June 3, 2025 • 35 mins
An excellent strategic drive from Max Verstappen is overshadowed by a moment of red mist when the Dutchman deliberately rams George Russell in the frustrating final laps of his race. He's now on the cusp of a race ban, but should the stewards have been harsher? Meanwhile, Oscar pIastri consolidates his title lead with a comfortable victory in Barcelona over Lando Norris
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to Pittalk, brought to you by Shannon's.
On today's episode, Max Verstappan is one penalty point away
from a race ban after crashing into George Russell in
a moment of madness, and Oscar Piastre wins again to
take a ten point championship lead into the weekend break.
My name is Michael Lomonato. It's great to have your
company and the company of my co host. If he
(00:22):
were ever to have a tantrum, he'd know to protect
his injured wrists. It's Matt Clayton.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Michael. Lovely to join you, but I will say if
we're halfway through this podcast and I'm just not feeling
a vibe, i might just leave for the rest of
it and leave, just leave you as a one car
operation for the remainder of the pod. But always good
to join you. And well, we've done many Spanish Grown
Prix pods over the year where it's like, yeah, who
was on pole, they won, that's all fine, nothing happened,
(00:46):
But yes we had a pulseeat a winning but there
was a bit going on in the last part of
that race. So I think we've got more than enough
content for one podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I would have thought, yes, many evolving race reports were
written and rewritten and written again in the last twenty
minutes of that.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, stick your hand up if you were doing that.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, sadly, but I was quite the interesting conclusion. MAXW.
Staffan obviously the biggest talking board. He actually had really
quite a good race up until the last twelve or
so laps. The safety car is what undid his race
from the pure results perspective, but then everything else was
really down to him. I mean, this is the in
my mind, Matt, and correct me if you feel like
(01:24):
this is wrong or missing anything, But the chronology is
this safety car comes out, he gets hard tires, a
bit unhappy about that, then has a big snap out
of the last corner. Charlotte Claire passes him, touches him
on the way. It's pretty unhappy about that. Gets into
the first corner, George Russell tags him pretty He's quite
unhappy about that, and then his engineer tells him, well,
maybe you should give that position back to Russell because
we're not confident about the rules. And he's apoplectic about that,
(01:47):
and then decides he's going to crash into George Russell.
Just because I mean, they are a lot of buttons
pushed to be fair, but in a very specific order
in a very short amount of time. I thought it
was remarkable how quickly this fuse.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Blue Welling, as you had said out before him. What
he'd done before that was that he and Red Bull
had come up with this three stop strategy to I mean,
they knew that if they did exactly what McLaren did,
they were going to lose that race. So you do
the only thing you can do when there's a podium
at worst and probably something better on the line. You
do what the other team with the better card doesn't do.
(02:20):
And they'd done it absolutely brilliantly, to the point where
I think Vastappen's pace on the three stop were actually
caught McClaren by surprise a bit in that there was
that radio message about halfway through saying to piastri NIC's like,
you guys need to get on with this because Max
clearly is more of a threat than they were expecting. Yes,
the safety car and then the decision to be put
(02:41):
on hard tires, they were the only ones that he
really had, or certainly new ones that he had to
put on. He wasn't particularly pleased with that, but you're right,
it unraveled so fast, and I guess the irony of
all of this is that the team told him to
hand the position back to George Russell, where the Stewarts
came out after the race and said there was nothing
to see here. He didn't have hand it back anyway,
(03:01):
So all of this could have been avoided for something
to happen four corners before, because if Max's engineer is like, no,
stay where you are, then we don't have the situation
with George Russell. We don't have the penalty at the
end of the race. We don't have him dropping from
fifth that the checkered flag down to tenth, which had
ramifications in the Constructors Championship race, which we'll talk about.
But yeah, in the space of what five corners coming
(03:22):
out of the last corner at the restart to turn
four on the first lap of the restart, the whole
thing went completely haywire. And it does undo a lot
of the good that Max did in this race, because
a lot of it was terrific, make no bones about it,
but our lasting memory of this race was this loss
of composure. And this is not the first time we've
(03:43):
seen him just railing against everything he can possibly rail against.
And I guess there's a wider play here in that
there's so much to admire about the way he goes
about it. He's almost a better underdog that he is
a champion, if you know what I mean. And watching
the level that he's driving at this year, clearly driving
a card that's inferior to the McLaren's pretty spectacular. But
then you have days like this and it's just it's
(04:04):
I'm disappointed, mil I'm disappointed for me, and disappointed to view,
and disappointed for everybody because he can be better than this,
but he chose not to be yes.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
And he often is better than this. He makes the
point that he's better than this through his driving. I
think what there's so many things I find remarkable about this.
That it happened on its own probably is the least
remarkable part of it, because, as you say, we have
seen it before, not exactly this. Obviously, we've seen these
blow ups, you know, we saw it even in I
suppose the most recent or the two most recent I
was of Mexico last year, where he was doing all
(04:32):
sorts of silly things in battle with Lando Norris and
then in Austria last year, which I think was maybe
the reemergence of it after having things relatively his own
way in twenty two and twenty three of this kind
of I'm not even sure how exactly I want to
describe it. Impetuousness maybe, or a little brain snap in
the heat of battle. But the common thread in the
last few years, at least, when he's sort of established
(04:53):
himself as the title winner who can set the standards,
but obviously he is not without his flaws, is it's
It seems to me, it's when he feels like races
get away from him, when things are suddenly going against
him in a way he didn't expect. He thrashes around
a little bit and really searches at the bottom of
the toolbox for what he's got left, which is essentially
a hammer. And I think that that is interesting in
(05:14):
this race, because the story of the season for the
first eight rounds was that, all right, red Bulls on
the back foot. Max defending his title is probably a
little bit of a long shot. We don't know how
the season's going to evolve, but nonetheless he's going to
do it. He needs to rely on McLaren making some
mistakes but him being perfect, and he has been perfect
right rounds this season. I don't think we can look
back at any particular race and say he's got anything
(05:36):
other than the maximum of his car out of the
circumstances from it. And this weekend he gave away a
lot of points in a totally unnecessary moment of red
mist of rage. How we want to decide exactly his
brain snapped in that moment, And I think that's interesting
because until that collision, and I've been when I've written
(05:57):
this week on the Fox Sports website, I think this
weekend did finally snuff out his championship defense, now fifty
points behind or forty nine points behind, And it's not
the points margin so much as it is the context
of his car is just not competitive enough to come
back from that much, and at least what we've seen
so far, there was a title on the line in
my mind before that incident, and he blew it. And
(06:18):
I don't I don't think that should be blown up
too much because obviously he's won four titles, so we
know he can win them. But that just to me
seems so contrary to what we kind of understand to
be how he drives when a title is actually up
for grabs when he has a goal.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
And also too, you know, yeah it was it was
a long shot, but it was still a shot. Yeah,
And I think that's the context of what you're saying there,
and that, yes, a lot of things would have needed
to have gone wrong outside of anything he could necessarily
do something about to remain in title contention for this
enormously long season that we're only nine rounds into. But
there's a couple of points here, this whole thing of
(06:54):
basically fighting one on two every single weekend against McLaren
and an occasional Ferrari or an occasional Mercedes. But the
fact that it's him and him alone having to fight
this battle, you know, fighting two cars off with you know,
one with each hand over the course of these races.
That's got to be wearing to a degree. But the
other part of all of this is how much of
(07:16):
the behavior when things spiral like this, is a product
of the environment that he's in, Because you know that
if the shoe had been on the other foot and
he the team had felt that he'd done something wrong
or something on Sunday, Christian Horner would rock up to
the post race debrief with a bunch of print outs
and telemetory and grabs and do a whole there. Let
me show you what actually happened here. When something like
(07:38):
this happens, when Max is completely banged to rights, we
get absolutely nothing from Red Bull management at alls and
Max finished tenth and we squat at some points today,
there's no It's like having a child, right that just
behaves in a certain way, and you make allowances and
excuse that and enable that level of behavior, and when
(07:58):
they do something that is completely egregious, you turn the
other cheek. You know, when they've drawn with crayon all
over the wall, you start talking about how nice the
paint is rather than what the kid's done to it.
And so part of the way he reacted on Sunday
in Spain was, yes, that moment in an isolation, but
it's every other moment that you know, we have print
outs being brought to post raced reson. You think of
(08:20):
Mexico last year as a classic case with Lando Norris
and arguing the toss on those sorts of things. I've
forgotten which race it was earlier this year that Horner
did turn up with a bunch of prints. I think
it was Saudi guess with Piastri at turn one. That's right,
So you know that he's good for that. Once every
five or six races, the office photocopier gets a bit
of a bit of a bit of a run. But
you do wonder how much of this is the incident
(08:42):
in isolation and the frustration with a really good afternoon
going to waste through a circumstance that was triggered through
no fault of his own, no safety car. Is finishing
third at worst, and perhaps even second because he was
hunting down Norris quite nicely. How much of that is
frustration with the moment? And then how much of that
is knowing that you can behave a certain way because
you've been enabled to behave that way over a number
(09:04):
of years.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yes, Because as the one cast status of that team
tells you, the team needs him a lot more than
he needs the team. Yes, and that's enabled that environment.
There's one other element that I think is interesting that
I've sort of only struck me yesterday thinking back on
the race on Monday, and that is the George Russell
element of this. It's been the sort of quiet. I
(09:26):
don't even know if rivalry is the word I want
to use here. Quite feuge perhaps that we'd all forgotten about.
That kicked off last year in Kata, where he we've
a stap and blocked Russell on a qualifying lap. Wasn't
even actually on a qualifying lap. They're both on warm
up laps, but got a penalty that demote him to second.
Russell got onto Pole happened up winning the race, but
some really strong words exchanged between them. I actually went
(09:47):
back and had a look to remind myself of them,
and they were even stronger than I remember. George Russell's
talking about total loss of respect. Someone needs to stand
up to this bully. It's not the way this and
that and the staff and had his own responses there
as well. Clearly things have patched over. Is not really
what's happened. You know, they haven't fought each other again since,
but there's clearly still something simmering in the background. I
(10:07):
can't help but wonder had Russell hit him on the
straight and Lecler bumped him at the first corner, would
any of this have happened? And I think that's the
interesting element, not because of the well, we've got a
great fun rivalry. Maybe if Russell ever gets in the car,
it's good enough to compete with Maxim has happened. But
the fact that that probably was in his head and
influenced his decision making so long after the fact, I
(10:29):
think he is probably telling of the way he goes
about his business.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, completely, And because it was the third element of
a chain of things going wrong, because you had you know,
why am I on these hard tires? And then you're
having the side by side with Leclaire on the straight
after he miraculously save that snap coming out of the
last corner. And then when you're that, to quote David
Croft het up words that nobody else actually ever uses
bad thing to say to you, and you've got a
mouth of the coffee. But when you're that annoyed about
(10:55):
everything that's going on and then you get nerved off
at the first corner by George Russell, as in Tarlie
last year, George Russell, there was an incident in bak
who you remember where they had that conversation. In part
for me, there's a long history between these two so
that was a bit of a red rag to a
bull there for Stappen, But I don't know. I mean,
you do wonder. A lot of the greats in f
(11:15):
On history. This is another podcast. Quite frankly, I won't
go too long on this, but a lot of the
greats in f On history they have these sort of flaws,
of these gray areas in that you know, there's sporting
things or behavioral things, or temperamental things in that respect.
If Max is going to be one of the greatest
in the history of the sport, which I guess he's
in a conversation for in a career that's still active,
he actually fits in with a lot of these guys
(11:36):
because they all had their own their own foibles in
this regard. But I just find it incredibly unbecoming for
a guy who is as good as he is and
has been proven to be a winner as much as
he is. I just don't know if you can keep
lashing out like this. But I also think you look
at someone like Russell, like Russell knows he can wind
Max up at this point, Let's be honest, he just
(11:56):
has to be there and look at it and to
wide part and that is something that you know more
often than not, you know, axis in position to win
races or get podiums and it's not really really an issue,
but it can wind him up and it can be exploited.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah, I think so. I think that element comparing him,
and yeah, I don't propose to sick on this for
too much because it is really its own podcast from
of Max's position in the greats and why it's telling
that he has this one very serious flaw like they
all do. I get that because they're all world champion.
None of them are absolutely perfect. That's obviously clear. But
(12:31):
you know, so he's been liking, for example, other drivers
who have hit other drivers deliberately, which is what happened
to here. You know, you think back to Michael Schumacher,
and you think back to Aden Sener, right, but he
was fighting for fourth place in a race that has
no championship consequence. All those examples of drive of center
and Schumacher and striking other drivers were all at the
very minimum, to be fair to them, if you want,
(12:53):
in the heat of a championship battle, championship deciders usually
with your direct arrival, battling for the lead or for
the championship victory, not George Russell round nine to fourth
to keep yourself within one victory.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
That's completely right. And you think you know a race
that you and I often mentioned that we both sort
of hid behind our respective couches and watch the twenty
twenty one Saudi Arabia GP where that was completely unhinged
that race, But there was a title at stake with
all of the silliness that was going on with Max
and Lewis Hamilton that night, and I absolutely hated it,
but I understood it at the same time because the
(13:29):
stakes were so high Max was under siege from Hamilton
and Mercedes coming on at an incredible rate of knots,
and you know, Abu Dhabi and so on and so forth,
and then we all cry into our keyboards and then
we go with the rest of our lives. But as
you said, like it's round night and you're fighting for
fourth at the Spanish Grand Prix, Like what do we
actually do again?
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah, So it'll be interesting to see where this moment
shakes out over the course of the year. I mean,
like I say, I suspect that he'll play no real
role in the championship beyond probably interfering with the front.
Maybe I'll be proven wrong and be spectaculally if I were.
But yeah, where this fits into the Verstappa narrative is
a question for another time well down the road. Just
unfortunate this ended up coloring what had been such a
(14:11):
good race for Max Matt. Let's look now to move
of the week, brought to you by Shannon's Spanish Grand Prix,
the only race over the course of the weekend. And
like we've said several times, I was pleased with the
amount of racing we've got for a race that doesn't
offer a lot of racing usually, so very exciting there.
I've got a couple in my mind, but I'll let
you kick us off.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I reckon this will be on your list, so giving
you you've got a couple on going to steal probably
the best one. I'm looking at the lap chart here
on FOREX. Thank God for FORX when you haven't remembered
exactly what was going on in a race. But lap
sixty five, Nico Holkeenberg overtakes Lewis Hamilton, so I'll just
say that again. Nico Holkeenberg and a Souba overtakes Lewis
(14:52):
Hamilton in a Ferrari for sixth on the road at
the time which you're looking at it going, is this
just an Aston Marsham with some sun coming off?
Speaker 1 (15:01):
It?
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Is that? Why this green car is scrapping up the
front with a Ferrari. Unbelievable race by Hulkenberg generally, But
to get that done two laps from the end of
the race in a car that I'm il only thinking
it's his best race results in proudly nineteen or twenty
twenty something along those lines, and not a race result
or that owed itself to a heap of retirements or
(15:22):
a bunch of luck. He had an awesome first lap
and maintain the pace in that car. And these are
the races why you sign a Nicico Holkenberg towards the
end of his career, because once or twice a year
he's good for something like this. But to put a
move on a Lewis Hamilton driven Ferrari to take a
place at what ended up becoming fifth, becoming fifth after
(15:43):
Everstappen was penalized, extraordinary performance, but the absolute highlight of
his race. Now I know that was on your list
because I can see you nodding here. You clearly have
another candidate, So what have you got?
Speaker 1 (15:54):
He started fifteenth dis Deever, it wasn't even the best
sou of qualified.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Unbelievable race.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Trefenders also involves Nico Holkenberg, but his way earlier in
the race on lap two, in a battle with Fernando
or Alonso, was Alonso passing Holkenberg, although I do think
Hokenberg got him back immediately afterwards. But this was Alonso
around the outside of turn three, and it was just
if you look up a definition of what what does
an Alonso overtake look like, I think this is it.
(16:20):
He'd been, he had not had a great start, he
was pointless. This year is his home Grand Prix. I
think he's an ambassador of this race as well, just
in time for it to fall off the calm the
next year. I don't know what that says about, but anyway,
just this great move set up through turn two. I
mean we think in your mind you might think, well,
the Aston Martin, obviously that's a better car than this hour.
It's not really this year. In fact, the tied on
(16:41):
championship points at the moment. It's not that good a
car for him to hang on around the outside early
in the race. Not a lot of grip, a lot
at stake. I just thought there was such a gutsy
and great move, and it was great because you know,
this year we've been talking a lot about Alonzo looks
a bit down and out and has he a bit
passed it, Like is his motivation still there for a
car that's no good? And this was like, no, it's there,
(17:01):
He's still got it well.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
And I got all nostalgic about it, because if you
think about some of Fernando's most audacious overtakes and particularly
starts over the years, there's an absolute highlight reelmit magical
things he's done in that particular circuit. You remember him
in a Ferrari going down the out, going down the
inside with two wheels on the grass to overtake a
couple of red Bulls one year. But the best part
about it is that he had said that the Aston
Martin drs is not particularly good, so they can't pass
(17:25):
anybody on the strait. So it's almost like so I
just had to invent something, and you know you've beat
it that so you know what it's like, that is
no joke that corner there, that they are absolutely pinned,
and seeing him on the outside putting a move on
there because he figured that's the only place I can
get this done. Fernando in that sort of mode is
still one of my favorite things in Formula One because
(17:46):
it's so opportunistically cunning, and it's been a dreadful season
because they haven't managed to score any points. So for
him to put that overtake on and score some points
for the first time this season and do it at
home yet full marks.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah, very good, A great one of the highlights of
the Spanish Grand Prix, undoubtedly, though if you're Oscar Piastre,
the whole race, whole weekend was really a highlight, because
this was a very strong weekend for him. He re
extended his title lead to ten points after controlling the
Grand Prix, not really any point after FP one, if
you want to be generous, I guess, in which he
(18:19):
wasn't in total control, maybe with the exception of the
very first lap of Q three when Landon Norris just
pipped him thanks to a in Pastre's words, chiefy slipstream.
But this felt to me a lot like a return
to regular programming at the end of this triple header
after Monaco being well, Monaco really quite an outlier, and
I thought it was interesting that hearing Pastri speak afterwards
(18:40):
about obviously quite a good, comprehensive performance whatever, but talking
about how he's at the stage now where him and
team are just putting together the percentage points now, like
just trying to perfect this little thing here, this little
bit there, pulling them together, and suddenly you have these
weekends where he just really looks unbeatable, and I think,
correct me, I'm I'm trying to think back through the
(19:01):
course of the season, probably the first race in a
while where we've had a pretty direct head to head
between the two drives. I guess Miami we kind of did,
but there was a much bigger delay between them getting
past with staff and that influencing. This felt like a
much more head to head. Norris's on form, Piastre's on form,
and there was just no doubt.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Well, and that's those little increments. This is how you
build a world championship, isn't it? And it's the recipe
for anyone who's built a world championship in a season
where they're clearly is one dominant car. But isn't it funny?
Like we're eighteen minutes into the podcast and we've got
oh yeah, the Australian guy. And you know we've got
to a point now where you know we're not taking
(19:38):
this for granted. I mean, I think we were talking
about that stat yesterday. He's won five races this year.
It's the first time in Australian's won five races in
a year since nineteen eighty with Alan Jones, and I
think the only other time was nineteen sixty when so
Jack Brabham did it. So and we still have if
I'm doing my maths correctly, fifteen rounds remaining, which was
you know, twice the length of the twenty nineteen sixty season.
(19:58):
But anyway, but the point you made never in doubt.
It just never felt that once we got through Saturday,
and yes, Norris had that lap in Q three where
he got a bit of assistance from inadvertently from Piastre
down to Main Strait, but biggest pole margin of the
year and fantastic start. It was his race to lose,
(20:19):
but it never looked like he was going to lose it.
And to my mind, the only real threat was I
was thinking, look, ve Stappan's been so good on this
three stopper here there is an outside chance he can
get Norris here or at least make Norris think about it,
But there was never really a suggestion that Norris was
anywhere near Piastre. Once we got through, once Verstappan got
between the McLaren's off the start, this felt like a
(20:42):
race only Oscar could lose. But you never felt at
any point like he was going to lose it. And
yes you have to go through the late race complications
with the restart and the safety car and everything else,
but he handled that like an absolute pro as well.
It was just pretty much a mistake free weekend. And
the tiny increments you mentioned I couldn't help but think
about it when I heard that on Sunday. This is
(21:03):
the small pieces of the jigsaw that you just keep
putting in week by week by week from a position
of advantage. And I think the thing we keep forgetting
here is that he started this season effectively. After one race,
he was on the back foot in a two driver
fight for the championship because of what had happened in Melbourne.
I mean, he's been on podium everywhere now except Melbourne.
The Melbourne curse lives, but to redress that imbalance, So
(21:27):
what did he finish ninth? In Melbourne. So he's twenty
three points behind his teammate after one round and to
do what he's done in the eighth round, since even
with Norris winning Monaco, we knows the outlier of all outliers.
This just feels like the perfect, step by step, methodical,
very Oscar Piastre way of building a world championship league,
doesn't it. Yeah?
Speaker 1 (21:45):
I like we say being able to do that from
a position of advantage. I don't really I've never really
liked the phrase scoreboard pressure. It it's just pressure. It's ahead,
it's a point. But I think there is something in that,
isn't there where there's no pressure on him after that start,
after the being in twenty three points down now for
him to do anything, there's no catching up. And you
(22:06):
can even say his level, look regardless, ten points is
not very much, but it means he can really focus
on himself. Now there's nothing that he needs to focus
on other than his own game, and this was a
great weekend of him doing that and executing and finding
some additional little games. A little gains there, and I
think as well, I want to flip this around on
the Lando Norris perspective, because we talked about, yes, Monaco
being such an outlier of a Grand Prix in terms
(22:28):
of the way the cars work there, there's also an
element of a being a little bit of a driver's
outlier as well. You often see drivers excel there because
they're always very good at that kind of extreme track,
or some that just struggle. I mean, Piastre a great
race there last year, not so much this year. Norris
had a good race the year. This year we saw
a lot of the same Norris tropes this weekend, didn't
we We got to Q three, he looked pretty quick up
till their final Q three lap. He fumbles and he
(22:50):
can't continue to hold provisional. He loses his pole position,
falls behind Max. With Stappen at the start of the race, okay,
he was probably it was probably wise him not to
fight it too hard because he's got a lot more
to lose than Max does, clearly, but nonetheless that had
an influence him not being able to contend for the
rest of the race, and then all he could do
was finish second. It feels like we're back to where
we started this triple header, which is all the same
questions are being asked and all the same answers are
(23:11):
being given.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yeah, completely, And this is the way this championship is
going to play out in that I think there's going
to be more variance in what Norris does race by race,
week by week, simply because of the way that he
goes about it. And you do feel that of the
two of them, he is the one more susceptible to
drop the ball from a position of advantage, whereas I'm
(23:32):
not saying that Piastre is going to go mistake free
for the rest of the year. That's clearly not going
to happen, but it feels like a lower percentage chance
that that's going to happen. And I always think of
you know, I'm old enough and gray enough to have
covered Weber's career, and obviously Mark Weber's Piastre's manager. One
of Mark's many famous sayings was I will give nothing,
and that was something that Mark said all the time,
(23:53):
particularly when he was fighting with Sebastian Vattal and Oscar Piastri.
Gives you absolutely nothing to ship away out. Just rock sol,
keep pumping the results in. And yes, you mentioned that
championship leads back up to ten points. The way I
like to look at that is, he's outscored Norris by
thirty three points in eight rounds. And then you think
about the fact that they're in this car that clearly
is the best car on the grid, and I think
(24:14):
that margin's only going to be accentuated as the season continues,
because we've got the rule changes for twenty six and
the Stapham will opportunistically win some races because he's brilliant
and he's Max of Staphaen. But to my mind, any
other team winning a race right now would seem like
a massive outlier to me. So if Piastre really is
going to give nothing, and then you look at the
fact that some of these teams, some of whom have
(24:35):
already turned the tap off for twenty six and some
of whom will certainly start to before too long, it's
probably only going to accentuate that advantage. And then it
comes down to small margins between drivers in one dominant team,
and I just think Piastre has less variance. That's not
to say that he will be in front of the
rest of the way. There may be peaks and troughs
in that dnf's mechanicals getting involved in other people's accidents,
(24:56):
bad time, safety car, all sorts of things. So many
races still to go, so many races still to go,
but I feel there's less chance that he drops the
ball than Norris. To be honest, a.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Couple of things we should clean up on before we
wrap this one up, and that this was a significant
and he is a significant race in the championship because
he's where the FAA clamped down on what had become
the latest development rouphole, the flexibility of the front wings.
It's something that has been going on for a while,
but they decided over the off season that enough was
enough and the threshold for how much a wing could
flex was tightened up. All very technical, but some teams,
(25:29):
Red Bull Racing in particular, was hopeful that this would
be a turning point in the championship, not necessarily throw
the order completely upside down, but level it up and
suddenly they'd get their shot at McLaren and maybe haul
them back in in the way that McLaren had haled
Red Bull Racing in, or at least from MAXA. Stapfen's perspective,
give him a better shot at it. This was also
a track that should have suited Red Bull based on
the way they performed a dimlar in Saudi Arabia, Japan,
(25:51):
a lot of fast corners, but like you already said,
Piastri had the biggest poll advantage in qualifying and the
clap between McLaren and Red Bull was the biggest bit
between two teams in qualifying at the front since Australia.
And in the race. Okay, Max Fatham did really great
with the three stop strategy, but never challenged for the lead.
Maybe challenge for a second place and that would have
(26:11):
been an opportunistic one. Where does Red Bull go from here?
Is this the last shot for Red Bull Racing? Now?
I mean we've always talked about how Maxistappen's fallen so
far behind, and of course the other element of that
was Ferrari also hopeful they've got one big upgrade package
coming they reckon this season. It could yet be the answer,
but there wasn't a lot of I didn't seem much change,
to be honest.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Did you hear no? Sorry that sounds you. Here is
me printing lots of photos of front wings and sending
them to a Christian horner at Milton Keynes. It was funny,
wasn't it. It was seen as this in wa wait till
we get to Barcelona, it's all going to change and
all this McLaren advantage. I actually felt a little bit
sorry for you because I reckon you wrote thirty thousand
words on front wings last week and it turned out
(26:52):
to be the most irrelevant copy that No, not bagging
you here, but it was the most irrelevant suff you've
probably written. LL you quite frankly, because it made apps
absolutely no difference to the pecking order. It was a
combination I think of Well. I was interested because it
was Spain, because, as we discussed last week, like this
seems to be the track where a car's weaknesses are
(27:15):
really magnified. It's, you know, it's what the circuit of
Barcelona Cataluna is. If you've got something that's deficient on
your car, this circuit exposes that. So I thought we'd
get a pretty instant tell on what these new front
wing REGs were going to do. But the key thing
here that probably we should have considered more is we
knew this TD was coming in from Spain ages and
(27:36):
ages and ages ago. This is not one of those
things where you know there's a race two weeks earlier,
and so after this race this is all happening now,
and teams have got to scramble. Everyone knew this was
coming and everyone prepared accordingly. So what we ended up
with was a pretty similar order than we've seen most
of the year. Obviously a bit of so outlier business
going on, which was fun to watch, but in terms
(27:58):
of the whole hierarchy of the best team, the team
snapping at their heels and what happened after that was
a huge amount of difference, and it wasn't the great
catch all that Red bull were hoping for. And I
use the word hope because I'm not sure they really
believed it was going to be that much of a difference.
But you know, while there's life, there's hope, right, And
(28:20):
so you do wonder if a combination of Max dropping
so far behind pastre now in the Driver's Championship, the
fact that this hasn't had some massive reset of the order,
I wonder what it does for Red Bulls priorities for
the rest of twenty twenty five in that yes, they're
certainly going to be encouraging and doing everything they can
for a step and to win Grand Prix, and I'm
(28:41):
sure he will wins some but they've got bigger issues
for next year with a new engine supplier, and can
they actually find a competent driver in the second car?
Do they even know they have a second car? All
of the conundrums that come with Red Bull that the
next era they need to solve. If this season, as
far as winning anything meaningful as kind a wash. They're
our fourth in the constructors Championship. As we mentioned earlier,
(29:03):
you wonder what this race does for what they do
going forward, because this might be the race you look
back at and go, all right, we can't really win
anything this year. Maybe we need to start thinking further afield.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yeah, I mean maybe in a weird way. It takes
at least a little pressure off Yuki suod who qualified
last twentieth this weekend, because if there's no championship on
the line, I guess it doesn't matter that much if
he's not there supporting Max for staff. And but the
first time a Red Bull Racing cars qualified twentieth since
Liam Lawson in China, which was the race before he
was dropped back to Racing Bulls. I do just want
(29:34):
to wrap up on the championship position because I really
had to do a double take on this, Like we've said,
red Bull racing down to fourth, Okay, maybe not that
surprising as the Erring Max squad on any one point,
and there has been almost no points coming from the
other car at all. But Ferrari ufter second doesn't really
tally for me at all. A team that's scored I think,
just three podiums for the year, I'm right in saying
(29:56):
or with charl Leclair. Obviously Blewis han't got that sprint victory,
but springs aren't even worth that many points, and Lewis
Hamilton had another shocker this weekend was really despired. Morrey
has a desponded to we've seen him all year after
this race was overtaken, as we've highlighted, or any boy
Nico Hovesal at the very end. I'm sure there's clearly
something not quite right in the car, but that's not
(30:17):
necessarily a judgment on him having bad luck. The car
is also clearly not always that great. But I mean
the comparison to Leclair week to week now is is
pretty damning. I think it was this weekend as well.
I don't know what to make of that. I don't
know what to make of all of these teams behind McLaren,
I mean, all of them seemed to have some pretty
significant flaws in the overall season makeup. But for me,
(30:37):
Hamilton was the standout disappointment I suppose of this weekend.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah, and then you know you cash that by saying
that Ferraro is now second in the constructors. It's bizarre
is that we've had what merced has had. Kemmi Antonelli
not finished the last two races, so that certainly doesn't help.
Red Bulls are one car team. Williams didn't score a
point first time all season, second time all season, rather
in in Spain, so there are lot of things going on.
But yeah, you look at that Constructor's Championship means Soba
(31:03):
scored ten of at sixteen points in one race Weekend Alpine.
Now last, you know, the Franco Colopinto question is probably
another podcast because right now he's contributing about as much
as Jack do and did, which is not very much.
And so you know what is he three races into
his five year deal, five race deal, Michael apparently, But
so yeah, lots of changing going on. But I was
(31:24):
like you when I saw the Constructor's table on Sunday night,
I looked at Ferrari being second and figured that I
hadn't refreshed the page or something had gone gone haywire.
But you look at it and yeah, there's what twenty
one points between second and fourth in the constructors. But
each of them have fundamental flaws that they need to address.
And McLaren just sales on serenely with two cars bagging
(31:44):
big results.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yes, without one hundred and ninety seven point advantage. That
is the difference two cars make ten is it it?
Let's drop up now, Matt with the crystal ball brought
to you by complete home filtration. Really in the thick
of the European seas and three international categories with PUS
race coming up this weekend in Perth, what are you
going with?
Speaker 2 (32:05):
All right, I am going to look at two wheels
here because this is kind of my wheelhouse at the moment.
I'm looking at Aragon for Motor GP this weekend, very
very early for Aragon, this is normally August September time.
Of course, this is where Mark Marquez won his first
race for I think it was one thousand and forty
three days. I think I rose to one thousand and
forty three times last year when he won that first race,
(32:27):
motor GPS odd this year, and that you've got this
category that it still feels like a Ducati benefit. You've
had five different riders win the last five Grand Prix.
There's been all sorts of weirdness going on, raining at
Lemon Jones, Zarco winning, Marco Betzeki winning in Silveston. I'm
saying we're going to put an end to all of
that nonsense this weekend. And it's a track that turns
left and it's going to be Mark Marquees's territory and
(32:48):
I think he may look may make the others look
a little bit silly at Aragon this weekend as he
did last year. So I think order will be restored
and we'll see Marquees at the front of the field
in the Sprint and the Grand Prix. But it's a
weird time in the calendar because we've got the European
swing for Formula one and brackets insert Canada for some
random reason in the middle of that. So your crystal
(33:08):
ball could be very global here. So where are you going?
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yes? So, in fact, let me throw another sport into
the mix here, which is the Lamon twenty four hour,
which is in two weeks clashes with Canada, and the
reason I bring this up is, of course there's a
question mark over Lance Strolls involvement in the Canadian Grand
Prix because he's apparently having surgery on that arm that
he had surgery on a couple of years ago, following
whatever exactly happened to his arm over the course of
(33:32):
this weekend that forced him to withdraw from the Grand Prix.
The reserve driver is Felipe Dragovich, the Formula two champion
from a few years ago, has been the reserve driver
for a long time and boys he desperate to drive
in Formida Art. He's also racing in Lamont, which would
eliminate him from contention for this. I believe that means
that Aston Martin would prefer if Lance Stroll is not
(33:52):
going to be racing next week, to make a call
before this weekend, because I think that's when Dragovic needs
to confirm whether or not he's in Lahman the following weekend,
of course, probably the biggest definition motor race in the world.
This is what I'm predicting is going to happen. Man
larnstro is gonna have surgery. It's can go well. I
hope it goes well for him, But he's going to
admit he's not a Moto GP writer. He can't drive.
Felife Dragons is going to get in the car in Canada.
(34:14):
It's going to score one point. He's going to get
a phone call immediately from Helmut Marco. Oh, he had
racing balls after that, and then he's going to be
sacked six months later.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
As silly as that sounds, that is so in the
realms of possibility. Somewhere Nick de Freese is nodding his head.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yes, his oldest time.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
See, this is where I thought you were going with this.
You were going to say Drugovic was going to say,
I'm going to stay at lamm and the reserve reserve
driver is Stoffel van Dorn and he's also competing at Lamon,
and he was going to stay at Lamont. And because
there was nowhere else available, Valfrey Bothaus was going to
do a what off in the aston at Canada list.
That is the list. Yes, Daniel Kiveat is probably around
(34:53):
somewhere if you'd like to bring him in. But I
do like your crystal ball because there actually is a
slim percentage possibility, but a possibility nonetheless that this could
actually happen and you and I will just go, yeah,
of course I'll do that.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Yes, yes, So I think it cale has to be
made on that. I think it is this week because
I think there's some pre empty lemon stuff that happens
this weekend. There is, so we will know sooner rather
than later on how that is all going. But on
that note, it's all the time we've got for bittalk today.
You can subscribe to bittalk wherever you get your favorite podcasts,
and you can leave us a rating and a review
as well. This weekend it is the Aragon Motorcycle Grand Prix,
(35:27):
with lights out at ten pm Eastern on Sunday. There's
also the Perth Super four forty with racing on both
Saturday and Sunday. Two races on Saturday, one on Sunday
to wrap up the weekend. You can also keep up
to date with the latest F one, Supercars and MURDODP
news at Fox sports dot com dot Au. From Matt
Clayton and me, Michael Lomonado. Thanks very much for your
company and we'll catch you next week.
Hello, and welcome to Pittalk, brought to you by Shannon's.
On today's episode, Max Verstappan is one penalty point away
from a race ban after crashing into George Russell in
a moment of madness, and Oscar Piastre wins again to
take a ten point championship lead into the weekend break.
My name is Michael Lomonato. It's great to have your
company and the company of my co host. If he
(00:22):
were ever to have a tantrum, he'd know to protect
his injured wrists. It's Matt Clayton.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Michael. Lovely to join you, but I will say if
we're halfway through this podcast and I'm just not feeling
a vibe, i might just leave for the rest of
it and leave, just leave you as a one car
operation for the remainder of the pod. But always good
to join you. And well, we've done many Spanish Grown
Prix pods over the year where it's like, yeah, who
was on pole, they won, that's all fine, nothing happened,
(00:46):
But yes we had a pulseeat a winning but there
was a bit going on in the last part of
that race. So I think we've got more than enough
content for one podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I would have thought, yes, many evolving race reports were
written and rewritten and written again in the last twenty
minutes of that.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, stick your hand up if you were doing that.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, sadly, but I was quite the interesting conclusion. MAXW.
Staffan obviously the biggest talking board. He actually had really
quite a good race up until the last twelve or
so laps. The safety car is what undid his race
from the pure results perspective, but then everything else was
really down to him. I mean, this is the in
my mind, Matt, and correct me if you feel like
(01:24):
this is wrong or missing anything, But the chronology is
this safety car comes out, he gets hard tires, a
bit unhappy about that, then has a big snap out
of the last corner. Charlotte Claire passes him, touches him
on the way. It's pretty unhappy about that. Gets into
the first corner, George Russell tags him pretty He's quite
unhappy about that, and then his engineer tells him, well,
maybe you should give that position back to Russell because
we're not confident about the rules. And he's apoplectic about that,
(01:47):
and then decides he's going to crash into George Russell.
Just because I mean, they are a lot of buttons
pushed to be fair, but in a very specific order
in a very short amount of time. I thought it
was remarkable how quickly this fuse.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Blue Welling, as you had said out before him. What
he'd done before that was that he and Red Bull
had come up with this three stop strategy to I mean,
they knew that if they did exactly what McLaren did,
they were going to lose that race. So you do
the only thing you can do when there's a podium
at worst and probably something better on the line. You
do what the other team with the better card doesn't do.
(02:20):
And they'd done it absolutely brilliantly, to the point where
I think Vastappen's pace on the three stop were actually
caught McClaren by surprise a bit in that there was
that radio message about halfway through saying to piastri NIC's like,
you guys need to get on with this because Max
clearly is more of a threat than they were expecting. Yes,
the safety car and then the decision to be put
(02:41):
on hard tires, they were the only ones that he
really had, or certainly new ones that he had to
put on. He wasn't particularly pleased with that, but you're right,
it unraveled so fast, and I guess the irony of
all of this is that the team told him to
hand the position back to George Russell, where the Stewarts
came out after the race and said there was nothing
to see here. He didn't have hand it back anyway,
(03:01):
So all of this could have been avoided for something
to happen four corners before, because if Max's engineer is like, no,
stay where you are, then we don't have the situation
with George Russell. We don't have the penalty at the
end of the race. We don't have him dropping from
fifth that the checkered flag down to tenth, which had
ramifications in the Constructors Championship race, which we'll talk about.
But yeah, in the space of what five corners coming
(03:22):
out of the last corner at the restart to turn
four on the first lap of the restart, the whole
thing went completely haywire. And it does undo a lot
of the good that Max did in this race, because
a lot of it was terrific, make no bones about it,
but our lasting memory of this race was this loss
of composure. And this is not the first time we've
(03:43):
seen him just railing against everything he can possibly rail against.
And I guess there's a wider play here in that
there's so much to admire about the way he goes
about it. He's almost a better underdog that he is
a champion, if you know what I mean. And watching
the level that he's driving at this year, clearly driving
a card that's inferior to the McLaren's pretty spectacular. But
then you have days like this and it's just it's
(04:04):
I'm disappointed, mil I'm disappointed for me, and disappointed to view,
and disappointed for everybody because he can be better than this,
but he chose not to be yes.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
And he often is better than this. He makes the
point that he's better than this through his driving. I
think what there's so many things I find remarkable about this.
That it happened on its own probably is the least
remarkable part of it, because, as you say, we have
seen it before, not exactly this. Obviously, we've seen these
blow ups, you know, we saw it even in I
suppose the most recent or the two most recent I
was of Mexico last year, where he was doing all
(04:32):
sorts of silly things in battle with Lando Norris and
then in Austria last year, which I think was maybe
the reemergence of it after having things relatively his own
way in twenty two and twenty three of this kind
of I'm not even sure how exactly I want to
describe it. Impetuousness maybe, or a little brain snap in
the heat of battle. But the common thread in the
last few years, at least, when he's sort of established
(04:53):
himself as the title winner who can set the standards,
but obviously he is not without his flaws, is it's
It seems to me, it's when he feels like races
get away from him, when things are suddenly going against
him in a way he didn't expect. He thrashes around
a little bit and really searches at the bottom of
the toolbox for what he's got left, which is essentially
a hammer. And I think that that is interesting in
(05:14):
this race, because the story of the season for the
first eight rounds was that, all right, red Bulls on
the back foot. Max defending his title is probably a
little bit of a long shot. We don't know how
the season's going to evolve, but nonetheless he's going to
do it. He needs to rely on McLaren making some
mistakes but him being perfect, and he has been perfect
right rounds this season. I don't think we can look
back at any particular race and say he's got anything
(05:36):
other than the maximum of his car out of the
circumstances from it. And this weekend he gave away a
lot of points in a totally unnecessary moment of red
mist of rage. How we want to decide exactly his
brain snapped in that moment, And I think that's interesting
because until that collision, and I've been when I've written
(05:57):
this week on the Fox Sports website, I think this
weekend did finally snuff out his championship defense, now fifty
points behind or forty nine points behind, And it's not
the points margin so much as it is the context
of his car is just not competitive enough to come
back from that much, and at least what we've seen
so far, there was a title on the line in
my mind before that incident, and he blew it. And
(06:18):
I don't I don't think that should be blown up
too much because obviously he's won four titles, so we
know he can win them. But that just to me
seems so contrary to what we kind of understand to
be how he drives when a title is actually up
for grabs when he has a goal.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
And also too, you know, yeah it was it was
a long shot, but it was still a shot. Yeah,
And I think that's the context of what you're saying there,
and that, yes, a lot of things would have needed
to have gone wrong outside of anything he could necessarily
do something about to remain in title contention for this
enormously long season that we're only nine rounds into. But
there's a couple of points here, this whole thing of
(06:54):
basically fighting one on two every single weekend against McLaren
and an occasional Ferrari or an occasional Mercedes. But the
fact that it's him and him alone having to fight
this battle, you know, fighting two cars off with you know,
one with each hand over the course of these races.
That's got to be wearing to a degree. But the
other part of all of this is how much of
(07:16):
the behavior when things spiral like this, is a product
of the environment that he's in, Because you know that
if the shoe had been on the other foot and
he the team had felt that he'd done something wrong
or something on Sunday, Christian Horner would rock up to
the post race debrief with a bunch of print outs
and telemetory and grabs and do a whole there. Let
me show you what actually happened here. When something like
(07:38):
this happens, when Max is completely banged to rights, we
get absolutely nothing from Red Bull management at alls and
Max finished tenth and we squat at some points today,
there's no It's like having a child, right that just
behaves in a certain way, and you make allowances and
excuse that and enable that level of behavior, and when
(07:58):
they do something that is completely egregious, you turn the
other cheek. You know, when they've drawn with crayon all
over the wall, you start talking about how nice the
paint is rather than what the kid's done to it.
And so part of the way he reacted on Sunday
in Spain was, yes, that moment in an isolation, but
it's every other moment that you know, we have print
outs being brought to post raced reson. You think of
(08:20):
Mexico last year as a classic case with Lando Norris
and arguing the toss on those sorts of things. I've
forgotten which race it was earlier this year that Horner
did turn up with a bunch of prints. I think
it was Saudi guess with Piastri at turn one. That's right,
So you know that he's good for that. Once every
five or six races, the office photocopier gets a bit
of a bit of a bit of a run. But
you do wonder how much of this is the incident
(08:42):
in isolation and the frustration with a really good afternoon
going to waste through a circumstance that was triggered through
no fault of his own, no safety car. Is finishing
third at worst, and perhaps even second because he was
hunting down Norris quite nicely. How much of that is
frustration with the moment? And then how much of that
is knowing that you can behave a certain way because
you've been enabled to behave that way over a number
(09:04):
of years.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yes, Because as the one cast status of that team
tells you, the team needs him a lot more than
he needs the team. Yes, and that's enabled that environment.
There's one other element that I think is interesting that
I've sort of only struck me yesterday thinking back on
the race on Monday, and that is the George Russell
element of this. It's been the sort of quiet. I
(09:26):
don't even know if rivalry is the word I want
to use here. Quite feuge perhaps that we'd all forgotten about.
That kicked off last year in Kata, where he we've
a stap and blocked Russell on a qualifying lap. Wasn't
even actually on a qualifying lap. They're both on warm
up laps, but got a penalty that demote him to second.
Russell got onto Pole happened up winning the race, but
some really strong words exchanged between them. I actually went
(09:47):
back and had a look to remind myself of them,
and they were even stronger than I remember. George Russell's
talking about total loss of respect. Someone needs to stand
up to this bully. It's not the way this and
that and the staff and had his own responses there
as well. Clearly things have patched over. Is not really
what's happened. You know, they haven't fought each other again since,
but there's clearly still something simmering in the background. I
(10:07):
can't help but wonder had Russell hit him on the
straight and Lecler bumped him at the first corner, would
any of this have happened? And I think that's the
interesting element, not because of the well, we've got a
great fun rivalry. Maybe if Russell ever gets in the car,
it's good enough to compete with Maxim has happened. But
the fact that that probably was in his head and
influenced his decision making so long after the fact, I
(10:29):
think he is probably telling of the way he goes
about his business.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, completely, And because it was the third element of
a chain of things going wrong, because you had you know,
why am I on these hard tires? And then you're
having the side by side with Leclaire on the straight
after he miraculously save that snap coming out of the
last corner. And then when you're that, to quote David
Croft het up words that nobody else actually ever uses
bad thing to say to you, and you've got a
mouth of the coffee. But when you're that annoyed about
(10:55):
everything that's going on and then you get nerved off
at the first corner by George Russell, as in Tarlie
last year, George Russell, there was an incident in bak
who you remember where they had that conversation. In part
for me, there's a long history between these two so
that was a bit of a red rag to a
bull there for Stappen, But I don't know. I mean,
you do wonder. A lot of the greats in f
(11:15):
On history. This is another podcast. Quite frankly, I won't
go too long on this, but a lot of the
greats in f On history they have these sort of flaws,
of these gray areas in that you know, there's sporting
things or behavioral things, or temperamental things in that respect.
If Max is going to be one of the greatest
in the history of the sport, which I guess he's
in a conversation for in a career that's still active,
he actually fits in with a lot of these guys
(11:36):
because they all had their own their own foibles in
this regard. But I just find it incredibly unbecoming for
a guy who is as good as he is and
has been proven to be a winner as much as
he is. I just don't know if you can keep
lashing out like this. But I also think you look
at someone like Russell, like Russell knows he can wind
Max up at this point, Let's be honest, he just
(11:56):
has to be there and look at it and to
wide part and that is something that you know more
often than not, you know, axis in position to win
races or get podiums and it's not really really an issue,
but it can wind him up and it can be exploited.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah, I think so. I think that element comparing him,
and yeah, I don't propose to sick on this for
too much because it is really its own podcast from
of Max's position in the greats and why it's telling
that he has this one very serious flaw like they
all do. I get that because they're all world champion.
None of them are absolutely perfect. That's obviously clear. But
(12:31):
you know, so he's been liking, for example, other drivers
who have hit other drivers deliberately, which is what happened
to here. You know, you think back to Michael Schumacher,
and you think back to Aden Sener, right, but he
was fighting for fourth place in a race that has
no championship consequence. All those examples of drive of center
and Schumacher and striking other drivers were all at the
very minimum, to be fair to them, if you want,
(12:53):
in the heat of a championship battle, championship deciders usually
with your direct arrival, battling for the lead or for
the championship victory, not George Russell round nine to fourth
to keep yourself within one victory.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
That's completely right. And you think you know a race
that you and I often mentioned that we both sort
of hid behind our respective couches and watch the twenty
twenty one Saudi Arabia GP where that was completely unhinged
that race, But there was a title at stake with
all of the silliness that was going on with Max
and Lewis Hamilton that night, and I absolutely hated it,
but I understood it at the same time because the
(13:29):
stakes were so high Max was under siege from Hamilton
and Mercedes coming on at an incredible rate of knots,
and you know, Abu Dhabi and so on and so forth,
and then we all cry into our keyboards and then
we go with the rest of our lives. But as
you said, like it's round night and you're fighting for
fourth at the Spanish Grand Prix, Like what do we
actually do again?
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah, So it'll be interesting to see where this moment
shakes out over the course of the year. I mean,
like I say, I suspect that he'll play no real
role in the championship beyond probably interfering with the front.
Maybe I'll be proven wrong and be spectaculally if I were.
But yeah, where this fits into the Verstappa narrative is
a question for another time well down the road. Just
unfortunate this ended up coloring what had been such a
(14:11):
good race for Max Matt. Let's look now to move
of the week, brought to you by Shannon's Spanish Grand Prix,
the only race over the course of the weekend. And
like we've said several times, I was pleased with the
amount of racing we've got for a race that doesn't
offer a lot of racing usually, so very exciting there.
I've got a couple in my mind, but I'll let
you kick us off.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I reckon this will be on your list, so giving
you you've got a couple on going to steal probably
the best one. I'm looking at the lap chart here
on FOREX. Thank God for FORX when you haven't remembered
exactly what was going on in a race. But lap
sixty five, Nico Holkeenberg overtakes Lewis Hamilton, so I'll just
say that again. Nico Holkeenberg and a Souba overtakes Lewis
(14:52):
Hamilton in a Ferrari for sixth on the road at
the time which you're looking at it going, is this
just an Aston Marsham with some sun coming off?
Speaker 1 (15:01):
It?
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Is that? Why this green car is scrapping up the
front with a Ferrari. Unbelievable race by Hulkenberg generally, But
to get that done two laps from the end of
the race in a car that I'm il only thinking
it's his best race results in proudly nineteen or twenty
twenty something along those lines, and not a race result
or that owed itself to a heap of retirements or
(15:22):
a bunch of luck. He had an awesome first lap
and maintain the pace in that car. And these are
the races why you sign a Nicico Holkenberg towards the
end of his career, because once or twice a year
he's good for something like this. But to put a
move on a Lewis Hamilton driven Ferrari to take a
place at what ended up becoming fifth, becoming fifth after
(15:43):
Everstappen was penalized, extraordinary performance, but the absolute highlight of
his race. Now I know that was on your list
because I can see you nodding here. You clearly have
another candidate, So what have you got?
Speaker 1 (15:54):
He started fifteenth dis Deever, it wasn't even the best
sou of qualified.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Unbelievable race.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Trefenders also involves Nico Holkenberg, but his way earlier in
the race on lap two, in a battle with Fernando
or Alonso, was Alonso passing Holkenberg, although I do think
Hokenberg got him back immediately afterwards. But this was Alonso
around the outside of turn three, and it was just
if you look up a definition of what what does
an Alonso overtake look like, I think this is it.
(16:20):
He'd been, he had not had a great start, he
was pointless. This year is his home Grand Prix. I
think he's an ambassador of this race as well, just
in time for it to fall off the calm the
next year. I don't know what that says about, but anyway,
just this great move set up through turn two. I
mean we think in your mind you might think, well,
the Aston Martin, obviously that's a better car than this hour.
It's not really this year. In fact, the tied on
(16:41):
championship points at the moment. It's not that good a
car for him to hang on around the outside early
in the race. Not a lot of grip, a lot
at stake. I just thought there was such a gutsy
and great move, and it was great because you know,
this year we've been talking a lot about Alonzo looks
a bit down and out and has he a bit
passed it, Like is his motivation still there for a
car that's no good? And this was like, no, it's there,
(17:01):
He's still got it well.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
And I got all nostalgic about it, because if you
think about some of Fernando's most audacious overtakes and particularly
starts over the years, there's an absolute highlight reelmit magical
things he's done in that particular circuit. You remember him
in a Ferrari going down the out, going down the
inside with two wheels on the grass to overtake a
couple of red Bulls one year. But the best part
about it is that he had said that the Aston
Martin drs is not particularly good, so they can't pass
(17:25):
anybody on the strait. So it's almost like so I
just had to invent something, and you know you've beat
it that so you know what it's like, that is
no joke that corner there, that they are absolutely pinned,
and seeing him on the outside putting a move on
there because he figured that's the only place I can
get this done. Fernando in that sort of mode is
still one of my favorite things in Formula One because
(17:46):
it's so opportunistically cunning, and it's been a dreadful season
because they haven't managed to score any points. So for
him to put that overtake on and score some points
for the first time this season and do it at
home yet full marks.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah, very good, A great one of the highlights of
the Spanish Grand Prix, undoubtedly, though if you're Oscar Piastre,
the whole race, whole weekend was really a highlight, because
this was a very strong weekend for him. He re
extended his title lead to ten points after controlling the
Grand Prix, not really any point after FP one, if
you want to be generous, I guess, in which he
(18:19):
wasn't in total control, maybe with the exception of the
very first lap of Q three when Landon Norris just
pipped him thanks to a in Pastre's words, chiefy slipstream.
But this felt to me a lot like a return
to regular programming at the end of this triple header
after Monaco being well, Monaco really quite an outlier, and
I thought it was interesting that hearing Pastri speak afterwards
(18:40):
about obviously quite a good, comprehensive performance whatever, but talking
about how he's at the stage now where him and
team are just putting together the percentage points now, like
just trying to perfect this little thing here, this little
bit there, pulling them together, and suddenly you have these
weekends where he just really looks unbeatable, and I think,
correct me, I'm I'm trying to think back through the
(19:01):
course of the season, probably the first race in a
while where we've had a pretty direct head to head
between the two drives. I guess Miami we kind of did,
but there was a much bigger delay between them getting
past with staff and that influencing. This felt like a
much more head to head. Norris's on form, Piastre's on form,
and there was just no doubt.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Well, and that's those little increments. This is how you
build a world championship, isn't it? And it's the recipe
for anyone who's built a world championship in a season
where they're clearly is one dominant car. But isn't it funny?
Like we're eighteen minutes into the podcast and we've got
oh yeah, the Australian guy. And you know we've got
to a point now where you know we're not taking
(19:38):
this for granted. I mean, I think we were talking
about that stat yesterday. He's won five races this year.
It's the first time in Australian's won five races in
a year since nineteen eighty with Alan Jones, and I
think the only other time was nineteen sixty when so
Jack Brabham did it. So and we still have if
I'm doing my maths correctly, fifteen rounds remaining, which was
you know, twice the length of the twenty nineteen sixty season.
(19:58):
But anyway, but the point you made never in doubt.
It just never felt that once we got through Saturday,
and yes, Norris had that lap in Q three where
he got a bit of assistance from inadvertently from Piastre
down to Main Strait, but biggest pole margin of the
year and fantastic start. It was his race to lose,
(20:19):
but it never looked like he was going to lose it.
And to my mind, the only real threat was I
was thinking, look, ve Stappan's been so good on this
three stopper here there is an outside chance he can
get Norris here or at least make Norris think about it,
But there was never really a suggestion that Norris was
anywhere near Piastre. Once we got through, once Verstappan got
between the McLaren's off the start, this felt like a
(20:42):
race only Oscar could lose. But you never felt at
any point like he was going to lose it. And
yes you have to go through the late race complications
with the restart and the safety car and everything else,
but he handled that like an absolute pro as well.
It was just pretty much a mistake free weekend. And
the tiny increments you mentioned I couldn't help but think
about it when I heard that on Sunday. This is
(21:03):
the small pieces of the jigsaw that you just keep
putting in week by week by week from a position
of advantage. And I think the thing we keep forgetting
here is that he started this season effectively. After one race,
he was on the back foot in a two driver
fight for the championship because of what had happened in Melbourne.
I mean, he's been on podium everywhere now except Melbourne.
The Melbourne curse lives, but to redress that imbalance, So
(21:27):
what did he finish ninth? In Melbourne. So he's twenty
three points behind his teammate after one round and to
do what he's done in the eighth round, since even
with Norris winning Monaco, we knows the outlier of all outliers.
This just feels like the perfect, step by step, methodical,
very Oscar Piastre way of building a world championship league,
doesn't it. Yeah?
Speaker 1 (21:45):
I like we say being able to do that from
a position of advantage. I don't really I've never really
liked the phrase scoreboard pressure. It it's just pressure. It's ahead,
it's a point. But I think there is something in that,
isn't there where there's no pressure on him after that start,
after the being in twenty three points down now for
him to do anything, there's no catching up. And you
(22:06):
can even say his level, look regardless, ten points is
not very much, but it means he can really focus
on himself. Now there's nothing that he needs to focus
on other than his own game, and this was a
great weekend of him doing that and executing and finding
some additional little games. A little gains there, and I
think as well, I want to flip this around on
the Lando Norris perspective, because we talked about, yes, Monaco
being such an outlier of a Grand Prix in terms
(22:28):
of the way the cars work there, there's also an
element of a being a little bit of a driver's
outlier as well. You often see drivers excel there because
they're always very good at that kind of extreme track,
or some that just struggle. I mean, Piastre a great
race there last year, not so much this year. Norris
had a good race the year. This year we saw
a lot of the same Norris tropes this weekend, didn't
we We got to Q three, he looked pretty quick up
till their final Q three lap. He fumbles and he
(22:50):
can't continue to hold provisional. He loses his pole position,
falls behind Max. With Stappen at the start of the race, okay,
he was probably it was probably wise him not to
fight it too hard because he's got a lot more
to lose than Max does, clearly, but nonetheless that had
an influence him not being able to contend for the
rest of the race, and then all he could do
was finish second. It feels like we're back to where
we started this triple header, which is all the same
questions are being asked and all the same answers are
(23:11):
being given.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yeah, completely, And this is the way this championship is
going to play out in that I think there's going
to be more variance in what Norris does race by race,
week by week, simply because of the way that he
goes about it. And you do feel that of the
two of them, he is the one more susceptible to
drop the ball from a position of advantage, whereas I'm
(23:32):
not saying that Piastre is going to go mistake free
for the rest of the year. That's clearly not going
to happen, but it feels like a lower percentage chance
that that's going to happen. And I always think of
you know, I'm old enough and gray enough to have
covered Weber's career, and obviously Mark Weber's Piastre's manager. One
of Mark's many famous sayings was I will give nothing,
and that was something that Mark said all the time,
(23:53):
particularly when he was fighting with Sebastian Vattal and Oscar Piastri.
Gives you absolutely nothing to ship away out. Just rock sol,
keep pumping the results in. And yes, you mentioned that
championship leads back up to ten points. The way I
like to look at that is, he's outscored Norris by
thirty three points in eight rounds. And then you think
about the fact that they're in this car that clearly
is the best car on the grid, and I think
(24:14):
that margin's only going to be accentuated as the season continues,
because we've got the rule changes for twenty six and
the Stapham will opportunistically win some races because he's brilliant
and he's Max of Staphaen. But to my mind, any
other team winning a race right now would seem like
a massive outlier to me. So if Piastre really is
going to give nothing, and then you look at the
fact that some of these teams, some of whom have
(24:35):
already turned the tap off for twenty six and some
of whom will certainly start to before too long, it's
probably only going to accentuate that advantage. And then it
comes down to small margins between drivers in one dominant team,
and I just think Piastre has less variance. That's not
to say that he will be in front of the
rest of the way. There may be peaks and troughs
in that dnf's mechanicals getting involved in other people's accidents,
(24:56):
bad time, safety car, all sorts of things. So many
races still to go, so many races still to go,
but I feel there's less chance that he drops the
ball than Norris. To be honest, a.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Couple of things we should clean up on before we
wrap this one up, and that this was a significant
and he is a significant race in the championship because
he's where the FAA clamped down on what had become
the latest development rouphole, the flexibility of the front wings.
It's something that has been going on for a while,
but they decided over the off season that enough was
enough and the threshold for how much a wing could
flex was tightened up. All very technical, but some teams,
(25:29):
Red Bull Racing in particular, was hopeful that this would
be a turning point in the championship, not necessarily throw
the order completely upside down, but level it up and
suddenly they'd get their shot at McLaren and maybe haul
them back in in the way that McLaren had haled
Red Bull Racing in, or at least from MAXA. Stapfen's perspective,
give him a better shot at it. This was also
a track that should have suited Red Bull based on
the way they performed a dimlar in Saudi Arabia, Japan,
(25:51):
a lot of fast corners, but like you already said,
Piastri had the biggest poll advantage in qualifying and the
clap between McLaren and Red Bull was the biggest bit
between two teams in qualifying at the front since Australia.
And in the race. Okay, Max Fatham did really great
with the three stop strategy, but never challenged for the lead.
Maybe challenge for a second place and that would have
(26:11):
been an opportunistic one. Where does Red Bull go from here?
Is this the last shot for Red Bull Racing? Now?
I mean we've always talked about how Maxistappen's fallen so
far behind, and of course the other element of that
was Ferrari also hopeful they've got one big upgrade package
coming they reckon this season. It could yet be the answer,
but there wasn't a lot of I didn't seem much change,
to be honest.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Did you hear no? Sorry that sounds you. Here is
me printing lots of photos of front wings and sending
them to a Christian horner at Milton Keynes. It was funny,
wasn't it. It was seen as this in wa wait till
we get to Barcelona, it's all going to change and
all this McLaren advantage. I actually felt a little bit
sorry for you because I reckon you wrote thirty thousand
words on front wings last week and it turned out
(26:52):
to be the most irrelevant copy that No, not bagging
you here, but it was the most irrelevant suff you've
probably written. LL you quite frankly, because it made apps
absolutely no difference to the pecking order. It was a
combination I think of Well. I was interested because it
was Spain, because, as we discussed last week, like this
seems to be the track where a car's weaknesses are
(27:15):
really magnified. It's, you know, it's what the circuit of
Barcelona Cataluna is. If you've got something that's deficient on
your car, this circuit exposes that. So I thought we'd
get a pretty instant tell on what these new front
wing REGs were going to do. But the key thing
here that probably we should have considered more is we
knew this TD was coming in from Spain ages and
(27:36):
ages and ages ago. This is not one of those
things where you know there's a race two weeks earlier,
and so after this race this is all happening now,
and teams have got to scramble. Everyone knew this was
coming and everyone prepared accordingly. So what we ended up
with was a pretty similar order than we've seen most
of the year. Obviously a bit of so outlier business
going on, which was fun to watch, but in terms
(27:58):
of the whole hierarchy of the best team, the team
snapping at their heels and what happened after that was
a huge amount of difference, and it wasn't the great
catch all that Red bull were hoping for. And I
use the word hope because I'm not sure they really
believed it was going to be that much of a difference.
But you know, while there's life, there's hope, right, And
(28:20):
so you do wonder if a combination of Max dropping
so far behind pastre now in the Driver's Championship, the
fact that this hasn't had some massive reset of the order,
I wonder what it does for Red Bulls priorities for
the rest of twenty twenty five in that yes, they're
certainly going to be encouraging and doing everything they can
for a step and to win Grand Prix, and I'm
(28:41):
sure he will wins some but they've got bigger issues
for next year with a new engine supplier, and can
they actually find a competent driver in the second car?
Do they even know they have a second car? All
of the conundrums that come with Red Bull that the
next era they need to solve. If this season, as
far as winning anything meaningful as kind a wash. They're
our fourth in the constructors Championship. As we mentioned earlier,
(29:03):
you wonder what this race does for what they do
going forward, because this might be the race you look
back at and go, all right, we can't really win
anything this year. Maybe we need to start thinking further afield.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yeah, I mean maybe in a weird way. It takes
at least a little pressure off Yuki suod who qualified
last twentieth this weekend, because if there's no championship on
the line, I guess it doesn't matter that much if
he's not there supporting Max for staff. And but the
first time a Red Bull Racing cars qualified twentieth since
Liam Lawson in China, which was the race before he
was dropped back to Racing Bulls. I do just want
(29:34):
to wrap up on the championship position because I really
had to do a double take on this, Like we've said,
red Bull racing down to fourth, Okay, maybe not that
surprising as the Erring Max squad on any one point,
and there has been almost no points coming from the
other car at all. But Ferrari ufter second doesn't really
tally for me at all. A team that's scored I think,
just three podiums for the year, I'm right in saying
(29:56):
or with charl Leclair. Obviously Blewis han't got that sprint victory,
but springs aren't even worth that many points, and Lewis
Hamilton had another shocker this weekend was really despired. Morrey
has a desponded to we've seen him all year after
this race was overtaken, as we've highlighted, or any boy
Nico Hovesal at the very end. I'm sure there's clearly
something not quite right in the car, but that's not
(30:17):
necessarily a judgment on him having bad luck. The car
is also clearly not always that great. But I mean
the comparison to Leclair week to week now is is
pretty damning. I think it was this weekend as well.
I don't know what to make of that. I don't
know what to make of all of these teams behind McLaren,
I mean, all of them seemed to have some pretty
significant flaws in the overall season makeup. But for me,
(30:37):
Hamilton was the standout disappointment I suppose of this weekend.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah, and then you know you cash that by saying
that Ferraro is now second in the constructors. It's bizarre
is that we've had what merced has had. Kemmi Antonelli
not finished the last two races, so that certainly doesn't help.
Red Bulls are one car team. Williams didn't score a
point first time all season, second time all season, rather
in in Spain, so there are lot of things going on.
But yeah, you look at that Constructor's Championship means Soba
(31:03):
scored ten of at sixteen points in one race Weekend Alpine.
Now last, you know, the Franco Colopinto question is probably
another podcast because right now he's contributing about as much
as Jack do and did, which is not very much.
And so you know what is he three races into
his five year deal, five race deal, Michael apparently, But
so yeah, lots of changing going on. But I was
(31:24):
like you when I saw the Constructor's table on Sunday night,
I looked at Ferrari being second and figured that I
hadn't refreshed the page or something had gone gone haywire.
But you look at it and yeah, there's what twenty
one points between second and fourth in the constructors. But
each of them have fundamental flaws that they need to address.
And McLaren just sales on serenely with two cars bagging
(31:44):
big results.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yes, without one hundred and ninety seven point advantage. That
is the difference two cars make ten is it it?
Let's drop up now, Matt with the crystal ball brought
to you by complete home filtration. Really in the thick
of the European seas and three international categories with PUS
race coming up this weekend in Perth, what are you
going with?
Speaker 2 (32:05):
All right, I am going to look at two wheels
here because this is kind of my wheelhouse at the moment.
I'm looking at Aragon for Motor GP this weekend, very
very early for Aragon, this is normally August September time.
Of course, this is where Mark Marquez won his first
race for I think it was one thousand and forty
three days. I think I rose to one thousand and
forty three times last year when he won that first race,
(32:27):
motor GPS odd this year, and that you've got this
category that it still feels like a Ducati benefit. You've
had five different riders win the last five Grand Prix.
There's been all sorts of weirdness going on, raining at
Lemon Jones, Zarco winning, Marco Betzeki winning in Silveston. I'm
saying we're going to put an end to all of
that nonsense this weekend. And it's a track that turns
left and it's going to be Mark Marquees's territory and
(32:48):
I think he may look may make the others look
a little bit silly at Aragon this weekend as he
did last year. So I think order will be restored
and we'll see Marquees at the front of the field
in the Sprint and the Grand Prix. But it's a
weird time in the calendar because we've got the European
swing for Formula one and brackets insert Canada for some
random reason in the middle of that. So your crystal
(33:08):
ball could be very global here. So where are you going?
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yes? So, in fact, let me throw another sport into
the mix here, which is the Lamon twenty four hour,
which is in two weeks clashes with Canada, and the
reason I bring this up is, of course there's a
question mark over Lance Strolls involvement in the Canadian Grand
Prix because he's apparently having surgery on that arm that
he had surgery on a couple of years ago, following
whatever exactly happened to his arm over the course of
(33:32):
this weekend that forced him to withdraw from the Grand Prix.
The reserve driver is Felipe Dragovich, the Formula two champion
from a few years ago, has been the reserve driver
for a long time and boys he desperate to drive
in Formida Art. He's also racing in Lamont, which would
eliminate him from contention for this. I believe that means
that Aston Martin would prefer if Lance Stroll is not
(33:52):
going to be racing next week, to make a call
before this weekend, because I think that's when Dragovic needs
to confirm whether or not he's in Lahman the following weekend,
of course, probably the biggest definition motor race in the world.
This is what I'm predicting is going to happen. Man
larnstro is gonna have surgery. It's can go well. I
hope it goes well for him, But he's going to
admit he's not a Moto GP writer. He can't drive.
Felife Dragons is going to get in the car in Canada.
(34:14):
It's going to score one point. He's going to get
a phone call immediately from Helmut Marco. Oh, he had
racing balls after that, and then he's going to be
sacked six months later.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
As silly as that sounds, that is so in the
realms of possibility. Somewhere Nick de Freese is nodding his head.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yes, his oldest time.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
See, this is where I thought you were going with this.
You were going to say Drugovic was going to say,
I'm going to stay at lamm and the reserve reserve
driver is Stoffel van Dorn and he's also competing at Lamon,
and he was going to stay at Lamont. And because
there was nowhere else available, Valfrey Bothaus was going to
do a what off in the aston at Canada list.
That is the list. Yes, Daniel Kiveat is probably around
(34:53):
somewhere if you'd like to bring him in. But I
do like your crystal ball because there actually is a
slim percentage possibility, but a possibility nonetheless that this could
actually happen and you and I will just go, yeah,
of course I'll do that.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Yes, yes, So I think it cale has to be
made on that. I think it is this week because
I think there's some pre empty lemon stuff that happens
this weekend. There is, so we will know sooner rather
than later on how that is all going. But on
that note, it's all the time we've got for bittalk today.
You can subscribe to bittalk wherever you get your favorite podcasts,
and you can leave us a rating and a review
as well. This weekend it is the Aragon Motorcycle Grand Prix,
(35:27):
with lights out at ten pm Eastern on Sunday. There's
also the Perth Super four forty with racing on both
Saturday and Sunday. Two races on Saturday, one on Sunday
to wrap up the weekend. You can also keep up
to date with the latest F one, Supercars and MURDODP
news at Fox sports dot com dot Au. From Matt
Clayton and me, Michael Lomonado. Thanks very much for your
company and we'll catch you next week.
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