We're back after a brief hiatus (and a trip around the UK) and catching up first with a rough-around-the-edges recap of F1's latest adventures at Spa. This year featured more rain, more formation laps behind the safety car, and another friggin' sprint race featuring an absurdly stupid penalty.
Oscar Piastri continues to shine, the Mercedes drivers nearly come together - again, and Yuki Tsunoda outscored his over-hyped teammate.
Join us as we breakdown the good, the bad and the ugly (hint, the last one is having to listen to Dutch national anthem again).
We're back after a brief hiatus (and a trip around the UK) and catching up first with a rough-around-the-edges recap of F1's latest adventures at Spa. This year featured more rain, more formation laps behind the safety car, and another friggin' sprint race featuring an absurdly stupid penalty.
Oscar Piastri continues to shine, the Mercedes drivers nearly come together - again, and Yuki Tsunoda outscored his over-hyped teammate.
Join us as we breakdown the good, the bad and the ugly (hint, the last one is having to listen to Dutch national anthem again).
Greetings and welcome to Formula XX, a podcast by two Gen X women talking about Formula 1 and other motorsports, usually with adult beverages and always with adult words. So if you're underage, easily offended or, frankly, a fan of Red Bull Racing, you probably want to turn back now. We aren't neutrals, though we do our best to be somewhat fair and somewhat unbiased, but if we're not, that's okay too. You just have to come along for the ride. Today, we are actually talking to you about the 2023 Belgium Grand Prix. You may have noticed that we've skipped over a few episodes. We will be coming back to those. I am as always with Gen Gen. What have we been up to the last few weeks and why are we so far behind?
Speaker 2:Well, we were in a country that had a blackout on F1 unless you had Sky TV, so we couldn't actually watch any of the races we did not attend. We were fortunate enough to attend Silverstone, which was amazing. We had such a good time. I think we got the only last bit of sun that the UK will have for the end of days. We were definitely not what you guys saw for the rain and the sun. That was the last sun you saw in the UK. I was there for another three weeks after the race and that was pretty much it, but it's been a great time. But I haven't been able to watch any of the races because VPNs are iffy at best and F1 just issued a notice while I was over there for Spa in fact that they were going to honor the agreement not to let VPNs be used to stream any of their services, and I don't have Sky TV, so, yeah, there was no way to watch the races while I was over there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was sort of thinking about the fact that we couldn't even get the VPN to work when we were trying to rewatch Spa and I sort of wonder if that wasn't actually in effect and just not talked about much until shortly before Spa, because it really we could not make the VPN work when we were trying to bypass Skye.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we wanted to watch. I mean, we were at Silverstone, we saw a lot of parts of Silverstone where we were, but we would like to have seen the entire race and everything again and it just it was a hell of a lot of hoops to jump through and ultimately we weren't that successful. Yeah, I am drinking a very, very delicious Octomor 8.2. I had the amazing time of doing a Distillers tasting at the Brooklottie Brewery Distillery while I was over there and I did buy the latest Octomor, which is not open. I'm going to finish this one first and then I will move on to that. And it is delicious. Pd. Caramel-y Loveliness, I am jealous. I am jealous. I need to finish as many bottles before I move.
Speaker 1:She's taking one for the team boys and girls. She's trying to eliminate the bottles of whiskey just so we don't have to move them Also to make room for all the new ones she just brought back from the UK. I am drinking. I'm getting pretty close to the end of my bottle of Yellow Spot, which is another that's going to make me sad when it's gone. I see the green spot around from time to time. It's pretty easily available, but I haven't found the yellow spot in ages here. It's very good, I'm glad to have it. I'll be sad when it's gone, but I'm sure there's more wonderful whiskey out there to take its place eventually.
Speaker 2:It's an Irish whiskey, right it is yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say probably my favorite Irish whiskey. I really shouldn't say that because I don't drink enough Irish whiskey to really have a basis of comparison, but I do like it quite a lot, yeah, so, aside from whiskey and bad weather and adventures in F1 and adventures on Isla, there were several races and I think a lot, a lot has happened. As we're doing these in reverse chronological order, we're going to be bouncing around a bit, but we definitely have seen some changes. If you just take Red Bull out of the equation, which I think 98% of F1 fandom has already done, I think we're seeing a little bit of shuffle, or at least a little bit of jiggity-jaggedy between which midfield team is best of the rest from week to week. Probably some development leaps, with McLaren in the last few races having come to the fore.
Speaker 1:It was such mixed conditions in spa and I know we'll talk about it, but we saw, unfortunately, the return of the porpoising which has affected a number of teams just this weekend. But mostly I think it was yet another dance sprint weekend, which is kind of how I frame it in my head when we get to this point that there's another one on the horizon. This was, I think, as far as I've understood things, and it feels like this has changed on a near monthly basis, but it sounds like they've pretty much settled on a change. One additional change of format moving forward the next sprint race, which is in Monza, rather than the format we've had, which we just used in spa, which is one 60-minute session of free practice on Friday morning, followed by race quali, then, on Saturday morning, the sprint shootout, aka sprint quali.
Speaker 2:I don't know why they call it a shootout. If they're going to do a shootout, do it the same way Formula E does it. That makes it far more interesting than this fits and starts that any quali is. Now that we get to have two qualis in a weekend that are essentially exactly the same fucking thing, if you're going to have this sprint race and try and get more people to watch it, make quali interesting For those of you who don't watch Formula E. The way that they do their and they call it a shootout for their quali is they have cars go in pairs, I think five seconds apart from each other, and they just go balls fucking out around the course as fast as they can. You don't have to worry about traffic. You don't have to worry about anything except just driving the fucking tires off the car and getting the best out of it you can and setting amazing records and having just incredible laps and masterclasses after masterclass of drivers doing their thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the duels are really interesting in Formula E. Put a pin in that because I think it's. You know, it is interesting to think about quali conceptually and whether that's changes for the sprint quali versus regular quali, because we're really seeing changes. When we come back to Hungary We'll talk about the trial run for quali there, but so we've been in FP1, followed by race quali, then Saturday morning having the sprint quali session, followed by the sprint race and then obviously the Grand Prix on Sunday. Looking forward, the plan is arguably to flip regular race quali and sprint quali. So I think that frankly makes a bit more sense to have real quali right where it's always been Saturday afternoon, so you have a free practice, then you have sprint quali, in the morning, you have the sprint and in Saturday afternoon you have race quali. I feel like that just makes more sense.
Speaker 2:I agree. I think it makes more sense, I think, also having a consistency of obviously the times of everything is going to change from race to race depending on what time zone they're in, but at least having a consistency of like a step process A happens and B happens, and C has to happen, then D has to happen rather than A happens and then D happens or D would be the final. You know, like having it all jump around. Just keep some of it as simple as possible. There's a lot to do on weekends for us, not just for Formula One, but there's a lot of human things for people to do. Everybody else has lives. Keep it as simple as you fucking can so we can keep it all straight in our head, as well as the ever-changing bar of whatever time zone things are in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I haven't heard or if I heard, it apparently didn't stick, which is a distinct possibility at this phase in my brain whether Park Fermay rules will still take effect right after that FP1 session or if there will still be some flexibility. I'm personally a fan of letting them make changes up until the start of the sprint. So if they do the sprint on Saturday morning, like I, would have no problem letting them make changes after Kuali. But we'll see what they land on. But that's currently the plan. As far as next steps for the sprint race, that's Monza, and you know there's, like you said, there's something to be said for. Could we just fucking land on a format and stick with it? That, I think, would be great. But I know there's the whole camp that's we don't need practice sessions. We don't need practice sessions. Well, we're going to talk about why sprint races really aren't accomplishing what they claim they're trying to accomplish, and that's by their own devices. But I do think that they need more than one 60 minute session.
Speaker 2:I absolutely agree, because you need one 60 minute session and you need to have a bit of a think on what that six, the all the information and data that you got on that 60 minute session and be able to go out and have a second one for whatever tweaks you've made, to see if they're tweaks in the right direction or the wrong direction. I think you're right.
Speaker 1:I think. But philosophically again, you've got these people who sort of silo or put themselves in camps where they just think, well, it's better if it's unpredictable and we like unpredictable at all costs and my thing is is I want the emphasis to be on development. This is fundamentally not what the focus is on at the moment. It's entertainment and show over that sort of more technical aspect. And my thing is if you're going to try to have all of these teams attempt to out develop one another, you have to marry that with an opportunity to actually get the setup to work. And if you're not going to give them an opportunity to get the setup to work, what the fuck's the point of all of this? It's like them talking about engine equalization. Why, why, why, like either it's a spec sport or it's not 100%.
Speaker 2:100%.
Speaker 1:Either get to have engineering ingenuity or you shut the fuck up and drive spec cars, and I'm at the point where I'm starting to become less and less, as this season progresses, a fan of the cost cap Because, again, I think it's admirable the idea that we're going to allow the teams at the bottom to catch up because they don't have as much money. But it's become increasingly apparent that what it does is just slams the lid on development, and that, to me, is sad. I would love to see a period of time where Mercedes, McLaren and Aston Martin could throw all the money they want that's their business. If they want to spend their money on it, let them and see if they could possibly in any way, shape or form even make a notch in catching up with that damn rocket, the Adrian Newey belt. But as it stands, we're all sitting here going fucking hell. We're going to be watching the same shit until 2026.
Speaker 1:It's impossible to enjoy your race, because you just know like OK, blah blah, you know which lap will Max be in the lead? Blah blah, no one's ever going to catch up because there's still a second and a half ahead at the midpoint of the season. Blah, blah, like it's not good for the sport.
Speaker 2:No, I agree. Like when I was in the UK I had my Mercedes hat on all the time and I sparked a lot of conversations from all types of different fans and every 201, every single person I spoke with about racing sort of joked who do you think's going to win the race? No, who do you think's going to come in? Second, what do you think the interesting? Like every everyone it didn't matter what team they supported, everyone understood Max Verstappen was going to win the race. That it was done deal. No one fucking cared. It was boring as shit. And like I had a conversation like I had a joking conversation at the car hire place because the guy was a McLaren fan about what we're. If he was going to, let us take the car to Silverston or not. But he, you know he was, yeah, verstappen's going to win and he's like it's so boring to watch him win weekend and week out and he's a boring person. That was the other thing across the board.
Speaker 2:Everybody was like Max Verstappen's, just not charismatic and interesting. It'd be something if you had, like a character winning right. Like you know, erton Stenna had his pluses and his minuses. Schumacher pluses and minuses, you know, but they were interesting. You know, hunt Weird dude, but it was an interesting season, you know, and him and Nikki Lada, nikki Lada had it Like they were interesting personalities, right? Max Verstappen's, just fucking paint he is paint, racist paint?
Speaker 1:Well, he's racist, bland paint given for a racist bland team. But I think the worst part is for all of and again. I'm essentially, by all measures, recent F1 fan, but I've watched enough races from the last 10 years to say you know, sub Vettel in his bradious stage was infinitely more enjoyable to watch than Verstappen, and there was no point even in them. Why are you complaining? Because Mercedes had the most dominant car ever when the last regulation change happened. Blah, blah, blah. I mean I'm sick to death of that. Anybody who's denying the fact that this car that is being driven around the track by Max Verstappen, albeit in his hands, that he's an excellent driver, but that car is the fastest car ever built and if you're going to sit here and pretend it isn't, you're not serious. So shut the front door, go away.
Speaker 2:But at any point and it's a cheater car. And that was the other thing. Everybody I talked to, doesn't matter who they supported, all agreed it's a cheater car.
Speaker 1:Point. But during these entire stretches of previous dominance, which again should not be the goal right, it shouldn't have been the goal that Mercedes won eight years in a row, it shouldn't been the goal that Red Bull won for four before that, or whatever it was.
Speaker 2:It shouldn't be the goal now that Red Bull Right.
Speaker 1:But even in those periods there was always some form of rivalry and active possibility, week in, week out, that it wouldn't be the same person, let alone the same team, that won. When it was dominant by Mercedes, you still had some fierce fucking battles between the two drivers. Yeah, so we've seen the end of that friendship between Rossburg and Hamilton because of how that went during those years. There just have always been actual meaningful battles and we're nowhere near that. It's not even a consideration. Not just because Checo went on a five race, I can't get out of Q1 or I can't get into Q3. It's just, there's no question that Checo isn't in the fight.
Speaker 2:He was never going to be. I don't think they would never have let Checo win when in previous battles of teammates you knew that there were no team orders? At least early on in the season you knew there were no team orders, right, yeah, later on in the season there were team orders, but the start of the season let them race. Well, but that said.
Speaker 1:I'm still for all of my. I can't stand Red Bull. I'm still not convinced they're racing two different cars. I mean, I understand, I think about it, I do. You know, I have a tinfoil hat, that's pretty shiny. I just think Checo's mid. And I think, yeah, I just think Checo's mid. And you know, max, the car, in every way possible, has been tuned to his driving style.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that car is a beast to drive, no matter what iteration it's been in the last five years, and that and a beast to drive to anybody except Max. I should say that they've tuned it to him so precisely for the past five years that anybody else getting in is sort of shit out of luck.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then that brings me full circle to wanting to take any number of key personnel at Mercedes and put my foot up their ass. Because when I think about the fact that Lewis Hamilton, seven time world champion, and almost all of those in that Mercedes was given a car that could not suit him less last year and still is loose in the caboose, which is absolutely holding back Lewis and George in their ability to maximize the performance of the car, how was that a decision that was made? How did they actually go somewhere on a design scheme two and a half years ago and go, yeah, we're not going to suit the car to our lead driver? I mean, that's clearly what Red Bull did.
Speaker 1:Again, I don't want to discount that Adrian Newey is a genius at ground effect, because he clearly is. That would be a lie to pretend that he's not, and I'll give Max his props. He's a fantastic driver. I don't think he's a good person and I don't enjoy him as a winner and he's a whole bunch of other things that will never put him in the pantheon of people I will respect as F1 drivers, but he is fundamentally a very good driver.
Speaker 2:I'd say he's a very fast driver and a very aggressive driver. I don't know if that makes him a fantastic driver. He's one to get his elbows out in Parker's car on top of people if he has to, as opposed to having a much finer racecraft to weave through traffic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he's never needed it. In fairness, he was a bull in a china shop when he first got into F1 and he got away with it. And he got away with it. And then, when it came to the point where he needed to have the finesse and the craftsmanship, the FIA just opened the barn door and said you do whatever you want, son, we're here for you. And now he's so far ahead of the pack that it doesn't really matter. I mean, he can come through and 99% of the time now nobody is going to challenge him because it's just going to compromise their race. He's in a car. That is the race. Delta is what was it this weekend? That's relevant. We're talking about Belgium 30. 34 kilometers faster than the Mercedes. Now, the Mercedes was probably harvesting at that point. But are you fucking kidding me? That's nuts.
Speaker 2:Even if the Mercedes wasn't harvesting like that's another, like 25 kilometers an hour faster, right?
Speaker 1:Like what do you do with that? There were, I will say you know there were some real high points, I think, out of the last couple of weekends if you just shave off the Red Bull part of the weekend and once again this weekend. We'll talk more about it when we get back to Silverstone and to Hungary. But having Oscar Piazzari, who is in that resurgent McLaren, just shining, you know, and he's doing it in such a non annoying way which you know, I guess it's not fair necessarily to have that be part of the calculus on whether or not I enjoy it, but it is. You know, he's just a nice, funny, humble but fierce driver and he's doing a really good job.
Speaker 2:I think it's going to be fascinating to watch for the next couple of years.
Speaker 2:I think it's going to be interesting to see at McLaren, if Piazzari keeps driving to that level, what they're going to do with their two guys, because I don't think Norris is going to be cool to be the second driver, like he was fine with Sykes, and I think the fact that Danny Rick just shit the bed entirely while he was there just pumped up Norris's tires and I think it's just going to get more and more and it's going to be interesting to see what the dynamics end up being there.
Speaker 1:And I don't know enough about Piazzari, how he is like mentally and how he does the teammates, to see how he'll do with that and it feels just like yeah, I'm not convinced that the McLaren would have gotten him all that far Just because they had a barn door wing on it and I think that that was hurting them again. That was part of the overall teams who were hurt by setup and lack of opportunity to dial it in. Some of that was just it's spa. You have to make compromises, unless you have the Ubersuper Deluxe Rocket Ship edition of Red Bull Racing which is also potentially too low for spa.
Speaker 1:Put a pin in that. It's definitely come back to that. I do think, though, every team except Red Bull made big compromises in the setup. You had to, and you can see that in the sector times, the teams that were super fast in first and third were terrible in the middle McLaren Oscar made up 90% of his gains. All of his advantage was in the middle sector. He was literally 1.2, 1.3 seconds faster on his good laps than anybody else up to an, including Verstappen. So that's 100% a setup choice, but nobody who was making those compromises did particularly well. Ferrari and Mercedes seemed to be just literally at the exact same pace. That's why Hamilton could not get past Leclerc, because there was not enough Delta to ever overtake. Same for Charles with Checo. Those three were really very similar in pace. That's why it ultimately was pretty dull, honestly, to watch that chunk of the grid, because there just wasn't anything happening there Anyway. So come back to Red Bull Racing. You were going to talk about the fact that it seemed like they were running low.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So Red Bull Racing Heather sent me a very fascinating video by a gentleman who's name I've forgotten because I'm old and can't remember if I get called.
Speaker 1:His handle online is brrrrraaake, with a whole bunch of Rs. He's a former Red Bull Racing analyst. I think I can't quite remember what his job was. He did work for Red Bull for several years but he has enough aerodynamic background that he does a lot of analysis of the telemetry and posts about it. But it's like brrrrake.
Speaker 2:I didn't realize until the other day that any YouTube channel, because I've been following him on Instagram for a while and his analyses are fascinating. It's hardcore analytical spreadsheets and bar graphs and line graphs, dave and Nerd.
Speaker 2:Woot Right, it's so awesome. I'm going to watch his channel forever now. But one of the things he was saying was that both Red Bulls for going around O'Rouche where it should be flat out, we're lifting and coasting. He has all the data. He goes, gets all the onboards, gets all the data so you can see where their throttles are and where they're breaking and everything else. Both Checo and Mac were lifting and coasting through all of O'Rouche, which should be flat fucking out. I got to tell you, the sim that I can drive here that's the spa is the most fun track that I can drive in the sim. O'rouche, once you get the line, is fucking awesome. You just floor it. All you do is you go up the gears and that's not what they were doing, and I'm not a good race driver, I'm not a good sim driver. I do it in some little shitty Toyota Celica and floor it and away we go.
Speaker 2:But for whatever reason, the Red Bull cars were not flooring it where they should have been flooring it, and he had a couple of theories on it, but the one that he thought was the closest to reality is that they basically have this car's all basically have tiny skid pads front, back and on either side going down the middle. They can only lose one to two millimeters off those skid pads throughout the entirety of the race. And that has how the FIA measures how low the cars are riding and if they're too low when they heel over at different angles and they're breaking or like under braking and stuff like that Sort of more. To support that as well was a bunch of the the comms between GP and Max and Chico and his engineer as well, and going back and forth. And you know, use your head, use your head. Max was told several times to use his head. He was asked if both cars are doing it. He was just told listen to me. Chico asked a whole bunch of questions about that section and both cars were lifting and coasting.
Speaker 1:Yeah which gives you two, maybe three follow up points that I'd love to hit, one being, you know, I again. We hit upon it earlier. I think it speaks to the fact that they as a team also weren't able to maximize setup because they put it there and then they were locked into it and realized, oops, that's too low. And, you know, it's kind of nice to know that there's one tiny chink somewhere in their armor, since they seem to be amazing basically at every other aspect of each weekend race right now. Two, I think you cannot talk about this weekend without talking about the exchanges between Max and GP, and it's me, so of course I'm going to frame it in the context of the raging fucking hypocrisy that takes place in this sport. He was an ass to GP and GP was done with it Like this is the first time.
Speaker 2:He was the ass from Friday on.
Speaker 1:He was. He was, and it was interesting because it's the first time that you've really been able to have a sense that GP is done and not just like I'm taking it and this is kind of the nature of our relationship but like shut the fuck up, like he was done with it. He really was biting back, which was just interesting as an observation between them. But you cannot, having lived through the endless rounds of criticism that has been leveled at Sonoda a much lesser degree to a couple of other people, but certainly also to Lewis on every level over the years, about him being whiny on the radio or mean on the radio, when he does things that are one 100 as rude and aggressive as Max Ristappen was, not to mention sarcastic and arrogant. You know the whole. I'll bring it in for an extra pit stop. Let's do practice. Aren't I clever? Like if Lewis Hamilton had ever made that crack in any context in the last 15 years, he would still be hearing about it 10 years later.
Speaker 2:I think also, if any driver had made that crack on the radio, the fucking shitstorm, not only from like the media and the fans, but from the team principle after the race, yeah, would it be epic, Not there, Not Red Bull.
Speaker 2:I have a friend who used to race and it used to be that Horner and this is one, Danny Rick, was there. Horner would call both of them in and just rage at both of them. And sometime in the last five or six years Horner's like this is my son who sucks my cock, and everything is amazing. He doesn't seem to rage at all anymore and I don't know like if it's we're all buddy buddies now. I don't know what the change has been. There's no screaming at the drivers anymore, which is good, Don't get me wrong. I don't, you know, think any boss should be fucking slamming doors and screaming at their employees. There's no way. Like one of his, as Heather said, like he's maxless, joking about oh, let's do another pit stop. So there's pit stop practice. He was also bitching about oh, it's really windy and I have to turn the steering wheel and GP is like okay, do you want us to turn the wind off?
Speaker 1:Like, yeah, I do think GP was at an end and I think, in fairness, team dynamics when you're clearly not in contention for anything are one thing. I think team dynamics in a 2021 situation where every point is a dogfight is a second thing, and I think you know team dynamics when you literally could stop racing at the midpoint of the season and still win both championships, which is essentially where they are Like it's almost mathematically impossible for any team or driver to catch them or max at this point, are different. You know I wouldn't expect Horner to be raging at anybody. The crypt keeper, who knows what he says to people behind closed doors. He's a hideous human being and you know that is what that is. See also Nick DeVries, daniel Kibbe at Pierre Gasly, alex Albon you know I mean there's plenty of gross behavior there, whether someone's screaming at you or not, from that team.
Speaker 2:I don't remember what it came out, but I really hope that rumor of Alex Albon being asked to take that seat where he said no thank you, is true. I just hope that's so fucking true.
Speaker 1:I don't think you'll have seen it. Today's rumor is that Alpha Tori, which is now expected to be the Hugo Boss Bulls team starting next year, hugo Boss is currently rumored to be the most likely lead sponsor for the new team, and that will be the boss, the or the name. The Hugo Boss Bulls team is purportedly planning to run the RB 19 as their car next year, so they will take this year's Red Bull, which will be last year's Red Bull by this time next year, and be driving that on the grid. I have a hard time believing that's legal, but it's not by any of it, isn't it?
Speaker 1:They'll probably find a way to make it legal so that they can keep Red Bull happy. We go back to Sprint, quali and Quali. Quali was very delayed, very mixed, most of the running on inters, because it's spa and it doesn't seem to matter whether you're holding the race in September or in late July. You're still going to have the same weather conditions track drying, lots of evolution, hard to say how out of position a few people were, but I do think it was probably one of the more. He who crosses last does best. Yeah, it's scenarios for regular Quali.
Speaker 1:Max took a new ICE, is that right? No, gearbox, I think he took a new Gearbox. Yeah, I think, a new Gearbox. I apologize if I'm forgetting what it was. I didn't really care. It's actually the fact of it which meant he took a five-place grid penalty, even though he was on pole. He, of course, did not start on pole, but beyond that it didn't really matter. We all knew that he'd get there one way or another. There was a bit of an incident with the Mercedes, which is relevant because there's a pattern happening here that we're going to talk about, which is Lewis Hamilton got offline to try and get out of the way, for I think it was Valtry Votas and, as he was coming back on, was close to George, so there was a big question there already whether he was going to get a penalty. He did not Kudos to George for being a decent teammate. He was like, yeah, no, I knew what was happening. We were getting the same message. I knew Lewis was coming back on.
Speaker 2:That was never a problem, so they dodged that particular issue which, considering the last couple of races with Mercedes and talking to their drivers and telling them where they are on track in relativity to each other yay, they got that right once.
Speaker 1:Ish, we don't know if that's factual, honestly, I don't know that there's onboard proof of that, which is the interesting part, but that was the story that was told to the stewards and what cleared the penalty. And then Sprint-Quali was a complete clusterfuck and it is getting talked about and it needs to be talked about and it's a shame to me that the people who are talking about it are not Mercedes, particularly Going into the second runs in Q3, George, I will say, had a very difficult session. You seem to have a hard time keeping it on track. Well, and I don't know if that was the wing they were running very different setups. They chose those setups. They did confirm that on the team debrief that they both picked what they wanted. You know it wasn't like somebody drew the short straw or anything like that. They knew there were different options. They each chose what they chose and one was likely to be better in wet and one was likely to be better in dry, but it was spa. So your odds were whatever.
Speaker 2:Your odds were that it might work for you and it might not, and you know it might work for you for half the race and might not work for you for the other half the race, Absolutely completely and totally.
Speaker 1:But George was just having a real hard. He had a tough, he acknowledged it. Like he just said, it was a disaster as a quality. It wasn't a great weekend in general, but Sprint quality was where things were really tight. He barely got out of Q1 and then he barely got out of Q2.
Speaker 2:And then he probably only got out of Q2 because stroll bend it into the wall and ended a Lonzo session and 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it was luck of the draw that he got through, but then. But then it was a perfect storm of miscommunication and bad judgment and, yes, the team. So it's spa and not nearly as bad as what we're going to talk about when we get to the episode about Hungary, which is always a nightmare in quality. But you get a backup. You know the bus stop chicane is right before the start, finish straight. So as people are trying to get ready for their flying laps, you tend to get this backup of cars, which was absolutely happening even in Q3.
Speaker 1:Lewis was on provisional pull after the first set of laps. He was doing amazing, frankly, but they were told, because this clog of cars was there, that they needed to push, push, push, push because the implication was they were running out of time. George just barrels past, just blows by, including Lewis had to drive right past Lewis to get where he was going, goes down, is going whatever. He totally loses it in the first corner. So he's immediately compromised. He doesn't just miss by a bit, he goes way he goes off the track, on the track.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like he's like spit, no, but I mean it's like he didn't completely lose it.
Speaker 1:But not only does he not lose it, he comes right onto the track in front of Lewis I mean right in front of Lewis how he didn't get a penalty for that is.
Speaker 2:Oh wait, it's a black and white issue, isn't it about penalties?
Speaker 1:It's a fascinating one because they make it up to Radion but and I've seen, like you know, somebody go. Oh well, he had. Lewis had enough of a tow at offset. The disadvantage? No, it didn't, because by the time they get up to Radion and to the start of the Kimmel, straight George then then makes a complete last minute jink across the track and Lewis totally has to lift off the throttle. That was it for his lap. There was no way done it was done.
Speaker 1:It was absolutely over. So now, not only had George lost a lap due to his own, no offense error, he took Lewis out of contention to Mercedes screwed the pooch. Because they did say to George there's nobody behind. I personally find it impossible to believe that George didn't know he was there because he just gone right past him, that was. There was never a scenario where somebody, aka Lewis, who is the car he passed to get going, wasn't going to be behind him. Anyway, it's just. It was such a weird out of scene continuation of what happened in Spain and then what happened in quality, and now it's happened in sprint quality.
Speaker 2:You don't see other teams tripping over themselves like this, no, not just badly, it's kind of ridiculous, it's kind of Ferrari level.
Speaker 1:It's very Ferrari level and it's disappointing AF, because this team cannot afford that kind of stupid Speaking of Ferrari, though they had a good weekend all in all. I mean, let's just say they didn't do anything obvious, except for Carlos, frankly, driving Oscar into the wall and breaking his own car. That was, carlos, the least offensive Ferrari screw up that we've seen in recent races. So you know, there's hope yet. And Cheryl got on the podium. Hurrah, yay. That made me so happy. Yeah, if I can't have who I want on the podium, I definitely want Cheryl on the podium. So that was good. So what did you think of the race itself? What stood out as anything? The sprint race or the race race? Either one? Well, there's plenty to talk about on the sprint race.
Speaker 2:I'm willing to go there, you are.
Speaker 1:Let's, let's, start with the sprint race. Well, we had, you know, classic spa weather.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was 7493 laps behind the safety car, also known as I think, six five five laps behind the safety car. There were some interesting coming in for pits and some interesting stops and some very interesting releases that were not deemed unsafe. Yeah, I'm not sure how that happened. Fascinating. Leslie came out and they helped Gavzly for a while and then they let him out into a fucking car.
Speaker 1:They didn't hold him for very long. He jumped a whole bunch of positions. In any other race ever, ever Would have been an unsafe release.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I think he still had like a three or four second pit stop. It wasn't Lewis's 5.2, but I remember thinking it was up there. I was like, if you're going to hold them, hold them. But I do know that he jumped like five positions and then it was a really interesting sort of mix of who came in for tires on the first lap and who came in for the second lap and Piastri had to lead for a while and I was fucking rooting for him.
Speaker 1:I was not spoiled for the sprint race too badly and I was just like, oh, come on, oscar, like I knew he wasn't going to hold it, but I was like, oh, yeah, you know, I think we learned some more information about tires this weekend In Kuali they did not declare it a wet race, despite the fact that they ran all of QSQ1 on inters. Everybody except for one driver was on inters, still in SQ2. But because they did not call it a wet race intentionally, we learned after the fact that meant that any driver who wanted to go to SLICs during qualifying had to be on their hard, medium soft cycle, which meant that when Lance Stroll decided to be brave and try to put on SLICs, his only option was to put on mediums, which was what subsequently put him in the wall and took out his teammate in terms of being able to advance. So then we get to the actual sprint race. They have to start on the wets, essentially, and everybody knew by the time they were at the end of the first formation lap.
Speaker 1:No, no, these are not going to work Because universally everybody has decided the wets are the most useless tire created. They don't do what they need to do. Everybody hates them. Everybody hates them.
Speaker 2:Can't drive and the rooster tails they create are fucking incredible. And it's not just them Like Max and God knows he's a whiny little fuck. But Max was complaining behind the safety car that he couldn't see. And if your leader cannot see behind the safety car, yeah, something's not going right. How about the guy in 10th position Like what's his view Right?
Speaker 1:Like yeah, pierre was real clear after the race that he felt like it was not safe to be racing, that there was still too much water.
Speaker 2:All those guys have to have their back, their mind, that someone died there less than a month ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, delano's death is so recent you can't not be thinking about it.
Speaker 2:And that Gazzly and Leclerc as well did their tribute. Yes, right Like, and that's four years ago, like everybody has to be thinking, and frankly, last year Norris was like that was scary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was. Yeah, I mean everybody understands the dangers. At Spa I did appreciate that the team, all the drivers, were very clear and, I think, unanimous coming into the weekend that the FIA had to be fully prepared to cancel the race if it was deemed unsafe. I don't think that the sprint race was unsafe, I you know, I felt like it was fine. They, they did the laps, they did they felt like under the conditions I just think, yeah, and I think you should.
Speaker 2:They should have started on inters, right, like the wets are such bullshit tires and they could have all just started on inters, though it did make for an interesting first not first actual lap, but first actual racing lap to see who stayed out and who came in and who changed around and yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:So the sprint race gets going and from that point, once everybody's back on track, I would argue that it settled into a group. There's always some degree of interesting overtakes. Those are minimal, I think, in those sorts of circumstances. You know, we we see some advancement up through the midfield. Not a whole lot. Like I say, most people jumped in that pit phase rather than on the track.
Speaker 2:So then we get into racing conditions and and Paris starts to drop backwards and Paris is going slower and slower and Louis goes to pass him and there's a bit of RG bar G, but nothing too egregious in any way, shape or form. And Louis, you know lap eight pops up, that Louis is under investigation and everyone, including the announcers, like it's nothing, it's a racing incident, it'll be fine. And what do you have Julian Palmer saying Louis is fine, it's a racing incident, nothing's going to come of this. The absolute, like befuddlement and disbelief.
Speaker 2:When you got awarded a penalty from the announcers, who are usually pretty anti-Lewis, and across the board after the race, everybody was like what the fuck, how did he get a five second penalty? How does he have two penalty points on his license? Like what bullshit is this? And no, like crickets from fricking Mercedes fighting against this and crickets from the FIA defending it, when you know every media outlet is like what the fuck? What, how, how is this a penalty? And you cannot I mean it's always said that you cannot look at the outcome of the incident and, frankly, if Sykes could race for like 20, whatever laps with a giant gaping hole in his car, no problem. The positions that Paris was losing was not because of the hole in this car? Did he exacerbate it? Probably, but he was dropping down the fucking ranks fast at that point, yeah.
Speaker 1:Louis was close, had closed in on him and he had no pace, well before they got to the point where they came together. It is, I'm sorry, outrageous bullshit. That penalty was beyond awful, to the point and, in general, a test to this. I hate Derek Warwick. Derek Warwick was one of the stewards for Abu Dhabi and, yeah, I'm not over Abu Dhabi. You get over me not being over it, because I will never be over Abu Dhabi. Same, His bullshit great white hope comment about Max Verstappen puts him in the pantheon of people in the FIA that I can't fucking stand and never will be able to.
Speaker 1:And because he was one of the stewards for the race, I will admit I jumped to a conclusion. The conclusion was there. I didn't have far to go. I jumped, turned out afterwards. Derek Warwick was one of the people going. Yeah, we were not unanimous on this decision and I was not one of the people in support of it. That alone, that alone, knowing what he knows about how the fandom for Louis Hamilton feels about him, for him to come out saying that right. I mean, I can't even test him into the fact that this was a terrible penalty.
Speaker 1:And the bigger context, if you read Autosport sorry Autosport on a regular basis. Alex did an entire article on that this week that, like all of the drivers ought to be having a real heartfelt convo with in the drivers meeting next in Zanford on Friday night about what and why and how was this allowed to be a penalty. Because if that kind of thing, which was incidental contact, this was not somebody misjudging the apex, poor little Red Bull racing fans. Whee, whee, whee, whee, whee, whee. That was not what happened. Checo had plenty of room on the outside. Louis was absolutely alongside going into the corner. Did he get understeer? He did, because he caught the right tire on the wet curb and that bumped him to the left, but not in a way that did more than the most incidental of contact. You are in racing conditions in changeable mixed weather and you keep telling us that the entire reason we're having these fucking stupid sprint races is because we want more entertainment and more racing. And then you do this. Yeah, it's utter bullshit. What?
Speaker 2:are you doing? There was no way Louis wasn't going to make that pass. There was no way Leclerc wasn't going to make that pass, and I've also heard that Red Bull went crying right away about the damage in their car and they had to retire their car. But here's the thing they're saving that car, Like that happened in lap seven. So there's only what five more laps to go. If Sykes could race 22 laps the way he did and any other manner of people racing over the years the way they did, Paris was falling down. Whether there was something wrong with the?
Speaker 2:setup in Paris or there's something wrong with the car that they wanted to fix and they could see it. But if they can point the finger at somebody else and not necessarily Louis, but happily for them in this situation, Louis if they can point the finger at somebody else and retire that car, so they can do whatever they want, and maybe they already knew they had a problem with the skid block during the sprint race.
Speaker 1:It's interesting because they hadn't really thought about that. It seems less likely because they did those five laps under. They were not racing hard. They wanted to conceive how you could possibly have been in a situation, but we've seen it before. They retired him in Abu Dhabi and you knew it was because he was out of fuel, right? We all know that he was.
Speaker 2:Paris had only been racing for two laps when Louis over to real racing Right. No, I know, the rest was all he could get in the car.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So whatever I mean, I am of the belief that there was already an issue, because he was absolutely slowing down. Everybody again, all the commentators, who are sometimes the most clueless Fs that exist, were like yeah, no, he was already slowing down well before the contact and the damage happened.
Speaker 2:Julian Palmer actually said that it was extraordinary that Louis Hamilton had gotten a penalty.
Speaker 1:You know at that point that five seconds put Louis down the order. And to your point earlier, I'm not sure if I was more pissed and disappointed by the stewards penalty or more disappointed and pissed by the fact that Mercedes once again was ballless and did not do anything. Yeah, I thought we would see Louis grumpy about it in the post post sprint interview. He was very Zen about it.
Speaker 2:I think he's just becomes Zen in general. But all this bullshit, like he's like I can't. I'm definitely not going to be able to beat them. I can't kill them with kindness or anger. I'm just going to keep doing my thing and I think part of his thing is enjoying how frustrated everybody gets by him not getting angry at them.
Speaker 1:Yeah could be. I can't second guess that. But what I can second guess is a team that absolutely refuses to have a backbone in the context of these situations as they arise. And you and I have a very different take on Abadabi and whether there should have been at least some theater involved in making a show of standing up for fighting what happened the end of the day. Every time you fail to, you make it easier for them to get away with it the next time, and I want to believe, even if it's naive AF at this point, that Mercedes can be back in the fight next year. And do I think they're going to beat Red Bull over a season? No, I don't, but I think if they improve the car, they can be fighting for wins from time to time, maybe the sports more enjoyable to watch again, but there will never stop being stupid ass penalties that are disproportionately levied at a certain driver's head.
Speaker 1:And you've got to have a backbone. Stand up. Even if you're not doing it in reality behind closed doors, at least have the common sense to be politically adept enough to talk about it in front of the cameras. But that's not what they do. Have the theater to do it right. I mean, this sport is politics. If you don't think it's politics, you're not watching the same thing. I am, no, and it's always been politics.
Speaker 2:It's always been, it's always been, it's been politics since it started. Absolutely, it's nearly a century worth of bullshit politics.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's my point, though, you have to play the game, and doing nothing is not playing the game.
Speaker 2:The other cheek is not the way to go on this. Stand up and understand. You're just going to get more and more penalties and be frank about it. Like, yeah, we're getting these penalties. Here's why we think they're bullshit penalties. We can't fight them because we know we're going to lose.
Speaker 1:But you'll get the sympathy. I mean. That's my point. It's like the only way you break the system is by challenging it, and there are times where they're easier to challenge. Your point with Abu Dhabi is they risk too much by making an actual challenge, and my take is okay even if that's the case, and I do think the end result, the potentiality of that, is very much what was going to happen. You had the ability to put the FIA in the hot seat for at least a minute and get the attention. And right now, when I look at it in the context of what we just saw this week, what do they have to lose? What do you have to lose in this moment? You're not going to win anything. You're not challenging.
Speaker 2:Frankly, you get more penalties, even as a team, and you drop down. Great, you drop down. You get more fucking development time, which is what they need, and development money, right Like yeah, it's not like they take instructors points away from you because you complained.
Speaker 2:You know they may not like you, but and even if they do like, hit you with harder and harder penalties and you lose. You fall down. Fuck it, fall down and take the development time. Yeah, I think Abu Dhabi was far too late to fight. There was many other instances that season where Mercedes could have fought them going to the sporting court. And the sporting courts meant that Mercedes would have to withdraw from all motor sports until the case had been decided. And that was at least a season that they would have to withdraw not just from F1, but from every motor sport that the FIA do, do, do.
Speaker 1:And I still don't care, and I still think if they had called their bluff and said we're prepared to take you there that night instead of going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, whatever, we'll live to fight another day. And the stewards would have had their balls in a vice for 24, 36 hours and as outraged as people were. In even the absence of that, the attention it got would have been good for the sport in the sense that it would have made it that much harder to bury the lead and just sit on it for six months and then send Michael Massey off on some, you know, do not discuss contract and send him to Siberia, which is all they did at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:To be fair, they said they were far lovelier than Siberia. He just got booted back to Australia.
Speaker 1:Not the point, but yes, I mean, he's gotten away with what he did. Essentially, they got away with what they did, and it's the belief that they can do it again. That is the problem, and I will never have faith that this to your point. The people who are in charge of adjudicating this stuff will not represent impartial interests, and so teams have to be willing to fight, and Red Bull does it. They're good at it. Asked to Martin and will fight, they're good at it. Even Ferrari knows how to do it.
Speaker 2:Gunther Steiner knows how to do it. Gunther Steiner is true for all. I do not like Gunther Steiner as a boss is very, very good at it. Even what he knows, he's not going to win.
Speaker 1:He fucking fights all day, and I think that's what Mercedes is going to have to learn at some point, but if they haven't learned it now, I don't know that they ever will. I don't know race. Onto the race. Yeah, I don't even know where to start exactly. I mean, we had Max in sixth, we had a good front row with, you know, our second Red Bull, which seems to be exactly on par with the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc.
Speaker 2:We had Sykes taking up Piazzaglia in the first two laps. No, in the first corner. Yeah, but Piazziglia made it to lap two before he had to retire the car.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well the car was broken. You know it's been funny to watch sort of the hubbub in the post-race on that front. Is Carlos just adamant that it was Oscar's fault? Completely in every way possible.
Speaker 2:Are you?
Speaker 1:fucking kidding me. Yeah, no, I mean he's doubled down on it multiple times on social media. I sorry, carlos. No, neither of them were investigated, let alone received a penalty for the contact. So do with that information what you will. I think probably the biggest surprise of the race was that it took until lap 17 for Restappan to take the lead. Was there anything else interesting that happened?
Speaker 2:in this race. No, I mean, that is where we get. I'm just looking at my notes. It is where Restappan overtook Lewis with 34 kilometers per hour without DRS.
Speaker 1:But, in fairness, lewis held him back for a few laps, which you know. Hey, you take the wins that you can get, and that was probably it. I really I assumed that Restappan would be in the lead by the fifth lap and that would be the end of it. So 17 was you know something?
Speaker 2:No, there were. You know there were a couple of really good midfield battles as well, and that's always been the interesting thing when you know the championship is sewn up, when you understand it's going to be one of two drivers watching the midfield and they're actually a feel showing more, I guess, because someone else are you going to show? Liberty Media understands everyone's fucking bored as balls.
Speaker 1:Yeah like with what's going on up front. Hey, yuki got points and I will say it good for you, yuki Sonoda, you've been taking it in the teeth for a month straight now and Yuki's gotten all of the points for Alphatorie and Danny.
Speaker 2:Rick has been doing awful and I make me a bad person, but I am so happy he is not doing well there.
Speaker 1:I think it's early days, but I think the whole he's going to come in and dominate and because he was ahead of him last week or the last race, it was like, oh yeah, see, here we go. Danny Ricardo Superstar is going to be so dominant. And yeah, no, that's not what happened.
Speaker 2:No not at all. Back to a couple of the good battles. There was a great one that went on back and forth between Gasly and Albaughn the midway through the race. That was going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, which ended up, having bought us because they were fighting so hard with each other, bought us, ended up catching up with them and at some point Gasly pipped and we're going back and forth and back and forth and one of the times that Gasly pipped, albaughn bought us was like I'll just follow you through, mate, it'll be great and well done for bought us.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Anytime we get to see Valtry have a moment of success is wonderful, because that damn car will not get into the points. You know we'll. We'll talk at length when we get back to Hungary. It was a tough weekend to be an Alfa Romeo supporter. But yeah, and I think all in all, pierre had a good weekend, not just because he managed to get on the podium in the sprint race which kudos bear for you, buddy. You know it's nice to see you happy for him. Well, you know, I just feel like Alpine had had such a frickin tough few year kind of. But you know, I appear, I think, had a good weekend and that was nice. They needed it and that's a good too. Alpine got both cars in the points. That's fantastic. They needed that particularly.
Speaker 2:Alka also had a really amazing battle going on with Sonoda for a while to where he finally pipped him. He just had an amazing overtake.
Speaker 1:That one point was like yeah, yeah, that was fucking amazing. There were some, really there were a couple in there.
Speaker 2:Lance Stroll had a good one, esme's show had a good one on Ricardo, like there are a couple of really good ones. And Louis, you know 43 laps in pits for the mediums and the fact that he got fastest lap on the mediums tells you that that car, like he, can do something with that car, over one lap when the perfect conditions, which is unfortunate because race is more than one lap and the conditions are really perfect.
Speaker 1:I think Louis has established he can. He can ring the neck of that car. I just think you know we again. It's hard to talk about things without talking about things out of order. You know, little bland oh McWiney face who spent a lot of time talking smack about Louis at Hungary, you know, I think that car is not a great car.
Speaker 2:It's not a terrible car.
Speaker 1:But you know, you can always watch the manufactured F one Liberty media narrative week to week because there's always a series of talking points that they, they all seem to dial in. And in Hungary the talking point was oh, louis Hamilton keeps bitching about his car, but his car is good, and that came up before Louis stuck it on pole and you know. So that then empowered Lando to be Lando. But the reality is it's not a good car and I personally feel like you can make an argument that if they were lifting, coasting up a route through a russian radio, that they were losing another, maybe half a second A lap in pace, which means that Red Bull was not eight tenths faster At least we're talking max now was not eight tenths faster, it was a second and a half faster than anybody else on the track. Yeah, but I'm going to say, if you have your car bouncing up and down and you can't hit your braking points and you can't turn the car in, obviously that's impacting your lap, your pace to.
Speaker 2:Jesus, and I'm watching Louis's head on this fastest lap Like there's no way you could sustain it and, frankly, the Alpenes and the Ferraris were bouncing pretty fucking hardcore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I do think Merck had the worst of it, but they were so very much not the only ones who were having it again. And so you know, for me I'm a little bit like Well, I don't know that you can really draw some of the conclusions people are readily drawing. I read people in the comments sections on things and it's like well, they were like, but everybody else was compromised too. So I'm not saying anybody else was as fast as Red Bull, I just don't know that.
Speaker 1:I believe that the delta gap was even was wildly bigger than we saw because I think everybody else was driving around going for cruise six to keep my car on the road and that obviously slows you down some.
Speaker 2:I'm compressing my spine over the course of two hours.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I don't know what'll happen in the second half of the season. But you know there have been some interesting analyses of pace delta between teammates and, yeah, you know, we didn't hear any of that narrative being sung last season when certain drivers were compromised by doing all the experimenting on their cars and we're down in the point. It's just funny to me it's. It's such a it's this unending amount of manufactured narrative and how it's controlled and who spins it and how funny it is that. But the, the media, the narrative at this point in the season, with no possibility of change on this insight, because the only story you can tell as Liberty media at this point is Red Bull racing will win every race. That's it. That's the only narrative that's going to have any traction, even though there's like way more interesting stories right below that that they could be focusing on and setting up for next season. Setting up for next season.
Speaker 2:Focus on whatever the fuck's going on internally at Alpine.
Speaker 1:Well, there is that's happy people out, right, and you know what does that look like? And is it, is he going to pop up? I mean, the implication was pretty clear that he thinks he is. Now I don't know Again if you watched the video that I sent, but skipping forward, it may not be Aston Martin, which would be a super weird choice considering the fact that you know, he hates.
Speaker 1:Aston Martin. Vice versa, I am sure that Otmar might be in the wings getting ready to go with Entreti. Interesting, yeah, and there's some, there's some interesting connections there that I think make that way more likely. When you think about it on just common sense level, I don't think we really know or understand the status of Entreti's application. No, I think we'll hear that, probably beginning of September. Yeah, there's also rumor today that Bridgestone is not out of the running as a tire supplier for 25. Jesus, they were so bad. Well, everybody sort of seems to think Pirelli is so bad.
Speaker 2:So, and and basically, they have long enough memories.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, and Bridgestone apparently offered more money and it's F1. So, yeah, so there's a lot going on. Alpine, who knows? I Bernardo seems like a terrible choice, but that keeps coming up.
Speaker 2:Oh, is that the rumor.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it's been the rumor for about two weeks that Bernardo was like a tiny island on the outside of Scotland.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, we didn't.
Speaker 1:It wasn't exactly immediately clear that was where he was going. It was sort of a loose like Bernardo's been tapped to come to a F1 team. And then there were some early scuttle about Otmar going and but you know, who knows? Who knows anything? It's all bullshit. Everybody makes it up.
Speaker 2:We'll find out when we find out. Yeah, exactly, alonzo going asked and Martin was a hell of a surprise. And well, one year ago, the things were definitely interesting.
Speaker 1:Yesterday you saw all over social media the reason he's going to Alphatoria.
Speaker 2:I bet he deeply regrets that choice now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm guessing he does too. I you know, in hindsight, I'm guessing he wishes he tried Williams, but he didn't. And it's done, and you sleep with Red Bull Racing, you get burned. That is what that is, and I'm disappointed and I think he was mistreated. It's Red Bull, so he just what are you going to say?
Speaker 2:I don't understand how much of a better deal he thought he was getting with Red Bull. But keep watch Red Bull. Just throw their drivers away season in and season out, and how. You think that's a good place to sort of, especially knowing that he's not a young rookie, like he's a rookie in F1, but he's 27,. Right, like this is his one and only chance. Yeah, like it's not going to be like Ocon, sitting a season out and coming back in right.
Speaker 1:Like no, I suspect it was a more pragmatic decision which is based on the fact that last year the Alphatoria didn't look like the worst car on the grid, which it does right now. Yeah, and the Williams was the worst car on the grid. And so you make an analysis and that seemed like an opportunity to be further up the grid and get through faster to success. And yeah, I mean, I would be. I would love to know what counsel he got from Toto coming into that decision. You know, like, did Toto say X-nay, or was Toto just like I don't? You know, it's hard to get a read on how good of a leader Toto really is. Sometimes he says all the right things, but I'm not seeing it backed up with a lot of action right now. So I'm a little I'm a little cynical.
Speaker 2:Yeah, looking at how and where all of the other drivers he reps have moved to, I feel that was more a call and a breeze part than anything else. Like he's, done really well with all of his other drivers. He reps.
Speaker 1:He's an adult, you know, and Toto has amazing taste in drivers. I mean, we haven't had a chance, but you know, kimmy had an amazing weekend last weekend. Ugo has had again a couple of weekends ago. He had a fine weekend last weekend. He had an amazing weekend a couple of weekends ago. We haven't even talked about the fact that in and we shame on me, belgium I still haven't watched it. The F3 race must have been freaking bonkers and I can't wait to watch it. We had. So there were drivers who made 15, 20 plus places up in that race. Sophia Floresh, the first woman to ever score points in F3.
Speaker 2:It's amazing well done for her, because she's been fighting for years to do that, so good for her, yeah.
Speaker 1:So hopefully by the time we record our next progressive in order podcast, we'll wonder. Both of us will have seen that F3 race, but still so much going on that we never have time for Well and Formula E season has come to an end and I did sort of vaguely try and look into changing my flights.
Speaker 2:I had various different flights coming into London and leaving London on Saturdays and Sundays and it just wasn't financially possible to do so. But I am so sad that I you know I'm not. I'm happy I went to go see a play at the Globe with my mom because she enjoyed that far more than she would have enjoyed a Formula E race. Yeah, I could have been there on Saturday, right, yeah, like Formula E season's done, yay, jake Woot, I was so moved and so scared that I was going to go to the World Championship.
Speaker 1:She's a good friend, boys and girls. I wanted it, she got it, I have it, ha ha ha. No, it was a tough weekend. I will say you know there were two people who were really deserving in that championship battle. I won't pretend I'm disappointed that Jake won, but I do think there was some chaos. That's a very interesting track. You've got a partially indoor, partially outdoor track. On a weekend when it's incredibly wet, that was not a recipe for success. Those cars are banging each other under the best of circumstances. So you know, we had some parking lot action, we had some hurt feelings. There's always silly seasons already in full effect in Formula E Lots of movement happening and going to keep happening the battle is a rumor of joining, which would be fucking amazing.
Speaker 2:It would be.
Speaker 1:I'm super skeptical. It would be like over the moon awesome If Seb decided to give that a go for a season. I don't buy it.
Speaker 2:I don't buy it, but I also I think I could go either way for Seb right, like I feel like he still has racing and wants to race, but I also feel like the fundamentals of Formula One were so at odds with his personal ethos for environmentalism that he knew who's getting towards the end and he knew retirement was coming and he was just like I'm going out now Like I want to spend time with my family. I don't agree with the environmental mathematics for Formula One, which is a completely different ball with Formula E. Formula E is also a much shorter season with bigger gaps between races. I think that's the thing.
Speaker 1:I agree with everything you said and I totally believe that you're right that he was like. It doesn't align with my. That's true. No doubt that that's true. I just think that might be the hook is it's fewer races. They're farther apart. It doesn't destroy its family, Although I kind of see him wanting to do rally and some of that, maybe more, but I don't care. If it comes to fruition I will be over the moon.
Speaker 2:Over the moon. Yeah, I mean, there are a couple of rally series you could easily join too that are environmentally extreme. I want to see him in extreme Extreme me. But also like there's there's World Rally as well. That's now all in e-cars, which I think he'd be great and he has so much fun doing that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the race of champions. He's just had a ball the last couple of years, which have been, like you know, wild, crazy environments to play in, so I think we'll see him eventually. I'm not convinced we'll see him committed to an entire series of something in the next year or two, but again, if it happens, that'd be awesome.
Speaker 2:I mean, we're planning to go to Portland anyway. It'd be awesome to see him race. I know.
Speaker 1:I'd be super excited. I'll fight you for the autograph on that hat Dude. If I get that autograph, I'm keeping that. No, no, it's a race. Yeah, no, it would be. It'd be amazing. But you know, even if he's not there, I'm looking forward to, I'm looking forward to a day where I can actually see formula erases in real time. Oh right, that'd be fucking awesome, that would just be like such a thing.
Speaker 2:I wonder if, at the end of the season, they'll upload them all to YouTube again so we could watch them retroactively, which would be nice.
Speaker 1:They didn't last year that was the disappointing part and I will never understand why, but we've beaten that horse to death. There's lots and lots of good racing, but we're in the midst of the summer break. We come back to like the Xanfort.
Speaker 2:Yay, more orange. I have to tell you I'm so happy that Silverstone had no orange smoke Like that just would have, yeah, not been okay to me. Max was so far ahead of everyone they let off the orange smoke and it was so Fuck. People were still racing. Well, yeah, there were still battles going on right until the finish line, yeah, and the fucking orange smoke was just pluming through like some sort of disaster movie.
Speaker 1:I don't want to waste any precious airtime talking about Max for Stappin fans that way, liz. Sadness and racism, and racism. So we've got a little time. We're going to get caught up, we're going to go back, we're going to do hungry, we're going to do Silverstone and we're probably going to find an excuse to talk about some of the other things that have been going on in the race World over this little break, and so we will be back soon with another exciting episode. Swearing and drinking, drinking and swearing hey, two of my favorite things. All right, thanks for joining us. Everybody, be safe and we will talk to you soon.