Episode #12: 2023 Belgian GP

We're back after a brief hiatus (and a trip around the UK) and catching up first with a rough-around-the-edges recap of F1's latest adventures at Spa.  This year featured more rain, more formation laps behind the safety car, and another friggin' sprint race featuring an absurdly stupid penalty.    

Oscar Piastri continues to shine, the Mercedes drivers nearly come together - again, and Yuki Tsunoda outscored his over-hyped teammate.  

Join us as we breakdown the good, the bad and the ugly (hint, the last one is having to listen to Dutch national anthem again).

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Greetings and welcome to Formula XX, a podcast by two
Gen X women talking aboutFormula 1 and other motorsports,
usually with adult beveragesand always with adult words.
So if you're underage, easilyoffended or, frankly, a fan of
Red Bull Racing, you probablywant to turn back now.
We aren't neutrals, though wedo our best to be somewhat fair
and somewhat unbiased, but ifwe're not, that's okay too.

(00:21):
You just have to come along forthe ride.
Today, we are actually talkingto you about the 2023 Belgium
Grand Prix.
You may have noticed that we'veskipped over a few episodes.
We will be coming back to those.
I am as always with Gen Gen.
What have we been up to thelast few weeks and why are we so
far behind?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Well, we were in a country that had a blackout on
F1 unless you had Sky TV, so wecouldn't actually watch any of
the races we did not attend.
We were fortunate enough toattend Silverstone, which was
amazing.
We had such a good time.
I think we got the only lastbit of sun that the UK will have
for the end of days.
We were definitely not what youguys saw for the rain and the

(01:04):
sun.
That was the last sun you sawin the UK.
I was there for another threeweeks after the race and that
was pretty much it, but it'sbeen a great time.
But I haven't been able towatch any of the races because
VPNs are iffy at best and F1just issued a notice while I was
over there for Spa in fact thatthey were going to honor the
agreement not to let VPNs beused to stream any of their

(01:27):
services, and I don't have SkyTV, so, yeah, there was no way
to watch the races while I wasover there.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah, I was sort of thinking about the fact that we
couldn't even get the VPN towork when we were trying to
rewatch Spa and I sort of wonderif that wasn't actually in
effect and just not talked aboutmuch until shortly before Spa,
because it really we could notmake the VPN work when we were
trying to bypass Skye.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, because we wanted to watch.
I mean, we were at Silverstone,we saw a lot of parts of
Silverstone where we were, butwe would like to have seen the
entire race and everything againand it just it was a hell of a
lot of hoops to jump through andultimately we weren't that
successful.
Yeah, I am drinking a very,very delicious Octomor 8.2.

(02:57):
I had the amazing time of doinga Distillers tasting at the
Brooklottie Brewery Distillerywhile I was over there and I did
buy the latest Octomor, whichis not open.
I'm going to finish this onefirst and then I will move on to
that.
And it is delicious.

(03:18):
Pd.
Caramel-y Loveliness, I amjealous.
I am jealous.
I need to finish as manybottles before I move.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
She's taking one for the team boys and girls.
She's trying to eliminate thebottles of whiskey just so we
don't have to move them Also tomake room for all the new ones
she just brought back from theUK.
I am drinking.
I'm getting pretty close to theend of my bottle of Yellow Spot
, which is another that's goingto make me sad when it's gone.
I see the green spot aroundfrom time to time.

(03:51):
It's pretty easily available,but I haven't found the yellow
spot in ages here.
It's very good, I'm glad tohave it.
I'll be sad when it's gone, butI'm sure there's more wonderful
whiskey out there to take itsplace eventually.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
It's an Irish whiskey , right it is yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, I would say probably my favorite Irish
whiskey.
I really shouldn't say thatbecause I don't drink enough
Irish whiskey to really have abasis of comparison, but I do
like it quite a lot, yeah, so,aside from whiskey and bad
weather and adventures in F1 andadventures on Isla, there were

(04:32):
several races and I think a lot,a lot has happened.
As we're doing these in reversechronological order, we're
going to be bouncing around abit, but we definitely have seen
some changes.
If you just take Red Bull outof the equation, which I think

(04:53):
98% of F1 fandom has alreadydone, I think we're seeing a
little bit of shuffle, or atleast a little bit of
jiggity-jaggedy between whichmidfield team is best of the
rest from week to week.
Probably some development leaps, with McLaren in the last few
races having come to the fore.

(05:15):
It was such mixed conditions inspa and I know we'll talk about
it, but we saw, unfortunately,the return of the porpoising
which has affected a number ofteams just this weekend.
But mostly I think it was yetanother dance sprint weekend,
which is kind of how I frame itin my head when we get to this

(05:38):
point that there's another oneon the horizon.
This was, I think, as far asI've understood things, and it
feels like this has changed on anear monthly basis, but it
sounds like they've pretty muchsettled on a change.
One additional change of formatmoving forward the next sprint

(05:58):
race, which is in Monza, ratherthan the format we've had, which
we just used in spa, which isone 60-minute session of free
practice on Friday morning,followed by race quali, then, on
Saturday morning, the sprintshootout, aka sprint quali.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
I don't know why they call it a shootout.
If they're going to do ashootout, do it the same way
Formula E does it.
That makes it far moreinteresting than this fits and
starts that any quali is.
Now that we get to have twoqualis in a weekend that are
essentially exactly the samefucking thing, if you're going
to have this sprint race and tryand get more people to watch it
, make quali interesting Forthose of you who don't watch

(06:41):
Formula E.
The way that they do their andthey call it a shootout for
their quali is they have cars goin pairs, I think five seconds
apart from each other, and theyjust go balls fucking out around
the course as fast as they can.
You don't have to worry abouttraffic.
You don't have to worry aboutanything except just driving the

(07:02):
fucking tires off the car andgetting the best out of it you
can and setting amazing recordsand having just incredible laps
and masterclasses aftermasterclass of drivers doing
their thing.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yeah, the duels are really interesting in Formula E.
Put a pin in that because Ithink it's.
You know, it is interesting tothink about quali conceptually
and whether that's changes forthe sprint quali versus regular
quali, because we're reallyseeing changes.
When we come back to HungaryWe'll talk about the trial run

(07:36):
for quali there, but so we'vebeen in FP1, followed by race
quali, then Saturday morninghaving the sprint quali session,
followed by the sprint race andthen obviously the Grand Prix
on Sunday.
Looking forward, the plan isarguably to flip regular race

(07:57):
quali and sprint quali.
So I think that frankly makes abit more sense to have real
quali right where it's alwaysbeen Saturday afternoon, so you
have a free practice, then youhave sprint quali, in the
morning, you have the sprint andin Saturday afternoon you have
race quali.
I feel like that just makesmore sense.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
I agree.
I think it makes more sense, Ithink, also having a consistency
of obviously the times ofeverything is going to change
from race to race depending onwhat time zone they're in, but
at least having a consistency oflike a step process A happens
and B happens, and C has tohappen, then D has to happen
rather than A happens and then Dhappens or D would be the final

(08:43):
.
You know, like having it alljump around.
Just keep some of it as simpleas possible.
There's a lot to do on weekendsfor us, not just for Formula
One, but there's a lot of humanthings for people to do.
Everybody else has lives.
Keep it as simple as youfucking can so we can keep it
all straight in our head, aswell as the ever-changing bar of
whatever time zone things arein.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Yeah, I haven't heard or if I heard, it apparently
didn't stick, which is adistinct possibility at this
phase in my brain whether ParkFermay rules will still take
effect right after that FP1session or if there will still
be some flexibility.
I'm personally a fan of lettingthem make changes up until the

(09:26):
start of the sprint.
So if they do the sprint onSaturday morning, like I, would
have no problem letting themmake changes after Kuali.
But we'll see what they land on.
But that's currently the plan.
As far as next steps for thesprint race, that's Monza, and

(09:47):
you know there's, like you said,there's something to be said
for.
Could we just fucking land on aformat and stick with it?
That, I think, would be great.
But I know there's the wholecamp that's we don't need
practice sessions.
We don't need practice sessions.
Well, we're going to talk aboutwhy sprint races really aren't

(10:07):
accomplishing what they claimthey're trying to accomplish,
and that's by their own devices.
But I do think that they needmore than one 60 minute session.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
I absolutely agree, because you need one 60 minute
session and you need to have abit of a think on what that six,
the all the information anddata that you got on that 60
minute session and be able to goout and have a second one for
whatever tweaks you've made, tosee if they're tweaks in the
right direction or the wrongdirection.
I think you're right.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
I think.
But philosophically again,you've got these people who sort
of silo or put themselves incamps where they just think,
well, it's better if it'sunpredictable and we like
unpredictable at all costs andmy thing is is I want the
emphasis to be on development.
This is fundamentally not whatthe focus is on at the moment.

(10:58):
It's entertainment and showover that sort of more technical
aspect.
And my thing is if you're goingto try to have all of these
teams attempt to out develop oneanother, you have to marry that
with an opportunity to actuallyget the setup to work.
And if you're not going to givethem an opportunity to get the
setup to work, what the fuck'sthe point of all of this?

(11:18):
It's like them talking aboutengine equalization.
Why, why, why, like either it'sa spec sport or it's not 100%.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
100%.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
Either get to have engineering ingenuity or you
shut the fuck up and drive speccars, and I'm at the point where
I'm starting to become less andless, as this season progresses
, a fan of the cost cap Because,again, I think it's admirable
the idea that we're going toallow the teams at the bottom to
catch up because they don'thave as much money.

(11:50):
But it's become increasinglyapparent that what it does is
just slams the lid ondevelopment, and that, to me, is
sad.
I would love to see a period oftime where Mercedes, McLaren
and Aston Martin could throw allthe money they want that's
their business.

(12:11):
If they want to spend theirmoney on it, let them and see if
they could possibly in any way,shape or form even make a notch
in catching up with that damnrocket, the Adrian Newey belt.
But as it stands, we're allsitting here going fucking hell.
We're going to be watching thesame shit until 2026.
It's impossible to enjoy yourrace, because you just know like

(12:33):
OK, blah blah, you know whichlap will Max be in the lead?
Blah blah, no one's ever goingto catch up because there's
still a second and a half aheadat the midpoint of the season.
Blah, blah, like it's not goodfor the sport.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
No, I agree.
Like when I was in the UK I hadmy Mercedes hat on all the time
and I sparked a lot ofconversations from all types of
different fans and every 201,every single person I spoke with
about racing sort of joked whodo you think's going to win the
race?
No, who do you think's going tocome in?
Second, what do you think theinteresting?
Like every everyone it didn'tmatter what team they supported,

(13:12):
everyone understood MaxVerstappen was going to win the
race.
That it was done deal.
No one fucking cared.
It was boring as shit.
And like I had a conversationlike I had a joking conversation
at the car hire place becausethe guy was a McLaren fan about
what we're.
If he was going to, let us takethe car to Silverston or not.
But he, you know he was, yeah,verstappen's going to win and

(13:33):
he's like it's so boring towatch him win weekend and week
out and he's a boring person.
That was the other thing acrossthe board.
Everybody was like MaxVerstappen's, just not
charismatic and interesting.
It'd be something if you had,like a character winning right.
Like you know, erton Stenna hadhis pluses and his minuses.
Schumacher pluses and minuses,you know, but they were

(13:55):
interesting.
You know, hunt Weird dude, butit was an interesting season,
you know, and him and Nikki Lada, nikki Lada had it Like they
were interesting personalities,right?
Max Verstappen's, just fuckingpaint he is paint, racist paint?

Speaker 1 (14:10):
Well, he's racist, bland paint given for a racist
bland team.
But I think the worst part isfor all of and again.
I'm essentially, by allmeasures, recent F1 fan, but
I've watched enough races fromthe last 10 years to say you

(14:32):
know, sub Vettel in his bradiousstage was infinitely more
enjoyable to watch thanVerstappen, and there was no
point even in them.
Why are you complaining?
Because Mercedes had the mostdominant car ever when the last
regulation change happened.
Blah, blah, blah.
I mean I'm sick to death ofthat.

(14:53):
Anybody who's denying the factthat this car that is being
driven around the track by MaxVerstappen, albeit in his hands,
that he's an excellent driver,but that car is the fastest car
ever built and if you're goingto sit here and pretend it isn't
, you're not serious.
So shut the front door, go away.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
But at any point and it's a cheater car.
And that was the other thing.
Everybody I talked to, doesn'tmatter who they supported, all
agreed it's a cheater car.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Point.
But during these entirestretches of previous dominance,
which again should not be thegoal right, it shouldn't have
been the goal that Mercedes woneight years in a row, it
shouldn't been the goal that RedBull won for four before that,
or whatever it was.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
It shouldn't be the goal now that Red Bull Right.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
But even in those periods there was always some
form of rivalry and activepossibility, week in, week out,
that it wouldn't be the sameperson, let alone the same team,
that won.
When it was dominant byMercedes, you still had some
fierce fucking battles betweenthe two drivers.

(16:03):
Yeah, so we've seen the end ofthat friendship between Rossburg
and Hamilton because of howthat went during those years.
There just have always beenactual meaningful battles and
we're nowhere near that.
It's not even a consideration.
Not just because Checo went ona five race, I can't get out of

(16:24):
Q1 or I can't get into Q3.
It's just, there's no questionthat Checo isn't in the fight.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
He was never going to be.
I don't think they would neverhave let Checo win when in
previous battles of teammatesyou knew that there were no team
orders?
At least early on in the seasonyou knew there were no team
orders, right, yeah, later on inthe season there were team
orders, but the start of theseason let them race.
Well, but that said.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
I'm still for all of my.
I can't stand Red Bull.
I'm still not convinced they'reracing two different cars.
I mean, I understand, I thinkabout it, I do.
You know, I have a tinfoil hat,that's pretty shiny.
I just think Checo's mid.
And I think, yeah, I just thinkCheco's mid.
And you know, max, the car, inevery way possible, has been

(17:18):
tuned to his driving style.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, I think that car is a beast to drive, no
matter what iteration it's beenin the last five years, and that
and a beast to drive to anybodyexcept Max.
I should say that they've tunedit to him so precisely for the
past five years that anybodyelse getting in is sort of shit
out of luck.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yeah.
And then that brings me fullcircle to wanting to take any
number of key personnel atMercedes and put my foot up
their ass.
Because when I think about thefact that Lewis Hamilton, seven
time world champion, and almostall of those in that Mercedes

(17:59):
was given a car that could notsuit him less last year and
still is loose in the caboose,which is absolutely holding back
Lewis and George in theirability to maximize the
performance of the car, how wasthat a decision that was made?
How did they actually gosomewhere on a design scheme two

(18:26):
and a half years ago and go,yeah, we're not going to suit
the car to our lead driver?
I mean, that's clearly what RedBull did.
Again, I don't want to discountthat Adrian Newey is a genius at
ground effect, because heclearly is.
That would be a lie to pretendthat he's not, and I'll give Max
his props.
He's a fantastic driver.
I don't think he's a goodperson and I don't enjoy him as

(18:50):
a winner and he's a whole bunchof other things that will never
put him in the pantheon ofpeople I will respect as F1
drivers, but he is fundamentallya very good driver.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
I'd say he's a very fast driver and a very
aggressive driver.
I don't know if that makes hima fantastic driver.
He's one to get his elbows outin Parker's car on top of people
if he has to, as opposed tohaving a much finer racecraft to
weave through traffic.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah, and he's never needed it.
In fairness, he was a bull in achina shop when he first got
into F1 and he got away with it.
And he got away with it.
And then, when it came to thepoint where he needed to have
the finesse and thecraftsmanship, the FIA just
opened the barn door and saidyou do whatever you want, son,
we're here for you.
And now he's so far ahead ofthe pack that it doesn't really

(19:36):
matter.
I mean, he can come through and99% of the time now nobody is
going to challenge him becauseit's just going to compromise
their race.
He's in a car.
That is the race.
Delta is what was it thisweekend?
That's relevant.
We're talking about Belgium 30.
34 kilometers faster than theMercedes.

(19:59):
Now, the Mercedes was probablyharvesting at that point.
But are you fucking kidding me?
That's nuts.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
Even if the Mercedes wasn't harvesting like that's
another, like 25 kilometers anhour faster, right?

Speaker 1 (20:17):
Like what do you do with that?
There were, I will say you knowthere were some real high
points, I think, out of the lastcouple of weekends if you just
shave off the Red Bull part ofthe weekend and once again this
weekend.
We'll talk more about it whenwe get back to Silverstone and

(20:37):
to Hungary.
But having Oscar Piazzari, whois in that resurgent McLaren,
just shining, you know, and he'sdoing it in such a non annoying
way which you know, I guessit's not fair necessarily to
have that be part of thecalculus on whether or not I

(20:57):
enjoy it, but it is.
You know, he's just a nice,funny, humble but fierce driver
and he's doing a really good job.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
I think it's going to be fascinating to watch for the
next couple of years.
I think it's going to beinteresting to see at McLaren,
if Piazzari keeps driving tothat level, what they're going
to do with their two guys,because I don't think Norris is
going to be cool to be thesecond driver, like he was fine
with Sykes, and I think the factthat Danny Rick just shit the
bed entirely while he was therejust pumped up Norris's tires

(21:30):
and I think it's just going toget more and more and it's going
to be interesting to see whatthe dynamics end up being there.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
And I don't know enough about Piazzari, how he is
like mentally and how he doesthe teammates, to see how he'll
do with that and it feels justlike yeah, I'm not convinced

(21:57):
that the McLaren would havegotten him all that far Just
because they had a barn doorwing on it and I think that that
was hurting them again.
That was part of the overallteams who were hurt by setup and
lack of opportunity to dial itin.
Some of that was just it's spa.
You have to make compromises,unless you have the Ubersuper

(22:20):
Deluxe Rocket Ship edition ofRed Bull Racing which is also
potentially too low for spa.
Put a pin in that.
It's definitely come back tothat.
I do think, though, every teamexcept Red Bull made big
compromises in the setup.
You had to, and you can seethat in the sector times, the
teams that were super fast infirst and third were terrible in

(22:43):
the middle McLaren Oscar madeup 90% of his gains.
All of his advantage was in themiddle sector.
He was literally 1.2, 1.3seconds faster on his good laps
than anybody else up to an,including Verstappen.
So that's 100% a setup choice,but nobody who was making those

(23:06):
compromises did particularlywell.
Ferrari and Mercedes seemed tobe just literally at the exact
same pace.
That's why Hamilton could notget past Leclerc, because there
was not enough Delta to everovertake.
Same for Charles with Checo.
Those three were really verysimilar in pace.

(23:27):
That's why it ultimately waspretty dull, honestly, to watch
that chunk of the grid, becausethere just wasn't anything
happening there Anyway.
So come back to Red Bull Racing.
You were going to talk aboutthe fact that it seemed like
they were running low.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
Yeah.
So Red Bull Racing Heather sentme a very fascinating video by
a gentleman who's name I'veforgotten because I'm old and
can't remember if I get called.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
His handle online is brrrrraaake, with a whole bunch
of Rs.
He's a former Red Bull Racinganalyst.
I think I can't quite rememberwhat his job was.
He did work for Red Bull forseveral years but he has enough
aerodynamic background that hedoes a lot of analysis of the
telemetry and posts about it.
But it's like brrrrake.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
I didn't realize until the other day that any
YouTube channel, because I'vebeen following him on Instagram
for a while and his analyses arefascinating.
It's hardcore analyticalspreadsheets and bar graphs and
line graphs, dave and Nerd.
Woot Right, it's so awesome.
I'm going to watch his channelforever now.
But one of the things he wassaying was that both Red Bulls

(24:34):
for going around O'Rouche whereit should be flat out, we're
lifting and coasting.
He has all the data.
He goes, gets all the onboards,gets all the data so you can
see where their throttles areand where they're breaking and
everything else.
Both Checo and Mac were liftingand coasting through all of

(24:55):
O'Rouche, which should be flatfucking out.
I got to tell you, the sim thatI can drive here that's the spa
is the most fun track that Ican drive in the sim.
O'rouche, once you get the line, is fucking awesome.
You just floor it.
All you do is you go up thegears and that's not what they
were doing, and I'm not a goodrace driver, I'm not a good sim
driver.
I do it in some little shittyToyota Celica and floor it and

(25:17):
away we go.
But for whatever reason, the RedBull cars were not flooring it
where they should have beenflooring it, and he had a couple
of theories on it, but the onethat he thought was the closest
to reality is that theybasically have this car's all
basically have tiny skid padsfront, back and on either side
going down the middle.
They can only lose one to twomillimeters off those skid pads

(25:41):
throughout the entirety of therace.
And that has how the FIAmeasures how low the cars are
riding and if they're too lowwhen they heel over at different
angles and they're breaking orlike under braking and stuff
like that Sort of more.
To support that as well was abunch of the the comms between
GP and Max and Chico and hisengineer as well, and going back

(26:05):
and forth.
And you know, use your head,use your head.
Max was told several times touse his head.
He was asked if both cars aredoing it.
He was just told listen to me.
Chico asked a whole bunch ofquestions about that section and
both cars were lifting andcoasting.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah which gives you two, maybe three follow up
points that I'd love to hit, onebeing, you know, I again.
We hit upon it earlier.
I think it speaks to the factthat they as a team also weren't
able to maximize setup becausethey put it there and then they
were locked into it and realized, oops, that's too low.
And, you know, it's kind ofnice to know that there's one

(26:43):
tiny chink somewhere in theirarmor, since they seem to be
amazing basically at every otheraspect of each weekend race
right now.
Two, I think you cannot talkabout this weekend without
talking about the exchangesbetween Max and GP, and it's me,
so of course I'm going to frameit in the context of the raging

(27:04):
fucking hypocrisy that takesplace in this sport.
He was an ass to GP and GP wasdone with it Like this is the
first time.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
He was the ass from Friday on.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
He was.
He was, and it was interestingbecause it's the first time that
you've really been able to havea sense that GP is done and not
just like I'm taking it andthis is kind of the nature of
our relationship but like shutthe fuck up, like he was done
with it.
He really was biting back,which was just interesting as an

(27:37):
observation between them.
But you cannot, having livedthrough the endless rounds of
criticism that has been leveledat Sonoda a much lesser degree
to a couple of other people, butcertainly also to Lewis on
every level over the years,about him being whiny on the

(27:58):
radio or mean on the radio, whenhe does things that are one 100
as rude and aggressive as MaxRistappen was, not to mention
sarcastic and arrogant.
You know the whole.
I'll bring it in for an extrapit stop.
Let's do practice.
Aren't I clever?
Like if Lewis Hamilton had evermade that crack in any context

(28:20):
in the last 15 years, he wouldstill be hearing about it 10
years later.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
I think also, if any driver had made that crack on
the radio, the fucking shitstorm, not only from like the media
and the fans, but from the teamprinciple after the race, yeah,
would it be epic, Not there, NotRed Bull.
I have a friend who used to raceand it used to be that Horner
and this is one, Danny Rick, wasthere.

(28:45):
Horner would call both of themin and just rage at both of them
.
And sometime in the last fiveor six years Horner's like this
is my son who sucks my cock, andeverything is amazing.
He doesn't seem to rage at allanymore and I don't know like if
it's we're all buddy buddiesnow.
I don't know what the changehas been.
There's no screaming at thedrivers anymore, which is good,

(29:07):
Don't get me wrong.
I don't, you know, think anyboss should be fucking slamming
doors and screaming at theiremployees.
There's no way.
Like one of his, as Heathersaid, like he's maxless, joking
about oh, let's do another pitstop.
So there's pit stop practice.
He was also bitching about oh,it's really windy and I have to
turn the steering wheel and GPis like okay, do you want us to
turn the wind off?

Speaker 1 (29:27):
Like, yeah, I do think GP was at an end and I
think, in fairness, teamdynamics when you're clearly not
in contention for anything areone thing.
I think team dynamics in a 2021situation where every point is
a dogfight is a second thing,and I think you know team
dynamics when you literallycould stop racing at the

(29:48):
midpoint of the season and stillwin both championships, which
is essentially where they areLike it's almost mathematically
impossible for any team ordriver to catch them or max at
this point, are different.
You know I wouldn't expectHorner to be raging at anybody.
The crypt keeper, who knowswhat he says to people behind
closed doors.
He's a hideous human being andyou know that is what that is.

(30:12):
See also Nick DeVries, danielKibbe at Pierre Gasly, alex
Albon you know I mean there'splenty of gross behavior there,
whether someone's screaming atyou or not, from that team.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
I don't remember what it came out, but I really hope
that rumor of Alex Albon beingasked to take that seat where he
said no thank you, is true.
I just hope that's so fuckingtrue.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
I don't think you'll have seen it.
Today's rumor is that AlphaTori, which is now expected to
be the Hugo Boss Bulls teamstarting next year, hugo Boss is
currently rumored to be themost likely lead sponsor for the
new team, and that will be theboss, the or the name.

(30:58):
The Hugo Boss Bulls team ispurportedly planning to run the
RB 19 as their car next year, sothey will take this year's Red
Bull, which will be last year'sRed Bull by this time next year,
and be driving that on the grid.
I have a hard time believingthat's legal, but it's not by
any of it, isn't it?

(31:19):
They'll probably find a way tomake it legal so that they can
keep Red Bull happy.
We go back to Sprint, quali andQuali.
Quali was very delayed, verymixed, most of the running on
inters, because it's spa and itdoesn't seem to matter whether
you're holding the race inSeptember or in late July.

(31:42):
You're still going to have thesame weather conditions track
drying, lots of evolution, hardto say how out of position a few
people were, but I do think itwas probably one of the more.
He who crosses last does best.
Yeah, it's scenarios forregular Quali.

(32:04):
Max took a new ICE, is thatright?
No, gearbox, I think he took anew Gearbox.
Yeah, I think, a new Gearbox.
I apologize if I'm forgettingwhat it was.
I didn't really care.
It's actually the fact of itwhich meant he took a five-place
grid penalty, even though hewas on pole.
He, of course, did not start onpole, but beyond that it didn't

(32:25):
really matter.
We all knew that he'd get thereone way or another.
There was a bit of an incidentwith the Mercedes, which is
relevant because there's apattern happening here that
we're going to talk about, whichis Lewis Hamilton got offline
to try and get out of the way,for I think it was Valtry Votas

(32:46):
and, as he was coming back on,was close to George, so there
was a big question there alreadywhether he was going to get a
penalty.
He did not Kudos to George forbeing a decent teammate.
He was like, yeah, no, I knewwhat was happening.
We were getting the samemessage.
I knew Lewis was coming back on.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
That was never a problem, so they dodged that
particular issue which,considering the last couple of
races with Mercedes and talkingto their drivers and telling
them where they are on track inrelativity to each other yay,
they got that right once.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
Ish, we don't know if that's factual, honestly, I
don't know that there's onboardproof of that, which is the
interesting part, but that wasthe story that was told to the
stewards and what cleared thepenalty.
And then Sprint-Quali was acomplete clusterfuck and it is
getting talked about and itneeds to be talked about and
it's a shame to me that thepeople who are talking about it

(33:40):
are not Mercedes, particularlyGoing into the second runs in Q3
, George, I will say, had a verydifficult session.
You seem to have a hard timekeeping it on track.
Well, and I don't know if thatwas the wing they were running
very different setups.
They chose those setups.
They did confirm that on theteam debrief that they both

(34:02):
picked what they wanted.
You know it wasn't likesomebody drew the short straw or
anything like that.
They knew there were differentoptions.
They each chose what they choseand one was likely to be better
in wet and one was likely to bebetter in dry, but it was spa.
So your odds were whatever.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
Your odds were that it might work for you and it
might not, and you know it mightwork for you for half the race
and might not work for you forthe other half the race,
Absolutely completely andtotally.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
But George was just having a real hard.
He had a tough, he acknowledgedit.
Like he just said, it was adisaster as a quality.
It wasn't a great weekend ingeneral, but Sprint quality was
where things were really tight.
He barely got out of Q1 andthen he barely got out of Q2.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
And then he probably only got out of Q2 because
stroll bend it into the wall andended a Lonzo session and 100%.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
Yeah, no, it was luck of the draw that he got through
, but then.
But then it was a perfect stormof miscommunication and bad
judgment and, yes, the team.
So it's spa and not nearly asbad as what we're going to talk
about when we get to the episodeabout Hungary, which is always

(35:10):
a nightmare in quality.
But you get a backup.
You know the bus stop chicaneis right before the start,
finish straight.
So as people are trying to getready for their flying laps, you
tend to get this backup of cars, which was absolutely happening
even in Q3.
Lewis was on provisional pullafter the first set of laps.
He was doing amazing, frankly,but they were told, because this

(35:34):
clog of cars was there, thatthey needed to push, push, push,
push because the implicationwas they were running out of
time.
George just barrels past, justblows by, including Lewis had to
drive right past Lewis to getwhere he was going, goes down,
is going whatever.
He totally loses it in thefirst corner.
So he's immediately compromised.

(35:55):
He doesn't just miss by a bit,he goes way he goes off the
track, on the track.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Yeah, it's like he's like spit, no, but I mean it's
like he didn't completely loseit.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
But not only does he not lose it, he comes right onto
the track in front of Lewis Imean right in front of Lewis how
he didn't get a penalty forthat is.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
Oh wait, it's a black and white issue, isn't it about
penalties?

Speaker 1 (36:19):
It's a fascinating one because they make it up to
Radion but and I've seen, likeyou know, somebody go.
Oh well, he had.
Lewis had enough of a tow atoffset.
The disadvantage?
No, it didn't, because by thetime they get up to Radion and
to the start of the Kimmel,straight George then then makes
a complete last minute jinkacross the track and Lewis

(36:42):
totally has to lift off thethrottle.
That was it for his lap.
There was no way done it wasdone.
It was absolutely over.
So now, not only had Georgelost a lap due to his own, no
offense error, he took Lewis outof contention to Mercedes
screwed the pooch.
Because they did say to Georgethere's nobody behind.

(37:04):
I personally find it impossibleto believe that George didn't
know he was there because hejust gone right past him, that
was.
There was never a scenariowhere somebody, aka Lewis, who
is the car he passed to getgoing, wasn't going to be behind
him.
Anyway, it's just.
It was such a weird out ofscene continuation of what
happened in Spain and then whathappened in quality, and now

(37:25):
it's happened in sprint quality.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
You don't see other teams tripping over themselves
like this, no, not just badly,it's kind of ridiculous, it's
kind of Ferrari level.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
It's very Ferrari level and it's disappointing AF,
because this team cannot affordthat kind of stupid Speaking of
Ferrari, though they had a goodweekend all in all.
I mean, let's just say theydidn't do anything obvious,
except for Carlos, frankly,driving Oscar into the wall and
breaking his own car.
That was, carlos, the leastoffensive Ferrari screw up that

(37:55):
we've seen in recent races.
So you know, there's hope yet.
And Cheryl got on the podium.
Hurrah, yay.
That made me so happy.
Yeah, if I can't have who Iwant on the podium, I definitely
want Cheryl on the podium.
So that was good.
So what did you think of therace itself?
What stood out as anything?
The sprint race or the racerace?

(38:15):
Either one?
Well, there's plenty to talkabout on the sprint race.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
I'm willing to go there, you are.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
Let's, let's, start with the sprint race.
Well, we had, you know, classicspa weather.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
Yeah, so it was 7493 laps behind the safety car, also
known as I think, six five fivelaps behind the safety car.
There were some interestingcoming in for pits and some
interesting stops and some veryinteresting releases that were
not deemed unsafe.
Yeah, I'm not sure how thathappened.

(38:46):
Fascinating.
Leslie came out and they helpedGavzly for a while and then
they let him out into a fuckingcar.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
They didn't hold him for very long.
He jumped a whole bunch ofpositions.
In any other race ever, everWould have been an unsafe
release.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
Yeah, but I think he still had like a three or four
second pit stop.
It wasn't Lewis's 5.2, but Iremember thinking it was up
there.
I was like, if you're going tohold them, hold them.
But I do know that he jumpedlike five positions and then it
was a really interesting sort ofmix of who came in for tires on
the first lap and who came infor the second lap and Piastri

(39:20):
had to lead for a while and Iwas fucking rooting for him.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
I was not spoiled for the sprint race too badly and I
was just like, oh, come on,oscar, like I knew he wasn't
going to hold it, but I was like, oh, yeah, you know, I think we
learned some more informationabout tires this weekend In
Kuali they did not declare it awet race, despite the fact that

(39:44):
they ran all of QSQ1 on inters.
Everybody except for one driverwas on inters, still in SQ2.
But because they did not callit a wet race intentionally, we
learned after the fact thatmeant that any driver who wanted
to go to SLICs duringqualifying had to be on their

(40:07):
hard, medium soft cycle, whichmeant that when Lance Stroll
decided to be brave and try toput on SLICs, his only option
was to put on mediums, which waswhat subsequently put him in
the wall and took out histeammate in terms of being able
to advance.
So then we get to the actualsprint race.
They have to start on the wets,essentially, and everybody knew

(40:30):
by the time they were at theend of the first formation lap.
No, no, these are not going towork Because universally
everybody has decided the wetsare the most useless tire
created.
They don't do what they need todo.
Everybody hates them.
Everybody hates them.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
Can't drive and the rooster tails they create are
fucking incredible.
And it's not just them Like Maxand God knows he's a whiny
little fuck.
But Max was complaining behindthe safety car that he couldn't
see.
And if your leader cannot seebehind the safety car, yeah,
something's not going right.
How about the guy in 10thposition Like what's his view

(41:04):
Right?

Speaker 1 (41:05):
Like yeah, pierre was real clear after the race that
he felt like it was not safe tobe racing, that there was still
too much water.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
All those guys have to have their back, their mind,
that someone died there lessthan a month ago.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
Yeah, delano's death is so recent you can't not be
thinking about it.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
And that Gazzly and Leclerc as well did their
tribute.
Yes, right Like, and that'sfour years ago, like everybody
has to be thinking, and frankly,last year Norris was like that
was scary.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
Yeah, it was.
Yeah, I mean everybodyunderstands the dangers.
At Spa I did appreciate thatthe team, all the drivers, were
very clear and, I think,unanimous coming into the
weekend that the FIA had to befully prepared to cancel the
race if it was deemed unsafe.
I don't think that the sprintrace was unsafe, I you know, I

(42:01):
felt like it was fine.
They, they did the laps, theydid they felt like under the
conditions I just think, yeah,and I think you should.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
They should have started on inters, right, like
the wets are such bullshit tiresand they could have all just
started on inters, though it didmake for an interesting first
not first actual lap, but firstactual racing lap to see who
stayed out and who came in andwho changed around and yeah, it
was.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
So the sprint race gets going and from that point,
once everybody's back on track,I would argue that it settled
into a group.
There's always some degree ofinteresting overtakes.
Those are minimal, I think, inthose sorts of circumstances.
You know, we we see someadvancement up through the

(42:46):
midfield.
Not a whole lot.
Like I say, most people jumpedin that pit phase rather than on
the track.

Speaker 2 (42:55):
So then we get into racing conditions and and Paris
starts to drop backwards andParis is going slower and slower
and Louis goes to pass him andthere's a bit of RG bar G, but
nothing too egregious in any way, shape or form.
And Louis, you know lap eightpops up, that Louis is under
investigation and everyone,including the announcers, like

(43:17):
it's nothing, it's a racingincident, it'll be fine.
And what do you have JulianPalmer saying Louis is fine,
it's a racing incident,nothing's going to come of this.
The absolute, like befuddlementand disbelief.
When you got awarded a penaltyfrom the announcers, who are
usually pretty anti-Lewis, andacross the board after the race,
everybody was like what thefuck, how did he get a five

(43:39):
second penalty?
How does he have two penaltypoints on his license?
Like what bullshit is this?
And no, like crickets fromfricking Mercedes fighting
against this and crickets fromthe FIA defending it, when you
know every media outlet is likewhat the fuck?
What, how, how is this apenalty?
And you cannot I mean it'salways said that you cannot look

(44:01):
at the outcome of the incidentand, frankly, if Sykes could
race for like 20, whatever lapswith a giant gaping hole in his
car, no problem.
The positions that Paris waslosing was not because of the
hole in this car?
Did he exacerbate it?
Probably, but he was droppingdown the fucking ranks fast at
that point, yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
Louis was close, had closed in on him and he had no
pace, well before they got tothe point where they came
together.
It is, I'm sorry, outrageousbullshit.
That penalty was beyond awful,to the point and, in general, a
test to this.
I hate Derek Warwick.
Derek Warwick was one of thestewards for Abu Dhabi and, yeah

(44:46):
, I'm not over Abu Dhabi.
You get over me not being overit, because I will never be over
Abu Dhabi.
Same, His bullshit great whitehope comment about Max
Verstappen puts him in thepantheon of people in the FIA
that I can't fucking stand andnever will be able to.
And because he was one of thestewards for the race, I will
admit I jumped to a conclusion.
The conclusion was there.
I didn't have far to go.
I jumped, turned out afterwards.

(45:07):
Derek Warwick was one of thepeople going.
Yeah, we were not unanimous onthis decision and I was not one
of the people in support of it.
That alone, that alone, knowingwhat he knows about how the
fandom for Louis Hamilton feelsabout him, for him to come out
saying that right.
I mean, I can't even test himinto the fact that this was a
terrible penalty.

(45:28):
And the bigger context, if youread Autosport sorry Autosport
on a regular basis.
Alex did an entire article onthat this week that, like all of
the drivers ought to be havinga real heartfelt convo with in
the drivers meeting next inZanford on Friday night about
what and why and how was thisallowed to be a penalty.

(45:49):
Because if that kind of thing,which was incidental contact,
this was not somebody misjudgingthe apex, poor little Red Bull
racing fans.
Whee, whee, whee, whee, whee,whee.
That was not what happened.
Checo had plenty of room on theoutside.
Louis was absolutely alongsidegoing into the corner.
Did he get understeer?

(46:10):
He did, because he caught theright tire on the wet curb and
that bumped him to the left, butnot in a way that did more than
the most incidental of contact.
You are in racing conditions inchangeable mixed weather and
you keep telling us that theentire reason we're having these
fucking stupid sprint races isbecause we want more

(46:32):
entertainment and more racing.
And then you do this.
Yeah, it's utter bullshit.
What?

Speaker 2 (46:39):
are you doing?
There was no way Louis wasn'tgoing to make that pass.
There was no way Leclerc wasn'tgoing to make that pass, and
I've also heard that Red Bullwent crying right away about the
damage in their car and theyhad to retire their car.
But here's the thing they'resaving that car, Like that
happened in lap seven.
So there's only what five morelaps to go.

(46:59):
If Sykes could race 22 laps theway he did and any other manner
of people racing over the yearsthe way they did, Paris was
falling down.
Whether there was somethingwrong with the?
setup in Paris or there'ssomething wrong with the car
that they wanted to fix and theycould see it.
But if they can point thefinger at somebody else and not

(47:20):
necessarily Louis, but happilyfor them in this situation,
Louis if they can point thefinger at somebody else and
retire that car, so they can dowhatever they want, and maybe
they already knew they had aproblem with the skid block
during the sprint race.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
It's interesting because they hadn't really
thought about that.
It seems less likely becausethey did those five laps under.
They were not racing hard.
They wanted to conceive how youcould possibly have been in a
situation, but we've seen itbefore.
They retired him in Abu Dhabiand you knew it was because he
was out of fuel, right?
We all know that he was.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
Paris had only been racing for two laps when Louis
over to real racing Right.
No, I know, the rest was all hecould get in the car.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
Yeah.
So whatever I mean, I am of thebelief that there was already
an issue, because he wasabsolutely slowing down.
Everybody again, all thecommentators, who are sometimes
the most clueless Fs that exist,were like yeah, no, he was
already slowing down well beforethe contact and the damage

(48:21):
happened.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
Julian Palmer actually said that it was
extraordinary that LouisHamilton had gotten a penalty.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
You know at that point that five seconds put
Louis down the order.
And to your point earlier, I'mnot sure if I was more pissed
and disappointed by the stewardspenalty or more disappointed
and pissed by the fact thatMercedes once again was ballless
and did not do anything.
Yeah, I thought we would seeLouis grumpy about it in the

(48:51):
post post sprint interview.
He was very Zen about it.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
I think he's just becomes Zen in general.
But all this bullshit, likehe's like I can't.
I'm definitely not going to beable to beat them.
I can't kill them with kindnessor anger.
I'm just going to keep doing mything and I think part of his
thing is enjoying how frustratedeverybody gets by him not
getting angry at them.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Yeah could be.
I can't second guess that.
But what I can second guess isa team that absolutely refuses
to have a backbone in thecontext of these situations as
they arise.
And you and I have a verydifferent take on Abadabi and
whether there should have beenat least some theater involved
in making a show of standing upfor fighting what happened the

(49:37):
end of the day.
Every time you fail to, youmake it easier for them to get
away with it the next time, andI want to believe, even if it's
naive AF at this point, thatMercedes can be back in the
fight next year.
And do I think they're going tobeat Red Bull over a season?
No, I don't, but I think ifthey improve the car, they can

(49:58):
be fighting for wins from timeto time, maybe the sports more
enjoyable to watch again, butthere will never stop being
stupid ass penalties that aredisproportionately levied at a
certain driver's head.
And you've got to have abackbone.
Stand up.
Even if you're not doing it inreality behind closed doors, at
least have the common sense tobe politically adept enough to
talk about it in front of thecameras.

(50:19):
But that's not what they do.
Have the theater to do it right.
I mean, this sport is politics.
If you don't think it'spolitics, you're not watching
the same thing.
I am, no, and it's always beenpolitics.

Speaker 2 (50:29):
It's always been, it's always been, it's been
politics since it started.
Absolutely, it's nearly acentury worth of bullshit
politics.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
Well, and that's my point, though, you have to play
the game, and doing nothing isnot playing the game.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
The other cheek is not the way to go on this.
Stand up and understand.
You're just going to get moreand more penalties and be frank
about it.
Like, yeah, we're getting thesepenalties.
Here's why we think they'rebullshit penalties.
We can't fight them because weknow we're going to lose.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
But you'll get the sympathy.
I mean.
That's my point.
It's like the only way youbreak the system is by
challenging it, and there aretimes where they're easier to
challenge.
Your point with Abu Dhabi isthey risk too much by making an
actual challenge, and my take isokay even if that's the case,
and I do think the end result,the potentiality of that, is
very much what was going tohappen.

(51:17):
You had the ability to put theFIA in the hot seat for at least
a minute and get the attention.
And right now, when I look atit in the context of what we
just saw this week, what do theyhave to lose?
What do you have to lose inthis moment?
You're not going to winanything.
You're not challenging.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Frankly, you get more penalties, even as a team, and
you drop down.
Great, you drop down.
You get more fuckingdevelopment time, which is what
they need, and development money, right Like yeah, it's not like
they take instructors pointsaway from you because you
complained.
You know they may not like you,but and even if they do like,
hit you with harder and harderpenalties and you lose.
You fall down.

(51:56):
Fuck it, fall down and take thedevelopment time.
Yeah, I think Abu Dhabi was fartoo late to fight.
There was many other instancesthat season where Mercedes could
have fought them going to thesporting court.
And the sporting courts meantthat Mercedes would have to
withdraw from all motor sportsuntil the case had been decided.

(52:17):
And that was at least a seasonthat they would have to withdraw
not just from F1, but fromevery motor sport that the FIA
do, do, do.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
And I still don't care, and I still think if they
had called their bluff and saidwe're prepared to take you there
that night instead of going.
Yeah, well, whatever, we'll liveto fight another day.
And the stewards would have hadtheir balls in a vice for 24,
36 hours and as outraged aspeople were.
In even the absence of that,the attention it got would have

(52:47):
been good for the sport in thesense that it would have made it
that much harder to bury thelead and just sit on it for six
months and then send MichaelMassey off on some, you know, do
not discuss contract and sendhim to Siberia, which is all
they did at the end of the day.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
To be fair, they said they were far lovelier than
Siberia.
He just got booted back toAustralia.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
Not the point, but yes, I mean, he's gotten away
with what he did.
Essentially, they got away withwhat they did, and it's the
belief that they can do it again.
That is the problem, and I willnever have faith that this to
your point.
The people who are in charge ofadjudicating this stuff will

(53:32):
not represent impartialinterests, and so teams have to
be willing to fight, and RedBull does it.
They're good at it.
Asked to Martin and will fight,they're good at it.
Even Ferrari knows how to do it.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
Gunther Steiner knows how to do it.
Gunther Steiner is true for all.
I do not like Gunther Steineras a boss is very, very good at
it.
Even what he knows, he's notgoing to win.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
He fucking fights all day, and I think that's what
Mercedes is going to have tolearn at some point, but if they
haven't learned it now, I don'tknow that they ever will.
I don't know race.
Onto the race.
Yeah, I don't even know whereto start exactly.
I mean, we had Max in sixth, wehad a good front row with, you

(54:18):
know, our second Red Bull, whichseems to be exactly on par with
the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
We had Sykes taking up Piazzaglia in the first two
laps.
No, in the first corner.
Yeah, but Piazziglia made it tolap two before he had to retire
the car.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
Yeah, well the car was broken.
You know it's been funny towatch sort of the hubbub in the
post-race on that front.
Is Carlos just adamant that itwas Oscar's fault?
Completely in every waypossible.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
Are you?

Speaker 1 (54:48):
fucking kidding me.
Yeah, no, I mean he's doubleddown on it multiple times on
social media.
I sorry, carlos.
No, neither of them wereinvestigated, let alone received
a penalty for the contact.
So do with that informationwhat you will.
I think probably the biggestsurprise of the race was that it
took until lap 17 for Restappanto take the lead.

(55:12):
Was there anything elseinteresting that happened?

Speaker 2 (55:15):
in this race.
No, I mean, that is where weget.
I'm just looking at my notes.
It is where Restappan overtookLewis with 34 kilometers per
hour without DRS.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
But, in fairness, lewis held him back for a few
laps, which you know.
Hey, you take the wins that youcan get, and that was probably
it.
I really I assumed thatRestappan would be in the lead
by the fifth lap and that wouldbe the end of it.
So 17 was you know something?

Speaker 2 (55:45):
No, there were.
You know there were a couple ofreally good midfield battles as
well, and that's always beenthe interesting thing when you
know the championship is sewn up, when you understand it's going
to be one of two driverswatching the midfield and
they're actually a feel showingmore, I guess, because someone
else are you going to show?
Liberty Media understandseveryone's fucking bored as

(56:06):
balls.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
Yeah like with what's going on up front.
Hey, yuki got points and I willsay it good for you, yuki
Sonoda, you've been taking it inthe teeth for a month straight
now and Yuki's gotten all of thepoints for Alphatorie and Danny
.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
Rick has been doing awful and I make me a bad person
, but I am so happy he is notdoing well there.

Speaker 1 (56:32):
I think it's early days, but I think the whole he's
going to come in and dominateand because he was ahead of him
last week or the last race, itwas like, oh yeah, see, here we
go.
Danny Ricardo Superstar isgoing to be so dominant.
And yeah, no, that's not whathappened.

Speaker 2 (56:49):
No not at all.
Back to a couple of the goodbattles.
There was a great one that wenton back and forth between Gasly
and Albaughn the midway throughthe race.
That was going back and forth,back and forth, back and forth,
which ended up, having bought usbecause they were fighting so
hard with each other, bought us,ended up catching up with them
and at some point Gasly pippedand we're going back and forth
and back and forth and one ofthe times that Gasly pipped,

(57:11):
albaughn bought us was like I'lljust follow you through, mate,
it'll be great and well done forbought us.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
Absolutely.
Anytime we get to see Valtryhave a moment of success is
wonderful, because that damn carwill not get into the points.
You know we'll.
We'll talk at length when weget back to Hungary.
It was a tough weekend to be anAlfa Romeo supporter.
But yeah, and I think all inall, pierre had a good weekend,

(57:38):
not just because he managed toget on the podium in the sprint
race which kudos bear for you,buddy.
You know it's nice to see youhappy for him.
Well, you know, I just feellike Alpine had had such a
frickin tough few year kind of.
But you know, I appear, I think, had a good weekend and that

(58:00):
was nice.
They needed it and that's agood too.
Alpine got both cars in thepoints.
That's fantastic.
They needed that particularly.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
Alka also had a really amazing battle going on
with Sonoda for a while to wherehe finally pipped him.
He just had an amazing overtake.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
That one point was like yeah, yeah, that was
fucking amazing.
There were some, really therewere a couple in there.

Speaker 2 (58:20):
Lance Stroll had a good one, esme's show had a good
one on Ricardo, like there area couple of really good ones.
And Louis, you know 43 laps inpits for the mediums and the
fact that he got fastest lap onthe mediums tells you that that
car, like he, can do somethingwith that car, over one lap when

(58:43):
the perfect conditions, whichis unfortunate because race is
more than one lap and theconditions are really perfect.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
I think Louis has established he can.
He can ring the neck of thatcar.
I just think you know we again.
It's hard to talk about thingswithout talking about things out
of order.
You know, little bland ohMcWiney face who spent a lot of
time talking smack about Louisat Hungary, you know, I think

(59:13):
that car is not a great car.

Speaker 2 (59:16):
It's not a terrible car.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
But you know, you can always watch the manufactured F
one Liberty media narrativeweek to week because there's
always a series of talkingpoints that they, they all seem
to dial in.
And in Hungary the talkingpoint was oh, louis Hamilton
keeps bitching about his car,but his car is good, and that

(59:39):
came up before Louis stuck it onpole and you know.
So that then empowered Lando tobe Lando.
But the reality is it's not agood car and I personally feel
like you can make an argumentthat if they were lifting,
coasting up a route through arussian radio, that they were

(01:00:01):
losing another, maybe half asecond A lap in pace, which
means that Red Bull was noteight tenths faster At least
we're talking max now was noteight tenths faster, it was a
second and a half faster thananybody else on the track.
Yeah, but I'm going to say, ifyou have your car bouncing up

(01:00:21):
and down and you can't hit yourbraking points and you can't
turn the car in, obviouslythat's impacting your lap, your
pace to.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
Jesus, and I'm watching Louis's head on this
fastest lap Like there's no wayyou could sustain it and,
frankly, the Alpenes and theFerraris were bouncing pretty
fucking hardcore.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
Yeah, I mean, I do think Merck had the worst of it,
but they were so very much notthe only ones who were having it
again.
And so you know, for me I'm alittle bit like Well, I don't
know that you can really drawsome of the conclusions people
are readily drawing.
I read people in the commentssections on things and it's like
well, they were like, buteverybody else was compromised

(01:01:07):
too.
So I'm not saying anybody elsewas as fast as Red Bull, I just
don't know that.
I believe that the delta gap waseven was wildly bigger than we
saw because I think everybodyelse was driving around going
for cruise six to keep my car onthe road and that obviously
slows you down some.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
I'm compressing my spine over the course of two
hours.

Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
Yeah, and I don't know what'll happen in the
second half of the season.
But you know there have beensome interesting analyses of
pace delta between teammates and, yeah, you know, we didn't hear
any of that narrative beingsung last season when certain

(01:01:52):
drivers were compromised bydoing all the experimenting on
their cars and we're down in thepoint.
It's just funny to me it's.
It's such a it's this unendingamount of manufactured narrative
and how it's controlled and whospins it and how funny it is
that.
But the, the media, thenarrative at this point in the

(01:02:17):
season, with no possibility ofchange on this insight, because
the only story you can tell asLiberty media at this point is
Red Bull racing will win everyrace.
That's it.
That's the only narrativethat's going to have any
traction, even though there'slike way more interesting
stories right below that thatthey could be focusing on and

(01:02:41):
setting up for next season.
Setting up for next season.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
Focus on whatever the fuck's going on internally at
Alpine.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
Well, there is that's happy people out, right, and
you know what does that looklike?
And is it, is he going to popup?
I mean, the implication waspretty clear that he thinks he
is.
Now I don't know Again if youwatched the video that I sent,
but skipping forward, it may notbe Aston Martin, which would be

(01:03:12):
a super weird choiceconsidering the fact that you
know, he hates.
Aston Martin.
Vice versa, I am sure thatOtmar might be in the wings
getting ready to go with Entreti.
Interesting, yeah, and there'ssome, there's some interesting
connections there that I thinkmake that way more likely.
When you think about it on justcommon sense level, I don't

(01:03:35):
think we really know orunderstand the status of
Entreti's application.
No, I think we'll hear that,probably beginning of September.
Yeah, there's also rumor todaythat Bridgestone is not out of
the running as a tire supplierfor 25.
Jesus, they were so bad.

(01:03:56):
Well, everybody sort of seemsto think Pirelli is so bad.

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
So, and and basically , they have long enough memories
.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
Yeah Well, and Bridgestone apparently offered
more money and it's F1.
So, yeah, so there's a lotgoing on.
Alpine, who knows?
I Bernardo seems like aterrible choice, but that keeps
coming up.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
Oh, is that the rumor .

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
Oh yeah, it's been the rumor for about two weeks
that Bernardo was like a tinyisland on the outside of
Scotland.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
Yeah Well, we didn't.

Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
It wasn't exactly immediately clear that was where
he was going.
It was sort of a loose likeBernardo's been tapped to come
to a F1 team.
And then there were some earlyscuttle about Otmar going and
but you know, who knows?
Who knows anything?
It's all bullshit.
Everybody makes it up.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
We'll find out when we find out.
Yeah, exactly, alonzo goingasked and Martin was a hell of a
surprise.
And well, one year ago, thethings were definitely
interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
Yesterday you saw all over social media the reason
he's going to Alphatoria.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
I bet he deeply regrets that choice now.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
Yeah, I'm guessing he does too.
I you know, in hindsight, I'mguessing he wishes he tried
Williams, but he didn't.
And it's done, and you sleepwith Red Bull Racing, you get
burned.
That is what that is, and I'mdisappointed and I think he was

(01:05:24):
mistreated.
It's Red Bull, so he just whatare you going to say?

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
I don't understand how much of a better deal he
thought he was getting with RedBull.
But keep watch Red Bull.
Just throw their drivers awayseason in and season out, and
how.
You think that's a good placeto sort of, especially knowing
that he's not a young rookie,like he's a rookie in F1, but
he's 27,.
Right, like this is his one andonly chance.
Yeah, like it's not going to belike Ocon, sitting a season out

(01:05:49):
and coming back in right.

Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
Like no, I suspect it was a more pragmatic decision
which is based on the fact thatlast year the Alphatoria didn't
look like the worst car on thegrid, which it does right now.
Yeah, and the Williams was theworst car on the grid.
And so you make an analysis andthat seemed like an opportunity
to be further up the grid andget through faster to success.
And yeah, I mean, I would be.

(01:06:14):
I would love to know whatcounsel he got from Toto coming
into that decision.
You know, like, did Toto sayX-nay, or was Toto just like I
don't?
You know, it's hard to get aread on how good of a leader
Toto really is.
Sometimes he says all the rightthings, but I'm not seeing it

(01:06:34):
backed up with a lot of actionright now.
So I'm a little I'm a littlecynical.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
Yeah, looking at how and where all of the other
drivers he reps have moved to, Ifeel that was more a call and a
breeze part than anything else.
Like he's, done really wellwith all of his other drivers.
He reps.

Speaker 1 (01:06:49):
He's an adult, you know, and Toto has amazing taste
in drivers.
I mean, we haven't had a chance, but you know, kimmy had an
amazing weekend last weekend.
Ugo has had again a couple ofweekends ago.
He had a fine weekend lastweekend.
He had an amazing weekend acouple of weekends ago.
We haven't even talked aboutthe fact that in and we shame on
me, belgium I still haven'twatched it.

(01:07:11):
The F3 race must have beenfreaking bonkers and I can't
wait to watch it.
We had.
So there were drivers who made15, 20 plus places up in that
race.
Sophia Floresh, the first womanto ever score points in F3.

Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
It's amazing well done for her, because she's been
fighting for years to do that,so good for her, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:32):
So hopefully by the time we record our next
progressive in order podcast,we'll wonder.
Both of us will have seen thatF3 race, but still so much going
on that we never have time forWell and Formula E season has
come to an end and I did sort ofvaguely try and look into
changing my flights.

Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
I had various different flights coming into
London and leaving London onSaturdays and Sundays and it
just wasn't financially possibleto do so.
But I am so sad that I you knowI'm not.
I'm happy I went to go see aplay at the Globe with my mom
because she enjoyed that farmore than she would have enjoyed
a Formula E race.
Yeah, I could have been thereon Saturday, right, yeah, like

(01:08:15):
Formula E season's done, yay,jake Woot, I was so moved and so
scared that I was going to goto the World Championship.

Speaker 1 (01:08:24):
She's a good friend, boys and girls.
I wanted it, she got it, I haveit, ha ha ha.
No, it was a tough weekend.
I will say you know there weretwo people who were really
deserving in that championshipbattle.
I won't pretend I'mdisappointed that Jake won, but
I do think there was some chaos.

(01:08:46):
That's a very interesting track.
You've got a partially indoor,partially outdoor track.
On a weekend when it'sincredibly wet, that was not a
recipe for success.
Those cars are banging eachother under the best of
circumstances.
So you know, we had someparking lot action, we had some
hurt feelings.
There's always silly seasonsalready in full effect in

(01:09:08):
Formula E Lots of movementhappening and going to keep
happening the battle is a rumorof joining, which would be
fucking amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:09:15):
It would be.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
I'm super skeptical.
It would be like over the moonawesome If Seb decided to give
that a go for a season.
I don't buy it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
I don't buy it, but I also I think I could go either
way for Seb right, like I feellike he still has racing and
wants to race, but I also feellike the fundamentals of Formula
One were so at odds with hispersonal ethos for
environmentalism that he knewwho's getting towards the end
and he knew retirement wascoming and he was just like I'm

(01:09:47):
going out now Like I want tospend time with my family.
I don't agree with theenvironmental mathematics for
Formula One, which is acompletely different ball with
Formula E.
Formula E is also a muchshorter season with bigger gaps
between races.
I think that's the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
I agree with everything you said and I
totally believe that you'reright that he was like.
It doesn't align with my.
That's true.
No doubt that that's true.
I just think that might be thehook is it's fewer races.
They're farther apart.
It doesn't destroy its family,Although I kind of see him
wanting to do rally and some ofthat, maybe more, but I don't

(01:10:25):
care.
If it comes to fruition I willbe over the moon.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
Over the moon.
Yeah, I mean, there are acouple of rally series you could
easily join too that areenvironmentally extreme.
I want to see him in extremeExtreme me.
But also like there's there'sWorld Rally as well.
That's now all in e-cars, whichI think he'd be great and he
has so much fun doing that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
Yeah, the race of champions.
He's just had a ball the lastcouple of years, which have been
, like you know, wild, crazyenvironments to play in, so I
think we'll see him eventually.
I'm not convinced we'll see himcommitted to an entire series
of something in the next year ortwo, but again, if it happens,
that'd be awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:11:00):
I mean, we're planning to go to Portland
anyway.
It'd be awesome to see him race.
I know.

Speaker 1 (01:11:04):
I'd be super excited.
I'll fight you for theautograph on that hat Dude.
If I get that autograph, I'mkeeping that.
No, no, it's a race.
Yeah, no, it would be.
It'd be amazing.
But you know, even if he's notthere, I'm looking forward to,
I'm looking forward to a daywhere I can actually see formula
erases in real time.

(01:11:26):
Oh right, that'd be fuckingawesome, that would just be like
such a thing.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
I wonder if, at the end of the season, they'll
upload them all to YouTube againso we could watch them
retroactively, which would benice.

Speaker 1 (01:11:34):
They didn't last year that was the disappointing part
and I will never understand why, but we've beaten that horse to
death.
There's lots and lots of goodracing, but we're in the midst
of the summer break.
We come back to like theXanfort.

Speaker 2 (01:11:50):
Yay, more orange.
I have to tell you I'm so happythat Silverstone had no orange
smoke Like that just would have,yeah, not been okay to me.
Max was so far ahead ofeveryone they let off the orange
smoke and it was so Fuck.
People were still racing.
Well, yeah, there were stillbattles going on right until the
finish line, yeah, and thefucking orange smoke was just

(01:12:11):
pluming through like some sortof disaster movie.

Speaker 1 (01:12:15):
I don't want to waste any precious airtime talking
about Max for Stappin fans thatway, liz.
Sadness and racism, and racism.
So we've got a little time.
We're going to get caught up,we're going to go back, we're
going to do hungry, we're goingto do Silverstone and we're
probably going to find an excuseto talk about some of the other
things that have been going onin the race World over this
little break, and so we will beback soon with another exciting

(01:12:39):
episode.
Swearing and drinking, drinkingand swearing hey, two of my
favorite things.
All right, thanks for joiningus.
Everybody, be safe and we willtalk to you soon.