 Hi, I'm Dario Rossi and welcome to the Reader podcast. As you know, Reader has a long-standing history in motorsport, especially Formula One. I myself have been part of this phenomenal sport for over 20 years, and will definitely say that it's deeply engrained in the Reader DNA. Today we are joined by Graham Watson, team manager of Scuderia Alpha Tower. Hello, Graham, and thank you for joining us. Hello, Dario. Yep, it's good to be here. Thank you very much. First of all, congratulations for the fantastic victory in Monza. Yeah, we're still living it a little bit. I mean, I don't know whether the word is surreal, but it definitely was something that I didn't expect. We've obviously got a pretty good car this year, but to be realistic, I suppose, we didn't expect it to be a Grand Prix winning car. But yeah, then in Monza, everything we seemed to do turned to gold, and we came over with the win. And yeah, it's just, I think all of us here are still a little bit on Cloud9 about it, unexpected, but happy, happy boys. Yes, and it was well deserved as well. I have to say it was very nice to see you on the podium. We know each other for a long time. I know how much you did for many, many drivers that now is in Formula One and also before. And I'm not sure that all the people understand how important it is for the director in the team. Maybe you can give a little bit of insight of your role, because Alfa Tauri have been going through a lot of change in recent years, but I know that your role is very important. So can you give us some insight of that? Yeah, you know, my job is quite diverse, really. I have two key roles in this job in this team. So we've got sporting regulations, which is the FA side of the sport, and keeping the team within the rules on the Grand Prix weekend. We've got two sets of regulations in Formula One, and if everybody knows that, we have the sporting, and then we have the technical. So we have a technical director in our company, Joe Diaguten, and he looks after all the technical side, and then my job is to look after the sporting. But on top of that, obviously, as team manager, stroke sporting director, I have the team management role, which is, you know, we've got 70 odd people going around the world every weekend, or every other weekend. In fact, over the last few months, every weekend. And, you know, I have a support group of people behind me, and logistics, race team coordinator, chief mechanic, garrick chief, garrick technician. So these guys are reporting into me and I'm giving them direction on what I want to make sure that we, you know, our professional team, we look professional and we operate professionally. And then obviously, as I say, on the other side is obviously the sporting regulations, which is helping to keep the engineers, you know, on the right side of the law and not breaking any rules, which, you know, we saw a classic case in Monza, you know, where the Mercedes unfortunately came in the pit lane when the pit lane is closed. And as a team, we made a good decision and kept Danny on track because we saw the situation that evolved in front of us and, you know, it panned out for us as a good way. And unfortunately for Mercedes, so that's sort of the, you know, the job I have is to try and keep the team as much as possible. And I'll say for Touchwood, I've managed to do it in this company on the right side of the rules with the FIA. Yeah, no, it's an amazing job that you did that. And, you know, there is an analogy, I mean, in the remote center of the moment, which we do football in Germany. And the analogy is the captain of the team, you know, the captain of the football is like you roll in the team. And we know how important it is to do everything. And I know how much you did in the sport. And I was very happy to see you there, personally. But I think many, many people have a lot of respect for me because we know people work hard in Formula One, especially when you are not in the top team, which have more resources in some sense. But sometimes, you know, it's a very good story for the sport to see you winning and winning with the proper win, you know. But it's good. And I have to say, in this moment of COVID, which makes very difficult, of course, accelerate some of the things we are doing together, like this remote support, for example. And it's something that makes the world even smaller because of the remote connection, the fast line we are using with you and the connectivity, I think, is important in this case of Formula One and communication, where the sport is going so fast, you know, you have to take a decision in the blink of eye, basically. And sometimes this is something flesh out in TV when people are looking at the race. But I think the people inside and people passionate understand completely. And how important it was for you, for example, to communicate with Fianza, Bamburi, Japan, and make the call and make the strategy changing. How important is that for you? So, you know, you're right. We're quite sort of a diverse group of people because we're not just based in Fianza. I'm not sure many people outside of Formula One realize that, but we have a group of 120 people based in Bistra in the UK, which is our wind tunnel group. And then, as you just said, we've got the Japanese Honda company, which is our engine partner, or PU partner, as I call it these days. And the communication with these three, obviously, is vital over the Grand Prix weekend, not just the Grand Prix weekend, but obviously the Grand Prix weekend ramps up the pressure for the requirement for safe, fast and reliable communication. You know, and that's something that we, I think we probably take for granted because Redel did do put a job. So, if you have any small glitch, you start complaining and you think, actually, this is quite incredible what we're doing. You know, we're basically talking live to people in Japan. We're talking live to people in Bistra and we're based in Mexico or something. You know, so, but yeah, it's a vital part of Formula One communication. That's a vital part that we have reliable communication. And that's what we have with Redel. You're always bringing new innovation and trying to put stuff on my door. So that's always good to see. So yeah, you know, I don't think anybody can understate enough how important that side of it is. And, you know, it's things that you don't see on television. And I think if, you know, I would love to be able to put a normal, you know, a normal sort of guy who's a race fan on the pet wall with a headset on and say, listen to this behalf for now, you probably find them, you know, sitting in the corner wiggling because it's such an overpowering tool. And you can have somebody talking to you and you think they're sitting beside you, but actually they're sitting insecure in Japan, or they're sitting in Bistra in the UK. So, yeah, a very, very strong tool for us. And one we're very happy to have, to be honest. Oh, that's good. Yeah, I mean, as you say, innovation, we will come with some more innovation this for the next year. And you are our partner. So you are one of the first team to test innovation for us. And your input was always very important because we're doing this together, you know, we are not able to understand the team in some extent, but we understand communication. And vice-versa, I guess, is a job to do that communication. But definitely, we are very happy about our partnership. And we're just looking forward to see you back in the podium with the people and with all the fans just to get another experience. And that I think nobody will protest about that, you know. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we are, I mean, if we could have another podium this year, another couple of podiums, you know, it would be amazing. But I don't want to be greedy. Nothing is already done. So nobody will take it away now. So that is a fantastic achievement. So I guess I'll let you go because I know you're busy in the middle of two races and, you know, no rest, nine races, 11 weeks, and so on. So it must be exhausted. And I cannot thanks enough to participate in this interview with us with this podcast. It's always a pleasure to see you. I hope we can celebrate the next time that COVID will allow us to do that. Absolutely. I mean, yeah, the COVID things changed the world, as we all know at the moment, but hopefully medical science can catch up with that and get things back on to track. But, you know, again, I can say thank you to Redell as well, because you played a huge part in our Grand Prix win. You know, we have all our radio comms to the pit crew, all the radio, all the intercom communication on the pit wall, all our support partners, our operations room here in Fianza. So and without all those people, you know, you can't win a Grand Prix. And the link between us and them was clearly the Redell intercom system. So please feel like you're part of our win because you were part of it. So thank you very much. Thank you. And I hope to see you soon then. Thank you. See you soon. Thank you. Cheers. Bye.