No Grip: An F1 Culture Podcast

What exactly is the point of the Cadillac F1 team?

After a very public multi-year saga to get on the grid, Cadillac is currently making it way through its first season in Formula 1. On the surface, its results seem lackluster, to say the least. But is there more to this crew than meets the eye? And could it mark a turning point for U.S. teams in the sport? For this week's episode, Lily talks to The Athletic's Formula 1 staff writer Madeline Coleman and American F1 fan Zach St. Clair to get to the bottom of why Cadillac is deserving of a second look, why there's so much emphasis on having an American team on the grid, and what it even means for a team to be "American" in spirit. See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.

Does Susie Wolff's memoir tell us anything new?

These days, conversations about women in motorsports are never complete without mentions of Susie Wolff. Susie is the last woman to participate in an official Formula 1 race weekend more than a decade ago, and now runs F1 Academy, the highly visible Formula 1 support series. She's long been held up as a paragon of motorsports girlbossdom, but is there more to her story? In this bonus episode, Lily and her pal Indiah Porter go over Susie's new memoir 'Driven,' which came out in the U.S. in late April, to unpack more of her background as both a racing driver and a business executive. But as they soon find, what Susie doesn't say in her book ends up being just as important — and much more interesting — as what she does. See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.

Does Katherine Legge think F1 Academy is doing its job?

When it debuted in 2023, the women-centric support series F1 Academy (F1A) was branded by Formula 1 and the greater racing ecosystem as a giant step forward for visibility and opportunity in motorsports for women. It even came with its own digital broadcast channels, major corporate sponsors, and attention from F1 teams. Three years later though, the promising championship has drummed up more questions than answers. Is it actually helping its participants level up in their careers long-term? Does anything about this series give these teen girls and young women the skills needed to transition to other racing series? And who's actually getting all of this corporate money? This go-around on No Grip, Lily talks to Katherine Legge, the iconic racer and Throttle Therapy [https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-throttle-therapy-with-kat-253096903/] podcast host who's taken part in what feels like almost every motorsports series under the sun and has plenty to say about what's missing from conversations about F1A, sexism, visibility, and mentorship. See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.

How did the 2023 WAGageddon shift F1 culture?

Formula 1 has gone through several major cultural shifts over the past decade, from its acquisition by Liberty Media in the mid-2010s to the 'Drive to Survive' boom that followed a few years later during the pandemic. But there's a major cultural event that doesn't get talked about as frequently and yet really helped bring the sport's current cutthroat capitalist era to new heights: The 2023 phenomenon that Lily has dubbed WAGageddon. For this episode, Lily is joined by Kate Byrne, one half of the podcast and brand Two Girls 1 Formula [https://twogirls1formula.com/], to explain why some people care so much about professional athletes' romantic partners and how following them can actually explain a great deal about what's happening in the paddock. See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.

Why did F1 drivers go on strike in 1982?

Though we're only three races into the 2026 F1 season, many drivers have been vocal about their hatred of the sport's brand-new rules and regulations. But what power do they actually have to change them? And how far would these racers go to get what they want? Today's drivers don't seem to have much agency as individuals or as a group to alter their circumstances, but that wasn't always the case in Formula 1. In fact, maybe the 2026 grid could learn a few things from previous generations who came before them — particularly those from back in the early 1980s. For this episode, Lily sits down with Elizabeth Blackstock, the motorsports journalist and historian behind Deadly Passions, Terrible Joys on Substack [https://deadlypassionsterriblejoys.substack.com/] and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@eliz_blackstock], to discuss the 1982 F1 drivers' strike, where racers came together to force the hand of the sport's higher-ups, changing Formula 1's trajectory forever. See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.