Today we're talking about the 2023 Mexican Grand Prix, which featured the worst opening corner imaginable for the hometown hero Checo Perez, another tire whispering masterclass from Lewis Hamilton, a stunning recovery drive from Lando Norris, and a whole lot of overheating breaks and engines.
Today we're talking about the 2023 Mexican Grand Prix, which featured the worst opening corner imaginable for the hometown hero Checo Perez, another tire whispering masterclass from Lewis Hamilton, a stunning recovery drive from Lando Norris, and a whole lot of overheating breaks and engines.
Greetings and welcome to Formula XX, a podcast by two Gen X women talking about Formula One and other motorsports, usually with adult beverages and always with adult words. Today, we're talking about the 2023 Mexican Grand Prix, which featured the worst opening corner imaginable for the hometown hero, another tire whispering masterclass from Lewis Hamilton, a stunning recovery drive by Lando Norris and a whole lot of overheating engines and brakes. Here to help me talk through all of that is my normal partner in crime, jen. How are you, where are you and, most importantly, what are you drinking tonight?
Speaker 2:I am in my new condo, so if it sounds like a cavern, apologies. And I have cracked open a bottle of Wee Beastie Artbeg. Artbeg is one of my go-to favorites. It's a distillery I visited a couple times in person and you know it's a good sort of throat clearing whiskey. Oh, and I'm in Vancouver-ish Heather, where are you and what are you drinking?
Speaker 1:I'm in Seattle-ish and I am drinking incline prickly pear cider, another local cidery. I'm pretty sure that if I had a whiskey tonight I'd be asleep before we finish this podcast, so I am sticking to the sugary, gluten-free, aptly alcoholic beverage of the evening. I know we have a decent amount of action to cover for the Mexican Grand Prix, but I will just say overall, what were your big takeaways from the race? How do you rank this race compared to some of the recent races we've been watching? What were your impressions?
Speaker 2:I thought this race was pretty interesting. I once again did not get to watch it live. The amazing Heather and several of my friends helped me move Saturday and then I was unpacking all day Sunday but watching it last night there was a lot of action up and down everywhere. There's a lot of different strategies that happened. I found it a thoroughly enjoyable race. I also had a lot to drink by the midway to the end of it so maybe I missed that.
Speaker 1:So it was maybe more interesting than it would have had. I think it had a mix of interesting elements and the curse of 2023, where there's some real boredom, considering that it's a track with a low overtake rate and people seemed prepared for it to be a pretty dull race. Once it was underway, I thought there was a lot of overtaking granted, as I alluded to in the intro, I think Lando Norris did the majority of the cinematic overtaking, but up and down the field there was quite a bit going on at different times. I think the direction was really bad on Sunday's race. The choices of where they were cutting to, when they were cutting to things was often suspect, but there was a lot of action.
Speaker 1:The red flag in the middle of the race, which we will talk about, I'm sure, also shook things up. I think it might have been a pretty dull middle 30, 40 laps if it wasn't for the red flag throwing the strategy up in the air. So I thought it was a good one. Any race that ends with two of my favorite drivers on the podium gets a big thumbs up.
Speaker 2:It was a good one to watch. We should also both say that we are much less note full than we usually are for this due to the aforementioned moving. I know that the Bastions is spot-on in this and preparedness, but we're going to lower the bar for ourselves a bit.
Speaker 1:We get done what we can get done. Normally we talk a little bit about free practice. I think I listened to two of the three free practice sessions. A non-sprint weekend meant that the teams went back to having lots of time to prepare. For me, I think the only things that really stood out were that Alex Albon was incredibly quick in the Williams in the free practice sessions and was right at the sharp end across sessions on merit, which I think had a bunch of people going whoa.
Speaker 1:How much of that relates to the unique characteristics of Mexico City and how high up it is, the thin air and all of the complications that that actually brings for the teams during the race. Who knows. But it was noteworthy, mercedes, coming off of a big weekend in Austin. We have not at this time recorded our Austin pod and we will get to that at some point soon. But if you take away the drama and conversation that's inevitable about the disqualifications the big floor update that they brought there was a lot of talk coming in to the Mexican Grand Prix. Was it only good because they effectively cheated?
Speaker 1:if you're a Red Bull fan, they're ones to talk about cheating, yeah right, but what did it mean for the Mercedes overall? And the Mercedes was floundering, they were nowhere in free practice, they were just on the struggle bus yet again, and so you kind of felt like, huh well, what does all of that mean? Beyond that? It was, I think, maybe a few minor nipples and bits about interesting things, but there wasn't a whole lot to it. Frankly, kuali, on the other hand, I think, as we see pretty much now every weekend, I don't think you can have sort of a baseline expectation going into Kuali anymore, kind of ever, because the one lap pace tends to be so tight across the teams that any number of things can shake up the order. Did you have specific thoughts that you wanted to talk about with regard to Kuali?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think one of the interesting things and the challenging things for Kuali was one it was hot as fucking balls. Those drivers have had a couple of races now. Like Austin was nearly unbearable, mexico is hot as balls, but they also had a wide temperature variant from Q1 to Q3, which I think affected things quite a lot as well, and I think not only did the temperatures affect the tires, which ended up having a sort of mixed up grid, it also made it absolutely perfect Storm, except in a good way for Ferrari, because Ferrari ended up walking out the front row and they were just in the perfect spot. I think it was a bit of a bad for Mercedes, but yeah, I think Q1, there was again.
Speaker 1:It almost feels a bit normal that there's somebody who isn't getting through, sometimes in Q1, maybe a bit more often in Q2, but a big name. And in this case, lando had all sorts of problems in Q1 and basically was out right away. There was a yellow flag that came out and that caught a couple of people out Lewis was under investigation for not slowing under yellows, logan Sargent was under investigation for overtaking under yellows. In the meantime, in Q1, yet another FIA shit show created, produced, starring and featuring the FIA stewards, because we had not one, not two, we had three different drivers who just parked up at the end of the pit lane and decided that they were not going to go forward, and everybody else in the pit lane was backed up behind them. It was a clear case of impeding.
Speaker 1:This is not even a exotic topic. This is territory that was well covered just a few races ago in Singapore, when Max Verstappen did the exact same thing. They only gave him a reprimand then came out a few days later and said yeah, actually we were accidentally too lenient on a red bull, because that never happens and admitted that they should have penalized him to just basically throw their hands up and go well, max Verstappen, he gets his own rule.
Speaker 2:You know, if the only reason George didn't get penalized was because they weren't going to penalize Max?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean the rationalization, which was well. We feel like it's better for them to park up in the pit lane than it is for them to be parked up on the track. You're the ones who created this minimum time delta. These are not new issues. The issue of cars wanting to create space did not start in 2023. Again, we just came off of a race sequentially. Again, we haven't recorded the pod, but we just came off a race where the absolute black and white stark nature of the technical regulations and the fact that if you're.05 millimeters shy on the depth of your skid plank is an automatic DSQ and I'm not arguing against that, I'm just saying there's something so fucked by the fact that on the sporting side, it feels like the rules are so subjective and so randomly enforced and rationalized and used whenever it suits them, versus the technical side. It just keeps making them look stupider and stupider and stupider. In my opinion.
Speaker 2:I agree with that. I also think it makes them look like a favoritism more and more and more blatant. You absolutely have, as you said, hard rules that you cannot get around. If you're a Red Bull, you can get around them, no problem, which just invalidates sort of everything.
Speaker 1:I was disappointed by that. I have to admit there were some other marginal FIA stewarding calls this weekend that we'll talk about, but that one I think to your point just continues to build this increasing perception. Whether it's justified or not. You just can't not have people feel like that's the way it is when you keep appiling on more and more evidence that makes it seem like that's the case. In any case, q2 was one of those. Max goes out. Sets a flyer, doesn't need to do anything else, parks up, he's done is conserving tires. Danny Ricardo is showing up very nicely in that Alphatorie which, I'm not going to lie to you, I still don't fully understand where Danny Rick or that Alphatorie came from this weekend.
Speaker 2:They do either, which is unfortunate for them because it means they can't replicate it.
Speaker 1:We'll see whether they can. The good news is they've got another race in. As of this recording a handful of days, they'll have a pretty good idea whether that was a one-off or some magic has happened. He had a really good weekend, was showing well in Q2. The Mercedes boys again, who kind of got themselves through Q1 but were not shining stars by any stretch of the imagination, had had three pretty scrappy, not good free practices, suddenly found themselves at the top end at Q2. Lewis threw in a fastest lap, george was right there in third, behind Verstappen, who again only did one run. Like you said, the temperatures were just dropping like a rock at this point, because Qali is later in the day, by God. Q3 came along and that first run the Ferraris were just like bam front of the pack, yeah the temperature that we keep talking about.
Speaker 2:it was like I can't remember now, but it's like three or four degrees Celsius. That's a huge, huge amount. You have your car set up for one way to go. There's no easy pivoting for that. I mean, yeah, you have like 10 minutes to fath about to try and change stuff, but you're fucked right Like yeah, and the Ferraris, it turns out, weren't fucked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely they inherited the sweet spot for their particular setup. I think Verstappen split them on the first. I can't quite remember. At the end of the day, danny Rick again put that Alpha Tori, way up, was in fourth. The two Ferraris locked out the front row. Verstappen in third, perez fifth. Hamilton was really the only one who significantly improved on his second run. It just wasn't enough that Mercedes was not happy, just was not in the sweet spot at all, even in quality. Anytime, I suppose that you don't have Verstappen on the front row, it feels like a mixed up grid having Ricardo up there in the mix. Having Danny Ricardo out qualify Czecho Perez, who's in the second Red Bull at his home race, was just a tiny bit of an omen for things to come.
Speaker 2:I think They've all said he has that seat next year. But, jesus, not for lack of trying to give it away Right, it's his seat to lose and he is definitely losing it. He's trying pretty hard at that.
Speaker 1:So that gets us to the race. Temperatures back up very warm, really brutal. I think it was weird. The track temperature was even higher than Austin, but the air temperature was a little tiny bit lower. I won't lie, it does appear that Mexico City knows how to put on a heck of a party for the Grand Prix. Everybody on every team was just sort of enraptured with the experience of how enthusiastic the fans are there. Of course Czecho.
Speaker 1:We saw in Austin the contingent that comes up to Austin for that race and the hometown crowd are wild and crazy about Czecho. Anywhere he goes, every practice, every quality session, driver's parade, just humongous cheers for him, a lot of pressure, a lot of hype and adrenaline. The race got underway and he shit the bed he did. It's such a weird opening corner right the run down to that corner. It feels like it's 80 miles long. When you're looking at it you're just like it's one of the longest runs down to turn one. On the calendar, typically there's a huge slipstream. Both Red Bulls got amazing launches and Czecho actually got the better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Czechos' launch was incredible.
Speaker 1:Czecho actually did get the better launch and just got himself so far up and alongside Cheryl, who was alongside Max at exactly the wrong moment. I think everybody who's talked about it at all has drawn a comparison to Lewis Hamilton and Qatar, including Lewis himself post-race. That was kind of what it was. It was a sandwich turned in at the wrong moment. I think he assumed he said as much, that he assumed that Cheryl was not going to break that late. He caught air.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that car launched. It was actually kind of surprising that it didn't flip. That car launched and it was, you know, I think, inches away from cartwheeling. I know they all get checked out by medical, but it can't feel good those cars have it's not even like you're, you know, on the Civic Hatchback or whatever the suspension those cars have is. It's just a huge boop.
Speaker 1:Well, we said it last night when we were watching the other thing about that Red Bull. The Red Bull, which is pretty much the most invincible car ever designed. You know like people will be arguing about this well, into the next two decades I am sure. But the RB-19 is without question, one of the most dominant cars that's ever been designed or driven, for a myriad of reasons. Like Adrian Newey, he knows his shit is a genius and this car is amazed balls.
Speaker 1:But this is the second time this season in you know, I don't know a span of five or six races, whatever. It's been going back to Spa where Perez had what was really pretty frigging minor contact in that bullshit penalty call in the sprint at Spa and it tore this huge hole in the side of his car. And the same thing happened on Sunday in the race. It was contact, don't get me wrong, but it was more glancing blow contact. Again, it was just wheels to wheels catching each other, but like he had a massive chunk out of the side of that car and he had to retire?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're joking like does. Is the Red Bull made of tissue paper on the side? That's how they're saving weight, right, and you could see the internal parts moving, like on his second bounce. You could see the internal components of the cars shifting in a different direction than what the chassis was doing. I'll be very interested to know how fucked that car is in terms of if he needs to take I mean, he must need to take a new chassis, he'll have to take a new engine. Right, I saw a stat the other day I don't know if it was before or after Mexico, but he has cost them something. I can't remember the currency, but it's like 3 million, 3.2 million. Whatever Even say, it's American dollars instead of pounds or euros. That's a huge chunk of the change. I'll be very interested to see Red Bull's bookkeeping and how much they spend on catering again this year.
Speaker 1:Well, somebody I can't remember which site it is that posts the World Deconstructors Championship, and they usually show each driver and where they're at on that scale. Unfortunately, checo's been in the lead for a while this season. More to the point, you did feel bad. F1 TV is showing the pictures of the weeping children who are disappointed because their hero is out of the race. Yeah, there were some genuinely hideously awkward moments.
Speaker 2:I was hearing Checo like how choked up he was. Anytime he just looks defeated, right.
Speaker 1:Defeated, having to face the press in the immediate aftermath, walking into the garage at one point where basically the mechanics, the pit crew, are just like. We have no time for you, checo. It's just so hard to imagine what the atmosphere for him in that team is right now.
Speaker 2:Whose pit crew do you think is more irritated His or Sergeant's For having to constantly rebuild cars?
Speaker 1:I suspect his just because the level of expectation is so much higher in Red Bull. I don't think that in the Williams garage there is much expectation that Logan should be able to be radically competitive. There's clearly in both cases a skilled Delta between the lead driver and the second driver. I just think Red Bull feels like they are dominant, they own everything. Checo is like this embarrassment, whereas in the Williams any success is success. Right now, at this point, everything Albon does is a miracle. What is Sergeant doing that hasn't been done by Nikki or Mazda Spin before him? Yeah, that's true, no offense, the race actually gets going. The race wasn't even really impacted because Checo was able to get back on track and get around to the pits without a flag ever being flown.
Speaker 2:I couldn't believe they didn't slow the race down at all to get the. There's a huge piece of his car out there. Oh the irony if Max, who was the first one, came around and was taken out.
Speaker 1:Well, more importantly, there was some rumor I don't know if it's actually true, though Somebody said it, but I never saw anything else about it that Alonso may have picked up some damage yesterday it was debris out of that first corner crash Again when we get into the FIA and their ineptitude.
Speaker 1:Charles God bless the Ferrari much like the magical Mercedes wing in plates that we've talked about in the past for Lewis. A couple of times in the last couple of years Charles lost basically the front end wing plate or had damage to it, but drove around for that entire first lap with it dangling and they did not give him the meatball.
Speaker 2:No and after the fact, they wanted to investigate him, which is bullshit. You don't give him the meatball. Why are you fucking investigating him?
Speaker 1:Well, it took them. It was some dumb number. It was like 1213 laps before you saw the race control directive that they were going to do that. In the meantime, that piece was clearly going to come off and would have absolutely done damage to somebody's car if it had happened in the right place. It came off in turn one on the next. I think the next lap might have been the third lap, doesn't matter. The point being came off it was just along this driving line, but most cars are coming through there two or three wide at that point, still trying to overtake each other. So it was in a terrible place. They waited for an entire another lap. The entire group of cars went all the way around the track. It was maxed for stopping, coming back into turn one the next lap before they were like oh, we're going to do a virtual safety car and we're going to clean up some stuff.
Speaker 1:Maybe we're thinking about it, but we we didn't have the exact same video footage that every other person on the planet is currently watching until now to go.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, there's a problem and we should deal with it or marshals with radios whose job it is to look at that and be like hey guys, there's shit around that needs cleaning up. When can we go out and do it?
Speaker 1:It's an odd thing to watch other making decisions in real time Sometimes. Anyway, back to the actual race. Everybody try not to be shocked. If you're listening at home, do not fall off your chair when I tell you that Max for Stappen was quickly in the lead and came out of turn one in the lead ahead of Charles Leclerc, who managed to keep flying along, frankly, with his broken ass car and great pace.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the fact that he didn't lose or was able to control his significant loss of arrow. I don't know if that speaks to the shit arrow on that car or his talent as a driver, but he didn't seem to significantly lose pace.
Speaker 1:He did not. He absolutely did not. The rest of that entire race, well, the first stint until the red flag, he was on it. He really was. He was doing a great job. Science was in behind him. Danny Rick, at that point then, I think, was in fourth. Lewis at that point was in fifth, oscar was up to sixth and George was in seventh. Unless I've just inverted those two, there was a little battling that was happening. Lewis at this point had good pace as well. It took a fair number of laps because every car on the grid, except for the Red Bull, the lone lead Red Bull, driving around with the perfect car in clean air. Everybody else is struggling for engine cooling, entire temps and brake temps. That was the point where you sort of thought this could be a really dull race, because people are going to have a hard time actually getting past even with a decent pace. Delta, you can't follow for very long in that kind of dirty air. In those conditions Hamilton was able to get by Danny Rick eventually.
Speaker 2:You got him pretty quick after the restart because he pipped him on lap 11, so four laps in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that was the point where you sort of thought oh well, okay, you were starting to see some action back further in the field, some people trying and working at it. Yuki did a tour of the West countries. At one point he decided he would explore the outer limits. You can't blame him. Lap nine was getting boring. Until he decided to take care of that action for everybody. We got to about, I think, lap 20. That was kind of the point. Actually, there were some folks who came in even earlier. The tire strategy was pretty boring. Everybody was more or less on hards, to start with the exceptional Lando because he was so far back. He started on soft, but then he also jumped in and changed tires pretty early, like lap 10 or 11. Rassappan, who came in on 20. The number of piled-on advantages you get when you're the fastest car on the grid by 200 miles was that he had extra tires to choose from, so he came in early.
Speaker 2:He'd been complaining about his tires. I don't think it was Red Bull who called him in. I think it was him being like bring me in bitches, my tires make me sad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but wham, he had plenty to choose from and a car fast enough to make up the difference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean he can do an additional pit stop to everybody else on the grid and still be fine.
Speaker 1:I think whether it was going to be a one or a two stop at that point was still up for grabs. If you came in in the low 20s, put on a new hard, could you get to the end? Probably, I think, the same thing that he did on the Red Bull. I think that group was planning to do that. Rassappan came out, flew by every car on the grid At this point people, just like the Red Sea, just part, get out of his way. Nobody's going to give him any even emotional obstacle. It's just hi, maxi, can I pull further over?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, what's actually slowing him down or trying to slow him down, was his engineer multiple times to be sensible and bring the laps in slowly, max, you don't need to do the fastest lap on your out lap. Yeah, so there was a little bit of a giggle moment when the announcers were like it would be really great if George Russell could help Lewis Hamilton by slowing Verstappen down. Cut to Verstappen, just meow right past George like he was standing still. Then I have to say, all of our bitching and moaning about Mercedes, hideous strategy in a few recent races, not the least of which is awesome, which we haven't had a chance to talk about. But there are hideous pit stops and there are hideous strategy. It was almost like somebody had listened Maybe.
Speaker 2:No, you know what it is. They bought all new equipment which was their problem for their pit stops and that solved it. That must have been it. Maybe they slept. Pit crew with hats, like hats, had a horrific double-stack pit stop which was unfortunate for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Hamilton came in early enough to undercut science. And then we get to the Ferrari strategy, which Stratici Maybe not as bad as Austin and what they did to poor Charles and. Austin strategically. But Jesus.
Speaker 1:They left signs out rather than covering Hamilton off Again. Lewis had great pace. They already knew this, because Lewis was up signs his tailpipe for a whole bunch of laps before they finally went ahead and said you're just destroying tires and overheating the engine, just come in. So Lewis built a gap on science to cover off his pit stop within very short time. And that did not play into Ferrari's favor, mostly because a few laps later the overheating brakes on the back of Kevin Magnus' car literally melted through the suspension and shunted him into the tech pro. And it was another one of those squeaky bum moments, as we learned Lewis Hamilton doesn't know in the aftermath interviews Horrifying, yeah, it was one of those moments when you first cut back to the car and the car is just a crumpled heap and you think, oh God, oh God, oh God. And K-Mag jumped out, got himself up onto the barriers, but you could tell he was shaking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because he dropped down behind the barrier and he had his head and his knees. That was apart from the thing else. It was a hard hit. But his car was also on fire. One point they're showing you they're still moving the car and the car actively has flames on it. Like don't you put that shit out before you move it? That doesn't seem safe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so super grateful as ever, for all of the safety equipment and improvements that exist on these cars because he was able to get out quickly but that brought out the red flag.
Speaker 2:The barriers were fucked Like. It wasn't a little bit, it was. Yeah, the barriers did their job too.
Speaker 1:They did. So we've got a red flag. The red flag came out and that was the big wrinkle. Yeah, that was the thing that actually took the whole race and went. Now, what boys and girls, it's actual strategic time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because everybody's coming in, People can fix broken parts. I didn't see it one way or the other, but I bet that's when they fixed Leclerc's nose. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you can change tires. And that was really the big thing. Yeah, was what in the hell do you do? Because this is Slap 34, when they called the red flag. You're basically at the actual halfway point. You've got about 37 laps left, which, by all accounts, you can do on a hard tire, for sure if you've got new or relatively new hard tires.
Speaker 2:And the temperature is also dropping right. Like it was 48 basically at the start of the race and it was 46 when they came in for the red flag. So that's the other thing you have to think about too. Like how's the tire day going to change? Like, is it going to change enough that it matters, because 46 is still freakishly fucking hot? Can?
Speaker 1:you make a medium last that long? There's no precedent for it within the context of the race. If you've got 10, 12, 15 lap old hards, are they going to put another 37 laps on either? Hard to say. And you've got another standing restart. So you need to be able to hold position and go with whatever compound will help you either hold or gain a position if you really need to. So there was quite a bit of who knows what anybody's going to do, and is it going to mean they have to one stop or two stop after the red flag?
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, the Ferraris and Verstappen all went Verstappen, by the way, who was at the start of the red flag saying it wasn't that bad of a crash. Why are we stopping?
Speaker 1:No comment, douchebag. Oh, I'm sorry. I commented Basically. Verstappen and the Ferraris stayed on hards. Hamilton went with a medium, danny Rick went with a hard, george was also on the medium. These were scrub mediums so from Mercedes having gone out on mediums in Q1 initially, but regardless, they were just one hot lap and out in an in-lap, so they weren't well used, just used Standing restart. Your order is Verstappen. Leclerc Hamilton.
Speaker 1:Verstappen gets another blistering fast start. Both the Mercs had a horrible start and the original start of the race. I'm curious. I would love to have been in the debrief. The exact same kind of bad start. So it made me almost think it was more of a car issue than either driver issue. I don't think Lewis had an amazing restart. It was good. I think Lewis is better at. He knows how to position his car where he makes up for whatever is where he puts the car. But he did not get around Charles. So it was basically those three one, two, three out of the start and into our post red flag phase. But it was immediately apparent that Lewis had better pace again than the Ferrari in front of him.
Speaker 2:Which I would love to know what the difference is between Qali and the race for both those cars. Did they faff around with them a little bit more before? I don't know.
Speaker 1:Well, you can only change wing and tire pressure, right yeah. But I think the thing that everybody was scratching their damn heads about me included, about this race is what we've kind of been observing about the Mercedes. At least, I don't pretend to understand. I think the Ferrari has different issues than the Mercedes. The Mercedes has an incredibly narrow setup window and the difference in the car between heavy fuel and low fuel is huge. But it's like two different cars, right yeah. Sometimes it's like it's two entirely different cars, and that's how the drivers feel about it too is it's like these aren't even the same versions of the car. This weekend it was flipped on its head. The car was actually more stable on high fuel than it generally has been at any other point this season. Why, like? It was bad in Qualley, but as soon as they put all the fuel in and got on the racetrack, suddenly they had pace. Lewis loved the balance of the car. He felt like that was a great vehicle to drive.
Speaker 2:Which is sort of the first time he said that at all about the car in the last two years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean he was obviously very happy in Austin and put in an amazing performance. But in terms of yeah, of this kind of thing, like he was mostly happy with the tires, he was happy with the balance he was. He had the same issues everybody else did as far as overheating and having to really mega manage brake temps and engine temps and all the lift and coast that came with that. But yeah, it was just weird, in Mexico City's a one-off, who knows. I think they'll be figuring things out about this car for the rest of the handful of races that are left. But it was an odd thing. And I mean, don't get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem believing that there's a massive skill delta that has flown under the radar.
Speaker 1:But it was interesting that Lewis had pace and could get by other cars. George struggled to get by anybody. And why, why, what was the difference there that accounted for that much pace delta. Anyway, it took a few laps. Definitely Lewis was determined. But on lap 43. No, lap 40. It doesn't matter. Lewis Hamilton took a big old flying overtake on the inside on Charles Leclerc. He had gotten a bit of the dirt.
Speaker 2:I think it was a beautiful overtake that he did and it was a beautiful shot. The dust coming up on the side the fact that it didn't the dust, nor the marbles my beloved marbles didn't really fuck them over. He got it done. And he got it done beautifully and quickly and efficiently. And then he was up the road. At no point was I like oh, shalf's going to take that spot back.
Speaker 1:No, he just checked out. You absolutely called it. It was one of those moments that probably could have gone awry. Another inch to the right, getting that tire on the grass could have had a much different outcome, but they both judged it to perfection. Charles gave him just enough space, Lewis took just enough space, carried a ton of speed into that corner and didn't lock up. It was a thing of beauty.
Speaker 2:The noise of the crowd, too, was just incredible. You don't always hear the crowd roaring for some stuff, but when Lewis overtook Shalf, the crowd just lost its collective mind. It was almost like, well, check those out. So now we cheer for Lewis as well they should.
Speaker 1:So the restart had been not grand for Lando either. So Lando obviously started down in 17th, had worked his way up a fair number of spots but had pitted pretty early so had to rebuild himself through those spots. At the red flag he was, I think, in the top 10, but lost four places. So he ended up back down in 13th. I want to say it doesn't really matter exactly, but he put himself back down out of the points and it was just a bad start and getting swallowed by the midfield, all sort of decelerating into turn one. But then he started a. He also came out on the mediums. His pace was not as good as Lewis's but it was very close and he was doing it in dirty air and having to overtake and he had a whole set of brilliant overtakes. Just laser shark positioning, no bullshit. Get it done, not all into one specific corner.
Speaker 2:I'm coming off the high of Austin of leading the race for a good while, fighting really well with Lewis, lewis getting that overtake and then ultimately coming in second when Lewis got de-queued but he I think he was probably feeling pretty good about the last race. He had.
Speaker 1:I think he was actually in really bad spirits after KWALI, oh really.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, oh, after KWALI, so I thought he meant after Austin. I was like he seemed pretty okay after.
Speaker 1:Austin. So I'm not sure it was all that. I would be surprised if he was too. I don't know if I would be all that excited. As a driver he doesn't necessarily strike me as somebody who got real ginned up by the fact that he inherited P2 on the podium from the disqualification, but he has earned the self-satisfaction. He's definitely been having a good season and is doing some great driving. I don't want to take anything away from him. I just think, holy shit, he was really on it after being really down and really in the pits about how KWALI had gone and the start of the race. You heard it. He was kind of angry and bitey on the radio, which he kind of always is a little bit with his engineer, but he really put in some gutsy moves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he had a really great overtake of an Ocon he had a great overtake of Danny Rick.
Speaker 1:He had a great overtake of George he. Just if he had had that kind of pace earlier in the race or if he'd had a regular KWALI. And it's all ifs, ones and buts. We say this about other drivers all the time. It doesn't mean anything because it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen and that's the nature of it. In the end, I think him climbing through that like the satisfaction of climbing through the field and having those amazing overtakes was probably more interesting and fun. He's gotten more kudos for that. He got driver of the day and I won't argue with that. What he had to do to get back through the field.
Speaker 1:I think was very impressive. Then if he had started P4 and been fighting at the front, he'd probably have preferred another podium. But so it goes and that got us into the last phase of the race. Once Hamilton was by Leclerc, the pundits of course were absolutely convinced those mediums were going to fall off at any minute, which really just struggled. He could not get progress up the field.
Speaker 1:Signs sort of seemed like he was in no man's land. He wasn't making progress against Charles, Charles. Meh. Charles still had good pace. He could not close down on Hamilton, but of the drivers it was very much Max and Lewis in a field of their own, with the fact that Lando, in conditions where he was having to overtake, was not very far off that pace, which is why it's so impressive. And then Leclerc was sort of the top of the rest of the field, but those mediums never fell off. Lando was able to do what he did by pushing, and Lewis just kept pushing too, which is interesting when you consider how hot it was, and I don't know if it's the elevation change or something.
Speaker 2:If just being that high has the pressure like internal and external pressure, it goes down. Yeah, I know that, but I'm just wondering if the pressure internally and externally on the tires somehow helped them out or not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's the second year in a row they went a step softer on the compounds because they felt like I didn't remember it till today and somebody said it, because I remember being really effing bored by the Mexican Grand Prix last year that Verstappen did like 51 laps on that hard. And do you remember? The big talking point because you always had to have a talking point about Verstappen last year was how freakishly consistent he was across those 51 laps. He drove all of them and it was like there was literally no dag and he was like a robot. Every lap was within a tenth of a second across those 51 laps and I had totally forgotten that until somebody mentioned how he had that long stint of consistent and I was like, oh yeah, I totally blocked that out.
Speaker 2:You know why?
Speaker 1:Because everything that happened after the race and everything became being a bigger dick than normal sort of overshadows anything else he did then he is such a yeah anyhow Closing stints of the race down to like the last six, seven laps, you're still sort of wondering if maybe those mediums are going to fall off. The gaps where there are gaps are pretty big. Meanwhile, down the field you've got a whole lot of higary jiggery, as you always do in the midfield. Ocon had thrown down the gauntlet at one point and was like let the Haas know, I'm coming for him. And then Estie proceeded to be stuck behind Halkenberg for like 12 more laps, which is basically a meme waiting to happen. Not clear to me why Pierre spent a good long chunk of that same period of time behind Esteban, because it felt like he had more pace. So I don't know if there was. I wonder if that has to do with.
Speaker 2:like they've had a couple of issues with getting them to swap places. Like they had Pierre and Ocon swap places because they thought Ocon had better pace or I can't remember what. It was the other way around and Gazzly didn't want to give the spot back to Ocon when he couldn't pass Alonzo a couple of races ago and there ended up being like a thing on the radio about it. So I don't know if that plays into it. Now. If they don't trust each other, I don't know if the team doesn't trust them to swap spots properly and give them back when asked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's possible. Is there drama? I don't know. It just seemed a little suspect that Pierre had come up the field that quickly and then just magically stalled out right behind Esteban. But it wasn't a bad weekend for the Alpenes. I think, if memory serves, ocon ended up in tenth, so he got a point and frankly that's probably not bad for the Alpenes. On the other hand, aston Martin, they're taking steps backwards, man.
Speaker 1:It's a cautionary tale at this point the idea that they were head and shoulders above the rest of the teams at the start of the season were the only competition for Red Bull. At that point, Fernando had eight has at this point eight podiums, but I can't even remember the last race he was on the podium at this point.
Speaker 2:No, you're sort of blundering. The joke was they were tracing point when they copied Mercedes and now they've copied Red Bull, but they just don't have the knowledge to back it up, I think. So when they're trying to fiddle things to make the car go faster, let's chuck this at the dark board and see if it sticks and if it's a bullseye or if it hits the side and falls down to the ground and into an electrical socket and burns the place down.
Speaker 1:They changed everything that you can even name, almost to the point where you wonder how they didn't trigger the third car rule on Stroll's car coming into the race. So he started from the pit lane. He did OK. There was a point where he overtook Alonso, I think, this weekend, which just tells you how not good of a weekend it was for Alonso. Actually, I think Alonso was out, maybe in Q1, also in Kuali, so he started way down the grid and he just was never anywhere. There was like I don't remember a point where I looked at the timing chart this weekend and he was ever in danger of the top 10. Yeah, he retired again this weekend, lap 48. Are they both DNF? Yeah, no points this weekend at all.
Speaker 2:Well, and now the question becomes when's Alonso going to start to really flip his lid about having a team? That's because he's definitely not happy with them anymore.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. The comment he made, I think, after the race was that there's nothing to fight for in these last three races. They're basically just going to use these for learning.
Speaker 2:Oh dear, that's the most experienced driver on the grid. How much more loaded does he need?
Speaker 1:Well, ostensibly for the car. Nevertheless, the rumor mill at the time we're recording this it's Halloween, by the way so the rumor mill the last 48 hours has just been absolutely pegged and Aston Martin has been subject to some of the biggest rumors. The question is whether or not Papa Stroll is selling to the Saudis. Finally, there was a huge block of shares that were traded yesterday. Like 250 million pounds worth of shares were traded just yesterday, and I think then there's some knock on questions about what that means for obviously, for Lance Stroll, who nothing ever gets said about Lance Stroll. That doesn't include whether or not he'd be with that team under any other circumstance and whether Alonso stays or has other plans lined up.
Speaker 1:Silly season's going to be mega, and I think there was some question about whether that was all going to kick off this weekend, in part because that Red Bull number two seat is just never not a constant topic of conversation, and when their number two driver, who has already sort of been considered in danger, absolutely bins it in the first corner, when Danny Rick basically put himself at the sharp end of the grid in a car that's literally been in 10th place for a lot of the season, and then his teammate Yuki Sonoda, who, as previously mentioned, took a detour off to the land of Oz at one point in the race, decided to pick a fight with Oscar Piazzari, bounced a wheel off of Oscar's wheel on one lap and in the very next lap, turned in on him, spun himself completely off the course, dropped himself from I think he was eight at that point down to 16th, took himself out of the points because it was so late in the race. It was lap 49, there was no way he was going to get himself all the way where he needed to be in the Alphatori Literally made himself look like an a-hole. On the same weekend that Danny Rick rocked in and I don't, I don't know, brought to you by the fact that there have been all these stupid rumors that somehow Alonso was going to go to Red Bull. And no, that was never, ever ever, ever.
Speaker 2:Well, that was the other one. I was going to say that they're swapping Alonso in Paris. No, I'm like, hey, I don't think that's how that works.
Speaker 1:No, there's no scenario.
Speaker 2:You know those two egos together.
Speaker 1:No, and Red Bull's not stupid enough to ever entertain the concept of dealing with Fernando Alonso's bullshit. They kill each other in three races.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think Christian Horner would probably kill Alonso as well.
Speaker 1:That's what I mean. It would just be bloodbath. It wouldn't even give it three races. So we got to the end of the race. Things were closing in on the final laps, Lance Stroll at that point was still in the race. He does a pretty stupid move in the stadium section which resulted in Valtteri Bottas having to go wide to get out of the stupid move that Lance Stroll made. But he came back in. He's like maybe, I don't know halfway off the track, comes back on clips, Stroll, Stroll, spins, Stroll, ends up retiring. And after the race, the final straw for me with the FIA this weekend. Well, after the race they gave a huge penalty to Valtteri and it was just like what, what the fuck? What the fuck? There's no way. At worse, that was a racing incident. I honestly felt it was more Stroll's fault than it ever was Valtteri's. Yeah, same. What Did you smoke? That was a bad call.
Speaker 2:Maybe the other rumor I've heard, which is that there Liberty Media is selling to the Saudis who have tried to buy F1 a couple times. Maybe Papa Stroll, who is in bed with the Saudis, quite heavily went and was like hey, my oil buddies say my son is just OK. You should punish the big, happy fin.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've started to believe that when you're this stupid, you can't pull off an effective conspiracy. So maybe they're just genuinely inept, I don't know. I was really underwhelmed by the Steward's performance again this weekend. I know they have a lot to do, but staff up, use the technology, do something, but be better at this. For God's sake, pay your marshals. So that was late in the race, like the last few laps. At this point Ricardo is starting to close in in these last couple of laps.
Speaker 1:On George Russell, we've got a really good race kind of shaping up there. Logan Sargent, who's gotten himself from 19th on the grid up to 12th on the grid. There's some battles still happening in that lower midfield, not for points but just for bragging rights. I suppose Lewis Hamilton's on the radio insisting that he wants to be able to try for the fastest lap. I am yelling at my television going no, you don't, no, you don't, no, you don't On. Shit, old medium tires, you're on for P2. Shut up, your tires are old as dirt. Don't do anything risky. You do not need to go for the fastest lap. But he did.
Speaker 1:Spoiler alert Lewis Hamilton goes for the fastest lap and gets the fastest lap. Danny Rick very, very, very nearly gets George Russell, but you don't get to see it because the fucking director decided to show Max Verstappen driving around for half a lap and his team clapping for him, while one of the closest battles that has existed during the entire race goes unseen. Danny Rick gets under 1 tenth of a second away from George, but again you don't get to see it. George does come across the line ahead of Ricardo, but some spectacularly bad direction. Logan Sargent, on the very last lap, retires for a fuel pump issue after having what was probably, honestly, one of his best races of the year.
Speaker 1:Of his life so sad. But yeah, that was kind of the race.
Speaker 2:Lando got himself all the way up to fifth Great performance, I mean you said earlier, he got driver of the day and he fully deserved it. Like he fucking fought and fought, precisely, like he was really good when he did on Sunday. Like he got that car up, he bullied that car up through there and did it cleanly and didn't take any damage or penalties and he did a good job.
Speaker 1:Agreed. I think there were other candidates that deserved a split of the vote, but I had no problem at all with Lando getting driver of the day. I think Cheryl actually drove a really good race a little understated compared to what Lando was doing. I think Lewis had an amazing race. His pace, his tire management. I've seen like the criticism of Lewis for this race is well, if he had enough in his tires for that fastest lap, why wasn't he going faster all along?
Speaker 2:And you're like do you not understand how tired Dave works Right?
Speaker 1:Like those are 37 lap old mediums. He meant he tire whispered those bitches Like I'm sorry he had that much left because despite a really fast pace he took really good care of the tires. Yeah but yeah, that was just sort of funny, but I think there were. And Danny Rick again, I am not a believer so I'm still skeptical. It's going to take a few more races of that level of sustained performance before I buy that. That is not a one off. One off a Red Bull RB 19 engine that was slotted into the back of that Alphatorre, something I don't understand, anything. I know, nobody listening. Do I think that that's a real thing that could happen?
Speaker 2:I just don't get it. No, I mean, he's driven mediocrely. Maybe he's just remembered how to drive, maybe that's it.
Speaker 1:Maybe. I mean, he's certainly motivated. I think everybody in the free world thinks he's going to get that seat next year. He's certainly driving better than Yuki or Cheko, if those are the candidates he's competing against. Yeah, he deserves it if he can do this more than once. Who did you have as Lucky a son of a bitch? I actually had Danny Ricardo for what I just said. Lucky a son of a bitch is Danny Ricardo for having his two biggest rivals for that second Red Bull seat. Just choke, epically.
Speaker 2:That's pretty good. I was going to have KMAG for not appearing to have gotten any substantial injuries from that hella crash.
Speaker 1:Fair enough, I actually had KMAG under that poor bastard. I thought you know. All you do is drive it along and your brakes just suddenly burn through the suspension and launch into the wall. That's not the best day ever.
Speaker 2:Right, I had Sergeant for poor bastard. That was 100%, by far his best drive he's had in F1. One of the better drives I've seen him have from F2 and F3 and the car crapped out on the last lap.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally. That's a really good call. Douche canoe of the race? I think I'm sorry, max. All right, I think we can probably assume that where you and I are concerned, that's the standard answer, but let's assume we're talking about anybody else. For Douche canoe of the race, I have to go with Checo. I'm sorry, you know, I gave it to Lewis and Qatar. I have to give it to Checo here. That was a shit-tacular way to end your home race. I'm so sorry for him, and I might put Yuki in slot too, just because he did not cast glory upon himself.
Speaker 2:Yeah if it's not Max, I think, see, it was definitely Max, because of all his bitching on the radio and just being a dick and not listening to what his engineers said about bringing the tires in, I think we're going to need a new category for Max for Stappen's whiny-ass radio comment of the week Coming soon.
Speaker 1:Nothing's going to top no talking in the breaking for Austin that was the best one ever. But there's always something in that competition, so manufactured bullshit. Liberty Media talking point of the weekend for me is pretty much the same every weekend, which is the constant for Stappen hype train yeah that race wasn't anything amazing showing, not showing the battles or Lewis's fastest lap.
Speaker 2:Your viewership's down. Your subscriptions are down. Why aren't you showing one of the few interesting things that's happening at that time?
Speaker 1:Yeah, to have cut away from that battle between George and Ricardo was Peak F1. God, shoot yourself in the foot. Yeah, it's just that's really bad. Records are made to be broken. We can say that Max for Stappen extends his record for most wins in a season to 16. Who fucking raw?
Speaker 2:Well, and here's the other thing. Yes, it's a good, interesting stat to have, but also keep in mind the seasons used to be 12 long.
Speaker 1:Again, I'm trying to be the rational human. He deserves kudos for what he's doing this season, to your point, the fact that he's won 30, whatever races in the last two years. Well, yeah, because the season's fucking three times longer than it used to be and he's in the only good car on the grid. Yeah, history will never reflect that, but it's a joke. There will never be a point where I can get excited about him just getting out in the lead and driving around in circles and winning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Kara, that's essentially not playing, but using the cheating from the previous two years. There's also something that's not going to be reflected in the stats.
Speaker 1:No, At the same time I recognize the Red Bull team are firing at all cylinders. They're great at their pit stops, they're great at car setup. They're dialed in on every possible front. So, whatever, he's getting his moment of sunshine. The other record Lewis extended his record for most podiums to 197 for a second time, and this time he gets to keep it Well, and it was his 200th race. I think His 200th race as number 44.
Speaker 2:That was it. Okay, yeah, I was just getting out of my mouth and like, no, he's done more than 200 races. But I was like, no, there's something.
Speaker 1:There's something about his. Yeah, I didn't realize how long he'd raced without the number 44. Is there anything else that we feel is important to discuss about the Mexican Grand Prix, other than, again, it was a great podium. I had secondhand embarrassment for Max Verstappen wearing a giant sombrero oh right, the car being lifted up to the podium. I just felt like that was awkward and weird. The crowd do not love Max Verstappen in Mexico for a bunch of reasons. They adore Lewis Hamilton, which shocked me. Maybe it shouldn't have, but I remember him being booed very loudly last year, so I was very pleasantly surprised at how much they frankly I mean they chanted his name. They were very happy for him. And then Charles, on the other hand, who again drove a great race, is an incredibly sweet guy and got really loudly booed because of what happened with Checo and ended up having to defend himself in front of everyone, which was like this isn't right.
Speaker 2:No, what happened with Checo was Checo's fault, it wasn't Charles' fault?
Speaker 1:No, not at all. Just passions are running high. There was a big old brawl in the stands during the race which is really.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just sort of think well, that's probably been coming for a while. I'm surprised we haven't seen it yet. I think it seemed pretty apparent that it was a Red Bull versus a Ferrari fan scenario that happened and got out of control and they got the dude out and banned him for life, whatever that means, but it just means other friends buy tickets for him. Emotions were running high. Let's just put it that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I also liked, or was interested to see on the podium that Shah and Lewis were spraying each other and faffing around with the champagne and having a good time and Max was off there by himself doing his own thing, chasing after them at one point.
Speaker 1:Socially awkward little Maxie.
Speaker 2:None of those two really like him yeah. I don't think they dislike him. I just don't think I mean they might, but I think they have more in common with each other than they have with Max for stopping.
Speaker 1:I think that's true and I think that's sad for Max for stopping. Frankly, I did think the cool down room was one of the more interesting ones, just because they were collectively more animated together than we've seen a bit in recent races. You know the replay of the start and the replay of Lewis's overtake on Charles and the replay of Hukie getting shunted off of Oscar Piazzari's rear tire after driving into him. I generally thought that those were just awkward and lame moments, but it wasn't the worst one. All right, anything else you'd like to add before we check out and get ourselves ready for the Brazilian Grand Prix this weekend, which features yet another exciting sprint race, boys and girls.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited for this sprint race I can't even begin to tell you I'm excited to perhaps have my TV put up so I could watch from there. We'll see if I get another human being over to help me lift my TV up.
Speaker 1:I know I'm feeling bad. We couldn't do that while I was up there. But there you go. Thanks for listening, ladies and germs. We will be back, hopefully in a week, with more information about how Brazil 2023 went.
Speaker 2:Have a good night, everyone. Have a good day or a good whatever fucking part of the time zones you are in.