The Parc Fermé F1 Podcast

One of the greatest things about starting FBC is the opportunity to meet such great people in motorsport. I've met many but one in particular has become a very dear friend to me and that's NBC Sports broadcaster and championship-winning F1 mechanic Steve Matchett. Steve is a singular voice in F1 and each year we find time to chat about the upcoming season. This year is no different as we chat about the regulations changes, Steve's recent coverage of testing in Spain, the teams, the politics and of course, the engineering and technical side of the sport. What can we expect from the 2017 FIA Formula 1 season? Well, here's what Steve has to say about it.

Join Grace and me as we discuss the end of testing and what things we thought were important. We cover attacking drivers, GP2 and even discuss twitchy brakes and standing re-starts.

Yes, you can call this the Who Quadrophenia podcast because, "we go out of our brain on the 5:15". We cover testing #1 and what we learned as well as what we're looking for in testing #2 from BARCELONA! Social media and Lewis Hamilton too. "Are you crazy?"

Join Paul and me as we discuss the brand new 2017 Formula 1 cars, the liveries, the designs, the FIN, and the poor effort. We discus day #1 of testing in BARCELONA! We even hand out awards too.

Join Grace and me as we discuss active suspensions, Toto and Niki, data sharing, reserve drivers, and Mercedes's new employee.

Join Grace and me as we discuss the regulations and who thinks they will succeed or fail, the freezing of Mercedes power units (great idea!), sandbagging or lack of and much more. We even have awards to give out.

Join Paul and me as we discuss some Formula 1 news of the week. We cover Ferrari's pre-loaded start concerns, Max Mosley's comments and even chat about Bobby K. Big thanks to Paul for helping me out of a scheduling debacle of my own making.

Join Grace and me as we discuss McLaren, more McLaren, Bottas, Ocon, ingénue Ross Brawn, and much more. We even have some awards.

The announcement that Bernie Ecclestone has been dropped by Liberty Media as the CEO of F1 broke right as we pressed record! You're getting our raw reactions as well as what we feel Liberty Media might focus on to change F1 in this special episode of the Bernie-less F1. What do we really feel about Bernie Ecclestone's departure of F1's chief? What changes should Liberty focus on and will it be easy? Share your thoughts on what you feel the new owners should do to "spice up the show."

Join Paul and me as we discuss the Rolex 24 at Daytona with Team 3GT driver Ian James. Ian and his teammates, including Scott Pruett, are at the helm of the new Lexus GT racing program and face some of the stiffest competition in Rolex 24 history. The IMSA Rolex 24 will consist of 55 competitors for the race’s 55th running on Saturday, Jan. 28. With a raft of new manufacturers, cars and racing programs, the Balance of Power has been a real challenge this year and a host of new regulations changes to match. Twelve cars will make up the Prototype class, with Daytona Prototype international (DPi) entrants from Cadillac, Mazda and Nissan joined by a host of global LM P2 spec cars. This year’s race has, arguably, one of the strongest collection of driver lineups in recent history and highlighted by names such as NASCAR’s Jeff Gordon and Indycar’s James Hinchcliffe. Eleven factory programs will compete in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class, with Corvette Racing, four Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GTs, Porsche’s all-new 911 RSRs and a single entry from Ferrari. BMW is entering a pair of cars, one of which being the first BMW Art Car to ever race in the Rolex 24.

Join Grace and me as we discuss the Formula 1 news of the week. We chat about Valtterin Bottas going to Mercedes, Felipe Massa returning to Williams and Pascal Wehrlein heading to Sauber. We discuss the HALO and even find time to chat about Red Bull's aspirations for 2017.

Join Paul and me as we discuss the upcoming 2017 regulation changes for Formula 1. what will change? What will the impact be and why? We cover it all here and we even have a few awards too.

Join Grace and me as we discuss Mercedes and their driver pick. Paddy Lowe and his team pick, Ferrari and their chassis pick and much more. We even share all the stats from the season according to a tire maker who also should be making coffee.

Join Paul and me. literally, in a very special episode of the FBC Podcast. We were both in Dayton at the Finali Mondiali event. Paul was working the event and trying to stage 1,000 Ferrari's and I was working with the wonderful people at Shell covering the event for all of you. We are rarely in the same room so I took a couple of mics and a recorder and this is the best we could do on short notice with no notes. I'll have a FBC Downshift episode for you with the interviews I did including Marc Gené, Kimi Raikkonen, Sebastian Vettel, Sergio Marchionne and Maurizio Arrivebene. HUGE thank you to the amazing crew at Shell for allowing me to work the event and bring you, the FBC community, some very special content. If you get a chance, let Shell know you appreciate their friendship with us otherwise, we'd never have access to the content we all enjoy. @Shell_US Normally the Nico Rosberg announcement would be worthy of a special podcast but we were in transit to Dayton when it happened and this is as quick as we could cover so we share our thoughts on his decision and his possible replacements.

Join Paul and me as we unpack the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and crown a new champion for 2016. WE talk about Lewis Hamilton's tactics, where they "dirty tricks" or exactly what he should have done? Did Red Bull or Ferrari have anything for Mercedes? Did Vettel purposefully avoid the pass on Nico Rosberg? We discuss all of this and every team as they finished. We even hand out a few awards.