2 Soft Compounds
2 Soft Compounds is a weekly podcast focusing on Formula 1, hosted by radio broadcaster Rick Houghton and motorsport journalist and GrandPrix247 founder, Paul Velasco.
With a focus on unfiltered analysis, behind-the-scenes insights and expert commentary, the podcast offers fans an entertaining and informative take on the fastest sport in the world.
2 Soft Compounds
2 Soft Compounds - The 2025 Season Intro
.2 Soft Compounds - Ep. 01 - The 2025 Season Intro
In the very first episode of 2 Soft Compounds, hosts Rick Houghton and Paul Velasco(GrandPrix247) dive into their personal F1 journeys — from childhood karting and Marlboro media days to life in the paddock as a photo journalist and behind-the-scenes stories from the world of motorsport.
The duo also unpack Lewis Hamilton’s shock Ferrari move, take a look at the new rookies hitting the grid and give their hot takes on F1 75 Live - F1's glitzy 2025 season launch at the O2 (spoiler alert: more LEDs than a nightclub!)
With plenty of bold predictions, insider insights, and a few laughs along the way — the 2025 season starts here!
🔧 New episodes every Tuesday – follow us @TwoSoftCompounds on Instagram to join the conversation.
Podcast Rundown
1️⃣ Meet the Team: Rick and Paul introduce themselves.
2️⃣ Marlboro Memories & Media Mishaps - Throwback to stories from the golden era of F1 sponsorship, including VIP pit tours and underpaid gigs.
3️⃣ Hamilton to Ferrari: A Move for the Ages - Initial reactions to Lewis Hamilton’s shock switch to Ferrari.
4️⃣ Rookies, Revamps & The 2025 Grid - A look at the fresh faces and teams hoping to shake up the pecking order this season.
5️⃣ The 2025 F1 Season Launch: Glitz, Glam & Booing Fans - Breaking down the F1 75 Live, O2 Arena extravaganza — from Max & Horner boos to Jack Whitehall’s cheeky hosting.
6️⃣ What’s Coming Next: Your Tuesday F1 Fix.
Production Credits:
Presented by: Rick Houghton & Paul Velasco
Studio Engineer & Editor: Roy D'Monte
Executive Producer: Ian Carless
Produced by: GrandPrix247 & W4 Podcast Studio
Hi, welcome to the Two Soft Compounds podcast. Before we begin, I've got a quick favour to ask. There's one simple way you can support our show, and that's by hitting that follow or subscribe button on the app you're listening to the show on right now. It really does make a huge difference in helping us get the show out there to as many people as possible, so please give us a hand and click that button right now. Thank you, I don't make mistakes. I make prophecies that immediately turn out to be wrong.
Speaker 1:Anything can happen in Formula One, and it usually does Well. Welcome to the very first episode of a new Formula One podcast, which is called Two Soft Compounds, because it features two of us. My name's Rick Horton, and Paul Velasco is here. He is the founder and chief editor of GrandPrix247.com. Paul, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm good man and I'm really happy to be part of this project. Everyone's talking these days and everyone's podcasting, so why shouldn't we be doing it? But with you guys and with your expertise, I think we can take this to another level well, hopefully so.
Speaker 1:Um, I think it's probably a good idea to give people listening just an introduction about ourselves, so I'll start with you, paul, if you don't mind. Um, obviously, you've been running the website for for many years and it's, uh, one of the most trusted sources in the formula one community. But how did you get into the sport in the first place? Because it started as photojournalism, didn't it?
Speaker 2:Long before that. Actually, I grew up from a divorced family, so my grandfather used to take me to all the races at Kailaami. I lived in Johannesburg at the time and there was a lot of motorsport at Kailaami. It was where they used to test. And my dream as a tall because if you were tall in those days, you couldn't, you weren't considered a racing driver, you had to be short.
Speaker 2:So if you're tall and you were poor, what else could you do involving motor racing? And I wasn't into mechanics, I thought I want to be a photographer. So when everyone else wanted to be policemen and firemen or whatever they wanted to be, when I was young I wanted to be a Formula One photographer. That was my dream. And, yeah, I got involved in agencies, got involved in photojournalism through Reuters covered Formula One for a few years. So, yeah, it's been a pretty varied career. Jack of all trades, master of maybe not many, but motorsports has been my passion all my life. It started in 1973. That was the first season I can remember and I was a teenager, just beginning to become a teenager. So yeah, it's been over 50 years of following the sport.
Speaker 1:Wow. So how did the website come about? Did you get tired of being at every race doing the photography? Or did you just think, well, this is something else I can do now, based on the experience that I've got.
Speaker 2:Well, no, basically the photography. You've got to remember I made the trip in the pilgrimage, I call it, in 88, I went to do Formula One and I got a gig to be the Marlborough photographer with a bunch of guys called Jad Sheriff who was the chief photographer, and it was an agency called IPA and they handled all the Marlborough PR and they needed an extra photographer to do not only Formula One but also the MotoGP. So in 89, I went and I did that and then a year later AP and I did a deal where I'd be their sort of specialist photographer and I went to the Grand Prix for AP. That lasted until 81 when I decided sorry, 91, when I decided to go back to South Africa to cover the apartheid thing, because I was also sick and tired of traveling in a van and stuff like that in Europe. But there were three very intense years and I never sort of lost touch with motorsport and in fact my career then went into becoming an editor for newspapers, et cetera.
Speaker 2:I ended up in Dubai at a place called Gulf News for three or four years. Yeah, oh, wow, yeah. And in 2009, yeah, I was there already for a year. At the same time I I still wanted to continue formula one, so I started a blog called yalla f1.com. I kept going for two or three years and then, eventually, when I left it by in 2016, I'd already changed the name to grumpy 247 and it became uh yeah, it became what it is today, sort of it's quite authoritative website. Myself and jad malak, who's the editor, put it together. He runs the editorial side and I, you know, do all the other stuff yeah, before I go into my motorsport background, I've got a marlborough story.
Speaker 1:You mentioned marlborough and this will probably get cut in the final podcast, but I was, uh, working as a broadcaster in dubai and, um, I got asked to mc the public stage of the Middle East rally, which was sponsored by Marlborough. Okay, and this is when they had. They had a course set up at the Grand Hyatt, I think, in in Dubai and all of the teams and drivers would do this sort of exhibition for the public and their grandstands built and everything else. The guy who was doing the AV on this said to me how much did you sting them for? And I went oh well, oh well, it's Marlborough, isn't it? So I charged him $2,000. And he went are you joking, mate? He said the guy did it last year, got $17,000.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, so that's been Marlborough's story? Yeah, but in terms of motorsport itself, when did it begin? When did the bug hit you?
Speaker 1:So I think the bug hit me watching Formula One when I was a kid with my dad, like it did for many kids growing up. I think it was all free to air back then on the BBC in the UK, so it was really easy to get into. And then I started go-karting at a young age. I became a British pro-kart driver, did spend a couple of years racing in the championship there. Then I ended up driving in the dubai 24-hour pro kart races, did a few of those okay, and then I ended up being I ended up being an fia cik race director for those 24-hour races because I was getting a bit getting a bit too large to fit in the go-karts. So I decided to go behind the scenes and become a race director.
Speaker 1:And it was around about that time that I started working for the Jordan team. Their main sponsor at the time was Mastercard and I worked as a media liaison for two seasons 2002, 2003, doing most of the European races and looking after Mastercard's VIP guests. So at the Grand Prix, the Paddock Club I would interview Eddie Jordan and the drivers in front of the invited guests and I'd do the pit lane tours and all that sort of stuff and then again around about the same time I became Formula One commentator for the 10 Sports Network, which I believe went out to about 20 odd million viewers across Asia. So that was great, but that was mostly studio based. I think we did a few from um some of the races. If I remember rightly well, that might have been the Renault World Series, but yeah. So my motorsport career sort of started then, but always ran alongside my broadcasting career. So I've always worked on radio, done a bit of TV, uh, but still madly passionate about Formula One and motorsport beautiful and man, what a great season we've got at Formula One.
Speaker 2:You know, in all my years of covering Formula One, this is the most excited I've been. The last two, three seasons have been amazing since Lewis came on board and then Max, it's just. We're just in such a good place in terms of I know people complain it's too long, cars all look the same blah, blah, blah, but man's it's. I think we're just in for so many storylines this year. That's why I think this podcast is this comes at a good time. There's going to be a lot of talking points. There already has been many, as you know. I mean the hamilton ferrari switch, which happened over the last month, but it's been happening for the past year. That's been totally amazing and now it's actually happening. So I'm I'm just fully, fully fired up for the season yeah, I, I am too, I think.
Speaker 1:by all accounts, if you speak to anyone up and down the paddock, I think they all agree that this is going to be the tightest Formula One season that we've had in many, many years. You know, there could be three or even four teams challenging for the world title. There could be three or even four, or even five drivers challenging for the world title. So I think, yeah, you're right. I'm super pumped up for the 2025 season. Now, the only thing we've seen so far and I was going to ask you about this, paul was the F175, the livery launch of the O2 in London. Did you see it? What did you think of it? I thought it was amazing.
Speaker 2:I thought it was good. Yeah, people complained it was too long. Well, of 24 races, how many did you want to do? 10 teams? I thought, yeah, they could shorten it a bit, it doesn't have to drag so much and give everyone equal slots. But at the end of the day, I thought it was a fantastic advertisement for Formula 1. It did Formula 1. I was proud. I thought, man, this looks super cool.
Speaker 2:When they came on there, the show was good. It showed for them. The only thing is they brought this Machine kid who I like. I like his attitude and stuff. But the guy didn't bring his machine gun, he brought his pea shooter.
Speaker 2:When you started that show, you really needed a rock. You had to blow the O2 arena up. He didn't. He came there with this silly little thing and my message to him is MGK, if you come to Formula One, we're all about noise, mate. So when you're going to make big noise, you've got to make a big, big, big noise. So anyway, I felt that the opening could have been more dramatic and in fact, when lenny kravitz song came on, I thought, jeez, if lenny had been there he had blown the roof off. So anyway, look, they can tweak it in this, no complaints. I think formula one should do this every year, not just the 75th because it is the 75th anniversary. They should do it every year and, uh, make it a show, and yeah if it drags two hours. So what? You know, oscars goes on for five hours, the nfl final goes on for seven hours. You know, I mean, this is formula one, man yeah, I thought it was really entertaining.
Speaker 1:I thought it was a great demonstration. The fact that formula one is a global and a billion dollar motorsport because there's the money that must have spent on that production was unbelievable. I thought the graphics and the sound design and everything were brilliant. Jack Whitehall hosting when he first came on I thought, oh, this is going to be cringe, because I thought they've got a stand-up comedian here who probably knows nothing about Formula One. But in actual fact, he'd done a bit of research and he did know what he needed to know to get the show done. I love the fact that he was kind of tongue-in-cheek with the whole thing. I love because one of the first thing he said he said welcome to the 2025 livery reveal for the formula one teams. He said I don't know why we bothered because none of them had changed the liveries from last year.
Speaker 2:I thought that was hilarious yeah, no, he was great, he was on point and he actually grabbed a lot of yeah liked him. I'm a fan now and I will check him out in future. But the thing is is that invariably with Formula 1, there's always controversy, right? Yeah, always. So when Horner got on stage, he got booed. When Max Verstappen was mentioned, he got booed. When the FIA was mentioned, they got booed. I think it's a bit silly. When it's a celebration of stuff, you shouldn't boo.
Speaker 1:No, I agree with that.
Speaker 2:The FIA took note, actually, of Horner and Verstappen being booed and I'm with them. You know, I'm not with them with the swearing. I think the swearing they're just going overboard with, but I'm definitely on board with them with the booing, because that's disrespectful and bad sportsmanship and from and motorsport formula one.
Speaker 1:We don't do that yeah, I, I expected more of the crowd in that occasion because I felt really sorry. Christian horner looked totally blinded in the headlights. But when it started, and then obviously they decided after that that max um was not going to speak on the microphone, he just waved, didn't he, when they brought the red bull car on, and I think that was probably a snap decision look his body language was.
Speaker 2:We ran a piece on a bad body language expert on them. Check it out on our site. I mean, yeah, it was cringy, he didn't want to be there and uh, yeah, I think it got exacerbated with the horner thing. Okay, horner did himself no favors last year, but uh, having said that, there's a time and place, but you know what I'll say this they're lucky Ricky Gervais wasn't there.
Speaker 1:They wouldn't have roasted him, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So they can thank it that it was Jack who went light on them. But anyway, all in all, the question you asked was the show. I thought it was amazing. You also thought it was amazing, right?
Speaker 1:I thought it was amazing. Yeah, I thought it was. You know, it kind of blew me away because I did think, how are they going to do this and make it look glitzy, glamorous and really super cool? And as soon as it started I was like, yeah, they've done that, they've done it in in bags full, because it was super, super cool. I've never seen so many led screens in one place in my life. It was just incredible. You know the way they reveal the cars. There was cars on on ramps, there was cars coming out of the sky. I just thought, yeah, it was spectacular and it was live and it all ran really smoothly.
Speaker 1:So, whichever production company put that on, they need big kudos because they pulled it off really, really well. And, like you say, I think they should do it every year, the start of every season, I think, like Drive to Survive did over the last few years. It's opening up to a new audience. And remember the tickets for O2 sold out in three and a half minutes for that event. I mean, it wasn't like it was a slow burn. Everyone wanted to be there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no it was like I said they hit the jackpot with that. But this is the one thing I do want to ask you. We talked about the show, but hey, the point of the show was the livery.
Speaker 1:So what was your favorite livery? I think the Racing Bulls. Actually, I really quite like that white design with the you know the Visa and the Red Bull logo on it. I think it's really good. The Ferrari with the white stripe on the tail fin, I'm not sure if I like that what the fuck.
Speaker 2:It's not a white stripe, it's a red printer with HP printer on it. If you look at it, you look like, okay cool, there's a printer, I'll stick it on my desk and it'll spit out A4s. No, seriously, I mean, you know, ferrari is Ferrari. It should look better than that. I felt that the Aston Martin looked sweet, yeah, and the Mercedes also looked pretty sweet, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, look my philosophy on this with cars, and I matter how ugly the car is when it starts the season, if it's a winning car by the end of the season, it's the prettiest. So that's how it works, liveries the prettiest car will win the championship. That's normally the rule of thumb.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, I'm so looking forward to it. And, of course, testing. I always get excited at testing and then after the first day, I have to hold myself back and go hang on. It's testing. So half the teams are sandbagging, half the teams have genuine problems.
Speaker 1:You know, I remember a couple of years ago when they tested in Barcelona and the Williams team didn't have a car on day one because they hadn't turned up. They haven't built it. I don't think we're going to see any of that, but I think we are going to. We are going to see and remember, of course, paul, as you mentioned before, the number of rookies that are starting this season, you know, with very little experience behind the wheel of an F1 car. I mean, if you look at some of them, they have had the odd test moments which have resulted in crash damage and they have had, you know, in the case of Liam Lawson, for instance, he's had, you know, decent amounts of time in a Formula One car. But most of the rookies are going to be hitting that track in Bahrain. You know, getting a sense really for the first time what it's all about and that could produce some spectacular mistakes and some surprises absolutely.
Speaker 2:You know, you've got like you're Andrea. Kimi Antonelli he's 18 learning curve. Liam Lawson well, that's the big one. You Can, liam, go into the lion's den? Look, I think we can mention Oliver Berman, gabriel Botoletto, jack Dewan, issa Khadja. I think the important thing for them now is just to get track time and, as you said, these cars are bulletproof. Now They've had four years of the same, or five years of the same formula. The rules have ended. Now these cars are not going to develop a lot more. That's why what happened in abu dhabi the pecking order you have there is probably going to be the pecking order that the season starts off with, because everyone's also developing for 2026, so that's why it's an absolutely amazing season.
Speaker 1:So, man, there's going to be a lot to talk about this season, really I just want to touch um before we finish the podcast because, like you say, episode one, not much to talk about in terms of hard facts until you know cars are on the track. But I wanted to ask you about Lewis Hamilton. Zac Brown says he thinks Lewis Hamilton can win the world championship this year with Ferrari. What do you think?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, everyone's been saying that. I know Montoya Villeneuve, everyone's been saying it. I'm saying it's going to be harder than people are making out. Yes, it can have a winning car, but the first thing he's got to do is beat Charles Leclerc the guy in the garage next to him, and he's supposed to be the fastest guy on one lap. So Lewis has got the most pole positions. That's why it's salubrious. Lewis is a big PR asset. It's an unbelievable story.
Speaker 2:You couldn't script this. People would say it's ridiculous. Yeah, you've got the biggest racing driver brand of all time, Lewis Hamilton, with the biggest team. You know what I mean. Of course Charles Leclerc is going to want to beat him, and I'll tell you what Lewis has got to really up his game, because if he comes with his George Russell game that he had last year, he's going to get pulverized World champions. Moving to teams doesn't always work. When Charles Leclerc arrived at Ferrari, Seb Vettel was the king of Ferrari and within a year he was gone, so it's going to be interesting. Of course he can be world champion, you know. But are you actually being Nostradamus saying this? I don't think so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, I mean I think with Lewis has sort of had it his own way for so many years with Mercedes and with McLaren to a certain extent before that, where everything was done to his liking.
Speaker 1:Everything was done to fit round him, to fit round his style of driving, to fit round the way he communicated with his engineers, to fit around his style of driving, to fit around the way he communicated with his engineers, to fit around the strategy team. Now he's gone to Ferrari, who have all of these mechanisms tried and tested for so many years, with Charles Leclerc who's been there for so many years and knows those systems inside out. I know Lewis has learned Italian. I know he's been immersing himself by living on the Maranello property and doing simulator work every sort of waking hour, so he's immersed himself in it. It's not like he's taken anything for granted, but I still think it's going to be an uphill battle for him, certainly for the first half of the season, as he gets to grips with the way a team works that he's not been used to in the past.
Speaker 2:Look, I'm going to actually you make some valid points, but I'm going to because I always like devil's advocate kind of thing. I don't think it's fair to say that Lewis had it easy his own way. Every great racing driver builds a team around him. Yeah, but you first have to do it. Senna did it at Tolman, he did it at Lotus, he did it at McLaren, usurping Prost. He took the mantle away from Prost there. The other one he could do on his own, schumacher, the same. He owned Benetton. It was all built around him. So when Lewis had the team built around him, it was only after his second year at McLaren. When he's second year at McLaren, the first year at McLaren, they had Fernando Alonso, a double world champion, in the team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Lewis proved that he was faster than Fernando.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. So who are you going to build a team around?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Lewis Hamilton, heike Kovalainen or Lewis Hamilton? Yeah, do you know what I mean? Then, when he went to Mercedes it's not fair the team around him there was a Nico Rosberg there that was like a little pecking dog and eventually he beat Lewis in 2016. So it's not like Lewis always got preferential treatment. That's a misconception, I believe. I believe that it's a misconception.
Speaker 2:I think Lewis, like every other great driver, arrives in a team, does what he has to do, wins them over, and then they build the car for him because he delivers for them. You know Max Verstappen same thing. They love him at Red Bull because he delivers for them. The faster the car is, the better. So who are you going to build it for? Are you going to build it for Sergio Perez, liam Lawson? No, you're going to build it for Max, because Max will take the car whatever you give him, and drive the pants off it. So, in terms of Lewis at Ferrari, yes, I think he's re-energized, but it's going to be a fascinating battle. If you got to ask me, I think there's a better chance that he won't get the eighth title with Ferrari than he does. Yeah, so it will be fairytale if he does get it, and the momentous task it is will be unprecedented in the history of Formula One.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we're in for a real treat in 2025 in the Formula One season. I just wanted to let you know that we'll be releasing episodes every Tuesday. So, whatever you do, make sure you subscribe, please, and also search for Two Soft Compounds on social media, especially on Instagram, because we'd be posting things there and we'd like you to get involved too, by the way. So, if you've got any questions for me or for paul um, I mean, paul's a real expert here, by the way. I'm I'm more of a passionate fan, but paul's actually lived and breathed it for a lot longer than I have. So if you've got questions maybe there's some controversy that you'd like to add your opinion to then please get in touch via the social media channels and, of course, we'll have more to talk about on next week's podcast excellent.
Speaker 2:Mate was really good. If we don't get a million listeners, we'll have five or six, so all good okay, and for the latest updates and any formula one news, remember grandprix247.com.
Speaker 1:we'll see you next week, thanks. Two soft compounds was presented by myself Hutton, alongside Paul Valesco, the studio engineer and editor was Roy DeMonte, the executive producer was Ian Carlos, and this podcast is a co-production between Grand Prix 24-7 and W4 podcast studio Dubai. Don't forget, if you want to join in the conversation, leave a comment on our instagram page two soft compounds or via our blue sky account at two soft compounds. We love getting comments, questions, and we'll give a shout out to some of the best ones on the podcast in the next few weeks. You can also email us at two soft compounds at gmailcom, and if you haven't done so already, please do click that follow or subscribe button. See you next time.