Strap in as we talk through the 2023 Dutch GP, a race that redefined unpredictability, brought a record-breaking amount of overtakes, and saw more pit stops than laps run. We'll unpack the chaos, the rookie stepping up to fill big shoes, and the usual suspect who sealed the win, tying Vettel's nine wins in a row record.
Prepare for a deep dive into critical team errors, like those of Mercedes, whose strategy, poor team communication and bad pit-stops continue to cost them dearly. The race was not all doom and gloom though, as Albon shone in the Williams and Gasly's composed driving saw him clinch a well-deserved spot on the podium.
Get ready for candid discussions and hot takes on the murky Driver of the Day award, and the surprisingly high number of overtakes. We'll also ponder why Alpha Tauri left Tsunoda out to dry, LeClerc's lousy luck, and what Lawson’s promising debut means for the future. It's not all serious business though, there are some laughs to be had with our "Luckiest S.O.B' and 'Douche Canoe of the Day' awards.
Strap in as we talk through the 2023 Dutch GP, a race that redefined unpredictability, brought a record-breaking amount of overtakes, and saw more pit stops than laps run. We'll unpack the chaos, the rookie stepping up to fill big shoes, and the usual suspect who sealed the win, tying Vettel's nine wins in a row record.
Prepare for a deep dive into critical team errors, like those of Mercedes, whose strategy, poor team communication and bad pit-stops continue to cost them dearly. The race was not all doom and gloom though, as Albon shone in the Williams and Gasly's composed driving saw him clinch a well-deserved spot on the podium.
Get ready for candid discussions and hot takes on the murky Driver of the Day award, and the surprisingly high number of overtakes. We'll also ponder why Alpha Tauri left Tsunoda out to dry, LeClerc's lousy luck, and what Lawson’s promising debut means for the future. It's not all serious business though, there are some laughs to be had with our "Luckiest S.O.B' and 'Douche Canoe of the Day' awards.
Greetings and welcome to Formula XX, a podcast by two Gen X women talking about F1 and other motorsports, usually with adult beverages and always with adult words. So if you're underage, easily offended or a fan of Red Bull Racing, turn back now. We aren't neutrals, though. We do our best to be at least as unbiased as the shills on the Liberty Media or Sky One payrolls. This week we're talking about the 2023 Dutch GP, which, frankly, promised to be Dull as dirt.
Speaker 1:We expected a predictable race and a predictable winner, with very few overtakes and 300,000 fans celebrating the very thing driving the rest of the F1 fandom crazy. Instead, the raid mumbled in yet again and showed the current strengths and weaknesses of every team and driver on the grid. We got the most overtakes in F1 history, more pit stops than laps of the race and a fill-in rookie covering for rebound driver under the most chaotic circumstances imaginable. Sadly, we still got the predictable winner this time, tying the record of nine consecutive wins originally set by Sebastian Vettel. The sigh. My name is Heather and with me, as always to talk about all things, anvort, is the almost birthday girl, jen. Jen, one day older. Where are you and what are you drinking so that I can join you in honor of you this evening.
Speaker 2:I am in a spare room of my friend's house in Vancouver-ish sort of in between houses right now until I get settled, and she has cracked open a bottle of Indian whiskey which is really delicious. It's called Paul John and it is an Oloroso cask, cask select. This will be a horrible medium for audio, but I'm holding it up to Heather. It's this beautiful, dark, dark sort of mahogany color and it is delicious it's fascinating to see.
Speaker 1:Right, very nice. I am drinking water because 24 hours ago Jen and I were still in the same city, on the same side of the border, and we indulged for her birthday and it's possible I had a little more than I should have. I am going to not drink tonight to ensure that I can still be a functional human being tomorrow, because I have a whole series of meetings that are going to require me to face people who she tailed and bright-eyed. But what we are here for tonight is to talk about Zandwork. It was not anything like I think anyone predicted going into the weekend, which has kind of been a recurring theme. Chaos has ruled supreme. One of the things we had decided that we wanted to do moving forward after the summer break was to change the format of how we approached our recaps of the weekends, and so we're going to focus a little bit more on the structure of the weekend. Just briefly touch on things as they occurred. All right, free practice in 30 words or less Piazery off. Ricardo doesn't let go of the wheel and breaks himself. Red flags, orange smoke, leclerc off again and again Sergeant in the wall. Mercedes has decent race pace. I think that pretty much summed up free practice.
Speaker 1:It was a regular weekend, as it goes. We didn't have a sprint this weekend. We weren't trialing anything new and exciting Tires in quality. It was a straightforward race weekend, with the weather once again being the thing that was just messing with people. The track was very slick at times. We saw it have dramatic impacts in F2. Free practice there were more offs, frankly, than I think could be counted in at least one of the practices, but there seemed to be a sense throughout that section that most of the teams were there there about Nobody really understood what the pecking order was going to be going into the race itself, so that was practice.
Speaker 2:Practice was wet, man, as you said, fucked with F2. And it's hard to say if some of the drivers who were going off were going off because it's a wet or because of the tweaks that have been made to the cars over summer breaks and them not having been in a car for a couple of weeks. It was an interesting time, or so I was told through texts with Heather, because I was driving down to Seattle at the time.
Speaker 1:Well, and that took us to Saturday, and Saturday the weather was again changeable. The hardest kind of conditions, I think, for qualifying, because it meant anything could happen.
Speaker 2:So tell us what did. As part of our redesign over the summer break, we, as Heather said, are trying a couple of different things. We're going to try and do quality in 30 seconds or less. What the fuck, lewis? For all the promise that Mercedes showed on free practice, it was not the case here. There was much yelling at the TV from both Heather and I, because we were in the same city watching the race. Norris nearly had Max Verstappen he was nearly not on pole, but then all that hope disappeared. Albon was spectacular flying and that William Sargent did really well too, until he didn't and hit into the wall, pulling out a red flag, which was, of course, no help to Lewis, who went out in Q2. After quality how was Sonoda the only one who got a penalty from pitting? The argument can be made either way. For Lonzo I'm more towards. He should have got the penalty, but, goddamn, it's still 100% needed to get a penalty for that. So that's my 30 seconds, or more or less. I forgot to hit my stopwatch timer. Better luck next time.
Speaker 1:We'll track that as an insert. When you're listening to this, we'll be able to tell you how close we got to 30 seconds. Yeah, I think it was very much a case where impeding was a sub theme. It definitely impacted some drivers more than others, but the level of traffic and the changeable conditions really set up a few people to be further down the pecking order than they should have been, and Lewis definitely got the brunt of it. Check out was off by miles again. George snuck a great lap in and put himself in P3. And there were six different teams in the top 10.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which was great. It's lovely to see so many different teams up there. It'd be nice if different drivers were up there. I also think for his first time ever driving an F1 car doing it in the rain. Lawson did fuck it amazing Like well done him.
Speaker 1:Where did Lawson end up in Quali? I've already forgotten. He started 19th.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but he kept it all on the track right. That's his first time ever driving an F1 car, so I think he did a phenomenal job. There are guys out there with far more experience who spanner at it, but good.
Speaker 1:Cool. So that's 30 seconds worth of Quali update, plus another two or three minutes over the top Go us, which then, of course, brings you to the race, and I think we probably could have done this podcast by just saying poor strategy and poor pit stops, just left it at that and walked away. I'm sure we have more to say than that, but I will kick off the fact that this was a Mercedes disaster class as far as strategy goes. There was plenty of poor strategy to go around, but, boy howdy, you knew, when they took the tire blankets off and Lewis Hamilton was the only driver on mediums with rain approaching, that something hadn't really been thought through. I was already shaking my head at that point.
Speaker 2:I don't understand how, when they split the strategy for tires on the start, they did not split the strategy for tires for when everybody came in for their injures Like, how do you not bring in the guy who's asking to be brought in?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think we have to say the race starts. The rain came in faster than predicted, heavier than predicted, so it became a matter of which team reacts quickly and understands the implications of what they're doing and isn't conservative. And I think we saw Red Bull bring Checo in immediately. It was one or two other people who reacted right away to the rain and came straight in for enters, and that allowed them to leapfrog. We literally had about three laps of that race where it was like you were watching two completely different races happen. You had the people who had gone on to enters and the people who'd stay on slicks, and the people on enters were just flying by the people on slicks.
Speaker 2:Even Leclerc, who came in, had the most Ferrari pit stop that they'd Ferrari'd in a while, made up a bunch of that time. Right, you had like a 10 second, not penalty, at a 10 second pit stop, but he was still making up time, yeah, ferrari in that first one, the fact that they were not ready at all when Charles came in.
Speaker 1:And the excuse is made well, he, he decided on his own to come in, but they did not have the enters ready for him, like there was some other choice that they could possibly have been putting him on. And why would you not have those tires ready to go Ferrari? So yeah, at that point you had an entirely new race. After that first round of fuck ups from most of the teams on the grid, you had a handful of drivers who had repositioned themselves or effectively gained out of that moment, and a whole bunch of drivers who lost out, including George Russell, who went from being third on the grid and leading momentarily at one point on Sunday down to 17.
Speaker 1:You had Lewis Hamilton, who had started exceptionally well, fastest off the line on those day on mediums, by the way, and really did well until sort of that immediate phase where anybody on soft tires was going to be faster. So he started to slip back a little bit. But had Mercedes not been too conservative for about the 800th time in the last few years, he could have been one of those people who leapfrogged significantly ahead, and George, by all accounts, didn't want to come in, and Mercedes allowed themselves to use that as the reason not to bring Hamilton in, and I, just I, am at a loss. Like you said, there's no explanation, or not at least splitting the strategy and taking a gamble if that's what you considered it to be with the driver who's already all the way down 13th or 14th at that point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no hope of points, let alone a podium, was the prediction. So bring him in. You have your eight, seven, eight times world champion saying he needs to be brought in for inters. Fuck him, bring him in, he's out of the points. What does it matter? And you can see by that point that the drivers that are on inters are second a lap faster than those who are still in their softs and Hamilton's on fucking mediums. That must have been as if walking on ice like that with Goose shit, like there was no way he had any traction.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna say it is a huge Hamilton fan. I think one of the things that is not Lewis's strong suit is he was absolutely saying it's too wet, but he needs to be more demanding of the team. He needs to be in a position to say I'm coming in. We've seen Russell do that in the past. We just talked about Charles doing that.
Speaker 1:In the past, we've heard Carlos Sainz dictating strategy to Ferrari, and God bless him, because if you were a Ferrari driver, you too would be doing your own strategy. Witness Sebastian Vettel for the last year or two he was at Ferrari. There's a necessity at times to develop a level of confidence that you're gonna make the right decision, and I sometimes think Lewis doesn't demonstrate that as well as he could or should. You know he knows, he knows. He just has to say this is the time I'm gonna come in, and I can't remember a time where he's done in recent history. Him waiting for the team to give him direction has bitten him in the ass.
Speaker 1:In my observation, more than not Last time I can think of strategy really paying for him to follow their lead was probably Spain in 2021, when they managed to pull a hungry on Red Bull. I think that the only thing that has resonated for me with the post race reaction from the various and sundry in the Mercedes camp total has this, in my opinion, tendency to sort of brush stroke very broadly when talking about why things don't work. You know it's everybody's issue and so does Lewis right, we win and lose together. He was doing that in the sense that he was saying well, it was also, it was the drivers and the strategists and the engineers that all had a role to play, and I think that's actually really spot on. I think the drivers in one case you had a driver making the wrong call and the whole team following that and another driver with seven slash, eight slash, let's just say eight championships who really should know better. He just should have said I'm coming in, coming in, give me the answers.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's just go, and if I have to come in again for the full wet switch could have been a possibility that was always going to happen.
Speaker 1:They were going to drive a whole race on the interest. It was a. It was a split second calculation. You're taking two pit stops, but can you make up more time to your point? We watched it check. Au pair has picked up seven seconds in a single sector. After he put the interest on the moment that he got through the first five corners, everybody else on the grid should have instantaneously demanded that their drivers come in. It would have chaos in the pit lane.
Speaker 2:We'd probably had some other outcome just because there would have been so many people diving in at the same time there were some really holy shit what just happened in the pit lane that no one really got paying for. But I think Mercedes wasn't the only team that did that right. Mclaren kept piazzed Gio on his softs for the entire time. That just sort of bollocksed up his race.
Speaker 1:Good and proper too yeah, and there were some teams. I mean, the thing was is you had to commit, you had to make a decision. You saw what Williams did with Alex Albonne. Albonne drove on that set of tires for 10 years, 45 plus laps. Albonne put on those softs, never came in, and that served him in the end, because the problem was you had to do one or the other and the teams that were slow to react screwed themselves. And so, you're right, it was not just Mercedes, but I do think Mercedes was the most egregious because, frankly, they had the position in one hand and they could have gained in the other, and they managed to fuck it up and did neither.
Speaker 1:Hamilton comes out 20 basically by the time he's done with all of this and then spends the rest of the race having to make up places. I don't know if we'll ever see a race again that doesn't suffer from DRS drainage. You spend half the race just watching the same three or four cars follow each other around endlessly the front of the grid. There were some, I guess, interesting things happening, including the fact that Fernando Alonso had an amazing start, irrespective of all the crap going on with strategy and rain and tricky conditions and all of that kudos. The man got off the line and had a great race. He drove really well. Yeah, that Aston looked much better again this weekend in his hand.
Speaker 2:I don't remember Alonso ever really putting a foot wrong or a wheel wrong, like he got up and two laps he was up to second place and he just fucking belted through the race right like he didn't have any whips of daisies. He didn't seem to have any bad RG barges we didn't really have his team radio, but nothing really came across the team radio either that they played on F1 TV. Everything seemed to just go smooth for them, head down, head out, fucking floor it, which he did, and he did really really well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was aggressive without compromising his race, because that was a race where, to your point, you got yourself off the dry line in some moments or you made the wrong judgment of where another driver was or what they were going to do, and you could be in a serious amount of trouble really quite quickly, and he just didn't. He managed to come back on track after pit stops, including almost nine second pit stop at one point in that race, and still ended up P2. So kudos to him for the first time. Don't really have heartburn about him getting driver of the day, even though there have been some instances this year where I was less impressed with that crowd selection.
Speaker 1:I think we all know who won. I don't know that we need to dwell on that. I think it's probably worth talking about the other driver who had a great race and ended up on the podium, and he again was one of those drivers who made the right choice early on and then just drove a solid race not, I think, as impressive maybe as Alonzo's in the sense that he wasn't doing awe-inspiring overtakes, but he was rock solid and, I think, absolutely deserved to spot on the podium, and that was Pierre.
Speaker 2:He got pinged 5 seconds for speeding in the pit lane and you know what? He took it on the gin, kept his head down and just did what he needed to do. Like he made up that 5-second penalty. Not no problem, but he made it up pretty well right. I was really happy to see him on the podium. He deserved that. He did really well how he didn't get Driver of the Day or Lewis didn't get Driver of the Day versus Alonso, who did put in a solid race. I'm not saying anything against Alonso, but I think Gazzly and Hamilton had more overtakes. They had to do more defending they had to do. Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1:Albon. If I recall correctly, alonso got 20% of the vote and you mentioned that they don't typically share the detail of the final. I would be shocked if that wasn't split a lot between Alonso, gazzly, hamilton and Albon. Hard to say, hamilton doesn't tend to get much respect on these things, or it surprises me when he does. I really thought any one of the four of them was a candidate just based on where they managed to put themselves, versus in most cases where they started the race itself. There was a lot more that happened. It was actually an exciting race. You can't talk about a race that just shattered, frankly, the number of overtakes. This is a track that generally has very few. I think last year there was 23. That might not be the exact number, but it was a really low number of overtakes, at least that weren't DRS assisted overtakes. I think we were at what?
Speaker 2:189 on this race. Yeah, at least it was something ridiculous. Say, just for argument's sake, that 89 of them, or even 100 of them, took place while people were in the pits faffing around with their tires. Say it's 89 on track overtakes. That's fucking phenomenal. That's something we don't ever see in F1, right, that's a four mili-e style race and I thought it was fantastic, yeah it was fun to watch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there were all sorts of really interesting and sometimes heartbreaking overtakes that were happening on track. You watch poor Sonoda talk about just a shitting your bed tire strategy. Alphatori left that poor guy out there I don't know at least 10 laps past his tire, to best my day, and he got seven overtakes and seven laps. And they were not that hard overtakes when people just came by him and like well, and he also had a terrible pit stop.
Speaker 1:That was one of the other things I mentioned. At the top of the pod is you still have some amazing pit stops, I think for step and head, two that were 2.2. Second stops, the tallyboard for the top 10 stops. They were all sub 2.4, 2.5, mostly in the low, low. Two points At the other end of the spectrum, though, you had I'm not even going to talk about Mercedes consistently crap. That first stop of Charles was terrible, the second stop where he had to come in, because I'm not even sure I remember anymore. I think it might have been with Piaz-Tree.
Speaker 2:Forgive me if I'm wrong, he had minor contact.
Speaker 1:It was enough to clip the front wing in plate off which subsequently although we didn't necessarily know exactly what had happened, we knew something had happened to that car, went under the floor and did enough aero damage to affect, apparently, about 20% of his downforce levels. He tried and tried and tried, but that second stop to fix the wing was also just over the top long, not just because of the wing. We talked about Alonso having that eight plus second stop. Checo had a 10.9 second stop at some point in the race.
Speaker 2:So unusual to have Red Bull have such a long stop. Them and Williams are like the masters of amazing stops, Tinfoil hat. They're like yeah, Checo, Mark was already said, you're not coming back next year, If you read between the lines and they're like whatever we do, what we do with you, we're fine till the end of the race. We already won everything we want to win.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there's plenty of room for the tinfoil hats where anything related to Red Bull is concerned. Unfortunately, not all Williams drivers had the success this weekend. While Alex Albon was once again, you know, sort of proving that he can drive any distance you give him on any set of tires, logan Sargent, for the second day in a row after having bended and quality bended again in the race, we did hear from James Val after the fact that it was a hydraulic failure but it was a hydraulic failure from going over the curbs, correct.
Speaker 2:So it's definitely like the car lost a technical aspect of it, but it lost a technical aspect of it due to something the driver did. It wasn't sort of like a hydraulics failure, a seal wend or something like that.
Speaker 1:Correct. And you know, I think, regardless of the crash itself, there was something just sort of bizarre about the fact that A he was out on the fringes of the track and, unlike what you see 90% of the time, where the driver does you know the walk of shame or the ride on the back of a scooter of shame to get back to the garage, the boy was just left sitting by the side of the road somewhere, unhappy and miserable for all to watch. Throughout the entire rest of the race, which was just super weird.
Speaker 2:At one point he's obviously commandeered a chair from someone because he's sitting on a folding chair for a while, but his head down. But he knows too right, like both times he bend it into the wall. He had set personal bests in the sector before, so he knows he's driving for his F1 career and he's just cutting that edge too close. Right, that's two days, two walls. That does not make anyone happy, including the bean crunchers who are looking at the cost cap.
Speaker 1:I don't think that there's a big likelihood that Sargent's still going to be in that car next year. I don't know why he would be, given the fact that there are many other drivers who are capable of filling the seat, even if it's not higher performance. Frankly, a bit more charisma, and I'm sure we're going to have plenty of time, as the rest of the season progresses, to discuss who's in that second seat, because I think we're going to start hearing about it pretty soon. So we also had another DNF, so you go forward through the race. I would say that there was a mid part of the race that sort of settled into a groove. There was again a lot of DRS trains. You're not seeing a huge amount of shuffly shuffly tire strategy.
Speaker 1:At one point, once the rain had stopped, everybody comes back in for their new set of slicks. At that point Mercedes made yet another interesting choice put George Russell on a pair of hards after a relatively short stint on SOFs. That then he drove for a very long time. So he was I think he was down in that sort of 16-17 range for a long time. You're seeing a little bit of movement throughout the field, people picking away as you go through the pit stop phase. Then the rain came back.
Speaker 2:And I don't know why. Even before the rain came back, I don't know why Mercedes was like well, these hard tires are absolute shit. You could see everybody was talking about the rain coming back. Put them on fucking SOFs, let them burn through a pair of SOFs and go up the field a bit.
Speaker 1:Or a pair of mediums. Frankly, albon proved that you could drive SOFs for 45 laps and they're faster than the mediums, which are faster than the hards. So by what math did you do the calculus and go? Let's put him on the slowest tire for the longest time. That's ridiculous by any measure. And it's just one more way this weekend where you just went. What is happening?
Speaker 2:There's no logic. They left Lewis out way too long and his tires after he came back in. And he finally came in and he comes back out, having worked his way up the order. Pretty well, he comes back out on 14th, but man, he just kept going and going and going until the rain came, like he worked his way up to, I think, six on those tires.
Speaker 1:Depending on your interpretation, he actually was net fifth at the time. The red flag came out Once the rain came back again, seemingly catching all of the teams flat footed, catching the FIA flat footed. Suddenly it was a skating rink because they were hydroplanes, At which point a number of drivers turn one had been a problem, particularly for Cheryl in the earlier phases of the weekend, but several drivers in a row had issues.
Speaker 1:Checo had been off. I can't remember who else had been. Lewis had an off. Everybody was basically making it across the gravel trap. Checo had come in for new tires at this point. At that moment, Lewis was net fifth and would have been fifth on track if the red flag hadn't been called the red flag.
Speaker 2:we had a joke on you in the wall and bought us in the wall Not in the wall, but off right after him as well in the same place, but was able to continue racing.
Speaker 1:This was not a great time for everybody who had to try and keep their car intact, briefly, and we had a pretty long red flag at this point. I mean you always get the conversation there's three hours of racing time. There was no great danger that they were going to hit three hours, but it was a pretty long stretch to repair the barriers. It's the count back effect which, even though, again, lewis was net fifth at that point because Checo had been in fifth the lap before the red flag was called, meant that he got to come back out in fifth at the restart. The restart was effectively a sprint race. There were, I think, six laps at that point. They were going to do two behind the safety car and then a rolling restart.
Speaker 1:I give kudos to the FIA as many times as I've been frustrated by them. At least this time they actually just told everybody look, it's going to be a rolling restart. After the cluster fuckery that we saw in Australia earlier in the year, they didn't mess around. They have the ability to wait until the last second to tell everybody whether it's going to be rolling or standing. But they were just like, yeah, no, it's going to be a rolling restart, two laps behind the safety car, done Much better, in my opinion, to just tell everybody.
Speaker 2:And so all the drivers prepare mentally for what they need to do. So I think you're right. I think having the FIA telling everybody what's going on, how it's going to happen, is a much better way than everybody sitting around for like half an hour waiting to find out what the FIA rules. I think the rolling restart at this point was right. Having them all start from stop would have been a fucking cluster fuck of carnage. It would have been so chaotic, tires would have been cold it was still wet, though obviously it wasn't raining by this point anymore.
Speaker 1:We totally jumped over the other recurring Mercedes theme of 2023, which is the Mercedes drivers nearly taking each other out. Oh Jesus, right, fuck. So in that Epicard's tire stint of Georgia's at one point he's driving around on the hard tires that are well past their due date. He's all over the track. Louis is coming up on him with fresher tires and much better pace. George not only doesn't get out of the way, he sticks a tire on the grass, as everybody said pulls it out of his ass to keep that car from shunting fully into the wall Like it's magic, and almost catching Louis as well, then drives for another 5, 10 seconds in front of Louis, costing him time when there are on wildly different tire strategies. What is going on with that team? That is, three times in either the last four or the last five races Spain, spa, this race what am I forgetting? They've nearly taken each other out. What the fuck, mercedes? I yeah.
Speaker 1:Anyway, just that team is a hot hot mess.
Speaker 2:I think they need to do some sort of intercommunications training between all of them. I think the big thing is is the drivers aren't getting the messages or they're not telling the drivers things. I get in the race, I don't. Actually that's not true. I don't get in the race. Why you wouldn't let your teammate buy? From wildly different strategies. However, if you're told to let your teammate buy, you let your teammate buy, but some of it they just didn't know the other one was coming up.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's it. I don't, yeah, I agree. I don't think George is being a dick, I just think the communication is terrible. Yeah, it's super lacking, correct it's. I have never felt like it has been intentional in any of those instances. It's just been lack of awareness in some cases, because I do think that these are pretty sharp drivers and they tend to know where the other cars are. But it's fundamentally the team isn't giving them the info. You're dead on. It's unforgivable because it's completely avoidable. If it was intentional, then someone's just being a dick. That's its own problem. But I think this is all. It doesn't need to be happening, but it keeps happening, which is ridiculous.
Speaker 2:The fact that they haven't really taken each other out the last couple of races is a fucking miracle. Yeah, it's especially this one, like I don't know what magic Russell has, that that car did not completely snap when that tire went off on the grass, Like I. Whatever sacrifices he has made to the various goddesses and gods and you know, happy little little fusion goat people like keep doing it man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's hope he hasn't used up all that luck, because I don't think that they're going to keep getting lucky and near missy the way they have been sooner or later.
Speaker 1:They keep it up, it's going to cost them even bigger than it ultimately did this weekend, because they get going after the restart. And by this point again, because of pit stops and just sort of the timing of what's gone on between what we were just talking about and the red flag and the rain, russell's gotten himself all the way back up from 17th, where he was at his low point, to, I think, eighth. At that point he's eighth or ninth. And then on the restart he got spicy and he had good pace because the Mercedes ultimately on race day somehow manages to be better by the third stint of every race. He gets aggressive around Lando and with just the most minor contact gets a puncture and yeah, that was pretty much game over for him.
Speaker 2:That was the end of his race Right around the same time that Russell's pipping Norris Paris is coming in for new tires and gets pinged for speeding in the pit lane. And actually Red Bull does get a five second penalty.
Speaker 1:No, actually you know what's weird about that one? That pit lane violation was from the one right before the red flag.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's right that was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was. That was the FIA fuck-up of the day, in my opinion was he got that in his haste to come in and change tires He'd had his off. That's right. He was going to go back to Inter's sped in the pit lane and he hit the wall when he was coming in right.
Speaker 2:That's the pit, that's the pit stop where he hit the wall coming in and nearly rear-ended someone. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know that he nearly rear-ended anybody, but he definitely he may have. I distinctly remember the replays, because I didn't. You didn't see it in in real time, they weren't showing it on the replays. You caught that he had whacked the pit wall and they waited until the restart, till after the cars were driving again. No, this way, that's 45 minutes later.
Speaker 1:This was a long red flag, which is a huge dick move, right, right they didn't let him know until after he was on the road driving again that he has this five second penalty, which was so weird, like there was no reason for them to not tell him no it's a dick move for Paris.
Speaker 2:It's a dick move for all the other drivers and strategists who have planned what they're going to do and they're like wait, we actually only need to be within this space or we need to push to get within this space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a. That was the weird call of the day for me was their decision to defer communicating that for an entire 45 or 50 minute window, whatever it was. And to your point, it had an effect, because or it was important, it did have an effect and it was important information. We get the restart and Hamilton has way more pace than signs who is right in front of him. So Hamilton's back in six. You've got signs. You've got Paris starts in fifth but gets by signs fairly quickly. The first three are kind of down the road. You've got Verstappen, alonzo and Gasly and I don't think there was ever any danger on the restart that that shuffle, that that was going to shuffle. But signs has Hamilton literally up his tailpipe for a five laps. He is losing it on the radio. He's, you know just and bless him. But the car, the Ferrari, is faster on the straights and there's no DRS. So it stayed where it was but in the meantime, what did say?
Speaker 2:I can't remember what did say on the radio he's too close or he's bullying me or something he's I think he said something about he's intimidating me that he's intimidating me like dude. It's not quality. The dude doesn't need to back off. He's active, it's not intimidating, it's racing. For fuck's sake. That's the whole point. The dude's trying to get past you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's funny. You know it was frustrating as somebody who is watching it and really wanting to see Hamilton get by. There was just no way, even though he had the faster car, and that's just a byproduct of where we're at with the the cars, and the Ferrari does have, or at least in this instance, but generally, I think, has better speed and storyline, and so that just wasn't going to happen without DRS to assist. But Paris does lose a spot at the end, effectively nets a lower spot, because science was within the five second window and I think we've, you know we've seen a more interesting race than I would ever have imagined.
Speaker 2:Well, and that cross of the finish line. I don't know if Lewis was like. Well, I guess we're just going to take it easy like. Nor is it 0.023 seconds behind Lewis, like for fuck's sake.
Speaker 1:Yeah, another 100 yards and Lando is ahead of him by a significant margin. I'm with you. I don't know if if he just let up too soon and was so focused on science that he forgot the fact that Lando was up his tailpipe as well, or was by the time they got to to the finish line. But when I was watching it the first time, I almost thought Lando had pipped him because he flew by so quickly on the left side that I was like, wait, wait, what just happened? Right?
Speaker 2:and the way they were showing it. I mean, it was after the race when they were cooling down and Lando had slingshot by him, but you didn't get that they crossed the checkered line. But at point two, because they were so close, like holy fuck, what just?
Speaker 1:happened. Yeah, I bet Lando they didn't.
Speaker 2:I don't remember anybody talking to him about it or I didn't hear it, but I'm sure he was irritated he didn't get that spot like we don't listen to Lando, but I wouldn't mind going back just in this, this instance, and listening to what his radio was as you cross the finish line. Yeah, no kidding. I think I just do it for my own edification yeah.
Speaker 1:So I would say for this race. Clearly, the headlines that came out of it had to do with the fact that Firstappen tied Vettel's record again. I don't think I'm speaking out of term when I say I couldn't possibly care less.
Speaker 2:And here's the thing about Firstappen, who's to us very uncharismatic. I would like somebody who thinks he's charismatic to explain to us why they think he's charismatic. But also he 100% did the same pose that Vettel did when Vettel made that record. Like, at least be fucking original, or you know. There's really so many ways you can hold up nine, switch the hands or something like to stand in the exact same way with your hands in the exact same position that Vettel did. No man, that's just fucking creepy yeah, I, I, I.
Speaker 2:I've got nothing to say about him so one of the other formatting changes that we're going to do is some ranking systems for all of us. So, heather, who do you think was the luckiest driver of the day?
Speaker 1:well, you already talked about George Bussell not bending it in the wall and the fact that he definitely seemed to have sacrificed a chicken to a god somewhere to have not stuck it in the wall. I sort of thought the Checo, who basically was given the right strategy great pit stops, took an off, kept it going, hit the pit wall, benefited from the count back reset and the ability to fix the car that he damaged, pitting and sticking it in the wall had a 10 second pit stop, got a penalty that only cost him one place basically because of the fact that Carlos Sainz was so obsessively worrying about Lewis Hamilton behind him that he ended up netting into fifth place benefited from a lot of circumstances.
Speaker 2:I think it's an interesting thought activity. Then, if Lewis had gotten by Sykes a Sykes have just rolled those coattails if they would have come close enough to Paris to bump them both up positions.
Speaker 1:I'm 100% think that if Lewis had found his way past signs that Lewis would have netted ahead of both of them, I there's not a doubt in my mind that he would have. It was it was way too close, and that's what I'm saying. I think Checo was lucky as hell that he only lost one position in the end of the day, and I also think there's very little likelihood he's going to be in that second Red Bull seat next year, so he should enjoy the select while it's benefiting him, because it's, I think, very unlikely yeah, assuming Denny Rick's hand heals up properly, there's no way his ass isn't back in that seat next year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know there's been a lot of talk about whether he still makes sense in the Alphatorie. If they're really trying to build that brand, I just can't come up with who they will put in that second seat if it isn't.
Speaker 2:Denny Rick, no, they. I mean they have a couple of young drivers coming up, but none of them are ready for F1. I don't think none of the F2 drivers they have are really ready to be in that Red Bull seat. You might be able to put Wassa up into Alphatorie, but I don't think he's ready to be a number two driver for the number one team.
Speaker 1:I don't even see a Wassa in the Alphatorie seat next year, so there's going to be some moves coming. I think people are starting to really marginalize Yuki, who had a tough damn day. You know, you called it earlier. He was hung out to dry on strategy, was well in the points, drove a excellent race and fell out of the points entirely because of his team, and that's pretty frustrating because he's driven really well, in my opinion, the last few races and he's just not coming away with the points to show it. But it's not a reflection of his driving.
Speaker 2:I agree. I think he's doing really, really well for the car that he has, because that car is a fucking backwards ass horse that's eating its own shit. Like that, car does not go anywhere. When they have their cheater car next season it's going to be an interesting, different story, but for right now, I right, and I sort of feel like Yuki deserves a chance to drive the cheater car at this point.
Speaker 1:You know if, if he's going to take all the hits that he's currently taking, I really wish that he'd get an opportunity to drive a car that is as fast as this year's Red Bull, which, by all accounts, is all they're planning to do. You know, every third story is the fact that they're just going to redo the entire car next year and, yeah, it's just going to be the RB 19 rebrand speaking of poor lock, who do you think the unluckiest driver of the race was?
Speaker 2:Charles.
Speaker 1:Charles. For me it was Charles. I think he was the person of all the drivers again, only a handful of them directed and made the right call for the tires at the right time. He was one of them and they were so ill prepared to change him onto the tires that that penalized him. To start with, the relatively minor damage. It was not a big whack, it just was enough to do the kind of damage that sometimes happens and he stayed out there so long. I mean, the poor guy got passed by almost everybody on the grid. I think Liam Lawson who, yeah, we have to talk about next is the only driver who didn't pass him at that point and yeah, that that just sucked for him. And I have to say for Liam Lawson it's unluckiest in, or poor bastard, right like, if you're gonna draw your first F1 race out of a hat, it's not gonna be this race by choice, with the incredible crap driving conditions. Your first time in F1. Oh my god. This was a nightmare scenario for a first time driver.
Speaker 2:The fact that he finished the race, I think speaks a lot to the type of driver he can develop into. Absolutely that he kept it on the track. He is not one of the ones that went, as far as I can remember, he's not one of the ones that went off the track. He kept it on the track. He finished the race, which is more than several of them can say with multiple. You know, checa went off, louis went off, bodas went off, sergeant went off, shav went off, sikes didn't go off, sikes went off and Kuali and then in free practice, like so many of them, went off who, between them, have hundreds of thousands of races under their belt? Niva guy, he was half no, no races under his belt and, like he has shitty, his conditions for when he first drives the car are super shitty conditions that are not typical of what that race track would be for him to drive on. I think Lawson did himself proud. I think he did a really good, solid race for his conditions and his experience couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1:I thought it was a fantastic debut F1 drive, looking forward to seeing what he does in the next few weeks. By the time we're recording this, there has been confirmation that, because of Danny Rick breaking his wrist, in free practice too, he is post surgery, in recovery but unlikely to drive again until Singapore at the earliest. Lawson will have that seat until he's back. So he'll get a chance again this weekend in Monza. At least a couple more races under his belt and looking forward to seeing what he can do when it's maybe not as crazy. The weather forecast for Monza this weekend is not great. It's a little. It depends, apparently, which forecast you're looking at, but it does currently include rain for race day. I will hope for all involved that we get a dry weekend. I think we need one at this point for the sport, frankly. But yeah.
Speaker 1:Lawson did a great job.
Speaker 2:Heather and I were joking this weekend that you know. Bring it to the Pacific Northwest. If climate change has done nothing, it means we are no longer a wet climate from, say June until August yeah, they really should be up here somewhere.
Speaker 1:One other new award that were or designation that we're going to be including is douche canoe of the race. Who did you have in mind for that award?
Speaker 2:well, I had for luckiest driver of the day, I'm luckiest bastard of the day and douche canoe they're all George Russell. For me I think he ticked all three of those. The fact that we talked about earlier that off that he had, that he didn't go off like Jesus mad strategy, his, his, and what Mercedes did for him. That just fucked the bad. The fact that he I still don't understand how he got a puncture with like that minimal tap, that like I don't understand there had to be a flaw in the tire. That doesn't make sense. That he got a puncture at the end and ended up in 17 and I think his sort of bitching and moaning a bit this weekend and the fact that they told that they asked him to come in or they said he should come in for tires and he was like no, these were fine and he didn't come in.
Speaker 2:I get questioning Mercedes strategy. But you see all the other drivers coming in. How do you like? Okay? Well, everybody else is coming in. This is obviously the thing to do. At least the top teams are coming in. This is obviously what we should do, like shut up, come in.
Speaker 1:It's bucketing down, put on your fucking angers yeah, let's hope everybody's gained a little experience and let's, more importantly, hope that they learn from some of it. I'm, you know, I don't know that I can put up with one more post race generic blah, blah, blah about we're gonna take away these lessons. Stop making the mistakes, I don't. I don't care if you learn to lesson if you don't actually apply it, and that's the problem. I will. You're right, I think, in terms of just sheer piss poor luck. I still don't understand how George got the puncture, and you know that that did suck for him. It sucked for Mercedes. They dropped out of the. That was the lowest scoring race of the season for Mercedes and George started third and you could tell by his initial radio communication with the team after the first round of pit stops that was not the day he was expecting to have. Sad for him.
Speaker 2:Sad for him and for you. Who is douche can you have today?
Speaker 1:You know, it wasn't like there was a glaring flag for me in this one. I sort of thought signs, there were a few defensive moves and I oh yeah, not necessarily concentrating on that last section at all like I think the the all out sprint post restart. I wasn't. You know, I wasn't particularly bothered there. Just during the main phase of the race. There were a couple of late moves that I thought were a little on the edge and there were a couple of other black and white flags. I apparently missed an entire the part of the race where Hulkenberg got a black and white. For really poor defensive moves you can end up with a black and white as well as as Hulkenberg. So there there's an argument to be made that sciences maybe were not the most offensive but the one of what I saw. There were. Several times I was like uh-uh. No, no, I don't think so, not in this weather. Uh-uh, I agree with that.
Speaker 2:Like I have in my notes like how did he not twice? I have in my notes how did he not get a penalty or at least a warning?
Speaker 1:yeah, like the fact that he never got any warnings is mind-boggling to me, you'd have to spend 20 minutes of every race recap talking about huh head scratch to your point earlier of the multitude, there were four separate impeding incidents in that first stretch of quality that were really you know, they weren't even, it wasn't a question. And only one driver gets the penalty and the only non-white driver.
Speaker 1:The only non-white driver gets the penalty. And again, with this sort of stuff, you're just like well, who's making the call? The inconsistency is it burns, that it burns.
Speaker 2:Alright. Another new feature is we are going to rank drivers from bottom to top. So Heather, bottom driver, sergeant, one-year couple of words for him.
Speaker 1:I'm actually not gonna spend as much time with words. I'm going to actually grade the drivers for this round. I will say I gave mr sergeant AD. I, to your point, recognize that he had a factor. He played a role in his hydraulic pressure leak. He just wasn't really there. He had a great quality, originally gave him a C but at the end of the day he went from a possibility of points to dead last because he was the first one out in lap 16 yeah, I have.
Speaker 2:Sergeant goes fast crashes. Sergeant goes fast crashes. Now he's a sad mean boy next.
Speaker 1:Leclerc, I gave Sharala C plus. He made the initial call, which was really important, but I also think this is a trend that he's having a lot of offs. He struggled all weekend in free practice. I know he's really unhappy with the car and that may have played a role in whatever contact he had, but he was only there. There abouts in quality started effectively mid-pack and his race was really over after one or two corners. I don't know. I just don't think it was a great weekend. For sure not because he's not capable, it just I have for a little prayer.
Speaker 2:Fuck by Ferrari, fucked by himself. He's now a sad boy, seems fair, joe, I gave Joe a B I think he was.
Speaker 1:You know that for me, oh, it's just seemingly a terrible, terrible car. Neither here, veltrie, have had great qualifying performances consistently, so he didn't start in a great place but he was right there. He got himself to the front of the pack because, again, a good call on tire timing and stayed there and really was competitive until the crash. And I am really sad, not just because I think he deserved points, like we were saying for Sonoda earlier. He drove a great race up until that point and I think he deserved a better outcome than he got yeah, I agree my words for snow death.
Speaker 2:Great race, great defensive driving, great offensive driving. Hit the wall, lost fucking everything will put. Russell, who is the first driver on this list to finish the race.
Speaker 1:I suspect we'll have slightly different takes on this. I actually gave George a B. I'm probably being generous. I think the fact that he made the wrong call at the start cost him enough that I probably am being overly generous here. But he did manage to pull himself back up, despite being on the hard tires, to get himself back into a competitive place for the restart. I don't really know how to make a judgment on whether there's any role of fault. It seemed like it was such inconsequential contact that it's hard for me to see that that was anybody's fault, including his same. It's the worst fucking luck. I don't know how he got. Maybe there was something else going on that we didn't see or haven't heard about. I am making the assumption that the near miss incident and failure to get the fuck out of the way for Hamilton coming through on a much faster race tire strategy was not his call.
Speaker 2:I agree as well. My, my ranking, my word ranking for him was podium potential to last finisher fucked by himself, fucked by his team, fucked by weather. Next one sonoda. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:Yuki. I gave a solid B. We I think we already covered it I think he he was treated by a whole bunch of circumstances that he did not have control over. If you took the same phrasing you just used for George, with the tweak of the team had a much, much larger role in fucking Yuki, then I think it did. I think George fucked himself. I think Yuki got fucked by his team.
Speaker 2:That's sort of what I have. Alphatorie tire fuckery. Lost him the position, lost him points. Seven positions down, seven laps. What the fuck next? Ron asks.
Speaker 1:I gave Valtteri a C I. He, I think it was an anonymous race. He started 18th, finished 15th. Some stuff happened in the middle. You know, there's there's not much that. That jumped out for me. If I missed it, I missed it. But yeah, I I think it was a sort of average race on an average day in an add a somewhat less than average car.
Speaker 2:I have for bodice likes his teammate. Enough to see if Joe was okay once he spattered it into the wall, so he went off as well, just to be okay, just to make sure Joe was okay but up bump next.
Speaker 1:Magnuson, also a C, started in the pits to finish 14th. He's driving that has. I don't remember a single thing about him in the race.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's what I got the only thing I have no worthy for Magnuson is that he didn't run anybody off track.
Speaker 1:Hey, and for him that is saying something go, magnuson, you didn't ruin anybody else's race today. Yeah, next Lawson, yeah, I gave him a firm fat. A started 19th, finished 13th. Could not have had a more spectacularly difficult set of circumstances to make your F1 debut in absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 2:I have for Lawson trial by rain. Beat it all. Well done kid. Next Holkenberg.
Speaker 1:I gave Holkenberg a D, started 14th, finished 12. I think had some hinky driving, including the, the what. What got in the black and white flag? Yeah, I'm not there for that. I think that is a problem, particularly in those kind of weather conditions where the consequences can be even bigger yeah, they can be catastrophic.
Speaker 2:Right, I have for Holkenberg. He was there. Heard about some hinky shit after the race where he got a black and white. Not sure what that's all about. I just don't remember anything about him being on track at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, next stroll I gave stroll a C, started 11th, finished 11th, anonymous, not nearly on par with his. His teammate who finished up in second was miles off throughout the weekend. Nobody who's been watching the season is surprised about it. I think it would be very practical to give him an even lower score in verse of the Delta that's continuing to happen between him and Alonso. But I just think it was an anonymous race.
Speaker 2:I have for stroll. He stayed on track, he stayed the exact same position. He didn't hit anyone, hooray next all gone, all gone.
Speaker 1:I gave a B plus. I think SD, who started 16th and finished 10th, could have finished a bit higher if he hadn't sort of had a bobble in terms of timing on the tires they had just called him in. He was deeply, deeply unhappy about that during the red flag. He had driven a really good race and I don't think the final position reflected the race that he was having and the the shuffle that happened sort of right in that stretch before the red flag cost him and he he drove better than that finish in terms of position reflex every.
Speaker 2:I also have team fully fucked him with full weds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, kind of sums it up right, all right, next piazz tree mr piazz tree started 8th, again not quite as strong and qualifying as his teammate, but basically I think drove a good race. I gave him a B minus. He started 8th, finished 9th. He just didn't quite seem to have the pace of the others in front of him during that back half of the race, but he continues to have some great overtakes. The kids got skills, you know he's. He's a really good driver. I just don't think it was a fantastic race for him, but again, it was a. You know this was a tough race and he's a rookie.
Speaker 2:I agree, and I also think Piastri was one of the drivers that stayed on his slicks. So I have trial of Softs in the Rain came out, meh, because McLaren didn't call him in. He was one of them. I think there's like five or six drivers that just stayed on their slicks and sort of skated around as best they could.
Speaker 1:Again, I don't want to take anything away. I think he's having a great stretch. I agree.
Speaker 2:I think the fact that he kept it on the track while he was on those slicks Absolutely Good on him.
Speaker 1:Albon. Alex Albon got an A from me. He started fourth and finished eighth but as we talked about earlier, he also stayed on slick tires. He took those Softs 45 laps through every kind of weather, changing variables of track conditions and the drivers around him at different speeds. Because again we went through that entire phase at the front where you had folks on intermediates lapping 10 seconds a lap faster than those that stayed on slicks. I think anybody to your point about Piastri that did that and didn't bin it, just trying to figure out where people were relative to them for those first chaotic laps.
Speaker 2:The visibility was just non-existent.
Speaker 1:I struggled a little bit and this will be one of those things that we refine I think about. You know, are we waiting Kuali into this or not? It's worth mentioning, whether we do or not, that for him to put that damn Williams in fourth in Kuali is ridiculous. He is driving so well right now and is taking that Williams in places that it doesn't really seem possible. It's going. Yeah, I got nothing to say except he drove a really good race. He's another one that really, frankly, probably deserved to be a bit higher than he did and you know, just drove really really well I have one day maybe they'll forget to bring him into the pits.
Speaker 2:Amazing tires from Albon, 45 plus laps on those softs.
Speaker 1:Norris Lendonorris started second, finished seventh I gave him a B plus. He really did have a good race. I know he was super disappointed because he got stung by the strategy issues at the beginning. I don't think that he really had the pace that we've seen out of the McLaren in some of the recent races, but I do think that he drove a really strong race, had some good passes and overtakes, kept himself in it despite the initial issues and considering all that chaos. Seventh I know it wasn't what he wanted. I know he wanted the podium, but it wasn't to be is all I would say for this weekend.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and my sort of couple of words for Norris are holy, fuck me shit balls. 0.023 from six. Also fucked by his team in the wet with El Lube.
Speaker 1:Lovely. I'm not big of a classie man. You are Capital K classy. Next, lewis I gave Lewis an A minus.
Speaker 1:I talked a little bit about the fact that I do think he has at least a sliver of accountability for the fact that he needs to learn to be more assertive about some of these things, in these situations, and I think he was screwed by his teammates, strategy being the one that the team chose. He was screwed by the fact he was on the mediums to start with to have come from 20th to six, with every reality being that he would have been able to get by science if there had been DRS and he would have finished at least as high as fifth. I think he had a fantastic drive. He was just head down.
Speaker 1:He didn't bitch in wine when he was told he was dead last, he just got it done and he had really good race pace again and had some good overtakes. Didn't get taken out by his teammate, even though I think some other drivers might have under those particular circumstances and he could have qualified better. But I think by and large, he was impeded in ways that just you know it happened and again, he didn't bitch about that either. Right, it was just head down Okay, the shit happens, was literally the quote. We're just going to pick ourselves up and keep going. That attitude carried him on Sunday. I believe it Absolutely, and he was fastest off the line.
Speaker 2:And the fact that he came back from losing so many positions multiple times to finish six. So I have for Lewis once again, the FIA fucked him over with the restart, his team fucked him over pretty good. The fact his teammate didn't take him out yet again From last to six, with several backslides and plaw up climbs along the way. Well done, lewis, agreed.
Speaker 1:Sykes. Mr Sykes finished fifth, started six. I gave him a B. I already commented I wasn't always impressed with Carlos's defensive moves on Sunday. I don't know what it is about Sykes that just I think he's finishing higher than I feel like he's his driving deserves and I think that's kind of been the case multiple times this season, like it's consistently been a little head scratchy to me that he's ending up finishing higher than Sharl. I don't have anything against Carlos, I just don't find him a particularly compelling driver and I don't find that I am impressed by anything he's doing. I agree, I think he's if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:that makes perfect sense. I agree with you. Like he is a solid driver. So I don't think Stroll is a bad driver. I just think that they're doing very different things with the cars they're in, and there I think Sykes is much better and more confident at making opportunities happen when he needs them to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say that one of the things that the science does that we alluded to earlier is science is not shy about managing his own strategy. I do think he's smart about that. He he wants information from the team. He knows what he's asking for from the team and he doesn't shy away from telling them no. I don't agree with that. Now you can say that's good or bad depending on your perspective and on the circumstances. And does the team have more information? And if it was probably any other team on the grid, you might think that was a compelling argument for a driver to be following their lead with Ferrari. It's a survival strategy. Oh, it has been for years Correct and he's adapted to it. I don't think Charles is as good at doing that as you hear it once in a while and you do hear some frustration from Charles from time to time but he's not as good at just being like, yeah, no we're not doing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a bad plan. We're going to lose positions. He's come in multiple times at Ferrari's insistence and it's lost in podiums.
Speaker 1:Correct. So I will give signs, kudos on that front. But I think again, if we're just talking about this race, I don't know it's weird to have somebody we talked about people down in the you know 12 to 15 range seeming sort of anonymous. I think the only thing interesting that happened with science the entire race was Lewis scaring the hell out of him for those five last laps. Yeah, I have there, just wasn't much else there that was going on.
Speaker 2:The only thing I took notice of was like, apart from the five last laps there with the battle Lewis for him I have. How the fuck doesn't he have a penalty, because I feel that there were multiple instances where he was. He'd made that second and even third sort of deke, and how that? Did get him a penalty. Is white boy privilege or something.
Speaker 1:Paris. Yeah, checo started seven, finished fourth. I gave him a C plus. Despite that, he's driving a Red Bull I know it's not the same thing as Maxis Red Bull whether the car is simply ill suited to him, which I'm sure it is, or somehow has a difference, which maybe it does, I don't know. He's just not doing it. He was the first one in. Verstappen, came in a lap later whatever it was two laps later for Inter's and overtook him like crazy fast.
Speaker 2:He was like two seconds on the same tire strategy. Verstappen was two seconds a lot faster than Paris was.
Speaker 1:Paris was like. What do you? I think we all want on some level, to justify it, in part because, yeah, I don't like Verstappen. Also because I legitimately think there are reasons why Verstappen is benefiting from the car. But you watch performances like these and you just think how the hell? Yeah, and the thing with him being so lucky this weekend is he got fourth, with all that assistance, with every star aligning for him. Frankly, he was able to be there, so yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I have my words for Paris, which we've actually already talked about. Who will be in his seat next season? Yeah, he did not cover himself with Laurie Addle. The fact that he finished where he finished had nothing to do with his driving and everything to do with luck. Correct Podium number three Gasly I gave him a solid A.
Speaker 1:I really just think he did all the right things throughout the entirety of the race, not just one good thing at the beginning, which put him in a position that carried him to where he was. That was part of it, but he also just drove really well through the entire race, through all the different circumstances. To have gone from 12th on the grid to third on the grid, that's fantastic. He absolutely deserved to be on that podium.
Speaker 2:I agree I have for Gasly Philly Stasio. He was speedy everywhere, on the track and in the pit lane.
Speaker 1:Alonzo. I also gave Alonzo an A. You know I'm not a fan, but I have nothing but respect. I think it was a solid drive. I think he got the most out of the car under incredibly challenging conditions, was aggressive in the right ways in the right places, knew what he wanted, made it happen and kept his head and got himself as far up the grid as it's possible to get in the year 2023. He deserved to be on the podium too.
Speaker 2:My words for him are words that I think are far overused, but in this case we're not used at all this weekend and deserves, which is masterclass from the Wiley Old Fox Touche.
Speaker 1:You're stopping. I gave Max an A. I agree with the concept that in general, he doesn't deserve to be applauded. When you're driving a car that is clearly faster than everybody else on the grid, the only thing you have to do is hold on to first place for all of the laps of the race. I think this was less clear cut than many of the races this year. I do think he actually had to get through some traffic a couple of times in a way that wasn't as straightforward as it's generally been. I think there was more pressure because it was the home race with the nine victories in a row thing, and he didn't really do anything wrong at any point all weekend. He had one weird stint in Q1 where he was unhappy with the car. He had a good week.
Speaker 2:I don't disagree. He had a solid weekend, also for me Bored now.
Speaker 1:Oh, totally, 100%. It doesn't make him any more interesting. It doesn't make me care Like I literally could not care less about him winning nine in a row and that's pathetic. Yeah, I understand the people who are making the argument out there that, like we should all just be enjoying that we're seeing history being made. I'm not enjoying watching history being made. I don't give two shits that Max Verstappen is winning. No, I don't care about him as a human being or a driver, I just there's no, there, there it's not interesting.
Speaker 2:Like when Lewis was making history, apart from all the stuff that was going on off the track, there were some races where there were some legit interesting battles going on up front and we haven't had one all season bar one, and that wasn't even an interesting race. Like it was just a fucking fluke that Checo won that race and this has just been paint by numbers at the front. It's been so boring. Max hasn't had any challenges. He hasn't had any sort of even challenges that are not of his own making or from. You know something that's happened to the red when Lewis won in Silverston on three tires. That was really fucking interesting. Like that wasn't like a holy shit. Like he went from having and he did get a massive lead and he won on three tires.
Speaker 2:You know what? I'd be interested to see how Max handles that situation this year Right, like, have you know, have a brakes on fire, have something that's fucking interesting. Obviously, no car is going to be interesting in front of you because that's just nothing. You're not going to have anyone in front unless you're laughing. Willow said it best, man Bored. Now One of the other things we are going to try out for a little while is we're going to have one word for each team, starting with the lowest ranking team. So Alpha Tori Tri-Hearts Done Alpha Tori for a male MIA, disappointing.
Speaker 1:Haas, nowhere missing.
Speaker 2:Williams, ascendant, closer Alpine climbing Feliz, das Ja McLaren thereabouts whiny Ferrari, ridiculous Ferrari'd Aston Martin dichotomy duality Did be. And just so everybody knows, we've made these lists on our own, without looking at each other's words. Mercedes pathetic shitty.
Speaker 2:Red Bull Monotonous board. Now, oh, I guess that's two words back to board. Just a quick couple of notes for other races that happened. Props to Chloe Chambers, who had an amazing weekend in the North American supercar series for Porsche. She came in first in several of the races and Came in with points in all the rest of them. So good to her. She seems to be thriving there and I couldn't be happier for her.
Speaker 1:Completely second that. I still scratch my head that she didn't get a shot at F1 Academy, but she seems to be really developing really well supported in that series and is doing so well.
Speaker 2:F2, who raced in Zandvoort with a support race for F1, had a very interesting, very shitty weekend. We didn't have time to watch the whole race but, goddamn, I'm going to go back and watch because the amount of Drivers that changed positions because they were racing in the red the rain, in fact their Race ended up being red flagged. F2 had a new winner with Clemence Novelac. That makes now 13 different winners for F2, which is kind of fucking phenomenal. And none of the top five in that feature race were from the top five of who the driver Stendings are right now and the top drivers in the feature race had just the most amazing shit happened to them, and some of them you just sort of scratch your head. I'm definitely going to go back and watch that. Those races.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you saw the clip of Frederick Westie who's in the fight with tail porch hair Before the championship of F2, behind a safety car Suddenly lose both back tires and spin out, you know something has gone around and by lose she doesn't mean he lost the back end.
Speaker 2:Both tires fell off the car and wheels, tires, wheels, everything bouncing down the fucking track and he's parked and can't go anywhere. And he's parked on the fucking racetrack with no fucking back.
Speaker 1:Those on yeah, I don't know how preemus shit the bed on that in a way that I would have expected from Ferrari. What hot. I don't know if it's the color red, but I am telling you, the only thing that saves that from being even more epically Awful than it was is that poor share ended up in the wall and Didn't score either, so it was sort of a neutralized Problem, but that could have so easily been the difference in who won the championship.
Speaker 2:I mean every wasa ended up in the wall. Oh my gosh, I'm blanking on which team it is, but there was tea and everybody's okay, which is why it's kind of haha what the fuck happened. But thank God for halos, because that saves a life cars parked perpendicular to each other one on top of the other right on top of the halo, and I think that was that one of wasa one off, somebody one off first, and then those other two went off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know who went off. I don't know what specifically Precipitated those two having been off. We've had such a rough few months with deaths in motorsports, and you will never need to stop being grateful for the halo.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, the halo has turned what could have been a tragedy into a WTF moment. I know they weren't racing, but formulae this week had a couple of WTF moments of drivers who are Racing unexpectedly back on the grid next season.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Ollie Roland is gonna be back, which is fun. I'm a little head scratchy about Some driver shifts within teams.
Speaker 2:Sam bird going over to McLaren. Like I did not have that on my bingo cars, yeah.
Speaker 1:I did not have that on any card. I I Literally cannot think of a less likely scenario than bird going to to McLaren. So we'll see who else lands in. These things are happening daily right now. So yeah, interesting times. Well, f1 got super boring, fv is anything but yeah he's having a whole bunch of driver movements.
Speaker 2:They've also released their end of season stats, which was kind of interesting to see just the pie charts, who led what laps and how many laps, and the different drivers that have done it. There were seven different winners this season. It was just fantastic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think when you talk about 13 Different drivers winning in F2, or seven different drivers in formulae, it's challenging for me to believe that there's an entire fabricated narrative being shoved down our throats on a near hourly basis right now About how we all just ought to be thrilled that one person is winning every fucking thing in F1, which is supposed to be the pinnacle of motor sports. Today there was an article posted about. You know how we should all take it as a sign of how healthy F1 is that one team and one driver are completely dominated and it's like. This is pathetic Propaganda. Now, 100%. This isn't even journalism. This is the shills being paid to sell a narrative, because more than half of the people watching are bored out of their minds, you've had only one team win and, apart from one race, one driver win.
Speaker 2:And when you think about how many fewer races there are in a season, in F2 and formulae and that's their stats or the Formula Academy they've had, I think, eight different winners. Now I could be wrong. I don't have that stat in front of me.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure I said hi, but it's. It's the podiums. Yeah, you know the number of the drivers that have been on the podiums. It's a maiden season. All of them are learning so much we don't.
Speaker 1:I don't think F1 needs a 2012 season. Right, it's not that you need to have Half the drivers on the grid capable of winning or having a shot it wins for it to be a good season. That's, that's the dream. It would be fantastic to see that level of competitiveness, but there's something better than this, and it's really hard to think about two more years of this. I am curious that if there was ever a machine that wasn't driven by the self-interest of Liberty Media or the desire to make money in a certain subset of the F1 viewing fandom Primarily I mean the DTS group that would ever think this was the goal. Yeah, we'll see. I Don't think we're likely to see changes in any of the upcoming races. The curse be damned. The Monza curse could be saving us, but I don't think you know me, neither I wish I wish I'd pay hard, cold buckets of cash to see Charles Leclerc win.
Speaker 1:I'll settle for him on the podium, but I want him on the podium in Monza. I think that would be the thing I could settle for. I don't see the Mercedes in that tractor of theirs getting anywhere near Podium, not at Monza, I don't want that old asshole back on the podium again this weekend.
Speaker 1:I think he had a great race, but I don't. I don't want to go back To the podiums we had at the beginning of the year. This one was only made tolerable by the presence of Pierre Gasly, 100% agreed. So that's all we got this week, kids. Okay, I'm gonna get some sleep, alright, guys.
Speaker 2:Have a good. What fucking day is it Wednesday? Have a good couple days. We're gonna be back to watching cars go around a track. Who can do more than you know? Move your left and we'll see how it goes over the weekend at Monza. See you next time.