April 23, 2025 • 39 mins
Oscar Piastri is the first Australian to lead the drivers championship in 15 years after winning in Jeddah. Where has he found an advantage over teammate and preseason favourite Lando Norris, and can he sustain his momentum into the next phase of the season?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to Pit Talk, brought to you by Shannon's.
On today's episode, Oscar Piastre is the new championship leader
after winning the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, and Max Mstaffen
rails against the penalty that cost him a shot at
victory after cutting the first chicune. My name is Michael Lamonado.
It's great to have your company, and the company of
(00:20):
my co host. His body clock is about as cooked
as Christian Horner's photographic attempt to exonerate Max with Staffan,
It's Matt Mayton.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Michael, it's good to join you as always, But if
I don't like how this podcast goes, I'm going to
produce a series of photographs, bring them to our next meeting,
and then explain to you why you were wrong and
I was right. And maybe I'll call in a reserve
driver to do a reenactment of my Grievances Alex album,
which is still one of my favorite f on stories.
But great to join you, and we were discussing this
(00:49):
off air before. What are we going to do with
ourselves on a Sunday where there's no Formula one on
this weekend because there haven't been many of them.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
No, probably spend time with loved ones or something lame like,
because what do you do without formula on?
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Now?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I'm very much looking forward to the weekend off. I
know that's not always popular opinion, but after the last
two time zones we've had, I'm really pumped for no
formula on this weekend. But you won't have to wait
long for it to come back around. Miami is only well,
if you really want to count down, it's probably only
about ten days away.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
And not a bad time though, Miami, I've got to say,
because it scus nicely with the clock for us, doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yes, I'm a big fan of breakfast Grand Prix for
people who follow me here and elsewhere, and this very
much falls into that category. Six am. I think it
is maybe even o'clock anyway, that's probably next week.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
It should be more of it, Yes, should be more
of it.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Really great if you're in New Zealand. Two just by,
just by the bye. But let's look at the Saudi
Arabian Grand Prix. Momentous moment for Australian motorsport because we
have an Australian back at the top of the Formula
One World Drivers championship standings for the first time in
fifteen years. It's Oscar Piastre. After getting so close in Bahrain,
he did the deal in Saudi Arabia, starting second on
(01:55):
the grid, beating Max Forstappen to victory. We'll talk about
hold that Max Verstappen, first lap, first pass, and the
photographic attempt at to defend a little bit later on
the podcast, but I want to stick with the McLaren
and Piastre side of things here. It struck me, Matt,
that this was another very It was another Piastre performance,
wasn't it fundamentally very cool, calm and collected, Nothing too
(02:18):
exciting to quicken the heart rate. Nothing to out of
the ordinary or outlandish about this good move into the
first turn or a really great start really is what
fundamentally was. But this didn't actually feel like the absolute
comprehensive weekend it was and let's say China or even Bahrain.
In fact, it fell to me actually right up until
(02:38):
Q three when Lando Norris crashed and we will talk
about him in a moment. It was quite possibly the
second to quickest or the slowest McLaren driver this weekend.
Yet he's still walked away with the victory. How Signimian
do you think this result is quite aside from that
championship lead, but in the context of this maybe not
actually being one of the great Piastre weekend.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
No, I think it was good in that he won
a race in a different way. And you look at
the way he's won races over the course of his
Formula One career, it's often been from a position of
dominance that he's built on through Friday and Saturday into Sunday.
This wasn't one of those weekends. As you mentioned, Norris
looked to me that the quicker McClaren up until it
really mattered in Q three for stapp and took poll.
(03:17):
This wasn't one of those sailing serenely to victory displays
by him that we had seen that in Bahrain just
seven days before that. So I think the one thing
we are starting to notice with Oscar is that if
there is a door that's prized open, even a crack,
he's going straight through it and there's no apologies and
he's not going to hold back. So I think he's
become a driver that he will really make others pay
(03:40):
for their mistakes or their transgressions. You can't give this
guy sniff because if he gets his nose in front,
we know that it's very coolly executed from there. And
you mentioned before that it wasn't an absolute thriller minute
ride of a Grand Prix. These are the sorts of
races he wins. We've seen that in the past, but
it was how he got to that position to me,
that was different and it bodes well because it shows
(04:02):
that there's more sort of arrows in the quiver if
you like to win these races. And I mean not
two race wins in seven days and you know we're
already looking at this. Yes, he's in the lead of
the World Championship. First Australian to win back to back
Grand Prix in eleven years. I had to go digging
through the record books for that since Daniel Ricardo do
that in twenty fourteen. It feels very sustainable. But it's
(04:23):
good to know that he can win races different ways because,
as you said, until that last part of Q three,
it looked like maybe this is a podium weekend, but
then it became something a lot better.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, best run of form. I really tried to go
back in the Stat's book for this one by an
Australian since Alan Jones in nineteen eighty to eighty one,
who was the last Australian to have three wins and
a podium in that combination. Because it's three wins and
a third from the last four races for Oscopias, I
can forget about the result of the Australian Grand Prix
because it didn't happen. It was a ninth place where
(04:53):
I was playing along at home. And that's the interesting
equation for me, is that up until until this weekend, really,
if we're trying to look at pastre season as a whole,
admittedly still so early on in the campaign that phrase,
you know, winning your titles on your worst days, that
ninth place was kind of hanging over him a little bit.
There are circumstances about that. That wasn't a meritorious ninth. There
(05:14):
was him spinning off the road and sort of copying
the bad deal, getting stuck in the grass, whereas Norris
was able to slither back onto the road and rejoin.
But nonetheless that was the result that was kind of
weighing him down. This was in inverted commas, his bad
day and still emerged with a victory, and I think
that's what's really heartening about this. He'll have worse days,
(05:36):
presumably in which victory won't be possible, because he can't
be just performing an absolutely race winning form every weekend
when it does feel quite close at the front, if
not just with Lando Norris, but from at least some
race weekends red Bull Racing as well. But yeah, the
fact that the performance was still strong despite maybe not
everything being aligned that I think was really promising here
(05:57):
for him, And you can contrast that directly with Lando Norris.
Not everything was perfectly aligned for him, although it was
pretty close and wasn't able to pull out the results.
Let's look at that qualifying crash now for Lander, because
that really twisted this weekend in a different direction and direction.
They don't think we were anticipating it felt like it
was always a chance of happening, wasn't it. After the
way he talked in Bahrain, we were so down in
(06:18):
himself where he had a genuinely bad weekend there did
manage to get unto the podium. He wasn't as disappointed
after this crash. He felt like he'd sort of turned
things around. But these back to back and not big results,
losing the championship lead. I mean, that's now forming an
integral part of this narrative, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Well, it's forming a pattern. I think it's what it's forming.
I mean, you know, once you could say, is you
know it's a one off. Now it's either a coincidence
or the beginning of a trend with him here. And
I noticed the way he handled this one as well,
relative to seven days previous. And I wonder, if you know,
with a little bit of clarity and hindsight, whether he
looked at the way he reacted so publicly to the
Bahrain disappointment thought or maybe I need to pull this
(06:57):
back a little bit. And you know, you and I
had spoken on this podcast last week about the race
being played between the years is between the white lines,
and psychologically he might have prized open a little area
of vulnerability there for Piastre to capitalize upon. So I
do wondering how much of that response on Saturday night,
Sunday morning, whenever it was in Saudi, when you crash,
(07:20):
whatever time Australian time it was, how much of that
was tempering how he really felt. But this circuit, because
it is so extreme. It's a place where small mistakes
have very, very big consequences. Like Suzuka is a similar track.
You wouldn't necessarily put Saudi in Zuzuka in the same breath,
but because Saudi is so new, But this is a
place where one momentary lapse of judgment or an error
(07:43):
can completely define your entire weekend. It was a relatively
clean race weekend for big shunts, which always surprises me
with Saudi because when I look at this track, you
do feel like you're watching it with your fingers in
front of your eyes a lot at the time because
it is so high speed in all those blind corners.
But it defined the weekend. But the question I thought
for you was that, you know, we see that Piastre's
(08:03):
in the lead now and is the better of the
two McLaren drivers. I'm wondering if it's kind of been
this way all along, and that Australia ninth place and
just those two points that he had there really distorted
the championship picture of perhaps the gap between these two drivers,
because you know, small stakes, big consequences. That was very
different because of the rain belting down in the final
sector at Albert Park, and turned it into a bit
(08:25):
of a lottery. It feels like it's taken Piastre four
races to get back to probably where he should have
been after Australia. But on the whole he has probably
made fewer mistakes and looks like the most polished of
the McLaren drivers. It's just taken us to round five
for him to be where he could have been a
couple of rounds earlier.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, I think that's a good call, and you can
also see that in the obviously the raw points picture,
but when you consider how far behind he was in Australia,
it's been a thirty three point turnaround the Ansonia since then,
and that includes races in which he was behind Norris.
Obviously in Japan he lost points to Niros, but the
swing has still been strong enough to move him ahead
in just four race weekends. That's about eight point something
(09:01):
points a weekend, which is more than the differences been
first and second, which is interesting when we're talking about
still McLaren being just the fastest card. I haven't always
got the one two results a bit of a moot point,
but nonetheless it's been pretty much one way traffic in
Oscar's favor and yeah, I think to come back to
your point, it does feel like it's becoming a trend.
Whether Norris cracking is the trend or simply being overpowered
(09:25):
by Piastre is sort of the dominant trend. And then
that's just showing up in some mistakes or some Norris
mistakes are being shown up more vividly as a result
of that is something we'll learn over subsequent rounds. But
I thought, and it's an interesting point you made, sort
of has Norris exposed a little bit too much of himself?
I think that's going to be an ongoing question over
this year because if we don't see more of that,
(09:45):
I think that will be an obvious change of attitude
from him, because that has been the way he's gone
about his business psychologically for as long as he's been
in the sport. Really, if suddenly he closes up that,
you will have to conclude that is a conscious decision.
You're speaking to Dutch media. I think who asked him
after the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix if we be participating in.
(10:06):
I think he's at the Dutch National Day, King's Day
or something like that in the next week. If you
cast your minds back at twelve months, there was footage
of him on social media partying on some boat a
few days before the Miami Grand Prix, injured his nose.
He turned up with a bandage. He did win that race,
so we can't be too critical of him. But he
then revealed he's chosen now because of this title fight,
to stop drinking entirely that we know partying, he's really
(10:29):
knuckling down. That's obviously lauda bull like. He's taking it
very seriously. He's looking for every percentage game. But it's
also a little bit of information, isn't it That he
feels like to overcome anyone in this title fight, and
he does expect Maxis happen to be in the mix,
and I think that's fair enough. But he's had to
change himself from previous years, and if he's still coming
up a little bit short after that against Oscar who,
(10:50):
as far as we know, because he gives nothing away,
he's just doing the same thing he's been doing his
whole life, which is just turning up, driving fast and
going home. That's sort of another little interest peace to
the puzzle I think still has to unplay in that,
Like you say, what's eventually going to become a psychological
battle as well as one just on the track.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Yeah, I mean it's interesting, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
For all? Weeno Piastri could be off, you know, just
finding some Dutch ancestry from VIO four and going out
having his own party on a boat and carrying on
and hitting his own nose on something, but he's less
likely to tell you about it. And I think that's
just the interesting approach with the way these two guys race.
And I covered a lot of Mark Weber's career and
one of Mark's sort of go to phrases among the
(11:30):
fifteen on your Bingo car that he would go through,
he said he was always he would always say I
will give nothing, you know, which means I'm giving absolutely
nothing away to anybody, meaning you blokes, which was the
media and any of his opponents. He wasn't going to
give you any piece of information that could be used
as a weakness or turned against him, will provide any
fodder that might sort of unseat his sort of rock
(11:51):
solid foundation. We know the way that Mark went racing,
which was to if he didn't have a quarter to
fight out of, he get out of paint Rush and
paint one for a five out of it is the
way he used to go about it. But Oscar's got
a very different mental approach. But I love the methodical
nature of what he's doing at the moment relative to
the peaks and troughs of the Norris roller coaster, and
(12:13):
the fact that you know, there's been a couple of times,
you know, all the car has been a bit difficult
to drive this week.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
He's no, that's fine.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
You know, he'll very subtly downplay things now, whether that's
just being him being completely honest and unfiltered, or whether
it's just another little opportunity to throw a little jab
in there perhaps to be different to the way Norris
is reacting to these things. That will probably never know
because he's never going to say. But the thing you
mentioned about Norris making adjustments, there's an admission there that
(12:40):
what I have done in the past is either not
good enough or I need to be better in certain
areas to get on terms with this guy and the
other garage, who outwardly is going to project nothing that's
going to be vulnerable. And I think we've just seen
that in the way he's raced over the past few
weekends and look for a guy we obviously know he's
got the Judy Series pedig Piastre, but he's not done
(13:01):
this at this level because he's not been around long
enough to do it.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
But he's got all of.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
The qualities and says the right things of someone who's
been in this numerous times. He's acting like a guy
who's twenty eight years old that's been in three championship
battles already, not a guy who's in this for his
first time. And I think that boats really well because
you know, we know this seat, there's nineteen more rounds
to go and five more sprints. This seague will go forever.
We're a long long way from the finish line. But
(13:27):
if he can keep that consistent, if that's just one
thing in his bag that he does the entire way through,
that is going to boat really well.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
I think, Yeah, there's another one of those little Piastre
you know, is of my honest yeah, maybe a piastre
ism where he was told Lando Norris said in the
TVPN after the race that he thought the Red Bull
Racing car is actually faster than Piastri And no, I
don't think so I think.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
And the thing I do love about him here as well.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
There's an economy of words with him as well, in
that whatever it is that's in the forefront of his
mind comes out, but then he doesn't feel the need
to really expand upon it, and there's often an uncomfortable
silence at the end of one of his quite short answers,
which is terrible for TV of course because dead air,
but it also makes the point there's like nothing more
to say, move on, and psychologically I think that's quite
(14:13):
interesting as well.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yeah, so plenty more to play out over that, but
certainly Piastre is going into this. It's not really a
little break, it's just a conventional one weekend off, but
after five and six it feels like a little mini
break the season before we head to Miami and then
the European part of the campaign. He ends up in
this break ahead in not only the championship but in
that little McLaren inter team battle. Before we move on
(14:35):
from this victorious race for Rosco Piastre, of course, we
have to go to Move of the Week, brought to
you by Shannons just the one race to recap this weekend,
The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix not absolutely boasting much passes.
It wasn't one of the action packed races. Was a
little bit ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix I suppose
(14:56):
at least, although not a lot, and it didn't have
that appeal of it being Suzuka. I don't know about you, Matt.
I've got to admit I struggled to identify hitting you
the corners on television at this circuit from one of
the other I couldn't agree more. But why do you
kick us off? What was your I can just smect
I know what it's going to be, but what was
your move of the way.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Well, I'm going to do here. I'm going to try
and attempt a professional segue and set you up for
the next segment that I actually don't know what it is.
So this is me just throwing on in the air
and seeing what happens. But to my mind, move of
the week in Saudi there can only be one, and
it was lap twenty one when Oscar Piastri, after having
made his pit stop, stormed his way past Lewis Hamilton
(15:34):
and made Lewis Hamilton look like a guy who was
in his first Formula One season, not his nineteenth or
whatever it is, with an unbelievable pass through one of
those hard to identify sections of the Saudi Racetrack where
you go, I'm not quite sure what corner we're in,
and we've gone through it so quickly that we've gone
through three others before I've worked it out. But to
my mind, there was and it was quite I use
(15:54):
the word arrogant in a really endearing way here, because
there was just this I can put this car past
you wherever I should used to.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
I love the pass.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Because I don't think he needed to make it there,
but he chose to make it there, and there was
just this sort of flex about it, as like I
can just pass you here and there's nothing you can
do about it. Yes, we're on different strategies and I'm
going to pass you eventually, but I'm going to pass
you there, and it's not a place where you see
people attempt to make passes. I love the audacity of it,
but I also love just the complete belief and the confidence.
(16:23):
So for me, that was overtake of the week. But
I'm thinking there's one other overtake on the low hanging
on the tree of overtakes that you might decide to
pick off here because it kind of was if you're
going where I think you're going. It kind of defined
how he got to this point in the race, didn't it.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yeah, I mean it's very straightforward to what look before
I pick more renevotably it's going to be, which is
Oscar Piastre technically passing Max with Steffan at the first
she came, I said technically because he was judged to
have done it but didn't emerge with the lead. I
do want to go back a step because the Hamilton.
The pass on Hamilton was really interesting for another reason
to sort of go back to our previous segment, which
(17:02):
is that it came after he'd actually put up quite
a big defense Hamilton or Lando Norris in the first
into the race round about lap twelve to fifteen. I
think it was off the top of my head, which
I think actually defined Norris's race because he lost something
like four to five seconds from memory battling Hamilton there,
and he was only one second behind Charlock there at
the end of the race, So potentially that was where
his podium went missing, although we don't know if he
(17:23):
would have been able to pass their care of course, and
it's interesting for two reasons. One is that Hamilton defended
by playing with that DRS zone. You might this happens
every year. Really, the most famously happened in this race's
first year when he was battling with Maxistafan to try
and equal the title lead, and they almost crashed, or
they did crash in fact, didn't they playing with that
DRS zone at the final corner. I think it is
(17:46):
managed to hold off Norris for quite a few laps
by playing that game. It took Norris, to my mind,
too long to realize that was happening and as a
result lost time. But what was really interesting is that,
as I understand, is that the Norris's race engineer identified
that when Oscar Piastre is coming up behind Hamilton told
the team whatever, and Piastre was told this, and I
(18:07):
can't help but wonder whether he's like, oh okay, and
then subsequently just chose to pass Hamilton way before that
catch him by surprise in order to not get caught
up in that game. So maybe there's a little bit
of knowledge there. I think you're right, he just chose
to pass him wherever he wanted to because he had
the speed, he knew he could do it. But it's
sort of interesting that he did something that Norris wasn't
able to sort of work his way out of quickly
(18:27):
enough and there you go. He managed to make that
pass that was potentially decisive in keeping himself ahead of
a stap And at the end of the race. But yes,
the overtake I think for me has to be that
first corner because he did everything he needed to do
to make the overtake, even though he didn't get ahead
of a Stappen, because the Stappin cup that he came
great start from him. We've got to remember starts to
mclan were pretty ordinary more often than not. Last year.
(18:48):
Just absolutely nailed it at one of those tracks where
second is occasionally in a better position than Paul and
he capitalized on it. And good on here. But the
race winning move asterisk.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, well there's two things here. Do we think that
pole position is on the wrong side at Jedda because
I've maintained that it has been since day one, because yes,
it's not the racing line, but it is the only
line in the first corner. And I'd have to go
back and have a look at the other race starts
there to see if similar things had happened. I mean, look,
Piastri absolutely now that start and Vestapen was a little
bit tardy off the line, that's all that. That's all
(19:21):
it ended up being. But there was a bit of
a degree of inevitability about that first corner, because well,
we've seen how Verstapen rolls in situations like this, and
I don't know about you, I wasn't surprised that it
played out this way. I was a little bit surprised
as to how Red Bull responded, but perhaps you can
go into that. And because I thought they actually had
(19:44):
an immediate opportunity to redress that and give Vestapan a
chance to win the race by not redressing that first
corner and then the subsequent safety current, the way the
race played out, it only ever seemed to me like
Verstapan was only going to finish second, whereas if they
actually addressed it on the first lap, he could have
potentially still won that Grand Prix because he wouldn't have
(20:04):
snooked himself strategically. But I wonder what you thought with that,
because I thought they took one of their own options
off the table. In a bit of a fit of
you know, how dare this person pass me? And I
was forced off the track? Perhaps they should have played
that a little bit more cleverly.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yeah, it's really interesting, isn't. Because one of the questions
I've been asked a couple of times this week is
why didn't they just give it? Why? More to the point,
why weren't they told to hand it back? Because there
was a period of time in Formula One where that
was happening all the time. We'd hear the radio messages
on the TV saying, oh, race controls told us give
the position back because you'll probably get a penalty. And
Formula One moved away from that a couple of years.
(20:36):
I think, didn't they where the race director or race
control no longer intervenes in that way. In fact, I
think it's a policy from even two race directors ago.
That's probably more of a commentary and how quickly were
going through race that's ten minutes ago exactly. That doesn't
excuse that doesn't explain why they chose not to. It
just explains why they weren't told to. And I'm sort
of in two minds about that. On the one hand,
(20:57):
I think it's clean off. Race control intervenes a little bit,
and we just avoid time penalties being part of the
race because particularly the case if this was in the
second stint, obviously wouldn't be the start of the race
that way, but then you'd be adding up the seconds
after the flag and Max would across the line first,
we finishay or whatever, And I think that's a bit messy.
But on the other hand, I do like the idea that, well, no,
it's up to the driver and the team to make
(21:18):
the sporting call one way or another and then live
or die by that decision. And they didn't. And if
you want to be generous, you could say, well, the
safety guard came out so fast they didn't even really
have a chance to weigh up those options to think
too much about it. Like, I kind of buy that,
but I also don't get the impression at all from
the team that they were ever going to do that,
particularly not by the silly and strident defense of Christian
(21:39):
Horner after the fact. Now, of course it was after
the fact, but I don't get the impression at all
they would have done it. Max, with Staffan's response after
the race, suggests that he wouldn't have been open to
it either, and maybe there's something in that. Maybe Red
Bull thought, well, maybe we should ask him, and then
they said to know, he's just he's not going to
do it. He's going to embarrass us. Let's not do that.
So sort of interesting two ways to think about it.
But the let's start with the MAX sided this before
(22:03):
we talking about Christian Horner. We can build up to
this photographic defense. But we've seen it before from him,
isn't It's not just like you say that we've seen
it this track before. This is a well known MAX tool,
isn't it. And it's something we've seen before. And I guess,
to be fair to him, in previous years he's been
allowed to get away with moves like this. No longer
according to these new unpublished driving guidelines is that allowed
(22:25):
and these were changed after last year. But it's sort
of interesting to see a driver lose one of their weapons.
And I think that's sort of part of the story here.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Yeah, very much so.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
I mean, I think you can't blame him for attempting
to exploit a loophole in the rule book. That's what
formula one's all about, quite honest, it's not what the
Formula one rule book says, it's what it doesn't say,
and that sort of determines how you go racing. Where
there are gray areas, they are there to be exploited.
And yes, we've had this amendment to the rules around
this because Max has that have turned into a bit
(22:55):
of an art form. I thought it was interesting, Well, A,
we know that he goes by this code, He's done
this before, so I was a little bit surprised that
maybe there wasn't a pre planned response within the team
because the chances of that happening at the first corner,
if for Stapen wasn't in front, I would have thought
were quite high, as simply because this is the way
he this is the way he races.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
But I don't know.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
About you, but the way they handled it in the
moment and then afterwards, particularly with the Christian Horner's family
photo album coming to the post race press conference, how
much of that was a team not willing to have
that difficult conversation with a very adamant driver. If you
had another team and another driver in that position, would
they have handled it the same way? I would suggest not,
(23:39):
because there's this obsession with plaicating the Verstapen persona in
this respect. You knew that he was going to be
annoyed about it. You knew he was going to fire
up about it, and you know that's not the time
to perhaps sell the bigger picture with something like this,
Whereas I'm thinking, if it's Mercedes and it's George Russell,
or if it's Good Lord of Ferrari's on the front
and or Rover Race if it was Ferrari, what are
(23:59):
their drive? Is that a difficult conversation and is the
person behind the wheel potentially going to be more reasonable
in the way they addressed that, or is this purely
that particular driver in that particular team with the subtext
of everything else that's going on behind the scenes, and
they desperately need him right now because they're not where
they were, and so on and so forth. I wonder
(24:20):
if another team and driver would have handled it differently, because,
as we were saying before, I just think that had
you've addressed that on lap one, he may still have
finished second in this Gral Prix to Piastre. We just
don't know if that McClaren was faster in Cleve Air.
We know it was another race really dictated by dirty air,
but when they didn't elect to address the first corner
(24:41):
and then the race played out once the safety car
had gone off the track, to my mind, it was
only ever going to be a case of a stuff
and finishing second. I don't think that he he boxed
himself into a corner, perhaps through his own sort of
adamant nature or stubbornness on this. But look, I know
you're dying to talk about Christian Horde's photos here. I'm
trying to think the Silverstone twenty twenty one was the
(25:03):
first time I seem to remember this happening, but there
have been some others where they will come. Anytime you
come to a post race press brief with props, I
think it's in a completely different, really different category of
press de brief. But what did you think about that?
Because to me it was a little bit half hearted almost.
I'm not sure they quite believed what they were selling
(25:24):
in that regard, but they were going through the motions
and the theatrics of it because they needed to on
a level more than actually thinking it might work.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Yeah, the last one I remember is him is Christian
Horner whipping out some telemetry last year in I.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Want to say Mexico, Mexico.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah, Mexican being a penalty you got for pushing Norris
off the track, I think yes, and the exact same thing.
And now this is a real if anyone next time
this happens, because there will be a next time you
play this game at home, because it will happen. Is
this is exactly how it plays that he walks here,
he does his press comerence, these photos of the celemety
or whatever is the smoking gun. He says, here is
the black and white evidence. He has his little speel
(26:06):
about this and that, and then the question comes, so
are you going to appeal? And then he says no,
I don't think so. So it's like all this evidence
you've got to all you an interesting evidence, but it's
not worth appealing, which tells everything you need to know
to go back to your point about how genuine this
was an attempt at a real defense of the move
(26:27):
as opposed to appearing to be on the side of
your driver. And what's clearly a nonsense argument because there
have been times as well, and you can always tell
with Christian Horna in the past when the I don't
want to say the relap. The relationship was less fractuos
because I don't think it's a personal relationship problem. It's
purely just the tenuousness of Vestapan's long term future at
Red Bull Racing. At Horner's trying to move around now,
(26:49):
I meantimes when you could see he knows his drivers
is in the wrong. This happens in the wrong, and
he says, ah, you know he suspenses always are it's
probably just a racing incident. Yes, to come out with
photos is you can see he's taking this to another
level when I couldn't find anyone anywhere and I still
am yet to find anyone anywhere who thinks that the
staffen should have got away with that move, because the
(27:09):
logical extension is, well, then you just do that every
time you're being overtaken, you just cut the chicne, you'd
open the brakes, which is what Max did to try
to get to the apex first in inverted Commas, despite
the fact he had no intention or no capability of
making the corner and then arguing the point afterwards. And
that's the there's sort of this irony in the photograph
Christian Horner did choose, which is an onboard photograph and
(27:31):
you can see it areous journalists are published it online.
It shows shows Max for Staffan's front actual ahead of
Piastre's front axle at what he says is the apex
of the corner. Ironically, the racing guidelines, and this was
quoted in the steward's documents, say it doesn't have to
be front axual ahead to claim the corner app to
be ahead of the mirrors, because I think, I guess
(27:51):
that's sort of like the driver's eye line view. And
the photo shows the Piastre is ahead of the Staffan's mirrors.
So all Christian Horner's photo has done is proved that
the stewards were correct in their interpretation of the rules.
And it also shows that Max has no chance of
making that conducause if you didn't look at the replay,
or if you looked at the telemetry which Christian Houna
didn't print out, you see that he was never going
(28:11):
to make that corner, that he'd chosen early enough not
to make it.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Funnily enough, the telemetry didn't make an appearance at the
press conference when it has in previous cases. But I
go back, so it was Mexico where Max was doing
this on multiple quarters, multiple times because things were getting
a little bit unhinged last year.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
But we can go back to Saudi in twenty twenty one.
You referenced it before.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
That was an absolutely insane race because of Max's complete
refusal to even allow anything other than a reasonable overtake,
and you know we had the braake testing incident in
the DRS zone and all of that nonsense. That race
was completely unhinged because of the way that rule was
being exploited. That really crossed the line that night from
being a genuine sporting race into some sort of bizarre,
(28:53):
you know, not particularly funny comedy. It was ridiculous at
that point. But you yes, you can see the photos.
That's fine, But there's Piastre's on the inside and he's
got the corner. If you just roll out of the
break and go straight on because there's a bitch of
a run off on the outside, then yes, you are
going to be in the next corner sequence. When you've
got a switchback term one like you do it in
Saudi Arabia, you're going to be the car ahead and
(29:15):
you can always do that. Well, he pushed me off
the track, how much break are we using at this point.
That's what the still photos don't tell you. And so
if that's going to be the way he operates in
situations on first laps where he's going to be passed
and you can just flick through the circuits in your head,
you know, the ones where this could potentially be something
that comes up. Then you know, this is why we
have tweaks to rules. But I do wonder if the
(29:38):
photo producing element of all of this was just a
bit of a well, we'll just kind of try it on.
But if it doesn't work, and it's probably not going
to at least we've got our guys back very publicly,
and it can be look, you know, we support you
no matter what. You know, Please don't go elsewhere if
we don't give you a nice car, etc. There was
a little bit of that because it was I'm not
(29:58):
sure they quite believed it, but they went through with
it anyway.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yes, yeah, exactly right. I think that really sums it up. Well,
there's one other element that I'm it's a bit of
a hobby horse for me, and Christian Horn was the
only one I think left using the phrase let them race.
People have been watching Formula one for a little longer
or not even that long, really dating back to late
twenty tens and into twenty twenty one when it really
hit its peak. Let them race was a philosophy of
(30:24):
governing racing essentially, and this was it was really, really
was pre pandemic because it was instituted, if memory serves, essentially,
when F one felt like it was in a little
bit of a rut, the sages winning everything, people thought
the sport was becoming a little bit stale. Let them
race was a real loosening of the racing guidelines to
allow more of this kind of stuff where you know, okay,
race a little bit with a bit more instinct, a
little bit less race control intervention. But it hit its peak,
(30:50):
as I said in twenty twenty one, when you've got
races like Saudi Arabia, even the flash points in Brazil
between Hamilton and Verstapen. It was usually between Hamilton Verstapen,
things just became a little bit unhinged and a little
bit out of control. And let them races subsequently been
wound back as a concept because the drivers are much
(31:10):
more willing now to allow a little bit of intervention
from race control to ensure consistency most importantly, but also
just the rules of governor. And we go back to
it was again Mexico, or after Mexico last year, or
around between the US and Mexico last year. But the
drivers had a meeting with race Control, and you remember
that nineteen of twenty of them agreed that we needed
tighter rules. And you can guess who the twentieth was,
(31:31):
him be Staffen. And that's fine, like he's got his
own opinion, he's perfectly entitled to it, but let them
race is now so out of step with the approach philosophily, philosophically,
with the way the sport's going that I thought Christian
Horner bringing that up was just a bit disingenuous or
at best a little bit dated, and it just is
not the way the sport's moving at the moment. Now
(31:52):
you can argue that it should go back that way
if you like, that's fine, but I think that sort
of almost sums up the problem when we approach some
of my stappens. This is by no means the most egregious.
He hasn't been doing anything too wacky this year yet,
But to keep arguing for an approach that has been
actively moved away from, largely because of the actions of
your driver. Actions like this just feels like it misses
(32:14):
the point, and I do wonder whether we're going to
get more of this this year. I think Max starting
from the back foot means we're probably not going to
see the kind of elbows out stuff we saw last
year when it felt like he was losing a bit
of momentum relative to Norris. I think he's a little
bit more knuckled down when you know he's a little
bit fighting from a corner. But we'll wait and see.
It's remains to be seen. I thought his reaction after
(32:35):
the race was actually a bit surprising, to be honest.
But there's yeah, there's a lot going on there that's
more than simply a driver and a team being unhappy
with a penalty.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Before we move on, because we could talk about this
for another three hours. There's two things that I thought
of here. Modern day circuit design, where you don't have
grass or gravel on the outsides of turn one anymore,
so that allows this sort of thing to become more prevalent,
particularly straight tracks. You mentioned in Telagos in twenty one.
Also that year it was at a particular corner of
that circuit. There's not a lot of runoff on a
(33:04):
lot of the corners at Intelargos, but where that was
going on down at thirty four, that's where there's the
biggest runoff of the circuit. So no great surprise there.
They're both like four miles out in the tarmac runoff
out there.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
There's that part of it.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
But I'm wondering, now we would need to put ourselves
in a situation where someone had outmaxed Max and done
something similar at the first corner from a position of advantage.
This generally happens with the stapp and when he's a
position in a position of advantage a in the championship
last year, as you mentioned, when he was desperately hanging
on B in this race because he was on pole,
he wasn't second. If someone does to him what he
(33:37):
has done to someone down the track, I'll be very
curious to see what his response is, and I'll be
very curious to see what the team's response is and
Christian Horner's response. But then I'm thinking about this, and
I'm struggling to think of too many situations where someone
is going to be as I guess provocative and push
things as much as this. I don't know if we've
got someone that's going to fight like that against him necessarily,
(33:59):
particularly this season where the RedBull clearly isn't the quickest
car and he's out performing the expectations of what it
should be doing. But if we get that situation, I'll
be super curious to see how it's handled and if
any photographs get brought to the lust races.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Yeah, it's a good question. I think I'm struggling to
think of any drivers who really take it to or
pass the limit in some cases as Max does. We
don't know, because, for example, Oscar Piastri hasn't had that
much time at the front, and other drivers too. I
feel like Oscar Piastri might be his sternest test. We
know Lando Norris doesn't like to race like that. He's
been explicit about that it's not the way he wants
to go about it, but sometimes that changes, you know.
(34:36):
The last and I'm sure there have been other examples
of it, I'm completely sure, but the last one that
springs to mind is twenty twenty one, funnily enough, and
the Abu Dhabi finale, where if memory serves Vstaffan was
on the inside, Hamilton was the outside. I can't remember
the corner and it wasn't quite like this, but Verstaffan
kind of claimed the corner and Hamilton cut the corner,
(34:57):
and in that year of let them race, the steward
said that's fine, and Max was very unhappy about that
at the time. Obviously winning the championship meant he didn't
care too much after the fact. But you know, the
shoe was on the other foot, has been on the
other foot before, and at that time Red Bull and
Max thought, all, maybe that rule needs to be tightened up.
So I know that's going back quite a few years.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, first lap into the back straight, I remember it well.
I've tried to remove most memories of twenty twenty one
from my memory. Not one of the great nights, I
would have to say, A working and B for Formula one.
But yeah, you're completely right. The shoe was on the
other foot then, but with the rules being adjudicated as
they were then, then it was a play on nothing
to see here, so interesting.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Well, let's see sir looking backwards, Matt and look forwards
a little bit more forwards in fact, because it's time
for the crystal Ball brought to you by Complete Home Filtration,
looking forward to a non f one weekend. But of
course there are no limits to the predictions we make
in this segment. So why do you kick us off, mat.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Hm because I'm in my two wheelheadspace today. Has got
the Spanish Motor GP coming up this weekend. Ducati could
equal Honda's most number of consecutive wins by one manufacturer
in Grand Prix racing this weekend twenty two races in
nineteen ninety seven and ninety eight. Jucati currently on twenty one.
So is there going to be anyone that beats to Cati.
(36:15):
I'm going to say no, and they're going to equal
that record. But my crystal Ball of the week is
I bel I feel that Herrath is really a Yamaha track,
no real massive straits like we've seen in the past
couple of rounds in Qatar and in Austin. So my
crystal ball has a Yamaha on the podium of the
Motor GP race in Harrath, and I would love to
(36:36):
say it's going to be Jack Miller, but I think
it's going to beat Fabio Quatturo.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Either way, I think it would be a good story.
Fantastic a Yamaha getting back on the podium. Yes, I
really thought you were going with this. Was Dakati going
to before they get the final hurdle here of equaling
the record.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Well, that would just be a nicer story, that would
that would be very very silly. I think short of
there being a deluge Vrain, I think Dukati keeps winning
races until they change the rules for twenty two years aver.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
That's I'm going to take one step backwards to go
two steps forwards here. I'm going to make a prediction
for the Miami Grand Prix which based very much on
what we've learned from Saudi Arabia, which is that Lance
Stroll is going to extend his record of Q one
knockouts to seventy six. This is a little record that
I think when someone under the radar at the weekend
that no driver in F one history or in the
(37:21):
history of this qualifying format obviously has been eliminated in
Q one more than Lance's Stroll, which is not the
kind of records you want. He surpassed Kevin Magnuson, He's
the previous record holder on seventy four. Obviously, and it
was interesting. He's defense afterwards, well, of course I'm not
driving a great car, which I'm sure his dad wouldn't
have been tough to hear about. But then someone's done
(37:43):
the maths. I think I should probably credit the race here.
Compared him to his teammates over the years, and he's
essentially been knocked out in Q one twice as often
as they have, and his teammates combined have made Q
three the top ten by roughly the same number of times,
seventy five, seventy something like that, So not a great
excuse he it's the shame. I actually thought he started
(38:05):
the season quite well, but the last few races have
been very dare I say vintage Lance.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Oh Man as career epitaphs go, that's yeah, pretty a
grim and be appropriate. But we're talking about low hang
you fruit before I think that's actually on the ground
and you've just picked it up. You haven't even picked
it off the tree at this point.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
But no fair play.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
It's the surest fire crystal ball prediction either of us
has made so far, So I do like your chances
so much.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
On the ground, it's it's pretty much a.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Potato decomposed yes.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
It's decompussy. Well, on that note, that's all the time
we've got for Pittalk today. You can subscribe to pittok
wherever you get your favorite podcasts, and you can leave
us a rating and review as well. This weekend, just
one race. It's the Spanish Motorcycle Grand Prix and it's
at the very civil time of ten pm Eastern time
on Sunday night. You can keep up to date with
all the latest F one, Supercars and Moto GP news
(38:55):
at Fox sports dot com dot are you from Matt
Clayton and me Michael Lomonado. Thanks very much for your
company and we'll catch you next week.
Hello, and welcome to Pit Talk, brought to you by Shannon's.
On today's episode, Oscar Piastre is the new championship leader
after winning the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, and Max Mstaffen
rails against the penalty that cost him a shot at
victory after cutting the first chicune. My name is Michael Lamonado.
It's great to have your company, and the company of
(00:20):
my co host. His body clock is about as cooked
as Christian Horner's photographic attempt to exonerate Max with Staffan,
It's Matt Mayton.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Michael, it's good to join you as always, But if
I don't like how this podcast goes, I'm going to
produce a series of photographs, bring them to our next meeting,
and then explain to you why you were wrong and
I was right. And maybe I'll call in a reserve
driver to do a reenactment of my Grievances Alex album,
which is still one of my favorite f on stories.
But great to join you, and we were discussing this
(00:49):
off air before. What are we going to do with
ourselves on a Sunday where there's no Formula one on
this weekend because there haven't been many of them.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
No, probably spend time with loved ones or something lame like,
because what do you do without formula on?
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Now?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I'm very much looking forward to the weekend off. I
know that's not always popular opinion, but after the last
two time zones we've had, I'm really pumped for no
formula on this weekend. But you won't have to wait
long for it to come back around. Miami is only well,
if you really want to count down, it's probably only
about ten days away.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
And not a bad time though, Miami, I've got to say,
because it scus nicely with the clock for us, doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yes, I'm a big fan of breakfast Grand Prix for
people who follow me here and elsewhere, and this very
much falls into that category. Six am. I think it
is maybe even o'clock anyway, that's probably next week.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
It should be more of it, Yes, should be more
of it.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Really great if you're in New Zealand. Two just by,
just by the bye. But let's look at the Saudi
Arabian Grand Prix. Momentous moment for Australian motorsport because we
have an Australian back at the top of the Formula
One World Drivers championship standings for the first time in
fifteen years. It's Oscar Piastre. After getting so close in Bahrain,
he did the deal in Saudi Arabia, starting second on
(01:55):
the grid, beating Max Forstappen to victory. We'll talk about
hold that Max Verstappen, first lap, first pass, and the
photographic attempt at to defend a little bit later on
the podcast, but I want to stick with the McLaren
and Piastre side of things here. It struck me, Matt,
that this was another very It was another Piastre performance,
wasn't it fundamentally very cool, calm and collected, Nothing too
(02:18):
exciting to quicken the heart rate. Nothing to out of
the ordinary or outlandish about this good move into the
first turn or a really great start really is what
fundamentally was. But this didn't actually feel like the absolute
comprehensive weekend it was and let's say China or even Bahrain.
In fact, it fell to me actually right up until
(02:38):
Q three when Lando Norris crashed and we will talk
about him in a moment. It was quite possibly the
second to quickest or the slowest McLaren driver this weekend.
Yet he's still walked away with the victory. How Signimian
do you think this result is quite aside from that
championship lead, but in the context of this maybe not
actually being one of the great Piastre weekend.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
No, I think it was good in that he won
a race in a different way. And you look at
the way he's won races over the course of his
Formula One career, it's often been from a position of
dominance that he's built on through Friday and Saturday into Sunday.
This wasn't one of those weekends. As you mentioned, Norris
looked to me that the quicker McClaren up until it
really mattered in Q three for stapp and took poll.
(03:17):
This wasn't one of those sailing serenely to victory displays
by him that we had seen that in Bahrain just
seven days before that. So I think the one thing
we are starting to notice with Oscar is that if
there is a door that's prized open, even a crack,
he's going straight through it and there's no apologies and
he's not going to hold back. So I think he's
become a driver that he will really make others pay
(03:40):
for their mistakes or their transgressions. You can't give this
guy sniff because if he gets his nose in front,
we know that it's very coolly executed from there. And
you mentioned before that it wasn't an absolute thriller minute
ride of a Grand Prix. These are the sorts of
races he wins. We've seen that in the past, but
it was how he got to that position to me,
that was different and it bodes well because it shows
(04:02):
that there's more sort of arrows in the quiver if
you like to win these races. And I mean not
two race wins in seven days and you know we're
already looking at this. Yes, he's in the lead of
the World Championship. First Australian to win back to back
Grand Prix in eleven years. I had to go digging
through the record books for that since Daniel Ricardo do
that in twenty fourteen. It feels very sustainable. But it's
(04:23):
good to know that he can win races different ways because,
as you said, until that last part of Q three,
it looked like maybe this is a podium weekend, but
then it became something a lot better.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, best run of form. I really tried to go
back in the Stat's book for this one by an
Australian since Alan Jones in nineteen eighty to eighty one,
who was the last Australian to have three wins and
a podium in that combination. Because it's three wins and
a third from the last four races for Oscopias, I
can forget about the result of the Australian Grand Prix
because it didn't happen. It was a ninth place where
(04:53):
I was playing along at home. And that's the interesting
equation for me, is that up until until this weekend, really,
if we're trying to look at pastre season as a whole,
admittedly still so early on in the campaign that phrase,
you know, winning your titles on your worst days, that
ninth place was kind of hanging over him a little bit.
There are circumstances about that. That wasn't a meritorious ninth. There
(05:14):
was him spinning off the road and sort of copying
the bad deal, getting stuck in the grass, whereas Norris
was able to slither back onto the road and rejoin.
But nonetheless that was the result that was kind of
weighing him down. This was in inverted commas, his bad
day and still emerged with a victory, and I think
that's what's really heartening about this. He'll have worse days,
(05:36):
presumably in which victory won't be possible, because he can't
be just performing an absolutely race winning form every weekend
when it does feel quite close at the front, if
not just with Lando Norris, but from at least some
race weekends red Bull Racing as well. But yeah, the
fact that the performance was still strong despite maybe not
everything being aligned that I think was really promising here
(05:57):
for him, And you can contrast that directly with Lando Norris.
Not everything was perfectly aligned for him, although it was
pretty close and wasn't able to pull out the results.
Let's look at that qualifying crash now for Lander, because
that really twisted this weekend in a different direction and direction.
They don't think we were anticipating it felt like it
was always a chance of happening, wasn't it. After the
way he talked in Bahrain, we were so down in
(06:18):
himself where he had a genuinely bad weekend there did
manage to get unto the podium. He wasn't as disappointed
after this crash. He felt like he'd sort of turned
things around. But these back to back and not big results,
losing the championship lead. I mean, that's now forming an
integral part of this narrative, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Well, it's forming a pattern. I think it's what it's forming.
I mean, you know, once you could say, is you
know it's a one off. Now it's either a coincidence
or the beginning of a trend with him here. And
I noticed the way he handled this one as well,
relative to seven days previous. And I wonder, if you know,
with a little bit of clarity and hindsight, whether he
looked at the way he reacted so publicly to the
Bahrain disappointment thought or maybe I need to pull this
(06:57):
back a little bit. And you know, you and I
had spoken on this podcast last week about the race
being played between the years is between the white lines,
and psychologically he might have prized open a little area
of vulnerability there for Piastre to capitalize upon. So I
do wondering how much of that response on Saturday night,
Sunday morning, whenever it was in Saudi, when you crash,
(07:20):
whatever time Australian time it was, how much of that
was tempering how he really felt. But this circuit, because
it is so extreme. It's a place where small mistakes
have very, very big consequences. Like Suzuka is a similar track.
You wouldn't necessarily put Saudi in Zuzuka in the same breath,
but because Saudi is so new, But this is a
place where one momentary lapse of judgment or an error
(07:43):
can completely define your entire weekend. It was a relatively
clean race weekend for big shunts, which always surprises me
with Saudi because when I look at this track, you
do feel like you're watching it with your fingers in
front of your eyes a lot at the time because
it is so high speed in all those blind corners.
But it defined the weekend. But the question I thought
for you was that, you know, we see that Piastre's
(08:03):
in the lead now and is the better of the
two McLaren drivers. I'm wondering if it's kind of been
this way all along, and that Australia ninth place and
just those two points that he had there really distorted
the championship picture of perhaps the gap between these two drivers,
because you know, small stakes, big consequences. That was very
different because of the rain belting down in the final
sector at Albert Park, and turned it into a bit
(08:25):
of a lottery. It feels like it's taken Piastre four
races to get back to probably where he should have
been after Australia. But on the whole he has probably
made fewer mistakes and looks like the most polished of
the McLaren drivers. It's just taken us to round five
for him to be where he could have been a
couple of rounds earlier.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, I think that's a good call, and you can
also see that in the obviously the raw points picture,
but when you consider how far behind he was in Australia,
it's been a thirty three point turnaround the Ansonia since then,
and that includes races in which he was behind Norris.
Obviously in Japan he lost points to Niros, but the
swing has still been strong enough to move him ahead
in just four race weekends. That's about eight point something
(09:01):
points a weekend, which is more than the differences been
first and second, which is interesting when we're talking about
still McLaren being just the fastest card. I haven't always
got the one two results a bit of a moot point,
but nonetheless it's been pretty much one way traffic in
Oscar's favor and yeah, I think to come back to
your point, it does feel like it's becoming a trend.
Whether Norris cracking is the trend or simply being overpowered
(09:25):
by Piastre is sort of the dominant trend. And then
that's just showing up in some mistakes or some Norris
mistakes are being shown up more vividly as a result
of that is something we'll learn over subsequent rounds. But
I thought, and it's an interesting point you made, sort
of has Norris exposed a little bit too much of himself?
I think that's going to be an ongoing question over
this year because if we don't see more of that,
(09:45):
I think that will be an obvious change of attitude
from him, because that has been the way he's gone
about his business psychologically for as long as he's been
in the sport. Really, if suddenly he closes up that,
you will have to conclude that is a conscious decision.
You're speaking to Dutch media. I think who asked him
after the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix if we be participating in.
(10:06):
I think he's at the Dutch National Day, King's Day
or something like that in the next week. If you
cast your minds back at twelve months, there was footage
of him on social media partying on some boat a
few days before the Miami Grand Prix, injured his nose.
He turned up with a bandage. He did win that race,
so we can't be too critical of him. But he
then revealed he's chosen now because of this title fight,
to stop drinking entirely that we know partying, he's really
(10:29):
knuckling down. That's obviously lauda bull like. He's taking it
very seriously. He's looking for every percentage game. But it's
also a little bit of information, isn't it That he
feels like to overcome anyone in this title fight, and
he does expect Maxis happen to be in the mix,
and I think that's fair enough. But he's had to
change himself from previous years, and if he's still coming
up a little bit short after that against Oscar who,
(10:50):
as far as we know, because he gives nothing away,
he's just doing the same thing he's been doing his
whole life, which is just turning up, driving fast and
going home. That's sort of another little interest peace to
the puzzle I think still has to unplay in that,
Like you say, what's eventually going to become a psychological
battle as well as one just on the track.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Yeah, I mean it's interesting, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
For all? Weeno Piastri could be off, you know, just
finding some Dutch ancestry from VIO four and going out
having his own party on a boat and carrying on
and hitting his own nose on something, but he's less
likely to tell you about it. And I think that's
just the interesting approach with the way these two guys race.
And I covered a lot of Mark Weber's career and
one of Mark's sort of go to phrases among the
(11:30):
fifteen on your Bingo car that he would go through,
he said he was always he would always say I
will give nothing, you know, which means I'm giving absolutely
nothing away to anybody, meaning you blokes, which was the
media and any of his opponents. He wasn't going to
give you any piece of information that could be used
as a weakness or turned against him, will provide any
fodder that might sort of unseat his sort of rock
(11:51):
solid foundation. We know the way that Mark went racing,
which was to if he didn't have a quarter to
fight out of, he get out of paint Rush and
paint one for a five out of it is the
way he used to go about it. But Oscar's got
a very different mental approach. But I love the methodical
nature of what he's doing at the moment relative to
the peaks and troughs of the Norris roller coaster, and
(12:13):
the fact that you know, there's been a couple of times,
you know, all the car has been a bit difficult
to drive this week.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
He's no, that's fine.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
You know, he'll very subtly downplay things now, whether that's
just being him being completely honest and unfiltered, or whether
it's just another little opportunity to throw a little jab
in there perhaps to be different to the way Norris
is reacting to these things. That will probably never know
because he's never going to say. But the thing you
mentioned about Norris making adjustments, there's an admission there that
(12:40):
what I have done in the past is either not
good enough or I need to be better in certain
areas to get on terms with this guy and the
other garage, who outwardly is going to project nothing that's
going to be vulnerable. And I think we've just seen
that in the way he's raced over the past few
weekends and look for a guy we obviously know he's
got the Judy Series pedig Piastre, but he's not done
(13:01):
this at this level because he's not been around long
enough to do it.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
But he's got all of.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
The qualities and says the right things of someone who's
been in this numerous times. He's acting like a guy
who's twenty eight years old that's been in three championship
battles already, not a guy who's in this for his
first time. And I think that boats really well because
you know, we know this seat, there's nineteen more rounds
to go and five more sprints. This seague will go forever.
We're a long long way from the finish line. But
(13:27):
if he can keep that consistent, if that's just one
thing in his bag that he does the entire way through,
that is going to boat really well.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
I think, Yeah, there's another one of those little Piastre
you know, is of my honest yeah, maybe a piastre
ism where he was told Lando Norris said in the
TVPN after the race that he thought the Red Bull
Racing car is actually faster than Piastri And no, I
don't think so I think.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
And the thing I do love about him here as well.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
There's an economy of words with him as well, in
that whatever it is that's in the forefront of his
mind comes out, but then he doesn't feel the need
to really expand upon it, and there's often an uncomfortable
silence at the end of one of his quite short answers,
which is terrible for TV of course because dead air,
but it also makes the point there's like nothing more
to say, move on, and psychologically I think that's quite
(14:13):
interesting as well.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yeah, so plenty more to play out over that, but
certainly Piastre is going into this. It's not really a
little break, it's just a conventional one weekend off, but
after five and six it feels like a little mini
break the season before we head to Miami and then
the European part of the campaign. He ends up in
this break ahead in not only the championship but in
that little McLaren inter team battle. Before we move on
(14:35):
from this victorious race for Rosco Piastre, of course, we
have to go to Move of the Week, brought to
you by Shannons just the one race to recap this weekend,
The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix not absolutely boasting much passes.
It wasn't one of the action packed races. Was a
little bit ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix I suppose
(14:56):
at least, although not a lot, and it didn't have
that appeal of it being Suzuka. I don't know about you, Matt.
I've got to admit I struggled to identify hitting you
the corners on television at this circuit from one of
the other I couldn't agree more. But why do you
kick us off? What was your I can just smect
I know what it's going to be, but what was
your move of the way.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Well, I'm going to do here. I'm going to try
and attempt a professional segue and set you up for
the next segment that I actually don't know what it is.
So this is me just throwing on in the air
and seeing what happens. But to my mind, move of
the week in Saudi there can only be one, and
it was lap twenty one when Oscar Piastri, after having
made his pit stop, stormed his way past Lewis Hamilton
(15:34):
and made Lewis Hamilton look like a guy who was
in his first Formula One season, not his nineteenth or
whatever it is, with an unbelievable pass through one of
those hard to identify sections of the Saudi Racetrack where
you go, I'm not quite sure what corner we're in,
and we've gone through it so quickly that we've gone
through three others before I've worked it out. But to
my mind, there was and it was quite I use
(15:54):
the word arrogant in a really endearing way here, because
there was just this I can put this car past
you wherever I should used to.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
I love the pass.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Because I don't think he needed to make it there,
but he chose to make it there, and there was
just this sort of flex about it, as like I
can just pass you here and there's nothing you can
do about it. Yes, we're on different strategies and I'm
going to pass you eventually, but I'm going to pass
you there, and it's not a place where you see
people attempt to make passes. I love the audacity of it,
but I also love just the complete belief and the confidence.
(16:23):
So for me, that was overtake of the week. But
I'm thinking there's one other overtake on the low hanging
on the tree of overtakes that you might decide to
pick off here because it kind of was if you're
going where I think you're going. It kind of defined
how he got to this point in the race, didn't it.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yeah, I mean it's very straightforward to what look before
I pick more renevotably it's going to be, which is
Oscar Piastre technically passing Max with Steffan at the first
she came, I said technically because he was judged to
have done it but didn't emerge with the lead. I
do want to go back a step because the Hamilton.
The pass on Hamilton was really interesting for another reason
to sort of go back to our previous segment, which
(17:02):
is that it came after he'd actually put up quite
a big defense Hamilton or Lando Norris in the first
into the race round about lap twelve to fifteen. I
think it was off the top of my head, which
I think actually defined Norris's race because he lost something
like four to five seconds from memory battling Hamilton there,
and he was only one second behind Charlock there at
the end of the race, So potentially that was where
his podium went missing, although we don't know if he
(17:23):
would have been able to pass their care of course, and
it's interesting for two reasons. One is that Hamilton defended
by playing with that DRS zone. You might this happens
every year. Really, the most famously happened in this race's
first year when he was battling with Maxistafan to try
and equal the title lead, and they almost crashed, or
they did crash in fact, didn't they playing with that
DRS zone at the final corner. I think it is
(17:46):
managed to hold off Norris for quite a few laps
by playing that game. It took Norris, to my mind,
too long to realize that was happening and as a
result lost time. But what was really interesting is that,
as I understand, is that the Norris's race engineer identified
that when Oscar Piastre is coming up behind Hamilton told
the team whatever, and Piastre was told this, and I
(18:07):
can't help but wonder whether he's like, oh okay, and
then subsequently just chose to pass Hamilton way before that
catch him by surprise in order to not get caught
up in that game. So maybe there's a little bit
of knowledge there. I think you're right, he just chose
to pass him wherever he wanted to because he had
the speed, he knew he could do it. But it's
sort of interesting that he did something that Norris wasn't
able to sort of work his way out of quickly
(18:27):
enough and there you go. He managed to make that
pass that was potentially decisive in keeping himself ahead of
a stap And at the end of the race. But yes,
the overtake I think for me has to be that
first corner because he did everything he needed to do
to make the overtake, even though he didn't get ahead
of a Stappen, because the Stappin cup that he came
great start from him. We've got to remember starts to
mclan were pretty ordinary more often than not. Last year.
(18:48):
Just absolutely nailed it at one of those tracks where
second is occasionally in a better position than Paul and
he capitalized on it. And good on here. But the
race winning move asterisk.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, well there's two things here. Do we think that
pole position is on the wrong side at Jedda because
I've maintained that it has been since day one, because yes,
it's not the racing line, but it is the only
line in the first corner. And I'd have to go
back and have a look at the other race starts
there to see if similar things had happened. I mean, look,
Piastri absolutely now that start and Vestapen was a little
bit tardy off the line, that's all that. That's all
(19:21):
it ended up being. But there was a bit of
a degree of inevitability about that first corner, because well,
we've seen how Verstapen rolls in situations like this, and
I don't know about you, I wasn't surprised that it
played out this way. I was a little bit surprised
as to how Red Bull responded, but perhaps you can
go into that. And because I thought they actually had
(19:44):
an immediate opportunity to redress that and give Vestapan a
chance to win the race by not redressing that first
corner and then the subsequent safety current, the way the
race played out, it only ever seemed to me like
Verstapan was only going to finish second, whereas if they
actually addressed it on the first lap, he could have
potentially still won that Grand Prix because he wouldn't have
(20:04):
snooked himself strategically. But I wonder what you thought with that,
because I thought they took one of their own options
off the table. In a bit of a fit of
you know, how dare this person pass me? And I
was forced off the track? Perhaps they should have played
that a little bit more cleverly.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yeah, it's really interesting, isn't. Because one of the questions
I've been asked a couple of times this week is
why didn't they just give it? Why? More to the point,
why weren't they told to hand it back? Because there
was a period of time in Formula One where that
was happening all the time. We'd hear the radio messages
on the TV saying, oh, race controls told us give
the position back because you'll probably get a penalty. And
Formula One moved away from that a couple of years.
(20:36):
I think, didn't they where the race director or race
control no longer intervenes in that way. In fact, I
think it's a policy from even two race directors ago.
That's probably more of a commentary and how quickly were
going through race that's ten minutes ago exactly. That doesn't
excuse that doesn't explain why they chose not to. It
just explains why they weren't told to. And I'm sort
of in two minds about that. On the one hand,
(20:57):
I think it's clean off. Race control intervenes a little bit,
and we just avoid time penalties being part of the
race because particularly the case if this was in the
second stint, obviously wouldn't be the start of the race
that way, but then you'd be adding up the seconds
after the flag and Max would across the line first,
we finishay or whatever, And I think that's a bit messy.
But on the other hand, I do like the idea that, well, no,
it's up to the driver and the team to make
(21:18):
the sporting call one way or another and then live
or die by that decision. And they didn't. And if
you want to be generous, you could say, well, the
safety guard came out so fast they didn't even really
have a chance to weigh up those options to think
too much about it. Like, I kind of buy that,
but I also don't get the impression at all from
the team that they were ever going to do that,
particularly not by the silly and strident defense of Christian
(21:39):
Horner after the fact. Now, of course it was after
the fact, but I don't get the impression at all
they would have done it. Max, with Staffan's response after
the race, suggests that he wouldn't have been open to
it either, and maybe there's something in that. Maybe Red
Bull thought, well, maybe we should ask him, and then
they said to know, he's just he's not going to
do it. He's going to embarrass us. Let's not do that.
So sort of interesting two ways to think about it.
But the let's start with the MAX sided this before
(22:03):
we talking about Christian Horner. We can build up to
this photographic defense. But we've seen it before from him,
isn't It's not just like you say that we've seen
it this track before. This is a well known MAX tool,
isn't it. And it's something we've seen before. And I guess,
to be fair to him, in previous years he's been
allowed to get away with moves like this. No longer
according to these new unpublished driving guidelines is that allowed
(22:25):
and these were changed after last year. But it's sort
of interesting to see a driver lose one of their weapons.
And I think that's sort of part of the story here.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Yeah, very much so.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
I mean, I think you can't blame him for attempting
to exploit a loophole in the rule book. That's what
formula one's all about, quite honest, it's not what the
Formula one rule book says, it's what it doesn't say,
and that sort of determines how you go racing. Where
there are gray areas, they are there to be exploited.
And yes, we've had this amendment to the rules around
this because Max has that have turned into a bit
(22:55):
of an art form. I thought it was interesting, Well, A,
we know that he goes by this code, He's done
this before, so I was a little bit surprised that
maybe there wasn't a pre planned response within the team
because the chances of that happening at the first corner,
if for Stapen wasn't in front, I would have thought
were quite high, as simply because this is the way
he this is the way he races.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
But I don't know.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
About you, but the way they handled it in the
moment and then afterwards, particularly with the Christian Horner's family
photo album coming to the post race press conference, how
much of that was a team not willing to have
that difficult conversation with a very adamant driver. If you
had another team and another driver in that position, would
they have handled it the same way? I would suggest not,
(23:39):
because there's this obsession with plaicating the Verstapen persona in
this respect. You knew that he was going to be
annoyed about it. You knew he was going to fire
up about it, and you know that's not the time
to perhaps sell the bigger picture with something like this,
Whereas I'm thinking, if it's Mercedes and it's George Russell,
or if it's Good Lord of Ferrari's on the front
and or Rover Race if it was Ferrari, what are
(23:59):
their drive? Is that a difficult conversation and is the
person behind the wheel potentially going to be more reasonable
in the way they addressed that, or is this purely
that particular driver in that particular team with the subtext
of everything else that's going on behind the scenes, and
they desperately need him right now because they're not where
they were, and so on and so forth. I wonder
(24:20):
if another team and driver would have handled it differently, because,
as we were saying before, I just think that had
you've addressed that on lap one, he may still have
finished second in this Gral Prix to Piastre. We just
don't know if that McClaren was faster in Cleve Air.
We know it was another race really dictated by dirty air,
but when they didn't elect to address the first corner
(24:41):
and then the race played out once the safety car
had gone off the track, to my mind, it was
only ever going to be a case of a stuff
and finishing second. I don't think that he he boxed
himself into a corner, perhaps through his own sort of
adamant nature or stubbornness on this. But look, I know
you're dying to talk about Christian Horde's photos here. I'm
trying to think the Silverstone twenty twenty one was the
(25:03):
first time I seem to remember this happening, but there
have been some others where they will come. Anytime you
come to a post race press brief with props, I
think it's in a completely different, really different category of
press de brief. But what did you think about that?
Because to me it was a little bit half hearted almost.
I'm not sure they quite believed what they were selling
(25:24):
in that regard, but they were going through the motions
and the theatrics of it because they needed to on
a level more than actually thinking it might work.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Yeah, the last one I remember is him is Christian
Horner whipping out some telemetry last year in I.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Want to say Mexico, Mexico.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah, Mexican being a penalty you got for pushing Norris
off the track, I think yes, and the exact same thing.
And now this is a real if anyone next time
this happens, because there will be a next time you
play this game at home, because it will happen. Is
this is exactly how it plays that he walks here,
he does his press comerence, these photos of the celemety
or whatever is the smoking gun. He says, here is
the black and white evidence. He has his little speel
(26:06):
about this and that, and then the question comes, so
are you going to appeal? And then he says no,
I don't think so. So it's like all this evidence
you've got to all you an interesting evidence, but it's
not worth appealing, which tells everything you need to know
to go back to your point about how genuine this
was an attempt at a real defense of the move
(26:27):
as opposed to appearing to be on the side of
your driver. And what's clearly a nonsense argument because there
have been times as well, and you can always tell
with Christian Horna in the past when the I don't
want to say the relap. The relationship was less fractuos
because I don't think it's a personal relationship problem. It's
purely just the tenuousness of Vestapan's long term future at
Red Bull Racing. At Horner's trying to move around now,
(26:49):
I meantimes when you could see he knows his drivers
is in the wrong. This happens in the wrong, and
he says, ah, you know he suspenses always are it's
probably just a racing incident. Yes, to come out with
photos is you can see he's taking this to another
level when I couldn't find anyone anywhere and I still
am yet to find anyone anywhere who thinks that the
staffen should have got away with that move, because the
(27:09):
logical extension is, well, then you just do that every
time you're being overtaken, you just cut the chicne, you'd
open the brakes, which is what Max did to try
to get to the apex first in inverted Commas, despite
the fact he had no intention or no capability of
making the corner and then arguing the point afterwards. And
that's the there's sort of this irony in the photograph
Christian Horner did choose, which is an onboard photograph and
(27:31):
you can see it areous journalists are published it online.
It shows shows Max for Staffan's front actual ahead of
Piastre's front axle at what he says is the apex
of the corner. Ironically, the racing guidelines, and this was
quoted in the steward's documents, say it doesn't have to
be front axual ahead to claim the corner app to
be ahead of the mirrors, because I think, I guess
(27:51):
that's sort of like the driver's eye line view. And
the photo shows the Piastre is ahead of the Staffan's mirrors.
So all Christian Horner's photo has done is proved that
the stewards were correct in their interpretation of the rules.
And it also shows that Max has no chance of
making that conducause if you didn't look at the replay,
or if you looked at the telemetry which Christian Houna
didn't print out, you see that he was never going
(28:11):
to make that corner, that he'd chosen early enough not
to make it.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Funnily enough, the telemetry didn't make an appearance at the
press conference when it has in previous cases. But I
go back, so it was Mexico where Max was doing
this on multiple quarters, multiple times because things were getting
a little bit unhinged last year.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
But we can go back to Saudi in twenty twenty one.
You referenced it before.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
That was an absolutely insane race because of Max's complete
refusal to even allow anything other than a reasonable overtake,
and you know we had the braake testing incident in
the DRS zone and all of that nonsense. That race
was completely unhinged because of the way that rule was
being exploited. That really crossed the line that night from
being a genuine sporting race into some sort of bizarre,
(28:53):
you know, not particularly funny comedy. It was ridiculous at
that point. But you yes, you can see the photos.
That's fine, But there's Piastre's on the inside and he's
got the corner. If you just roll out of the
break and go straight on because there's a bitch of
a run off on the outside, then yes, you are
going to be in the next corner sequence. When you've
got a switchback term one like you do it in
Saudi Arabia, you're going to be the car ahead and
(29:15):
you can always do that. Well, he pushed me off
the track, how much break are we using at this point.
That's what the still photos don't tell you. And so
if that's going to be the way he operates in
situations on first laps where he's going to be passed
and you can just flick through the circuits in your head,
you know, the ones where this could potentially be something
that comes up. Then you know, this is why we
have tweaks to rules. But I do wonder if the
(29:38):
photo producing element of all of this was just a
bit of a well, we'll just kind of try it on.
But if it doesn't work, and it's probably not going
to at least we've got our guys back very publicly,
and it can be look, you know, we support you
no matter what. You know, Please don't go elsewhere if
we don't give you a nice car, etc. There was
a little bit of that because it was I'm not
(29:58):
sure they quite believed it, but they went through with
it anyway.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yes, yeah, exactly right. I think that really sums it up. Well,
there's one other element that I'm it's a bit of
a hobby horse for me, and Christian Horn was the
only one I think left using the phrase let them race.
People have been watching Formula one for a little longer
or not even that long, really dating back to late
twenty tens and into twenty twenty one when it really
hit its peak. Let them race was a philosophy of
(30:24):
governing racing essentially, and this was it was really, really
was pre pandemic because it was instituted, if memory serves, essentially,
when F one felt like it was in a little
bit of a rut, the sages winning everything, people thought
the sport was becoming a little bit stale. Let them
race was a real loosening of the racing guidelines to
allow more of this kind of stuff where you know, okay,
race a little bit with a bit more instinct, a
little bit less race control intervention. But it hit its peak,
(30:50):
as I said in twenty twenty one, when you've got
races like Saudi Arabia, even the flash points in Brazil
between Hamilton and Verstapen. It was usually between Hamilton Verstapen,
things just became a little bit unhinged and a little
bit out of control. And let them races subsequently been
wound back as a concept because the drivers are much
(31:10):
more willing now to allow a little bit of intervention
from race control to ensure consistency most importantly, but also
just the rules of governor. And we go back to
it was again Mexico, or after Mexico last year, or
around between the US and Mexico last year. But the
drivers had a meeting with race Control, and you remember
that nineteen of twenty of them agreed that we needed
tighter rules. And you can guess who the twentieth was,
(31:31):
him be Staffen. And that's fine, like he's got his
own opinion, he's perfectly entitled to it, but let them
race is now so out of step with the approach philosophily, philosophically,
with the way the sport's going that I thought Christian
Horner bringing that up was just a bit disingenuous or
at best a little bit dated, and it just is
not the way the sport's moving at the moment. Now
(31:52):
you can argue that it should go back that way
if you like, that's fine, but I think that sort
of almost sums up the problem when we approach some
of my stappens. This is by no means the most egregious.
He hasn't been doing anything too wacky this year yet,
But to keep arguing for an approach that has been
actively moved away from, largely because of the actions of
your driver. Actions like this just feels like it misses
(32:14):
the point, and I do wonder whether we're going to
get more of this this year. I think Max starting
from the back foot means we're probably not going to
see the kind of elbows out stuff we saw last
year when it felt like he was losing a bit
of momentum relative to Norris. I think he's a little
bit more knuckled down when you know he's a little
bit fighting from a corner. But we'll wait and see.
It's remains to be seen. I thought his reaction after
(32:35):
the race was actually a bit surprising, to be honest.
But there's yeah, there's a lot going on there that's
more than simply a driver and a team being unhappy
with a penalty.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Before we move on, because we could talk about this
for another three hours. There's two things that I thought
of here. Modern day circuit design, where you don't have
grass or gravel on the outsides of turn one anymore,
so that allows this sort of thing to become more prevalent,
particularly straight tracks. You mentioned in Telagos in twenty one.
Also that year it was at a particular corner of
that circuit. There's not a lot of runoff on a
(33:04):
lot of the corners at Intelargos, but where that was
going on down at thirty four, that's where there's the
biggest runoff of the circuit. So no great surprise there.
They're both like four miles out in the tarmac runoff
out there.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
There's that part of it.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
But I'm wondering, now we would need to put ourselves
in a situation where someone had outmaxed Max and done
something similar at the first corner from a position of advantage.
This generally happens with the stapp and when he's a
position in a position of advantage a in the championship
last year, as you mentioned, when he was desperately hanging
on B in this race because he was on pole,
he wasn't second. If someone does to him what he
(33:37):
has done to someone down the track, I'll be very
curious to see what his response is, and I'll be
very curious to see what the team's response is and
Christian Horner's response. But then I'm thinking about this, and
I'm struggling to think of too many situations where someone
is going to be as I guess provocative and push
things as much as this. I don't know if we've
got someone that's going to fight like that against him necessarily,
(33:59):
particularly this season where the RedBull clearly isn't the quickest
car and he's out performing the expectations of what it
should be doing. But if we get that situation, I'll
be super curious to see how it's handled and if
any photographs get brought to the lust races.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Yeah, it's a good question. I think I'm struggling to
think of any drivers who really take it to or
pass the limit in some cases as Max does. We
don't know, because, for example, Oscar Piastri hasn't had that
much time at the front, and other drivers too. I
feel like Oscar Piastri might be his sternest test. We
know Lando Norris doesn't like to race like that. He's
been explicit about that it's not the way he wants
to go about it, but sometimes that changes, you know.
(34:36):
The last and I'm sure there have been other examples
of it, I'm completely sure, but the last one that
springs to mind is twenty twenty one, funnily enough, and
the Abu Dhabi finale, where if memory serves Vstaffan was
on the inside, Hamilton was the outside. I can't remember
the corner and it wasn't quite like this, but Verstaffan
kind of claimed the corner and Hamilton cut the corner,
(34:57):
and in that year of let them race, the steward
said that's fine, and Max was very unhappy about that
at the time. Obviously winning the championship meant he didn't
care too much after the fact. But you know, the
shoe was on the other foot, has been on the
other foot before, and at that time Red Bull and
Max thought, all, maybe that rule needs to be tightened up.
So I know that's going back quite a few years.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, first lap into the back straight, I remember it well.
I've tried to remove most memories of twenty twenty one
from my memory. Not one of the great nights, I
would have to say, A working and B for Formula one.
But yeah, you're completely right. The shoe was on the
other foot then, but with the rules being adjudicated as
they were then, then it was a play on nothing
to see here, so interesting.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Well, let's see sir looking backwards, Matt and look forwards
a little bit more forwards in fact, because it's time
for the crystal Ball brought to you by Complete Home Filtration,
looking forward to a non f one weekend. But of
course there are no limits to the predictions we make
in this segment. So why do you kick us off, mat.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Hm because I'm in my two wheelheadspace today. Has got
the Spanish Motor GP coming up this weekend. Ducati could
equal Honda's most number of consecutive wins by one manufacturer
in Grand Prix racing this weekend twenty two races in
nineteen ninety seven and ninety eight. Jucati currently on twenty one.
So is there going to be anyone that beats to Cati.
(36:15):
I'm going to say no, and they're going to equal
that record. But my crystal Ball of the week is
I bel I feel that Herrath is really a Yamaha track,
no real massive straits like we've seen in the past
couple of rounds in Qatar and in Austin. So my
crystal ball has a Yamaha on the podium of the
Motor GP race in Harrath, and I would love to
(36:36):
say it's going to be Jack Miller, but I think
it's going to beat Fabio Quatturo.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Either way, I think it would be a good story.
Fantastic a Yamaha getting back on the podium. Yes, I
really thought you were going with this. Was Dakati going
to before they get the final hurdle here of equaling
the record.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Well, that would just be a nicer story, that would
that would be very very silly. I think short of
there being a deluge Vrain, I think Dukati keeps winning
races until they change the rules for twenty two years aver.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
That's I'm going to take one step backwards to go
two steps forwards here. I'm going to make a prediction
for the Miami Grand Prix which based very much on
what we've learned from Saudi Arabia, which is that Lance
Stroll is going to extend his record of Q one
knockouts to seventy six. This is a little record that
I think when someone under the radar at the weekend
that no driver in F one history or in the
(37:21):
history of this qualifying format obviously has been eliminated in
Q one more than Lance's Stroll, which is not the
kind of records you want. He surpassed Kevin Magnuson, He's
the previous record holder on seventy four. Obviously, and it
was interesting. He's defense afterwards, well, of course I'm not
driving a great car, which I'm sure his dad wouldn't
have been tough to hear about. But then someone's done
(37:43):
the maths. I think I should probably credit the race here.
Compared him to his teammates over the years, and he's
essentially been knocked out in Q one twice as often
as they have, and his teammates combined have made Q
three the top ten by roughly the same number of times,
seventy five, seventy something like that, So not a great
excuse he it's the shame. I actually thought he started
(38:05):
the season quite well, but the last few races have
been very dare I say vintage Lance.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Oh Man as career epitaphs go, that's yeah, pretty a
grim and be appropriate. But we're talking about low hang
you fruit before I think that's actually on the ground
and you've just picked it up. You haven't even picked
it off the tree at this point.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
But no fair play.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
It's the surest fire crystal ball prediction either of us
has made so far, So I do like your chances
so much.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
On the ground, it's it's pretty much a.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Potato decomposed yes.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
It's decompussy. Well, on that note, that's all the time
we've got for Pittalk today. You can subscribe to pittok
wherever you get your favorite podcasts, and you can leave
us a rating and review as well. This weekend, just
one race. It's the Spanish Motorcycle Grand Prix and it's
at the very civil time of ten pm Eastern time
on Sunday night. You can keep up to date with
all the latest F one, Supercars and Moto GP news
(38:55):
at Fox sports dot com dot are you from Matt
Clayton and me Michael Lomonado. Thanks very much for your
company and we'll catch you next week.
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