BBC podcast goes behind scenes at Mercedes & Williams

The BBC is taking you behind the scenes at Mercedes and Williams as they prepare for the new Formula 1 season.

In an eight-part series on BBC Sounds, F1: Back at Base gets rare access inside the factories in the build-up to the 2024 campaign, which starts next week in Bahrain.

As well as charting the race to build a new car, the podcast team speak to seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton after he announces he is leaving Mercedes for Ferrari in 2025.

Broadcaster Holly Samos also interviews Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff and Hamilton’s team-mate George Russell just days after the news emerges.

The podcast also has access to Williams drivers Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant throughout the winter.

The main focus of the series, which follows the teams from November to February, is to reveal the work that goes on ‘back at base’.

“There is not really the right level of understanding and of what these days, weeks, months represent for the success of the season, for the teams,” F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali tells the podcast.

“This is not a moment where people are sleeping or recovering.”

At the Williams factory in Grove, Oxfordshire, James Vowles is in his first winter as team principal of the nine-time champions.

It is a time, he says, of “enormous change” with the team “pushing everything to the limit”.

In Brackley, Northamptonshire, Wolff is preparing for his 12th season as Mercedes team principal.

The team have secured eight consecutive constructors’ championships and seven drivers’ titles during his tenure – but they did not win a race in 2023.

Wolff acknowledges they have a “long fight” ahead.

“You have simulations, the aerodynamic wind tunnel gives you certain numbers for downforce, but you never know until you hit the track,” he says. “And, basically, our views… they change from week to week. So one week we believe ‘this is really good work that we found’, and then you get some setbacks.

“I’m curious to hit the road in Bahrain and see where we really are.”

The first four episodes of the series – narrated by Joseph Fiennes – are available on BBC Sounds now, with the final four released on Sunday, 25 February.