, and we were pretty happy with that. And so I went um because uh of a of uh one of our chaps had a had a personal issue, um a family issue, then he couldn't go at the track. So I was at the track quite regularly, and uh and again a wonderful learning because then you learn how to deliver stuff. Um work at track is very different from the kind of work back at base where you're developing stuff for the future for the following year. Work at track is we've got to make this work tomorrow or tonight, or by you know, the next qualifying.

SPEAKER_00:

Someone's crashed a car and qualifying, or or you know, and they've got to or in in a practice and they've got to be waiting for the colour.

SPEAKER_01:

Or something goes wrong, and how do you you've you've got someone swearing over your show? Oh, get the car out of the track.

SPEAKER_00:

I wanted to ask, I mean, so many people listening, you know, as you as you probably know, F1 has exploded in the last, you know, since Tribe Survive Netflix series is gone gangbusters compared to, you know, I I've been a fan, you've been a fan for much longer than I have. But anyway, so many people listening might now be Formula One fans, and they've seen the races, they've seen the documentary, they've or whatever. But what's it give us your perspective of what being behind the scenes trackside on a race weekend with a team like Mercedes or whatever, what's it like? So it's never as glamorous as everyone thinks it is.

SPEAKER_01:

Um and and if I look at a typical race weekend, and that doesn't change for anyone, everyone that does it thinks that, oh yeah, all your guys up and down the path, they're all enemies. No, you've got mates in all the different garages because you're all it's like politicians. Everyone thinks that everyone in the parlour in parliament is sort of somehow they hate a people on the other side of the parliament. Well, you know, they're a politician, you're a politician, and you all sit in the bar together afterwards and have a point. Because you know, you've got the same life experience, and the same's true with the garages and in the pilot. Everyone's traveling. Are you traveling next year? Yeah, I'll be traveling next year. Yeah, and it's that traveling lifestyle, and that's what everyone from mechanics to engineers to team principals, they're all they're all part of that traveling family, and it is definitely a family. Uh so that part of it is wonderful. Um, the part that everyone expects is hyper glamorous and stuff. It it there are awful, awful long hours. Um, there's a lot of travel. Um, and it it pretty much goes taxi, airport, airport, crew bus, hotel, crew bus, track, crew bus, hotel, crew bus track, repeat to fade, finish race, hopefully won some pots, go back to hotel, pick up bags, crew bus back to airport, airport back to home, taxi back to base. That's a race weekend. Jeez. And if you're stuck in your own job, bubble, whatever you're concentrating on. So for me, that was generally sat in the back of the garage or in the truck at the back with you know a laptop looking at data. Uh, and on the radio, you've got the radios in front of you, the buttons of the radios in front of you. You see those guys out in the pit wall with all the screens and all the radio buttons. Everyone in the garage has that. You just don't see them, you only see the guys on the front, or as it's colloquially known, the Pratt perch. I mean, for American viewers and the the important people sit. Uh engineers don't get to sit in the back, and you occasionally see some of the ones in the garage. You don't see all the guys at the back who uh you'll see all the mechanics, yeah. Come out and do the pit stops and all the stuff and you'll see them putting the car together and sweating on the top line when they go out to the grid. But there's a whole bunch of people at the back in in and sitting there on the laptop and running away.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, speaking about those um, as I said, pushing the limits and finding the stress points and coming across problems, because you are pushing the limits to technology. Always on on this show, we always like guests to come on and share a you know a uh the most standout sort of or one of the most standout experiences of their career. And I know you have a particular fascinating story to tell that kind of covers that same spot. But I'd love if you could preface this. Just just give because I know it's an F1 story, it's when you're at Mercedes, but just sort of preface this story for where Mercedes were at at this particular season before this race happened.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, sure. I mean, so for me, this is this is 2014. And it it it was an incredible time. We we'd spent the year before, two years before, working incredibly hard on on this this system, on the engine, the powertrain itself. And I think unlike many of the other teams, the wonderful thing about Mercedes, even though it was in two separate factories, they worked very, very cleverly to make the car and the engine one and the same. And that everyone had to compromise. Everyone had to feel that bit of pain in how it was all put together. Nothing was easy for anyone. Um in the way that the vehicle was constructed to accept parts of the engine, the way the engine was constructed to make it easier for the vehicle. All these kind of things were done. Um, I'm thinking particularly of the turbocharger, which was like four feet long. And now, why have you done that? Well, because the air is at one end, the exhausts are the other, right? So it just makes all the plumbing easier. And that was a very difficult problem to solve. And it was a bunch of incredibly clever guys at Mercedes that went to Cranfield and they looked at helicopter gas turbines and did amazing work. And in the middle of it, there's this little motor that we looked at, and we had to make it all all work. And and we we had a system, uh a fault system, uh, an open issues system, which we looked through and then we're the on that preceding sort of six months before that season started, there was a um there was a sort of top ten, what's the biggest job stoppers that and everyone was concentrating on that. And we had a system where there were no meetings in the afternoon, no meetings, everyone works, and everyone works till you know till the job's finished in the evening and the food will be provided, don't worry. And you know, that kind of thing. And it was proper blitz spirit, real blitz spirit. And I I think on one day I worked 25, 26 hours a day uh on a Friday. I didn't finish until you know the next day. You know, I literally worked round the clock and then some, and then I went home and slept for a day and a bit, and that was the weekend. Um but you know, th those kind of times are pretty intense. Yeah, because winter testing is one of those things uh uh that cadence of the F1 calendar, you'll see that that you're all excited in March because you know the first race is coming up. Well, we've all been doing this stuff since before Christmas. You know, we've just gone through where are we now, what week thir 41 or something 42. Week 38 is the traditional dead point, that's when the engine for next year has to run. Um on the factory side and the track side guys are out, they're chomping at a bit and they've been at home now all November on January, they want to get out and do some stuff. Um we get down to Hereath or wherever it is to do winter test, um, and that's it. This is the first time. No one knows, especially with a big change like 2014, no one knows where everyone else is gonna be. And you know, oh, are they hiding the light under a laurel or whatever? And some people are having real big issues, and and you know, uh, and some of the other teams were struggling, and oh no, fast, and and we seem to be doing quite well. I'm like, okay, that's scary. Uh cross fingers, no thing, lads, and judge it. Touch wood, yeah. And then, you know, we had the first race of the season, we had a failure on the way to lap on on the first lap to grid. Oh no, it's gone wrong. But the other car was really successful, and then the next race, which is incredibly successful, and I was like, Crikey, what's going on here? We're not winning all these races. And it was very clear very early on that we had the class of the field and and that you know, this was people had already winter test, people had already gone. The bookies here in Northampton are really well sussed. As soon as winter test happens and people start appearing in Mercedes uniforms and putting bets on, the the alarm goes out to everybody in the whole country. All bookies, all the odds start shortening, and you get your money on quick. And um, of course, I don't do that kind of thing, but yeah, people do that. Of course, yeah, yeah. People do, yeah. And uh, and yeah, so it was clear that we were in a really good situation. And and for me personally, you know, we had people like Nicki Lauda around the team, um, and you'd see him in the office. And for me, that was a proper, proper star struck movement. Nicki Lauda, it's actually Nikki Lauda with his little red hat on, and you know, a guy that I'd watched since the 70s, you know, since he was hunting Nicki Lauda when I watched it with my dad, you know, I was age seven. And um, so I was actually Nicki Lauder. And I'm sitting there with friends who've been in the business their entire long pinching yourself. So this is the experience. We've had winter tests, we've had the first few races. I was in the factory for the first few races, so that you know, generally that's the start of the season, this is like Australia or something like that. And and so the factory will work on Australia time. I was in the office, I've got big screens all around me, I've got all the data, and I've got the radio buttons. The same we should do the track. You've got that in the factory in in Northamptonshire. I'm sat there, I'm on Australian time, I've been in Australian time for three days, even though I'm in Northamptonshire, which makes life entertaining. And we're winning, yeah, we're winning a lot. And I've got a picture of me from I think race four with all the trophies on like this. I was on my LinkedIn for a while, but it was a bit embarrassing. But it was an incredible time. And then we got to Canada. And and that was when I wouldn't say the wheels coming off, but we'd certainly had a a very solid awakening that that perhaps we really shouldn't be quite as confident as we we were being at that point. That there were still things that we didn't know about this wonderful system that we created. And well, literally, I'm sat there in the office with the data streaming. This is Canada time, so I'm sat there and these temperatures are creeping up. And they're really creeping up. And we're miles in the distance. We're like slow down, lads. We don't need to be this fast. We're we're miles in distance. You know, Lewis and and Nico are both romping off in the distance. So these temperatures are way too high, guys. We've got to turn this down. We've got to turn us down. This star gradually turned it down. We just didn't ever get control of those temperatures. And we I was too I was too late spot in that.

SPEAKER_00:

Just for audiences, the the you you guys are you have the ability remotely to control the car as you know as the team.

SPEAKER_01:

So no, no, absolutely. So that's very 80s. We certainly could send stuff to the car. Now very much not the case. All the things that you'll do, you'll hear commands in the radio like uh send X26, and the driver will be told to press a series of buttons, and that will execute a command. So it's very much um what driver executed like to call wetware, i.e. people. Um and uh you you have to identify the problem and then send the fix to the driver who has to implement it. But yeah, so here we are at Canada and these temperatures are creeping up. And you know, we hadn't the thing about Canada, it's a very short lap, and it's got a lot of chicanes in it, and it it comes around quick because it's a short lap. And uh we just didn't have the cooling. But it wasn't the bits we thought that would get hot. We tested all those, they were fine. It was the bits that we didn't think were gonna get hot, and they were getting hot. And because we didn't think they were gonna get hot, we didn't have a way of cooling them. Uh that's when it all became a problem because they just kept going up, and we're turning things down and turning things down, the guys at the trackers kept turning this down, keep turning it down, and we never really got control of the temperatures of the electronics on the board that controls the motors. And once they got to sort of like 127, the maximum that in the red line in the in the system was that the the guys at the track were working to was 110, and you know, we were all sort of and and they were turning it down and it wasn't working. And we got to 120. So this can't go on like this. This can't and and then it didn't. At that point, it was like, okay, the the MG UK is within about a lap of each other, the MGUK, so that's the one that's doing the regeneration and of the of the vehicle, so that's braking assistance on the rear axle, yeah, all that kind of thing, they both went, they just died. And so the teams the team had been warned this is gonna happen at some point because we'd failed to get control of it. And and as a result, both cars had MGK failure. And the motors were fine, all the dry stuff was fine, but some tiny little piece of electronics we were subsequently able to find had died. Like 0.0005 cent part, you know, you buy them on a reel of a thousand. Oh my god. It got too hot, it got 127 degrees, which frankly is pretty good because you know, normally for electronics, 110 is fine. So, you know, did all right. We shouldn't have let it go that hot, was the lesson. Um, and that was that was the key thing. In the terms of that race, um the T the drivers basically had to move all their brake bias back. They'd lost all the rear braking because a lot of the rear braking is done by um by the MGUK, uh, and so the rear brakes aren't that big. And so basically they had to had to change the way they drove. And Nico managed it, and and Lewis was just he was head down and he was going for it, and so his car failed completely and he burned out his rear brakes, and that was the end of that. To retire the car. And Nico managed to get it to the finish line, and we we got a reasonable salvage finish. But for me, the the real interesting part of that began when all the parts get in someone's luggage and and flown straight home strafted. And that's when the real interesting part starts. That that what we call a cat one fault. Um so that was when we had a major job stopper, i.e. a race failure, which this was double race failure, it's even worse. Um though discipline-wise, you treat them as separate failures until you know they're not. Um so two investigations ongoing, and then we went through the whole thing to understand what was going on, how we'd missed it, what had caused it, what we could do about it within the limits of the hardware we had in front of us. Um we had to plead to the FIA for a you know an opportunity to put some reliability fixes in, please. But also change the way that we run it and and look at how we help the guys at the track run the car. So give them better tools that will because it was a very slow rise, which makes it very hard to predict. So we had to develop tools that would then say, Well, actually, if you carry on like this with this very slow rise, by the end of the race, you're gonna be in the red line. So you need to kind of turn it down now. It's the rocket adjustment. It costs you very little fuel to adjust the the trajectory early, but if you do it at the end, you know, you get no chance. It's time. So it's that kind of thing, and that was what we developed. So we had to develop that, and that meant working with the the reliability team, the electronics team, the dino team, pulling everybody together to to come up with solutions that would allow us to fix this problem in a timely manner and get the car because the next race was coming up pretty quickly, and then we had Austria, which again high, hot, very short lap, very aggressive lap, and it was the same same problem.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, so that's um I guess I guess just to to explain that for people that they on on the the longer straights you got time to cool brakes and all that kind of stuff. But when you got short laps, yeah, you don't have you don't have the long straights that help you get the air to cool the brakes, you're just on brakes all the time.

SPEAKER_01:

Monaco and then you know Austria and Canada and the classics. And yeah, they're they're difficult for other reasons, and these are the reasons. So for me that was a really important time because it was about A, managing information, the flow of information around the whole company and pulling stuff together and bringing it together, B coming up with solutions under extreme pressure, um, and making sure that everyone was working in the right direction. Um C making sure that people could think. There's one of the worst things to have in that situation is something I call decision stasis, or latterly developed that idea. Is what sometimes you are you're not sure what the right answer is. Um and actually most people are and they've kind of freaked, they're not really sure what to do. And and for me, especially as a technical leader and now latterly as technically writer, that is literally my job to make that call. And sometimes it might not be the right one, but you've got a direction going now, so we're not we're not sure which way to go. Is it there or is there? Well, I'll go that way. Well, it doesn't seem to be the right answer. Okay, well, when we reviewed, that's uh showing we should probably go that way. Well, we didn't know that though, but we uh actually no, we know you've got to make some move to get some data, and sometimes that pressure is that classic, you drop the steak in the pan and it shrinks, and oh well you know what to do. And as a team leader, as a director, you know, that sometimes you just have to absorb the pressure, you go, No, that's all right, you're gonna do this, you're gonna do this, and you guys get on with the that bit, let me worry about that bit, and we'll get on and we'll get a direction. And and sometimes you just have to make that decision, and you're not sure either. But you say, Well, uh, what I do know is if we don't do anything, we won't find the answer at. But if we go in that way, and then you keep an open mind, that's absolutely the most important thing in engineering. One of the things that I find in in some other in other ways of working, other cultures, is you kind of get that pin the tail on the donkey, it's that, and I'm gonna fix that. Well, actually, you don't know it's that. You've kind of made that assumption that it is an assumption when you want to say about making an afternoon and me. Um, that it's it's an important one to say, I don't know this answer. And that's probably another lesson. But I think that one of the things that was wonderful about Mercedes, and that that's told me a lot actually, and that's definitely something I took from Mercedes, is complete lack of blame culture. In that time period, it was amazing. I heard that there is no fear of being wrong. Because if you didn't break something, you clearly weren't trying hard enough. Yeah. So and the whole point about F1 is you should be trusted. That lack of blame where people can go, I'm not sure about this. They're not what as soon as you say that's your fault, that's it. All creativity goes out the window because no one will try because they'll go it's your fault. And you you made a message, you've messed up, you've cost us this. And all of that it's that no, never. It's a team effort, and it has to be if you want to succeed, people have to feel free to make crazy ideas. Let's make a four-foot-long turbo, because you know, why not? And and I and I love that that that about that time period was that freedom of thought, uh, freedom of solution caused by the fact that people didn't have to worry about blame. Um, and that's a sadly a very rare thing, actually, in engineering generally. Um in industry generally.

SPEAKER_00:

In anywhere, yeah. I mean, give I mean that that situation is is extreme. I mean, you're lucky to um to come home with a result with Nico, but um I mean not lucky, but obviously, I mean that whole sequence of events though, you could see the temperatures ticking up. I'm sure there was a dialogue between the drivers and their race engineers the entire time saying, we can see the temperatures going up, try this, try that. And they're probably constantly trying different solutions in the car, each of them not working. I mean at the end of the day, like in that sort of post-race team debriefing, like are there I mean ha from Lewis and Nico, like what are they saying? Are they kind of deflated? Are they emotional? Like, everyone's everyone's disappointed that they just want to understand what's going wrong.

SPEAKER_01:

Because it's something I could have done. Could I have done something better? Yeah, I mean, there's lots of things we could all do better. And that's and everyone has that introspective 360 look at you know, where where can we go? What can we do? And and at the factory side of things, certainly we spent a lot of time looking at that, coming up with tools for the guys at the track to help the drivers and say this is what we need to manage, this is how we need to manage the temperatures, and if we don't do it, that's what it's gonna look like in you know 50 laps time. And and the next race at Austria, we had a one, two, three, four. So, you know, there's that. So you fixed it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I was I was gonna say, does a does uh does an event or a situation like that, because at that point, did you have a feeling of like I guess maybe not in vulnerability, but like you're like, huh, we're doing well, we don't know exactly why we're doing well, and then suddenly you get a reality check like this. Uh did it burst a bubble for everybody?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh I think everyone's always reasonably stressed anyway, and they don't want to assume anything that I think was possibly a little bit of I don't think hubris creeps in quite that early in a season, but I do think we were probably overconfident. And uh we should have I I should have been massively more aggressive in turning, telling the guys at the track in no uncertain terms to turn it down much more aggressively, much earlier in the race. But that's hindsight, and it's always 2020.

SPEAKER_00:

That's what I was gonna ask you. So there was, you know, with with the benefit of hindsight, you know, that's what you would have done. You would have gone, you would have seen the temperatures going up and going, we have we have a potentially critical issue.

SPEAKER_01:

I simply would have said that's it. We don't need this performance, turn it down to 50%. We're like changing it by 5% at the top, we come down from 110, 105 to 100 to 95. No, we should have just gone straight to 50. Let's get control of the temperatures. And once we've got control of the temperatures, then you don't need it. Well wow, we've got 10, 15 seconds on the leave. You don't need this stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

You know. Um But is that is that just down to you know, no one wants to sort of tell a racing driver to, okay, we're gonna scale things back to 50 percent.

SPEAKER_01:

It's never just the driver's decision, it's a team ever. And I think that's a good thing. Everyone wants to win. I should have made that much clearer to everyone. But then I didn't realize it was going to carry on rising so slowly for so long. And then you're at that in that big rocket that that rocket trajectory thing where you're at the end here, and now to make that change that way, you've got to burn a hell of a lot of fuel. Or in our case, turn it a long way down to try and get get back into control of the situation. So lots of learning, and uh yeah, don't don't ever think that something won't happen because it generally will find nature's got a way of finding out what you didn't take into account and holding you up to account and going, Yeah, see that bit? You didn't think about that, did you? Sunshine? Yeah, didn't think about that.

SPEAKER_00:

And someone who's at the cutting edge of uh of battery technology, because we've seen so much development and innovation in batteries in in recent years. I mean, do you see just uh an increased electrification across the board, you know, replacing um, you know, especially vehicles and combustion engines and things like that? Yeah, I think I love engines.

SPEAKER_01:

They live and breathe. They're uh they're the living heart of the machine. Um, I always have loved engines and I always will love engines, but are they something we should be doing habitually uh as a society? No, probably not. Will I always have a classic motorbike? Absolutely. Will I have a classic car? Yes. Will it be my main car? Absolutely not. Will it only do a few hundred, maybe a thousand miles a year? Definitely. Would I use it to drive across, you know, would I I'd drive to Germany to see my wife's family, um, you know, drive to go skiing in electric cars. Um, I've had electric cars for seven odd years. Um and don't get me wrong, the last three cars I had before my electric car was of well V8s, you know, those six sixty-three AMGs, you know, monstrous great big 500 plus horsepower V8s. But you've got to remember, and I say this as an engine guy, in most cases, if you put a hundred quids worth of fuel in your car, you might as well take 20 pounds out of your pocket and then burn 80. That's what you're doing. You're literally putting a match or a cigarette lighter underneath 80 pounds of your money, throwing it in in the air, and you're 80% of that fuel you put in is a complete, it's just gonna the energy just gets. Anywhere where we burn stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Any anywhere where we burn stuff, that's the same. And some diesels are a bit better, that's why people like diesels because they're more fuel economical. But in in a in a car, still probably only 35, maybe 40% if you're lucky. Um in a big diesel going slowly like a container ship, 55, 55%.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, half of half of basically in the best case scenario, half of the fuel you put in is just wasted. The energy's wasted.

SPEAKER_01:

And that's not because we're bad at this. This is called the laws of physics, Captain. And you know, and you we can't do better than that. People say, Oh, yeah, things will improve with time, and uh no. There is a physical limit to how far we can go, and efficiencies and natural reality mean we can approach that, but we can never beat it. And yeah, and that that is these these laws have been known, the laws of thermodynamics, and and uh these things have been known for the Carnot cycle, also it's all been known for a very long time since the sorry since the 17th century. And uh, and you know, we can do really well, but we never beat you never beat physics. And and and there is always a loss of energy. Whenever we do something, there's always a loss of energy. So it's about minimizing that loss of energy.

SPEAKER_00:

Just uh just wrapping things up here, I always love to ask um for anyone listening, you know, because people click on all sorts of episodes, you've got all kind of careers off here. And if someone's an aspiring engineer, particularly if they want to get into Formula One or some kind of high performance motor sport, if they want to follow in your footsteps essentially, you know, what what kind of words of advice have you got for them?

SPEAKER_01:

I think listen to your maths and physics masters in school, probably better than I did. Um really tough competitive world out there now, and we were talking earlier before we started about AI and things like that. So there's a huge amount of uh of that kind of thing is gonna affect the workplace, affect how people work. Um and that's gonna be a key one. But the fundamental skills of how you think, analyze data, analyze information, and come up with new ideas, that does not change. And AI will only interpolate between things we already know. It will not take us beyond that. That's your job. Uh and coming up with new ideas and changing the world is the the requirement for the next generation. Go go do it, go take your dreams and make them happen. Don't think that AI is the solution to everything. Like we said at the uh beginning of this conversation, the guys that made Concord in the 60s with slide rules and drawing boards. That's kind of where we are right now. I I feel that's where I am right now compared with people that are growing up AI native. They're a step above where I am. I feel like a guy. But those guys with slide rules and drawing boards achieved amazing things, and they did that all through the power of their own brains. And I worry slightly if you rely on AI that you won't develop those. So for me, go think, learn those skills. You will need them, even if the AI will make it shorter, you know. You know, calculators and that kind of thing, they were a big thing when I was a kid. You can't use calculators in his end. And and that suddenly that that was a problem, and uh we don't no one would think anymore once we had calculators. And I'm sure the same's true of the way I view AI, but yeah, definitely get out there, learn those skills, maths and physics. The other thing is go out and enjoy yourself, go out and find an old motorbike or an old Omar or whatever it is that fascinates you that you want to understand. Don't ever feel that you shouldn't go out and dig and understand things and just go and find knowledge for the shake of it. Everything that's on your phone, you know, we've got these marvelous devices, and all we do is we shout at each other on the internet. But literally every piece of information that is in the world is out there. You can use Wikipedia, you can use whatever you like. Um, and just go and learn about stuff. Be careful of your sources, be judgmental of your sources, understand good quality sources of information and junk information, whether it's AI slop or it's someone with an axe to go and understand where that stuff's coming from. But the fundamentals don't change. The laws of physics, math, all the rest of it. That stuff is we we we still learn new stuff every day, but the fundamentals of that don't change. Go and learn those first. Go and enjoy yourself, as I said. Take things apart. Go and race carts, go and rock up a local, you know, motorsport garage, or if you've not got one, you go to your local racetrack. Find someone whose shop you can sweep up if you're young and you want to help and you're 16 or something like that. Yeah, go and just find get yourself exposed to it. Learn marshalling, that's another one that's often if you go to your local race circuit, volunteer to be a marshal when you can, get involved that way. These things are really key and they're really formative in looking at and and F1 in particular, Mortsport more generally, is such an incredibly competitive space. You know, I remember when I was looking at grad schemes now as a as a as a senior, looking at who we we should hire into grads, you pretty much had to have a first in engineering from a recognized engineering university. You had to have done a formula student, you had to have done um extracurricular activities related to, or at least showing some interest in motor sports. For me, music was always a good one because music's highly mathematical anyway. Um, so an understanding of music or going off and doing stuff that requires effort, you've got to get that. You've gone off and done something at a level which requires that 10,000-hour commitment that everyone talks about, that you know, four years of blum and hard work to get to uh grade eight on the piano or whatever it is you've done, that demonstrates serious commitment to learning and improving yourself. And that for me is something when I'm looking at a C V if I oh I just completed these projects at uni and I did these exams, wonderful. Tell me about you, and and that that development of you as a person, um, that will help you in space and it will make you you know you'll have more fun and you'll uh meet other people. Uh engineers officer struggle sometimes to get out and for me that's a good thing about going and doing music. Um, but get out, you know, whether it's a being a marshal, going out working for uh companies as a as an apprentice, um get out and experience motorsport and and and and prove to the people that you you're asking to be hired by that that you live and breathe it and you love it and you understand it and it's part of who you are because that's actually fundamentally what F1's like. Um it can be all consuming. And uh I got a lot of water lines to prove it, but it's um it's still a lot of fun, and I still regard it as something which makes me want to get out of bed every morning and and enjoy and enjoy work on a on that Monday morning, you know, the the title of the podcast. Uh it's not an over Monday morning when you get out. I'm really excited to get to work today because most people don't do that, and and I'm really lucky to be able to say that I do do that, and I want everyone else to live in that enjoyment and uh be able to work in work. Learn new things, create new ideas, potentially change the world and uh improve a lot for everybody else, that we can make more efficient cars or medical sensors for your needs, or be able to have seamless wireless on the train or whatever it is that you do um that comes from that F1 experience, um, but you'll have a damn good time doing it. Um, and it's not just something on the tele, it's something that you can do too. Um, and that that's a key one for me.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, um I mean funnily enough, you mentioned uh music and the connection with with engineering and and maths and stuff. And you and I went to the same uh school, Dollar Academy, uh, way back in the day. And I know you were a piper in the pipe band.

SPEAKER_01:

I was a drummer at the time, I'm a piper now, but I was a drummer at the time.

SPEAKER_00:

You're a piper now, but you're a drummer at the time. Oh, fantastic. It might be a controversial question, but in your experience, do you think musicians make better engineers?

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know, actually. I think creativity comes in many places. Um and uh musical creativity is one thing. I think it the the the discipline of of of understanding and learning music and and learning any skill, I I think it's whether that's art or artistry, engineering is fundamentally uh creative uh endeavor, whether you're drawing something or whether you're just dreaming up an idea or writing code or whatever, it's a creative experience. Mum's an artist, and and and I remember setting a party once when I was at university. So, how are you? Artist or engineer, how are you saying? Well, I draw a cylinder head, mum draws landscapes, what's the difference? Yeah, yeah, you know. Yeah, and fundamentally both are creative experiences. One is designed and limited by the laws of physics and combustion and mechanical engineering, and the other one is art and appreciation in the eye of the beholder. But you know, you could equally have the same argument and saying, well, is perassium and watercolor is the same thing, you know. You get into all discussions about art history, and yeah, it becomes philosophical, yeah. But it's all creativity, and I think for me, music is generally the uh mathematical brain, especially in time and complex time signatures and that kind of stuff. If you can do you know music and complex time, then you've probably got a pretty mathematical brain anyway. You might not know it, you might hate maths, but actually you might secretly be good at it if you put your mind to it. You found something that you wanted to do with it rather than just um and that's the same, the same is uh true of bell ringing and other things that you do. So but yeah, for me, yeah, I've always had musical instruments around me, so I find it very relaxing apart from the else. So and I've got a you know, it's a bagpipe chanter right there, so you know, there you go. And if I'm sat there between meetings, I'll have a quick tootle and play something and practice something or do some scales or whatever. Um play practice some do practice some GDEs or whatever, uh, do something related. But it's a good brain switch off. Some people enjoy gardening, gardening leave, and uh and play music, do something because it's a high pressure environment. So having something which you can do, Lego, uh to relax your to relax your mind, turn it off and and just enjoy your your spare time. Because if you're gonna do the best you can in the F1 world, the other thing you have to be able to do is switch off and relax, because otherwise it won't be any good when you get back in on Monday morning.

SPEAKER_00:

That's true. I mean, I'm kind of I mean, would you would you uh play the chanter for us? What you got a little um the channel you can do? Oh god. Come on.

SPEAKER_01:

You can put me on the spot then I know. Well that actually worked.

SPEAKER_00:

Let's see. That was brilliant. Scott the Brave. Just for just for uh any non-Scottish listeners listening to that, a chanter is it's kind of like a practice bypipe, isn't it? Yeah, it is, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of a bypipe without the bag, you know, so it doesn't have the same sound, but it's the same principle.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and then all the all the holes that are that are there. But yes, just uh you'd normally have the bag there and you play it down there with a with a bag in between, but and also much louder. You can play that inside. Like bagpipes inside.

SPEAKER_00:

If you had a pipe or a bagpipe, I probably wouldn't have you uh blow people's ears off, but um that was brilliant.

SPEAKER_01:

Very, very loud. I I think we call it I'm very very protective of my hearing these days with drumming, yeah, there's drums under there. Um drumming and then bagpipes, um, motorsport and you know motorbikes. Yeah, yeah. No yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Brilliant. I think that's it. I think that's a fantastic place to leave it. I mean, I always like to just end with I mean, there's always a chance for people to plug uh where they've got to plug, whether it's books or stuff they've been up to or where they can find you on social media, LinkedIn, or where can where can people find what you're doing?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, if you can spell my name right, you'll find me on LinkedIn. Yeah, pretty much. Um I don't I don't have anything else that uh I don't have any books or anything. Uh but yeah, you'll find me on you'll find me on LinkedIn and uh and go in go enjoy your racing. And remember, it's not just about going around the circles. We do do something useful with it too. And you get to enjoy it as you go. So yeah. Listen to your listen to your teachers, kids.

SPEAKER_00:

There you go. There you go. Well, listen, I'll uh obviously I'll put your name uh and how to spell it, of course, uh in the in the show notes and stuff so people will find it there and uh it'd be easy to Google you. So fantastic. Rurig. Thank you so much for taking the time. Lovely speaking with you. My pleasure. And that is a wrap on this week's episode. A huge thank you again to Ruri for sharing his incredible stories with us. And a big thanks to you all for listening and watching as well. If you'd like to learn more about Ruri's work or connect with him online, you'll find all the links in the show notes or head over to our website, no ordinarymonday.com. And as always, you can find extra clips and visuals from this episode across our socials. We're on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and of course, the No Ordinary Monday community group on Facebook, where you can jump into the conversation, ask questions, and share your thoughts about the show. Alright, so on to this week's listener story segment. If you'd like to send in your listener story, head to the website and click on the listener story page, or you can email us hello at no ordinary monday.com with listener story in the subject line. Okay, so full disclosure, this week's story is technically a listener story, I found it online. Um it was shared by an astrophysicist who once worked a winter season at the Ice Cube Vicino Observatory in Antarctica, one of the most remote jobs on the planet. Okay, so this is her story. About halfway through the winter, when the sun hadn't risen in weeks and the temperature was hovering around minus 60 degrees Celsius, that's minus 76 Fahrenheit, the small crew and I faced a genuine crisis. We ran out of coffee. Apparently, the logistics team had miscalculated just how much coffee the winter crew would need to drink. As it turns out, scientists isolated in total darkness for months on end need a lot of coffee. So one morning I walked into the galley to find a handwritten sign on the coffee machine. It read, We regret to inform you there is no more coffee. Morale across the base plummeted instantly. Within hours, the team and I had organized what we called a scientific emergency response mission. We tore through every storage container in the station looking for anything with caffeine in it. Then we hit an unexpected jackpot, a forgotten box of Nespresso pods. But the base had no Nespresso machine. So we improvised. We cracked open the pods and poured the grounds into a stock, a clean stock, mind you, and used it as a makeshift filter over a saucepan. The result? Tasted like burnt mud, but when you're in total darkness at the bottom of the world, it was pure gold. To this day, whenever I smell bad coffee, I am instantly transported back to the South Pole, standing over a saucepan, holding a stock, keeping a science alive, one cup of coffee at a time. I absolutely love this story. I mean, I'm not a coffee drinker, but I know so many people in the TV world and on shoots of stuff. Coffee is an absolutely essential part of the job, and honestly, I understand someone can't get through the day without it. So but being in a place like the South Pole, there is literally no shops you can go to. You must be in dire straits. So um, but trust scientists to come up with a solution of paints like that. Amazing. Alright, so next week uh we shift from high performance engineering to frontline humanitarian work. I am joined by Tenbi Powell, the founder of KiwiCare, an organization doing extraordinary and lifesaving work in Ukraine. Tenbi takes us inside the realities. Evacuating civilians and pets and delivering medical supplies, and working in war-torn and frontline communities where every decision carries weight. It is a raw, powerful, and deeply inspiring story. So hit follow or subscribe now if you haven't already, so you don't miss out on next week's episode. If you enjoyed this week's story and feel like doing something that will make you feel good, just take a moment and leave a five-star rating review for us, or tell a friend or family member. You actually have no idea how much it helps us uh grow the show and find new listeners and book more extraordinary guests for you guys. So it just takes two minutes and it would help us immensely. This show is independently produced, hosted, and edited by me, Chris Barron. Thanks so much for listening. Have a great Monday, everyone, and we will see you next week.

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