F1 driver Sebastian Vettel is renown for his multiple FIA Formula 1 World Championships, but holds a lesser-known title for a sponsor of his Infiniti Red Bull Racing team. As 'director of performance' for Infiniti, Vettel is transferring his knowledge from the track to the road in an effort to improve Infiniti vehicles. We take a lap with Vettel at the Nashville Superspeedway and head to the U.S. Grand Prix in Austin, Texas for a conversation with global director of Infiniti F1 Andreas Sigl.
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BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Welcome to Translogic. I'm Bradley Hasemeyer. Formula One is massively popular worldwide, and it's starting to catch fire here in the States, as well, thanks in large part to the US Grand Prix here in Austin and fantastic drivers like Sebastian Vettel, with his Infiniti Red Bull race team. But Infiniti doesn't just call him one of their drivers-- they call him their director of performance. That's right. They're taking notes from an F1 champion.
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Hey, Sebastian. I'm Bradley.
SEBASTIAN VETTEL: What does that do?
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: This is a wide angle.
SEBASTIAN VETTEL: Ah, so you get everything--
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Yeah, exactly. It gets everything. Ready when you are.
SEBASTIAN VETTEL: OK.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Thumbs up. And we are off. Tell me a little bit about your involvement with Infiniti. Obviously, with this car specifically, you had a chance to give a lot of input.
SEBASTIAN VETTEL: Oops.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: That's all right. That's testing a little bit of-- warming up for Sunday.
SEBASTIAN VETTEL: Initially, I wasn't very happy with the car, especially with the steering. It didn't feel right. The steering was oversensitive. And-- yeah. Then they made some changes. Next time I drove it was much better-- not far away from how it is now.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Yeah.
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All right. So we're here with Andreas Sigl, the global director for Infiniti Formula One. Thanks so much for being with us.
ANDREAS SIGL: Thanks, Bradley. Thanks for having me.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Tell me how Infiniti got in the Formula One game.
ANDREAS SIGL: Well, I mean, we're now in the third season already. We started back in 2010. We looked into our growth plan-- so, OK, how do we grow our business? And how do we expand our geographic footprint? As a premium performance brand, we think you've got to be into motorsports.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Yeah, definitely.
ANDREAS SIGL: The pinnacle of motorsports is Formula One. But keep in mind, this is also the middle of the financial crisis where others went out. Honda leaving the sport. Toyota leaving the sport. BMW leaving the sport. Us coming in. So we had to maybe do it differently by partnering with a team-- with Red Bull Racing.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: A lot of times in motorsports, we see track technology make its way into consumer products. But really, it's gone both ways for you guys. Tell me a little bit about that partnership.
ANDREAS SIGL: Look at paddle shifter technology. It became mainstream in about '94 in F1.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
ANDREAS SIGL: Then it cascaded into road cars.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Yep.
ANDREAS SIGL: And you think it stops there. But actually, we took it further. On our paddle shifters in Infiniti, the material is from lightweight magnesium. So then the team came to us and said, how can we reapply that on the car?
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: That's cool.
ANDREAS SIGL: And once that works, apply it on other parts of the car. So a couple of races ago, we started-- it almost took 20 years to complete that loop.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Obviously, you guys are extremely successful. You have one of the best drivers in the world-- arguably history of Formula One. He's helping Infiniti on a production car level. Tell me about how that relationship came about.
ANDREAS SIGL: From the first day on, we said, wait a minute. He can be so much more than a pretty face.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: You ever get people coming up to you and saying that you look like Bradley Hasemeyer.
SEBASTIAN VETTEL: No.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: That hasn't happened yet? I mean, just-- you should look out for that because that-- that might happen.
ANDREAS SIGL: He's very sensitive as a driver. He can translate his feedback into engineering feedback to make his race car better. Why not help us make our cars better? Sebastian took the Q50-- evaluate steering, handling, chassis dynamics, braking performance. He was brutally honest.
SEBASTIAN VETTEL: The steering is too lazy in the beginning. But the side support from the seat is better.
ANDREAS SIGL: Now we want to go even further. We have a new product coming out in two years from now called Q30, which is kind of like an entry level premium compact. What you really would like to do is a super sports car-- a proper performance car. We got Sebastian in benchmarking products for that category.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: OK. A lot of people are going to see this Sebastian Vettel thing as a PR thing, right? It's like, oh, it's just a stunt. Just trying to connect. What are your thoughts on that?
ANDREAS SIGL: I think it's fair. I would be skeptical by saying it's just a show. I think you've got to give us some time to prove it. We had to give time to prove it to Sebastian. He said, like, wait a minute. Are you just using me? Is this for real?
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Right.
ANDREAS SIGL: So the first year, we've done nothing than just showing him how we develop road cars. And he understands it takes a little longer. But at the same time, once he now sees how that works, he's eager to go where-- to go further. The proof is in the pudding. Now, we've got to show the output.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: And it's a long term relationship. It's not just like, oh, he's working on the Q50. OK, now he's done. And--
ANDREAS SIGL: Exactly.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: --let's get another big name in here.
ANDREAS SIGL: Exactly. He's been to more Infiniti facilities around the world than most of our own executives. He's driving the product with different engines and different models around the world every other week. So he has a pretty good understanding. But also he himself likes to improve things. And so that's the best chance for him to do it. So any skeptics-- all I can say is just watch that space.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Just hang on a little bit longer and you'll see what happens. Great.
Is this something you see happening kind of more and more? I mean, you're an F1 driver, highly precise, driving highly precise machines. But now you're asked to give kind of your comments on a production car. So that's a bit of a different world.
SEBASTIAN VETTEL: Yeah, it's a completely different world. But it's also a fun project. Obviously, it's something completely different. And, yeah, it's nice to experience, you know, a different style or different way of cars.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Right.
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All right. That's it for our time with Infiniti Red Bull in Austin. Just like Sebastian's giving some notes, I'm going to give some notes to this. What's one bull power worth?
