This week we're catching up on the 2023 Hungarian GP, which featured the debut of the Sky Junior commentators, the return of Danny Ricc, and a new quali format that shook things up. Or returned the natural order for a moment. Whichever.
Join us as we break down one of the more interesting weekends of the season so far, no matter how predictable the ending.
This week we're catching up on the 2023 Hungarian GP, which featured the debut of the Sky Junior commentators, the return of Danny Ricc, and a new quali format that shook things up. Or returned the natural order for a moment. Whichever.
Join us as we break down one of the more interesting weekends of the season so far, no matter how predictable the ending.
Greetings and welcome to Formula XX, a podcast by 2GenX women talking about Formula One and other motorsports, usually with adult beverages and always with adult words. So if you're under age, easily offended or a fan of Red Bull Racing, turn back now. We aren't neutrals, so we do our best to be fair and unbiased when it suits us, and if we're not, that's okay, you get to come along for the ride. Today we're talking about the 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix. We're going back in time a couple of weeks, so if you caught our most recent podcast, you'll know that we're recording these in a little bit of reverse chronological order. There's quite a bit to cover this week with Hungary, for instance.
Speaker 1:Nick DeVries got the bounce. Is Helmut Marco I mean Darth Marco's latest attempt to control the nature of F1 by reinstituting Danny Ricardo going to pay off? Are we going to see his big, happy Australian Grand Front and Center all weekend long? Spoiler Alert? Yes, we are. Are the Sky F1 commentator kids going to be at least on par with the average F1 commentator? Spoiler Alert? They're going to be much, much better, which is surprised nobody. And is the new Qali going to give us the same old, same old, or is it going to shake up the order. Spoiler Alert, it's going to do the latter. I'm with Bestie J, as always, talking about the latest and the greatest in F1. Jen, where are you and what are you drinking tonight?
Speaker 2:Well, for I think the last time I am in my room in Vancouver-ish, because I am getting ready to move and I am drinking in my ongoing effort, as regular lists will know, to finish off as much liquor as I can before I move. I am drinking some delicious Shelter Point Smoked Oak Whisky, which is a distillery in Vancouver Island, in Campbell River, which is where I will be temporarily living for a couple of months. So I'm sure you guys will hear way more about Shelter Point and its delicious whiskey. Heather, where in the world are you and what are you drinking?
Speaker 1:I'm in full blown Seattle, just about as dead center as it's possible to be in Seattle. And tonight I am still in some weird time loop where I continue to drink cider, which I didn't do for a very long time. This is hard cider, by the way, and I'm drinking incline, which is a local cidery which is not too far away, and I am having their Imperial Hazy Honey Crisp, which is quite tasty and a little envious of your whiskey this evening. But I am sure that there will be a point in the future where I will get to avail myself of some piece of that collection of whiskey, as I imagine I will be with the Vancouver-ish crew this weekend helping you relocate it's true, and while we didn't get to cover Silverston at Silverston, maybe this weekend we can cover Silverston at my house or my empty room.
Speaker 2:It might be a very Kavanaugh sounding podcast.
Speaker 1:That's okay, it will still be fun. We again are basically recording Silverston, hungary and Belgium in reverse chronological order, just because of our travel schedules over the last five, six weeks, and I think it's probably good. Hungary was quite, actually, I think, one of the more interesting race weekends as a whole. I'm sort of sad that we didn't get to experience it in sync with each other. This was a weekend that came immediately in the wake of Helmut Marco and Christian Horner deciding to give Nick DeVries the boot after 10 races.
Speaker 1:I think that's worthy of discussion, both in the context of my ongoing hatred for Red Bull, really more just, sort of generically, in the context of how F1 in general works as a sport, how Red Bull racing within the context of F1 works as a team, what the return of Danny Ricciardo means for the grid other than a million billion squealing fangirls all over the place. We had an entirely new quality format in the unending desire for FIA and F1 to tweak how they're doing things in hopes of finding something that makes this season less fucking dull than it really really is, and the race was interesting. I think there were quite a few things that happened to the race, for whatever reason. It seems to me like Hungary just keeps giving. Really, even though it's a relatively short circuit, there tends to be some interesting racing that goes on, and for a variety of reasons. So I think there's lots to cover. I was really bummed that I couldn't watch it live.
Speaker 2:At the time, Heather was texting me everything that was going on the whole way through during the race. I was in Edinburgh. I was doing a Harry Potter walking tour with my nephew and family and I kept looking down at my phone and I was telling the guide I swear I'm not cheating looking up answers, I'm just finding it was happening in the F1 race because there was like a trivia portion to our guided tour Balancing die hard fandoms.
Speaker 1:boys and girls, this is what it's all about. Yeah, and try to have a little sympathy for her. She was getting to stroll around Edinburgh, edinburgh, doing a Harry Potter tour, so no, I mean, I think it was an interesting weekend. I think it was a really interesting weekend. I think, you know I don't know how much you were really following the Nick DeVries sort of drama that happened.
Speaker 2:It was really sudden in the sense of, you know, the decision was made, it was clear cut, you're out, didn't feel like it felt like helmet Marco made a statement and it seems to be the way he always makes a statement where you know the drivers are about to be fired a couple of weeks beforehand he's like stating to the media in no uncertain terms so and so needs to shape up or you know, we'll find someone new in the seat. And I feel when Darth Marco makes those statements to the media like he's already made his decision and I know Christian Horner never really wanted to raise in that seat Like that was someone Marco decided, not for him, anything he knew about him in Formula E, solely on his drive for Williams.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, all of that has come out in the afters that Horner never really wanted DeVries. I understand that DeVries was not doing great in the seat, I don't. I wouldn't even say he was doing above average, or you know. I think the problem that I have is it's a part of it is just that ongoing pattern where Red Bull is absolutely cutthroat in the sense that if they don't want you there, you're gone, there's no sympathy. And how that juxtaposition of that recurring pattern exists, probably more importantly in the context of where Checo Perez is right now, is part of a discussion that's worth having, I think, in the case of Nick DeVries himself sorry, I think it's more I guess the fact that okay, he's 27 years old, he's still a rookie there are 10 races in to a season in a car that is, by all measurable standards, one of, if not the worst car on the grid.
Speaker 2:It seems to be horrific, like it's a really, really bad car Right, it's a really, really bad car.
Speaker 1:So how you were expecting much more out of Nick DeVries for his first season in Formula One in this iteration of car, in a really bad version of this iteration of car.
Speaker 2:Well, and coming from having driven a Formula E car, which is a wildly different beast than driving an F2 car. Right, Like you can. People are making the comparison like Piatri's doing fantastic. Well, Piatri was driving an F2 car and while, yes, there are differences between the F2 cars and the F1 cars, the differences between the Formula E cars and the F1 cars are massive.
Speaker 1:And there's a massive difference between McLaren and an Alphatori. Yes, so he had all of that. Plus, there is absolutely, I believe, in fairness, a psychological you know a huge part of what goes on in this sport, and part of what makes it interesting is the psychology of the sport and how the driver's individual mindsets are playing into things. So, regardless, I personally feel like it wasn't fair for Nick to get 10 races and then a bounce when you have Logan Sargent, who hasn't been an Iota better in the Williams who hasn't made it into Q2s Miami.
Speaker 1:Right, you've got, you know, five races on the bounce, that Perez has not made it into Q3. All of these things that are a factor, but at the end of the day, I think the only takeaway you can really have from all of it was there was a grand determination to get Danny Ricardo back into a car under the control of Red Bull Racing, and what the knock-on implications were, and at the time that it happened, it felt specifically like well, they're making an in-run threat to Checo Perez, saying to him without saying to him directly either step up your game or we'll simply put Ricardo in that seat. Then you were getting sort of mixed messaging in the sense that you know Red Bull would come out and make a statement that oh no, checo is absolutely not going to be going anywhere prior to the end of his contract, and then Danny Rick would have a test drive in the Red Bull Right.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean and by this point you've got Danny Rick at Alphatori coming into this weekend at Hungary we come to FP1 and we get to the first lap of free practice and Checo literally sticks the car in the wall.
Speaker 1:He does not even make it around the circuit before he sticks the car in the wall. So you know, if you need to understand that this is the head game for these drivers, I don't think you have to look any further than this weekend as sort of your case study in how much that factors in for drivers and Checo. Again, we're time jumping around because we're talking about the Hungarian Grand Prix three weeks after it's finished, and you know it happened prior to the most recent race in Belgium where he really, you know he was second in the race and sort of amplified things a bit, but you know he's since had this week has talked about the fact that he feels like when he lost the car in Monaco, that that was where he lost confidence in the car, and so it's really interesting that whole contrast of how Verstappen is performing in the car. And again, I am not by any stress the imagination, trying to say that it's strictly a mental difference between Verstappen and Checo, I think that is a difference between them, but not the difference between them.
Speaker 2:Well, verstappen doesn't have feelings, so there's nothing to sort of dig deep into there.
Speaker 1:Also, the car is completely catered and tailored to his every driving style, need and wants, and this is certainly not for Checo etc. But yeah, you know, like all of that is at play. So we roll into this weekend and Danny Ricardo is just beaming. You know there's no lack of incessant coverage of the fact that Danny Ricardo is in that car and yeah, and sort of watching how that played out was fascinating a little bit because it really was, in my mind, one of the most like wow, this is a very, very stark example of how much psychology is a part of what this group of 20 guys is doing while they're driving these cars or not doing as they're driving these cars.
Speaker 1:So, you know, practice was as typical sort of a mismatch of okay, you can tell McLaren coming off a really strong performance in Silverstone that we still haven't really talked about and we'll hopefully get to this weekend in another podcast. They, you know they showed up. They were doing pretty well. Ferrari was doing pretty well. Mercedes was really hard to read.
Speaker 1:You've got Red Bull, you know, actually having a little more challenge than they had been typically. You know, we've gotten pretty used to them rolling in and just being like, yep, we've got the setup nailed down from the first or second run in the first free practice and from that they're simply refining. That wasn't quite as true for them in Hungary, and so it was set up a little more interesting, I think, than some of the races, and the big talking point was we have this new qualifying scenario where they're required to use hard tires in Q1, medium tires in Q2, and soft tires in Q3. And I have to confess they also, if I think I'm right. I think they only had 11 sets of tires instead of the normal 13.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's supposed to be there. There are two sets less because that's going to be their big environmental net zero thing is that it's. I mean it does that. It's fewer Right.
Speaker 1:No, you're right, that's exactly the justification.
Speaker 1:I think the part that was interesting that I hadn't anticipated was it also translated to nobody wanted to go out.
Speaker 1:There were less drivers driving because they were trying to conserve tires, because they had two fewer tires, and the drivers were like, yeah, here's the thing, this isn't accomplishing a net positive anything, because all these people who came out on a Friday to see FP1 and FP2 are seeing a lot less running than they normally would, because we're having to completely rejigger our run plans to accommodate the fact that we have fewer tires and we need certain tires for a quality that we would not normally ever use in Qali, especially the hard tires. And you couldn't get a packing order that you felt like, oh yeah, normally I'm pretty used to at this point by the end of FP3, kind of having some understanding of relative race pace, having some although maybe not as much in my mind understanding of one lap pace and a packing order of a sort, and instead you had the drivers going yeah, this sucks. And why don't we look at getting rid of some of the wet tires that were allocated every weekend and never use, and every one of those gets recycled?
Speaker 2:Yeah, get rid of the hard tires. Everybody hates the hard tires. Get the fuck rid of the hard tires. The wet tires, the wet tires the wet tires. Right, I said the hard, but yeah, you're right, the wet, the full wet, because nobody likes wet, fuckin' venom, yeah, so anyway that was an interesting bit out of the weekend too.
Speaker 2:that at least was a talking point, yeah like I know, lua's got fucking slammed for saying that this isn't the way to go about looking at doing this because nobody's out driving. He was the only one that actually said like what we could all see that nobody for free practice was on the track and he said it's boring for those people, those fans who pay good money to come out and watch a race and, you know, watch a Friday and maybe that's the only day you can get off, maybe that's the only day you can afford to come watch these cars on the track. They didn't do it. I mean, it was the same for Kuali, right, like I was shit myself in Kuali. Mercedes was keeping them in the garage for ages. Yeah, it's been a while since.
Speaker 1:I've been in the car. Yeah, in fairness, he wasn't actually the only person to mention it all weekend, but, as usual, like he was the only one to take shit for it, right, like the unending double standard which is anything Lewis Hamilton says is subject to an entirely escalated volume of criticism. When Verstappen says the exact same fucking thing, crickets right, it's the commentary factor.
Speaker 2:I guess that proves the point, because all I heard about it because I was barely checking anything All I heard about it was that it was Lewis who had said that, nothing else when I was away. Yeah, it does prove the point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're 100% right Now, which brings me back. We don't have a lot of time to talk about it and I know you didn't get a chance to see them, but I will not miss an opportunity to brag on these Sky F1, sky Junior broadcasters. So I'm not in the UK, we were not in the UK at the time. Sorry, I was not in the UK at the time and Jen was in the UK but didn't have access to Sky TV because you know they make it FN impossible for you to watch unless you have a license. Over there, the Sky Junior kids did their first weekend and I F-ing loved these kids. If you haven't seen them, they did prop them into each of the F-P sessions. Briefly, I know I didn't see a fraction of what they actually did, because mostly we were seeing sort of social media you know, reflected instances of people seeing them interact with these guys. And that was not all on F1 TV.
Speaker 2:I know the UK podcast that I listened to loved the kids. They were fucking. Either loved the kids or one of the one of the podcasters was super fucking choked. He's like do you know, when I was a child, Like his Irish age, I wrote in to be an F1, we call him a tater on Sky TV and I never got to do any of that.
Speaker 1:None of these fucking kids got to do it, but these fucking kids were fantastic at what they did. This wasn't like we cherry picked four random kids off the street. These kids were poised, these kids were smart. These kids were articulating really smart observations. None of them had Red Bulls dick down their throat, the way that everyone of the standard comp, like I am so, over the regular commentary that goes on whether you're on the sky feed or the quote international feed. These kids were just like telling it like it is. Okay, I'm biased. There was a very high. We are freaking out because we get to actually interact with Lewis Hamilton. Factor for these kids.
Speaker 2:I heard they were all racers as well. The kids who are doing it were all some sort of carters.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure if all of them were, but certainly several of them were. I didn't hear that background on all of them. It could possibly be they all were Certainly Zach, who was over the moon and was the kid that we got to see. Well, we'll talk about what he got to do later. Yeah, these were kids who are racing. They know what they're talking about, but again, they were so articulate which sometimes sounds like an over. They were really poised, which I think was more.
Speaker 1:They were able to say really relevant things about what was happening. There was one moment where one of them was really gushy gushy in terms of just sort of the noise, but it was so genuine and it was so passionate and it was so much more interesting, compelling to listen to than the normal crap and drudge that, honestly, it feels like we're enduring. Every goddamn week in this already uninspired, boring ass season, I literally was like please, please, please, please, bring these kids back on a regular basis. They won't, but man it was. It was. One of the highlights of that weekend was getting to see how well these kids did what they were there to do, and I can't wait to see if they do continue to find opportunities to bring this back as some sort of a recurring thing to get kids into the sport because they were fantastic. So do you want?
Speaker 2:to talk about quality. Let's talk about quality. And for those of you I mean, if you made it this far, you know I didn't watch the race, but I didn't. I sorry, I didn't watch the race. What happened? I have, in fact, watched the race in quality, watched it like a couple of days ago, so it's fairly fresh in my mind. Quality was interesting. I thought the tire allocation was interesting. I think it'd be. I don't know how you'd go about doing it right, like it's supposed to be more environmentally friendly. It's supposed to help the smaller teams and I guess in a way it does, because it means that the whoever gets through to Q3 ends up using more of their tire, and it's usually the faster teams. That said, if you're a Haas, you usually get into Q2 or Q3 if your car has some shit in the bed, but it also means you've burned through tires because that car eats tires. Most cars you know eat gas to go. That Haas eats tires to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there's a separate, or at least a corollary, conversation that is worth having about the wild disparity that we're seeing between one lap quality performance and race performance, which I think is one of the few interesting things technically about the season. At this point I was very like whatever. Yeah, it wasn't. You know, I feel like very often what's been happening in terms of tweaks, be it in sprint races or quality or anything else, is manufactured bullshit. If I'm being blunt, which I always am, I just don't often find a rationale. I think, even in this case where you're talking about, well, we're saving tires to save the earth, like you and I both know, if they wanted to really do something to save the earth, they'd be figuring out how to get the calendar sorted and how to improve efficiency for moving 8 million pounds of equipment and 2,000 people around and that would infinitely be more meaningful than using even 2,000 less tires in the season.
Speaker 1:Right, it's just 100%, it's just a lot. So it was super cynical about this sort of like we're changing things to change things that said, made Q1 super interesting.
Speaker 2:Like, yep, like you had both Alpha Romeos right up there on Merit, right. Like Joe was going fastest for a while, like it was just fascinating to see Badass was high up there. They both were high up there, and not just because they were the first cars out to put times on the clock, they were up there fastest on Merit, which was fantastic, because I joked throughout the season that only one Alpha Romeo can do well at a time, and on holiday both Alpha Romeos did spectacularly well, like they just nailed everything yeah it was really fun to see At the end of the first runs in Q1, there was a half a second covering the top 12.
Speaker 1:That is insanely close and that's a half a second including your dear Godlike Max Verstappen fans. If you're delusional enough to be listening to these recordings, you know that included the Red Bulls, so you had this extraordinarily small time delta between first and 12. You know, again is not the norm. Now, is some of that track specific? Yeah, probably that's true. I think where they were was part of it, but you know it really really was interesting and anytime you have the field that compressed, it means you have some real jeopardy and the likelihood of not the normal players or somebody from one of the quote, unquote, I don't know upper midfield teams is in jeopardy of going out, which is what happened.
Speaker 2:George did not make it through, and it was. I mean, he didn't have the best lap, but he also. They just put him out and he only had a chance to do one lap and that one lap was not doable due to all the traffic he was in. I worry with this new format unless they put in some serious penalties that you have like there was what like seven or eight cars all just like trudging along, I don't know, it looked like two miles an hour. I know the cars go faster than that, but before they went on their flyers right Like everybody, was just slowed to a stop.
Speaker 1:I don't disagree with the concern. But again, my concern with that would be how do you get the strategy that wrong? Mercedes, in this case, left the Mercs out or kept them in the garage.
Speaker 2:In the garage.
Speaker 1:Until extremely late. They were later than anybody else. They came out with two and a half minutes left Two and a half minutes to go. And the thing about Hungary is this is not new Every single year in Hungary you have a parking lot in qualifying. That isn't new. That has happened every single time they race there, so you know it's going to be an issue. So why are you making the decision to put them out late rather than at least mid-pack, like? I understand you don't want to be the first ones out because of evolution, but there's a balance in there and Mercedes blew it. Well, they shit the bed hard. Well, they shit the bed. But I also think George made a bad choice, a little bit right, like there was an element of this.
Speaker 1:That was the quote unquote gentlemen's agreement, which everybody has now heard 110 times in the commentary, doesn't actually exist, which is if everybody queues up and doesn't start overtaking everybody, then maybe everybody gets across the line, but inevitably somebody gets impatient because their engineer is in their ear telling them get your ass moving, get around everybody and get started. And so if you're not the aggressor in that situation, you get caught out, which is what happened to George, which then, in turn, fed what we saw in Spa, which we had George overreacting the other direction, bypassing a bunch of people, including Lewis, getting all out of sorts and fucking both their laps right, so like it was literally the bookend these two races. What happened to George in Q1 in Hungary, I believe, was a factor in what happened in Q3, sq3, pardon me, in Spa.
Speaker 1:I fully agree Both of which totally avoidable by having better feedback from the team. So to your point, george crapped the bed or had the bed crapped. Whatever it was, he doesn't even get out of Q1. I feel it was a mutual bed shitting endeavor. There was a mutual bed shitting endeavor. I don't disagree with that statement in any way, shape or form. At the end of the day, q1 was covered by 1.1 second, 1.1 second between 1st and 20th.
Speaker 2:That's incredible, like it's just something about what all these cars are capable of on their best day, and it feels like most of them and the drivers were at the top of their game right there. Even when you have George and Mercedes really fucking up, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:They were still all so close to each other Absolutely, and microseconds make the difference. So we go from Q1 to Q2.
Speaker 2:Who was out in Q1? I don't know. I just have George out in Q1. I can tell you Hulk isn't, because my first note in Q2 is that Hulk's head looks like it's splattered in blood. Nice.
Speaker 1:That was his helmet. I have Albon Sunoda which is a talking point George K-Mag and Sergeant All Out. So it's again. This was the weekend because Yuki went out in Q1, which meant Danny Rick got through and effectively beat his teammate in his first outing in his return, the grand return. The only reason I bring it up is just that Lots of blah, blah, blah like, oh my God, he's already beating Yuki in his very first quality session. Sorry. So we're on to Q2.
Speaker 2:As Heather said, sunoda's out and we're waiting and everybody's out in track and we're waiting, and we're waiting, and we're waiting. And Mercedes, who apparently did not learn any sort of lesson from Q1, holds Lewis out and he was like Max was already on a fucking flying lap before Lewis came out and actually Max. One of the other things from Q1 is that almost everybody had track limits. Everyone was getting laps deleted due to track limits and Max was on a hell of a flyer which ended up being deleted due to track limits. And on the first really hard pushes out drivers who were not having track limits deleted were Norris and Piafstri, who came in first and second. Which sort of builds from Silverstone, from McLaren, which was fucking amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was interesting. The McLaren seemed super turned on with the medium tires on board. Right, they'd been, eh you know, good but not great in Q1 on the hards when they put the mediums on. Then that car was flying. So that was definitely interesting to sort of see again in this sort of broader context of how one lap pace for certain cars is comparing to their race pace. We had Perez, who they ran sort of off cycle with everyone else. They basically were like okay, you know, here's your opportunity. We're just going to give you clear track, we're going to put you out opposite of everybody else, so you have your own race track to go around on.
Speaker 1:Don't spanner it into the wall, checo, get yourself into Q3 for the first time in five races, which he did.
Speaker 2:Checo did a pretty decent showing there. Max, when he did his second, more conservative lap did not beat his time, but it did put him into P1, no P2. He was P2. And then Lewis put in a hell of a flyer once he finally got going, Like he did two super slow laps and like well, we're in for another. Look, Mercedes says not only shit the bed strategically, but that they definitely have not tweaked the car properly for this track there are. Any upgrades from Silverstone are obviously not working. It was a one-off thing. This is a catastrophe. And then he put in a flyer of a lap.
Speaker 1:I think Q2 was the point where everybody was really dialed in. Again, I'm not fact checking this, so if you're listening to this and you want to go do your own homework, please do so. But it was 0.35 seconds that covered the top 10. So the group that got out of Q2 and into Q1, 3.5 tenths covering that group is the tightest. If I understood it correctly, was the tightest qualifying session ever. So you now have those 10 cars. It was a little Noah's Ark. You had Norris and Piazzari. You did not have both Merck's, you had both of the Red.
Speaker 2:Bulls, you had both of the Alfa Romeo's which was being on merit right. Bada spent it up fourth at the end of. Q2. It was amazing.
Speaker 1:Yep and one Ferrari. So we lost signs Estee, Bestie, Ricardo Stroll and Gasly, and Gasly was track limits Lap that he lost, I think, if I recall correctly, would have put him through. So, but again, this was an intense Q2. And that little time is amazing between those 10 drivers. And these differences are just fractional, to be multiple different positions higher or lower on the grid, which led us to Q3. Jen give us the scoop on Q3.
Speaker 2:Q3 was another sort of holy fuck, mercedes. What are you doing with Lewis sitting in the garage and sitting in the garage, and sitting in the fucking garage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was a lot of yelling at the TV at this particular moment, I have to confess.
Speaker 2:And even knowing how it was going to end, I still yelled at the TV, right, like I'm like what the fuck? Why is he still, why, why is he still in the garage? So they all went out and put on you know flyers it was Paris' first time in Q3 since Miami. Then they all came in and sat in the fucking garage for a while and I get that they're soft and I get that they're saving their tires. But Jesus fuck, like they all come out and they put in amazing flyers and Norris, just like smokes, everyone, and then for snapping comes through and just you know barely but gets, you know, tops, tops, norris, no, there's a thick for the ages. And then, like you're waiting and I'm yelling, I'm yelling at the TV and Heather and I watch and this and that, and I'm like what the fuck she's like? I know I like this is really fucking stressful, because it was with two minutes and 15 seconds to go that Lewis went out for his lap.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was interesting right, Because one of the anomalies of Q3 after Q2 is after the first runs you had a second and change spread amongst the field. So after being super, super tight in Q2, we kind of got this more massive spread, massive a second, which is crazy right, but you had a much bigger spread after those first runs in Q3. And, yeah, you've got Verstappen Lewis Norris just sort of neck and neck at the end of Q1. And we're going in to the second run. Lots of hype, lots of conversation. We've been through this now 10 races in a row. We all know how this is going to end. The Red Bull in Max Verstappen's hands is going to be faster than it was on the first lap and everybody has essentially predicted that the fight is between Verstappen and Lando Norris. So out they go. They're flying, verstappen goes out. Guess what?
Speaker 2:What happened? He didn't get the fastest lap in Q3. He didn't go faster.
Speaker 1:That right. There was a moment of like, hmm, hmm. Everybody in the entire goddamn F1 universe had their ear perk up Because you have a Stappin' Out on track, you have Norris Out on track improving, but only marginally, and you have Hamilton out on track improving, for Stappin' can't do it, for Stappin' doesn't do it, he doesn't improve. You've got Norris coming through, he does a little bit better.
Speaker 2:Norris lost the car too when he was doing his lap. Norris had a bit of little shimmies here and there, so you knew that car was at its limit, like I think he was very close to losing the car entirely and having it off track.
Speaker 1:And Lewis is coming through. Lewis is also on the hard edge of that car's performance. He's got the back end just shimmy, shimmy towards the end. Those soft tires that everybody's on at that point are done, they are cooked, they are at the end of the lap. It is tight. The most anticipation, I think, for literally any moment we have seen in the entirety of the 2023 season is those the last corner onto the straight across the finish line. Lewis Hamilton by.003 seconds. Dogs could not hear the screams. The fact my neighbors did not call me in and report me for being murdered in my apartment when Lewis Hamilton took pole in that race is beyond description. I cannot even describe. And it wasn't me. Boys and girls, that entire crowd lost its mind when Lewis Hamilton got that pole.
Speaker 2:You could hear them going and the text that I was getting from Heather and a couple other friends about getting Lewis getting pole. When I was driving around I was like okay, my phone was going nuts because the GPS was on and my mom's like what's wrong with your phone? I'm like don't worry about it and we were listening to an audio book and my phone kept going ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, as we're driving into.
Speaker 2:Edinburgh, my mom's like, what's on your phone? I'm like I'll just mute it for now and I didn't know if it was going to be amazing or horrific. And I'm like, do I want to look at my phone when we get to Edinburgh? I'm like, maybe I don't, maybe it was something super awful and I'll just keep living in a happy little world where Lewis did well and everything is fine. And it turned out it was an amazing world where Lewis did amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was so many things. Of course, if you're a Lewis Hamilton fan, the drought has been epic, awful and really, really challenging. So to have that happen his excitement, his passion, the crowd being that enthusiastic and wildly excited, particularly because he's got obviously a very long and distinguished track record of winning and performing well at Hungary, but that track, because of its European nature, has been a stronghold for the Dutch army for the last few years. So there's not really what you would call a traditional groundswell of support for Lewis Hamilton. At that track. The enthusiasm of the crowd, his excitement versus what we have seen in almost every other circumstance this year was the absolute proof.
Speaker 1:We'll talk about Silverstone next week. Silverstone was a crucible of amazing enthusiasm for especially the British racers, for obvious reasons, but in general, having seen in person that sort of hometown effect versus a regular weekend and having people get like that over the top excited when so much of this season is just about like unending drudgery. Max just shows up, he does his thing, he wins by a country mile. He gets on the podium. People listen to the Dutch anthem so goddamn bored.
Speaker 2:Well, the announcers have to prompt him to be like how do you like the crowd, what do you think about your team? And Lewis talks to the team. He does talk to his team, he thanks the team, but he talks to the crowd, he plays to the crowd and they love him. And why wouldn't you Like? He's an interesting, charismatic guy. He looks at the crowd and not here at Hungary, but often different countries. He says hi and thank you to the crowd in their own, in the language of that country. And he broke another record. I mean, he broke a Lewis Hamilton record, but he broke another record. He's, you know, got the most polls. He has more polls right now than every other driver combined currently on the grid.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's going to change this season, no doubt, but it doesn't change how awe inspiring it is. And will that record be broken? Yeah, when we're doing 24 and 25 races a season and we have an incredibly dominant vehicle, yeah, like, those records will fall, which is fine, because that's what all records do they're made to be broken. They are made to be broken. Hence Michael Schumacher, hence you know, whatever, like that's okay, I will never stop recognizing after we can like that, and just watching his excitement, his passion. That is what makes sport interesting, that's what makes sport fun. It doesn't have to be your guy winning, it's just wow. We're watching somebody who is so uncharismatic.
Speaker 1:Take win after win after win after win, and how uninteresting it is. So you take that and you segue into Louis Hamilton gets this pole, max Verstappen's in an absolute snit at the end of qualifying. Oh yeah, he was a bag of dicks, he was a bag of dicks. So, okay, whatever, fine. And then you have to deal with reality on Sunday, the hype level going into that goddamn race on Sunday morning, because you had Louis Hamilton on pole and Max Verstappen on the front of the grid, hype, hype, hype, hype, hype. You know it didn't last for a corner. No, you have to deal with reality, right? Which is the bottom line is that did not go to plan. Louis had a good start on Sunday morning. Max had a slightly better one, but he got the line yeah. And then the hype about could this be a battle? How long would this be a battle? Could Louis win? Nobody who really understands 2023.
Speaker 2:Louis could never win right, unless that car was struck by lightning. You know, max spun it somehow Like there was no way. There is no way.
Speaker 1:There was no way. But again, the interesting part is watching F1 trip all over itself to leverage, quote, uh, rivalry capitalized in quotations. But there was just, oh my God, and you know, I I shared in the like, the enthusiasm. Saturday I floated Like I was like on a cloud, like I was a little freak of nature on a cloud all day Saturday just because, wow, something I really enjoyed happened in F1. But I never deluded myself that it was going to lead to victory or anything, particularly in sight enticing on Sunday, because the car hadn't shown that.
Speaker 2:I didn't think Max would get the jump or the McLaren's that quickly, but I was very. No, yeah, oh, did they ever? Bottom line?
Speaker 1:We get to five lights, we get two lights out and away we go. Uh, louis also actually got a really good first phase start. Uh, so you had both Max and Louis off the line really well. Also, norris and Dastry were both off the line really well. Um, paris had a good start, joe did not.
Speaker 2:I heard somewhere that what ended up happening and they're not sure why it happened instead of you know the car going, when Joe asked it to go, all of the emergency brake systems turned on and stopping systems turned on. Yeah, and they're not sure why that happened.
Speaker 1:That would be a very exciting thing to have experienced as a driver.
Speaker 2:Right, you're like, oh, good Away, we go Fuck. No, we don't.
Speaker 1:Oh. So in the front you've got Louis getting away, you've got Max getting away. Better in phase two than phase one, just I think had a little more launch. Um. And then Louis got a tiny bit of wheel spin that gave Max all he needed to hit the apex. First he logically and understandably pushed Lewis as wide as possible at the corner. Pia Street did a brilliant job, totally capitalized on both of them just shot straight up the inside and got position, and Norris because Louis at that point is way out on the outside was able to just simply go around him as well.
Speaker 2:Funny thing wise, when all of that was happening, like it took me a second to realize that it was Pia Street in P2 and not Norris. I was like oh look, norris is in P2. Pia Street's in P2. And I actually I asked Heather, I'm like wait, when did Norris and Pia Street switch positions? And she was like no, no, pia Street was always up there. I was like I totally missed that.
Speaker 1:I was watching what was happening to Joe. Yeah Well actually. But the funny part about that is you weren't really initially watching what happened to Joe, because the commentary didn't even mention that until we were into the second lap. That hey, while we were all so focused on the great rivalry at the front, which turned out to be a total dud, you had the anti-stall emergency system, whatever it was. Joe not getting off the line, joe finally getting off the line Joe. We're ending. Danny Rick, who pinged himself into wait. I'm going to get it wrong again. Did he go into SD and SD went into Pierre, or vice versa?
Speaker 2:Danny, rick went into Ocon and Ocon hit Gasly. Thank you, In.
Speaker 1:OMG those. Could Alpine have had a wackier stretch in these last two weeks?
Speaker 2:Both cars out, both like Hungary and Silverstone, both cars out, neither of them their fault, it's not Alpine's fault. And yeah, this I think should go a bit to the cost cap too. Like that's two cars out through no fault of the drivers. Right, like both Alpines are at no fault of the drivers, it's their cost cap going to be now that's two races in a row for cars to repair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they've lost their entire management structure, so they're having a bad stretch. If you'd like to hear a dramatic understatement, I don't know if Ryan Reynolds has done something terrible in a previous life and it's finally manifesting, or it's all a secret plan that he has an action at this point and they're getting ready to launch.
Speaker 2:We'll see. We'll see what the new management team comes in. But you have a boss and I am not a fan of this at all but you have a boss who's gone out into the press and both said these drivers are shit and I thought they were good drivers and why aren't they doing better? And they don't do better? We're going to fire both of them, which I'm sure is something he said to them in private as well, but that's not something you should be telling the press. Right, they have no problem with the boss, who's basically just like slammed everybody on, like not just the drivers, like he was saying the engineers are shit, that everybody was shit, like he did it in a French newspaper I think it was French newspaper, a non English language no, the CEO, one of the other guys who's just recently been fired, oh, the same douchebag that Alan Prost was like.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the prime example of crap leadership yeah.
Speaker 2:Well.
Speaker 1:Jake's the one.
Speaker 2:Maybe you'll remember, or maybe you won't care anymore. Yeah right, maybe that's how that works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Okay, because I was like you know, Omar has a bunch of flaws, but I don't believe I've ever heard him tacking a shit about the drivers before?
Speaker 1:No, not for Got you Well. That's a lot of turmoil in a single team and I think you can probably put a stake in the heart of Alpine for the next season as well. I mean, I would love to say that that doesn't have a knock on effect, but I honestly do not understand how you chop the legs off the entire management structure, destabilize the team and think that that's going to yield positive results, Like they may be able. Like again at this point there, I think a handful of teams who are like 2026 is our year yeah, Woot, you know, because there's not much left to be said, including a couple of teams that are in the upper midfield and are not accomplishing what they need to, including a team I root for.
Speaker 2:If you'd asked me at the beginning of the season how Alpine was going to implode, I noticed that Gazzly and Auk on one of them will kill the other by the midseason. I did not have them both getting along fine and having like being taken out by other cars Right.
Speaker 1:Right. I think we probably talked about this in the first episode that we ever did, which was that was absolutely the thing that you anticipated, given their history, and instead I can't find any evidence that there's bad blood between them at all anymore. It's going to be trial by fire and hopefully they have each other to get through it, because I think this must be extraordinarily stressful because you had Australia double DNF, silverston double DNF, hungary double DNF. I think Pierre has had some epically shit luck at different times, not including those three races. Sd has too, although some of it's been self-imposed pain, as we know. He could possibly continue serving penalties for 10 more races based on his track limits problems. So, yeah, poor.
Speaker 2:Alpine man Speaking of bad penalties, coming back to how this all started, which was Joe kicking off or not kicking off? As it was, he came in for his pit stop at lap 10 and he had a 5-second penalty to serve, which is an epically long time to be in the pits. But then they fucking shit the bed on the penalty or not on the penalty, on the pit stop time and he had a 9.7-second pit stop. So 5 seconds of penalty and 4.7 seconds of pit stop, like they nearly gave themselves a full other fucking penalty by that bad pit stop.
Speaker 1:And they were far from the only epically crap pit stop there were. I mean, I haven't seen post-race, there may have been. What I will say is I've seen intermittently this season a breakdown that any one of the F1 analysts on pit stop dealt sort of comparatively between the teams. Leclerc in that first round had a 9.4. On the 18th lap A 9.4. So Noda had a 7.3. Sgt had a 4.5. Like what is even going on in these teams.
Speaker 2:But on the flip side of that, like when Piaf's Triampira has came into the pits much further down on lap 43, Perez had a 1.9 second and later on Leclerc had a 2.2 second.
Speaker 1:I think we expect that at a Red Bull. I think Ferrari we can expect to ride the roller coaster. It's any given moment. Who knows what you're gonna get? It was hard to complain.
Speaker 2:Sometimes for Ferrari, you get you know Sykes giving the decisions about if he's going to pit or not, and sometimes it's the crew, and this was no different. The assumption was that when Sykes was asked to go to Sierra, it was to bring him in for a pit stop and he basically said fuck you, I'm still gonna be driving for a while, which was the right call.
Speaker 1:It was the right call and we've seen signs doing that from the cockpit for two years straight. Now it's hard to argue with because I think, generally speaking, you're right. He's making good strategic calls, ferrari traditionally not making good strategic calls, so fair enough to him and making Ferrari strategic calls, making Ferrari strategic calls. Speaking of strategy, there were some you know, different tire strategies that went on at the start of the race that we kind of jumped over, but strategies again because we had some drivers out of position, given the new qualifying structure. That meant we had some folks starting on soft, sykes being one of them, which is what brought it to mind. He made up a number of positions early in the race because he was on those softs and was just, you know, able to fly by. George really benefited, which isn't, again, I don't say this to take away anything from George. He was out of the mess, but basically four of the drivers not far in front of him took each other out, so he made up five places very quickly on the opening lap.
Speaker 2:He and Paris were the only ones on hards.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for the start of the race if I remember correctly my brain is telling me somebody else was on hards, but I don't remember who. I know Albon pitted for hards pretty early, but basically, yeah, you know, there were obvious reasons, given the fact that Checo, we didn't really talk about it in quality, but he did get into Q3, but started pretty far down the pack in Q3. So he had a lot of overtaking to do. It is, as a hilarious sidebar, most overtakes of the season. F1 keeps bragging about it and guess who's at the top of that list? Checo Perez. And guess who's number two? George Russell. And it's like that's because neither of them is qualifying particularly well so far this season. Yeah, they're both starting at a position Right. So when did this become a merit badge in the brownie troop excapades of F1 drivers?
Speaker 2:They tried to make something last year, the year before, because Kimmy Reichenan did so many overtakes in the first lap or two of multiple races and fell down the order. And I know like last year maybe it was the year before they were saying Alonzo with all of his overtakes, and I think this is like them trying to make it a thing, because, god knows, driver, the J is a fucking joke. And now I think it was like overtake. I think it was like the overtake king or something was what they were trying to.
Speaker 1:To bill it, as I think Sebastian Vettel was up there for a bit, yeah, all of that is accurate and all of it just speaks to the fact that they're tone deaf to what's really going on and they apparently seem to underestimate the intelligence of everybody watching.
Speaker 1:Because, although you can't overestimate the intelligence of everybody watching when fucking Checo Perez keeps getting, tired of the day for doing fuck all except starting out a position and having a rocket ship and having a rocket ship which makes it easy to overtake. I think again, this was one of those races where you were like, OK, what's actually happening? So first stint you have, as I said, signs is making up some, some positions on track. He's very quickly behind Charles. Ferrari is slow to sort of go. Hey, you know what You're on different tire strategies Charles, get out of the way so science can continue to make his way up the grid. You had the McLarens who are just flying and Lewis Hamilton is in the lead. Mercedes really pretty tight. He's staying within two and a half seconds for most of the first stint, Eventually starts to fall back to three and a half. He's in then trying to basically get ahead, but was tires fell off a cliff.
Speaker 1:I don't know if his tires fell off a cliff. I actually think again, I will always give Lewis props because I think he's fucking underestimated and the I hate Lewis Hamilton brigade gets a wild disproportionate amount of presence online. But I think there was a combination of things that happened in that first stint and some of them are absolutely in his hands. I think he had a slow in lap and I think that manifests in a couple of ways. I do think his tires were going off, but I think one of the things that happened and having watched it now a couple of times is he also is very, very slow coming into the pit lane. So I think he gave up a disproportionate amount of time on the last sector, which I don't understand. Like normally on an in lap, you're like your undercut or overcut is dependent on you flying as fast as you can on that in lap and your out lap. I don't understand what happened, but he was exceptionally slow and he basically lost five seconds. Now a tiny fraction of that, like a second of that is in the pit stop, but most of it was just that Now on the out lap, one of the things that we saw Lewis doing, that the others were not like.
Speaker 1:Norris jumped his teammate by just doing a banger in lap and a banger out lap right and he got ahead of piazzerie by doing that. Lewis, on the other hand babies, the fuck out of those tires brings them in on a much, much slower. Gentler, I'm going to keep these alive for much longer. They put three laps strategy. He brought them in on Absolutely so you know what's happening there. But the problem was that that in lap cost so much time that then he went from being kind of three and a half seconds behind at that point to being eight, almost nine seconds behind.
Speaker 2:Well, and then he comes on and he comes up behind George God bless George, who's 25 on tires, 25 laps old and just like a raccoon on ice, skates out there late. You know he did the right like obviously you know strategy involved and he moved right over and lost a ton of time personally to let Lewis by. But George was just flying. But Lewis comes on the radio right about that time and he's like what's going on? Has the engine turned down? And Bono's like no. And he asked where. And Lewis asked where am I losing time? And Bono was like you're losing time on the straights, you're losing time in turn one or turn 11 and turn 14. And that's fucking everything. It's a straight to high speed corner in a slow speed corner.
Speaker 1:Right, it's, our car is shit. And the other thing that we've learned somewhere in that first stint and I don't remember exactly where is they are having trouble managing the temperatures so effectively. What we learn more after the race than during the race is both of them are having to lift and coast early in the race because they're spiking the engine temperatures and the brake temperatures, so they're having problems that are limiting their ability to attack. So the Mercedes was not where it needed to be. It had great one lap pace. It did not have race trim set up where it needed to be, which is ironic because, again, most of the season, what we've seen is the Mercedes is on single lap pace but really comes alive on race day.
Speaker 2:One of the things we haven't talked about is they have new side pods for this race, which might have been affecting how the intake comes and goes goes over the engine as well to keep it cool, and they might just not have had time to test it over a long period of time to see how it all heated up and how it all worked together.
Speaker 1:And I would say that in general, what we've seen throughout the season is, most Typically, the Mercedes gets better over the course of the weekend. But to your point, you make changes, you bring developments and sometimes you go backwards. We saw, and I think maybe we talked about it in the spa conversation they once again tweaked the car. So they made one step here, they made another step in spa For spa. They had much bigger cooling inlets. They reconfigured things again and I sort of thought I wish they'd had that in Belgium, because heat in the tire against spa, wet cooler, mixed bags, sprint weekend, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:Hard to get the setup right. In Hungary they had the time to do it. I just don't think they had the right tools on the car for that weekend. And they weren't the only ones. We've certainly seen Aston Martin not as strong the last couple of races. Sometimes the development either everybody else is jumping ahead of you or you're still learning about your upgrades, whatever it is. So we go through the second stint and meanwhile back at the ranch we have Checo and George like millimeters from whacking into each other on ancient fucking tires.
Speaker 2:George is still on his original, hard for this battle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I love that for George. I love that about George that despite being on the world's oldest, worst shit hard tires, he's still like oh yeah, oh yeah, bring it, bitch, I'm not letting you buy.
Speaker 2:It was a great battle on how they didn't take each other out is fucking Hollywood shittery. It's magic that that didn't happen.
Speaker 1:And somehow, despite that being a really interesting on track battle, we later find out that Checo Perez is subsequently given overtake of the month for a pass by Oscar Piestri later, where he literally nudges Oscar all the way off the track in yet another. Why would Red Bull ever even be? Red Bull never gets a penalty. I could do what I want Red Bull's five. You have Checo and Lewis kind of getting closed down. Like Lewis at this point is less than two seconds away from Piestri, we kind of get into a point where we've hit some stasis and we go into the second pit stop phase. Lewis is pretty close, checo's making progress, lewis put up a great fence, piestri's really falling off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's falling off and off. Checo is slowly cutting into Lewis' time and when he gets behind Lewis, checo or Checo gets behind Lewis. Lewis made a hell of a defense, like he fought that car and made it 10 meters wide and did everything he could. But that Mercedes is just not up to any sort of defense against, or nobody's up to any sort of defense against, red Bull, even if it's just Checo driving.
Speaker 1:Well, and then in the end they pitted him. They didn't. It didn't become an overtake, they just were like fuck it, we're going to bring Checo in and put new tires on the car. The unfortunate part was that really put Lewis in a position at that point, you know, in terms of who came in and pitted when you've got Landau who comes in, and that meant Lewis had to go long.
Speaker 2:Landau came in, piestri came in and Leclerc came in and Alonso came in and it changed a couple of things. Yeah, and Piestri had a pretty decent pit, perez had an amazing pit, leclerc had 2.2, pretty good pit, but he also got pipped for speeding in the pit lane. Alonso came in.
Speaker 2:Alonso came in and had a 3.3 and props to the Aston Martin team for it only being a 3.3, because Alonso the veteran that he is that everybody blows smoke up his ass because he's this amazing two-time world champion forgot to hit the brakes when the car was lifted up, so the rear axle was just spinning and spinning, and I don't know how much people know about tires and how you change them, but I don't care what kind of car you have. When the car is spinning and spinning, you cannot change the tires. The tires have to be held firmly in position before you can take any of the nuts off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and to your point, like they still haven't, only be a 3.3 second stop was pretty fantastic. It will happen. I think we've seen plenty of, again in this race alone, 5-7 and 9-second pit stops without that sort of a challenge in the mix. So rock star to the Aston Martin pit crew. Charles, in this second set of pit stops, is able to pit signs and so, considering the fact that again he had his own penalty versus I mean, the only reason signs was in front of him was because Ferrari.
Speaker 1:Ferrari'd, yeah, but it ended up affecting the outcome. He sped into the pit lane, so he had a good stop, but subsequently had a 5-second penalty applied which hung over his head and impacted who, between the two of them, ended up ahead of the other. We then see yet another oddity, which is we've had the Merc a mile behind Good pace, but not amazing pace, up to this point Progressing pace, I guess, I would say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, on lap 47, bono comes on the radio and tells Lewis to go faster. Lewis goes faster. Lewis goes faster and faster.
Speaker 2:I mean this was like a predator stocking down its prey slowly but surely. And it says something about how this car handles and how fucking tweaky it is that when it's this light getting lighter and lighter and fuel that it just fucking lights up right, like that he can get this with like a probably a third quarter somewhere between that and his fuel left, and that this car is fucking flying Like it's getting not necessarily consistently the fastest car on track, but it's up there as the fastest car on track and faster than for stopping Usually. Just take him out of the play here. But he was holding the zone with Max and he was cutting in to Paris and he was cutting in to Piastry and he was coming in closer and closer and closer and some of it was like a second to lap and it was just like how, how, why can't we get this when the car is a heavier fuel load? Why is his car so fucking twitchy? That fuel makes that much difference. Nobody else is like this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I certainly have no explanation. It was fascinating to watch because, as you said, he was absolutely slicing through everybody ahead of him except Max. There were times he was right there with Max on pace, a lap or two that he was faster than Max on pace. But of course Max is reading the New York Times and doing a crossword. Max doesn't do crosswords. He's planning out his next. He's planning his GT3 team for next year. I'm sorry, I should have clarified that he's not pushing by any stretch of the imagination. So it's not like the Mercedes is suddenly on par with that red bull of the red bulls, but he was absolutely taking wax out of everybody else ahead of him One to two seconds.
Speaker 2:Both McLarens must have been told to push, because we have a radio message from Norris just basically telling his engineer to fuck off, without quite using that term, and Piazzari getting a black and white from track limits, all within whoa, all on the same lap like lap 50. And we don't obviously know how old that radio message is. Both McLarens are being told to go faster and are either saying I can't go any faster or trying to go faster and get track limits. They must know Hamilton's like just fucking chasing down their back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but again, I think what we just bypassed in all of this, which is, yes, the Mercedes became a beast that both Lewis and George had very strong pace in that final stint.
Speaker 1:Having said that, they both had really good pace, george is making up a lot of ground as well. Lewis is six to seven tenths faster than George, though in this entire final stint, as fast as George was in as much ground as he was making up, lewis is consistently six to seven tenths a second faster on all of these laps in this final stint. Mother, fucking Mercedes and their shit strategy cost Lewis the podium, in my opinion, because in the second stint they left him out. There was like this whole moment of oh whoa. You know, the others have all come in and Lewis's only hope is to go long. Well, they let him flounder four laps in a row where he was giving up two seconds a lap to the group ahead of him. Four fucking laps in a row where those tires were dead and he was losing epic amounts of time. He ends up closing. He gets past Piastri.
Speaker 2:He passes Piastri on the 57th lap, on the 58th lap, so he's not even a full second having lap Piastri. He's 1.6 seconds ahead of Piastri in less than a lap.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he closes in on Perez. Now you know, there, I think, is a legitimate debate about if there'd been two or three more laps, would he have been able to overtake the Red Bull and get onto the podium? I know that's easier said than done, but I will say Perez's pace was was every bit as bad as Norris is compared to Lewis. I genuinely believe if there had been a couple more laps, lewis would have gotten him.
Speaker 2:I agree 100%, and I think Norris was scared of what was going on behind him as well, because when he's coming up to some of the cars that are getting the blue flags and they're not getting over fast enough for his liking, he comes on the radio and says they're not even racing for anything. Can you imagine if Lewis?
Speaker 1:right Dick bag, dick bag massive tool.
Speaker 2:Can you imagine if Lewis had said that at some point during the race?
Speaker 2:Ever, ever In his entire career, if he had ever said that, frankly, when Toto said it about Mazepin costing them the win, he got fucking lambasted in the media as well. Right, and you know he was right. Like Mazepin, not pulling over was fucking huge. But Norris no one said anything about Norris. They're not even racing for anything. They're all fucking F1 drivers. They're all racing for something. They're all like. You have to have a specific mentality to be that level of a lead athlete. You're not going to pull over and fucking wank you off as you go by and they have their own job to do right now.
Speaker 1:What really puts him in the massive doink toolbox of you know I am a hyper privileged bitch came up after the race. So okay, spoiler alert, boys and girls, if you didn't know who ends up on the podium, try to be shocked and amazed when we tell you that Max Verstappen won the race. Oh wait, so Red Bull Racing just broke the record for the most number of consecutive wins. Like who gives a shit? Nobody does anymore, nobody cares, unless you're the most goddamn pathetic basement dwelling Max Verstappen Dutch fan. You're bored out of your mind already. But yes, max Verstappen won the race. I'm so surprised.
Speaker 1:And number two was Lando Norris and number three, by a fraction was Czecho Paris. So post race you have Lando, who at this point has had basically two, three weeks, certainly the last two races, including qualifying the day before, with Lewis Hamilton being wildly complimentary, going out of his way to say positive, complimentary things about Lando Norris. Even Toolbag here makes a point of saying that. Well, lewis was complaining about how bad that car is, and the car isn't even that bad. And also, lewis has never had to drive a bad car ever in his entire career and he doesn't know what it's like to have to be driving around in 19th or 20th, like I had to do at the beginning of the season.
Speaker 2:He's done everything else in F1, but that's something he's never had to do Let me tell you about a guy called Lewis Hamilton, who drove for a team called McLaren, who was doing fucking stellar.
Speaker 1:I don't care. I think the fact that that shit comes out of his hyperprivileged Uber rich white boy mouth at a time and I say this, boys and girls, because you can't see me, I'm like the pasties old white woman that ever lived right, so you know, lest you be confused about my motivations in saying this the idea that he at one point is bitching about the guys not getting out of his way because they're not racing for anything and at the same time, the little shit is over here talking about the fact that Lewis has a little bit of a drive, a lesser car. You can't have it both ways, little bitch. Make up your mind, it's one of the fucking others.
Speaker 1:You're disrespecting the people who are driving the shittier cars than you are, because you happen to have the one that's jacked up this week or not.
Speaker 2:But you can't have it both ways Well and I think it just like continues going on right. Like we usually don't talk about podium shit when it's podium, like I couldn't think of a podium, I just like more than this one Same sister. One of the interesting things about this podium is Lando broke Norris's I'm sorry, lando broke Max's trophy. I wasn't an intentional thing, like I'm not saying it was by any stretch of the imagination, but he broke, you know, a $40,000 trophy and afterwards I can't tell if he was joking or if he was doing his usual thing where it's absolutely not my fault, where he's like well, you know, if you had put it in a more secure spot it wouldn't have fallen down so easily is basically the gist of what he said and I'm like well, look, look, where you slime your champagne bottle down, kid Like well, I think he was being flip it in that moment.
Speaker 1:As much as I think he's the douchebag and I do, I think he was being flip it with that remark I do think he absolutely showed at zero none less than goose egg, null, nil understanding of the fact that someone spent six months hand crafting it. It's not that it's 40,000 euros, is that it was a six month handcrafted process to form and hand paint the trophy and rather than going oh shit, like any normal human would be doing going I am so sorry, I'm embarrassed In which case it would have blown over he doubled down on being a douchebag and acted yeah, flippant and assholery. And that, combined with the Lewis comment, was like you really are not an awesome version of human right now. Like, some of this is a lack of awareness. Some of this is lack of social media training, but he has been a fucking dick about Lewis enough times now that, like he gets nothing from me and I don't think it's lack of social media.
Speaker 1:If Lewis Hamilton ever made a comment akin to what he made about Lewis about any driver, but most certainly the most logical analogy is Lewis coming in and talking shit about Schumacher he would have been roasted alive. If he uttered something today on par with what that little shit did, he would still be roasted. Today. Lewis can say the most innocuous thing imaginable and get lit up on social media for it. And that little white boy with every dollar that his rich daddy has poured into his life and he gets away with it.
Speaker 2:I just want to put my head into a wall sometimes for the sport it is so gross and to go back to what you're saying about lack of media, I don't think he has lack of media training. I think, of all of them on the grid, he is the best with social media. I think he knows exactly what he needs to stay and what he needs to do to be what he is and who he wants to be. Did he drop your drink? What's going on over there?
Speaker 1:I might have accidentally nudged it with my elbow, but I think it's okay. It's a party foul, but it's not you know, did it break?
Speaker 2:Is it a $40,000 hand painted thing that's now broken on your?
Speaker 1:floor. I did not break a $40,000 hand painted podium. Yeah, no, I didn't. It's all good, we're totally fine boys and girls. Yeah, no, I. Just the double standards. They burn and they are mighty.
Speaker 2:There's shit that Lando talks, and definitely about Lewis more than anybody else but he definitely like he's done it for had snotty comments for both Stroll and Latifi about their dads paying rich money to do all sorts of stuff and I was like check your fucking privilege.
Speaker 1:How does lightning not strike your ass dead where you're at? Like he's a little rich boy.
Speaker 2:He always tries to come off that he's not right, and both I mean I might be more props to my countrymen than others, but both of those, both Latifi and Stroll, have always. Yes, our fathers are incredibly wealthy. Yes, our fathers have helped us with money and connections, but also we've done a lot of hard work, and here's the hard work we've done. Lando's whole thing has always been I've never had any help at all. I have struggled more than most. Fuck right off.
Speaker 1:Fuck off. Yeah, and maybe there's a part of his story I just don't understand or I'm not aware of, and if I have missed that, fair props. But and I don't want to discount again I think Max Verstappen is a shit version of a human. I think he's uncharismatic. I couldn't be less interested, let alone enthusiastic, about him being the person that F1 appointed to be the next great white hope and yada, yada. Like you know the rich boys, the legacies are naturally less interesting to me.
Speaker 1:For my own reasons, I don't think any of that or my sort of cynicism should be interpreted as me. I don't want it to be interpreted as me trying to take away from their talent, because I do think Max Verstappen is a very talented driver. I do think Lando Norris is a very talented driver. They're just shit humans. Well, that's the thing, right, like it's the relative perspective of what interests me as an end user for the sport. Where do I invest my energy and passion? It will never be. It will never be. No, somebody like that. If I don't like you as a human being, I am never going to put my passion behind you At this age. It's never been true and it never will be.
Speaker 2:Was Nick Latifi a great driver? Absolutely not. Did he seem to be a really genuinely good human, and was he well liked on track? Yeah, he really did Like. Yeah. And here's the thing we all do and say stupid things when we're younger. God knows I have God knows Shit. I'm still saying stupid things.
Speaker 1:I've said six stupid things tonight. The fair and the brave fair cop.
Speaker 2:Exactly. But you look at Sebastian Vettel and you look at Louis when he's younger too right. Yep, fair play, he was all that and a bag of chips. I don't know. I don't see Max Ristappen changing into a better adult. He doesn't have any passion in him that I can see at all, except, I guess, maybe for his virtual racing. But it seems like he's a giant dick in his virtual racing as well from the little snippets that I see in social media. But again, that could be like a microcosm of specific things about Max being a dick.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I have zero knowledge about his persona in racing. My absolutely uninformed reflected observations are that he is very much somebody who enjoys that like that sim racing environment and I think that's part of why he's so good, is like that's what he does. He just lives in that world a lot of the time when he's not actually racing and that certainly, I think, strengthens his skillset on track. But I don't think he has a grand passion in the same way that a lot of the drivers have. Now, maybe that's armchair psychologist of me. I do have a degree, so I'm not going to feel too bad about diagnosing whether or not somebody strikes me as X versus Y in that regard. I don't see it in him. There's not been a single thing. Like he'll smile. He will show some enthusiasm, but the kind of like absolute. This is it. This is what I've just put my entire heart and soul and every bit of my passion into. Everybody, including Lando, is more enthusiastic about it.
Speaker 1:I think that's part of why it's hard to reconcile an ending narrative of the F1 punditry who are just never going to shut up about. We're witnessing the greatest in history, blah, blah, blah. When it doesn't marry to anything, when you're watching it, there's nothing that makes you go, oh wow, this is kind of cool to watch. This is somebody who is genuinely passionate about what they're doing. This is somebody who's absolutely fighting every minute of every day for success. That doesn't exist in what we're watching currently and we're not going to see it, and I think we all understand at this point. We're not going to see it next year and we're not going to see it the year after, as much as I want to pretend something is going to reset in 2024, it isn't, and I don't think it's going to reset until we have another regulation change. I want to be wrong. No.
Speaker 2:I think, Bill, I think that may or may not reset will be alphatorily if they're allowed to take this current Red Bull VRB 19 and race it yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think that would be a wild and crazy mistake Now this week, while we're just running the longest podcast in the history of ever. We talked a little bit in the next podcast that we did first, which is Spa, about this rumor. I think we mentioned what Jen just talked about, which is there's been repeated rumors in the last several days that Hugo Boss Red Bull Racing will be allowed to run the RB 19. I still call Partyfell. I don't see it, but they could. That would be wildly detrimental to the sport.
Speaker 1:The last two days, the rumor on the street is F1 is talking about banning DRS and QALY. Why, why, why, like you can have a genuine, meaningful debate about whether DRS should still exist and unfortunately, the short answer, in my opinion, is yes, the car still can't overtake right now. We don't. They're harder. It's harder for cars in 2023 to overtake than it was in 2022. And Ground Effect made it better but didn't solve the problem.
Speaker 1:Who gives a shit? Whether you, I mean, I don't disagree. There's no real meaningful reason to allow DRS and QALY, ok, but if you're doing it and everybody to a person that I've heard talking about it so far claims that it's a mechanism to hold back Red Bull. Ok, did we all just have a brain tumor for breakfast? Did IQs just drop suddenly while I was away? To quote one of my favorite characters In what version of reality does it matter if Max or Stappen starts sixth on the grid because he didn't get whole due to not having DRS, when you just spent all of the last two weeks talking about how Max or Stappen has now won from first, second, third, fifth, seventh, the ninth, 12th, 11th and 14th, and he only needs sixth, ninth and 15th to sweep the board of winning from every position on the. It doesn't fucking matter if you take the DRS out in QALY.
Speaker 2:Red Bull still didn't fucking win every race, unless you take the DRS just from Red Bull in QALY, it's not going to fucking matter If their Delta is so much higher than everybody else's, what the fuck does it matter, unless you're just. And it's not going to unless again, unless we've missed something in all the thought bubbles that have come out that they're only taking Red Bull's DRS. It's not disproportionately affecting Red Bull.
Speaker 1:No same. I would never support that. Nobody rational would support handicapping a single team and it won't accomplish anything to do it to all the teams. It's like, really, we've hit silly season. But I'm less convinced. It's about drivers. It's just. I have to constantly remind myself that you have a lot of board journalists trying to find relevancy in these three weeks and this kind of AMUS seems to be the source of a lot of rumors as far as I can tell. But this one is just what, why? What Are you even? Huh, and I don't doubt it. They pulled random shit out of their ass and on stop for two plus years now. But again, who cares where Red Bull starts? They're still going to win.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it doesn't matter where. Well, to be fair, who cares where Max starts? He's still going to win, because Checo, on any given days, could be fantastic or he could shit the bed Like no middle ground with him. Yeah, no comment. Kind of like when Albon was driving for them. He could be really good on some days or he could be awful on others. He just had way more awful days than good days, true?
Speaker 1:enough, so we had a really yuck podium. We had a pretty interesting weekend. I think there was some good, some bad, but I will say I felt like it was one of the more interesting race weekends. I know we weren't experiencing it in tandem at the time, but was there anything else you wanted to cover about Hungary?
Speaker 2:No, I think we have hit the mark for a longest podcast effort. I think we've covered pretty much everything.
Speaker 1:It was a good weekend. I mean a good race.
Speaker 2:It was a good race. It was a good weekend. I was sad I didn't get to watch it live.
Speaker 1:So I'm not convinced we're going to be able to do justice to our experience at Silverstone. But next episode we will be going back and forward simultaneously to tell you all about our adventure in getting to go to our very first in-person British Grand Prix. We're both looking forward to talking to you about our experiences there and we will see you soon. Take care, be well.