F1 Beyond The Grid

Before Season 6 of F1 Beyond The Grid, Tom Clarkson is racing through the best bits of the archive in 30 Days of Beyond The Grid. On Day 2, two-time F1 World Champion Fernando Alonso talks about his successes, failures and the legacy he wants to leave behind.  Hit the follow button to join Tom for 30 Days of Beyond The Grid. Season 6 starts March 1st To hear the full 2021 interview with Fernando A...

Get ready for more in-depth conversations with Formula 1’s biggest stars. Season 6 of F1 Beyond The Grid starts Wednesday 1st March. In the build-up, Tom Clarkson is guiding you through the best bits of BTG’s huge interview archive in 30 Days of Beyond The Grid. On Day 1, listen to Lewis Hamilton from our first ever episode back in 2018. He remembers his childhood desire to be an F1 driver and exp...

Reflections from Ricciardo. Stories from Susie Wolff. Memories from Mansell. On F1 Beyond The Grid, the sport’s fastest stars slow down and open up in feature-length conversations with Tom Clarkson. In this end-of-year special, Tom chooses his highlights from 2022. Daniel Ricciardo lifted the lid on his McLaren struggles. Legendary designer Steve Nichols remembered triple World Champion Ayrton Sen...

He’s led Mercedes to 115 race wins in Formula 1, but Toto Wolff is only focused on the next victory. The Silver Arrows stumbled in 2022. They learned lessons while they were down and scored a late-season win to fire them up for 2023. Toto tells Tom Clarkson how a difficult year will benefit the team in future. He explains how the performance of George Russell, the leadership of Lewis Hamilton, the...

He won’t be racing in 2023, but Daniel Ricciardo is thinking further ahead. Why is returning to Red Bull as Third Driver the best thing for a driver with 8 Grand Prix wins to his name? In this in-depth interview with Tom Clarkson, Daniel explores his decision to spend a season off the track and how he hopes it will boost his career and life outside racing. ‘I don’t feel completely done’, he says o...

You’ll hear the 60 minute interview right here on Wednesday 30th of November. Hit the follow button and share this episode using #F1BeyondTheGrid

 ‘I do this with passion. I like to work hard’. Guenther Steiner, Haas’ straight-talking Team Principal, has had plenty of hard work to do this year. From finding a new driver on the eve of the 2022 season, to replacing Mick Schumacher with Nico Hulkenberg for 2023, Steiner has made big calls to help Haas make big moves. In great detail, he talks Tom Clarkson through his decisions, and how they’ll...

‘I’ve thought about this so much, and it feels so right’. Sebastian Vettel is ready to say farewell to Formula 1. In a final in-depth interview with Tom Clarkson, Sebastian looks back at his entire F1 career: how he dealt with winning and losing, his rivalries and friendships with champions and teammates, and the races and moments that shaped him. He explains how ‘feeling loved’ fuelled his succes...

Listen right here on Wednesday 16th November. Follow the podcast and share it with your fellow F1 fans using #F1BeyondTheGrid

F1 was her ‘goal’ once upon a time, but she made history in IndyCar and NASCAR. Danica Patrick’s early racing career followed the course of so many F1 stars: karting championships, a teenage move to Europe, an impressive result at the prestigious Formula Ford Festival, and meetings with former F1 champions and team bosses. But it was back in the US that made her mark on motorsport, winning in Indy...

 A chapter is closing, but Nicholas Latifi is ready to open up. In three difficult F1 seasons, the Canadian has dealt with defeats, disappointment and being dropped by Williams. As he prepares to leave the sport at the end of 2022, Nicholas tells Tom Clarkson about the challenges and frustrations he continues to face.  In deep detail, he explains why he struggles to show his speed on the racetrack...

His time in F1 was brief and ‘brutal’, but he learned lessons he’s passing on to his son. Jan Magnussen, father of Haas driver Kevin, arrived in Formula 1 in the mid-1990s feeling unbeatable. His confidence came from a stunning championship-winning season in British Formula 3, in which he broke records set by the great Ayrton Senna. F1 broke that confidence. ‘I don’t think I understood the enormit...

In September 2022, Nyck De Vries got a golden opportunity. A surprise F1 debut. He knew it was a chance to change his life. His remarkable top 10 finish was just step one of his mission. In an exclusive in-depth interview, Nyck tells Tom Clarkson what he did next: the phone calls, flights, meetings and deals which have made him a 2023 AlphaTauri Formula 1 driver. He explains how advice from his fr...

Tom’s got news of this week’s in-depth interview. Hear it exclusively here on Wednesday 19th October

Whether he’s behind the wheel of an F1 car or analysing the action for millions on TV, Karun Chandhok is driven by his passion for racing. His love for the sport grew during his childhood in India, and it remains strong despite his frustrating time in F1, where he repeatedly defied the odds. With little money to rely on and few racing opportunities at home, Karun set out on a path which took him t...

As soon as the 2022 Mercedes F1 car hit the racetrack, the man who oversaw its creation realised it had problems. ‘We made a mistake’, admits Technical Director Mike Elliot. In finding fixes, Mike and his team of engineers have improved Mercedes’ results and learned a lot about themselves. Mike tells Tom Clarkson how they traced the car’s problems to a single design decision, how a year of not win...

He’s a survivor, who fought back from a crash which could have broken his spirit. Martin Donnelly’s racing career was cut short at the 1990 Spanish Grand Prix, when his Lotus left the track and hit a barrier at 160 miles per hour, throwing him from the car. Martin tells Tom Clarkson his memories of that fateful weekend, and the great lengths he went to as he tried to return to racing – including t...

It’s been a dramatic year for Red Bull Racing, from the titanic battle Max Verstappen fought with Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes for the 2021 title, to setting up their own power unit arm, before taking a commanding lead in both championships this season – with a flirtation with Porsche thrown in for good measure. Team boss Christian Horner tells host Tom Clarkson all about that incredible 2021 title...

He was part of one of F1’s most dramatic finales, but there’s so much more to Timo Glock’s story than that rain-soaked lap in Brazil. A relative late-comer to racing, he quickly showed speed, made smart sponsorship deals and caught the attention of F1 teams. Timo tells Tom Clarkson about the surprise phone call which led to his points-scoring Grand Prix debut, the disappointment of dropping out of...

He’s a Zandvoort ‘beach boy’, who became a local hero in F1. Racing in the Dutch Grand Prix was a dream come true for Jan Lammers, but he struggled to show his speed in Formula 1 and dropped out of the sport after 4 difficult seasons. He was always determined to return to motorsport’s pinnacle and waited a record 10 years for his chance. Jan tells Tom Clarkson about his rise from junior European c...

He fought one of F1’s all-time greatest duels, was often untouchable in qualifying, and his victories were celebrated by entire nations. René Arnoux spent a decade racing the likes of Gilles Villeneuve, Alain Prost and Niki Lauda. He raced and won for both Renault and Ferrari, leading the Scuderia to a world title in 1983. René passionately and vividly talks Tom Clarkson through his remarkable car...

He’s an F1 star, and he’s still getting brighter. Lando Norris is on a mission with McLaren, determined to deliver trophies and titles. He’s twice come agonisingly close to his first F1 victory. That is just fuel for his fire. Lando opens up to Tom Clarkson about the races he feels he should have already won, his moments of self-doubt, his ambitions, his attitude to life and work, and how he’s see...

Since South Africa 1993, Beat Zehnder has not missed a Formula 1 Grand Prix. Hungary 2022 was his 538th race weekend, and he’s spent them all with the same team. Once it was known as Sauber, today it’s Alfa Romeo. Before joining Sauber, Beat was a ship engine mechanic. He was kicked out of his first job interview with the Swiss racing team because he had no interest in motorsport. How and why, the...

He’s the newest member of ‘The Piranha Club’ – the nickname for the ruthlessly competitive group of F1 Team Principals. Aston Martin’s Mike Krack is not a newcomer to F1, however. A former European go-kart racer, Mike earned his engineering stripes with Sauber in the early 2000s, where he moulded and mentored a young Felipe Massa. He witnessed the supreme strength and skill of Robert Kubica, and s...

When Marc Surer reached Formula 1 in 1979, he was a rising star: the reigning Formula 2 champion from the mountains of Switzerland, surely destined for the summit of F1 success. But two leg-breaking crashes made Marc’s climb steeper and harder. He relives those crashes with Tom Clarkson and remembers his remarkable recovery and return to racing. Amazingly, he scored points for Arrows, and almost m...