Episode #13: 2023 Dutch GP

Strap in as we talk through the 2023 Dutch GP, a race that redefined unpredictability, brought a record-breaking amount of overtakes, and saw more pit stops than laps run. We'll unpack the chaos, the rookie stepping up to fill big shoes, and the usual suspect who sealed the win, tying Vettel's nine wins in a row record.

Prepare for a deep dive into critical team errors, like those of Mercedes, whose strategy, poor team communication and bad pit-stops continue to cost them dearly.  The race was not all doom and gloom though, as Albon shone in the Williams and Gasly's composed driving saw him clinch a well-deserved spot on the podium. 

Get ready for candid discussions and hot takes on the murky Driver of the Day award, and the surprisingly high number of overtakes. We'll also ponder why Alpha Tauri left  Tsunoda out to dry, LeClerc's lousy luck, and what Lawson’s promising debut means for the future. It's not all serious business though, there are some laughs to be had with our "Luckiest S.O.B' and 'Douche Canoe of the Day' awards. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Greetings and welcome to Formula XX, a podcast by two
Gen X women talking about F1and other motorsports, usually
with adult beverages and alwayswith adult words.
So if you're underage, easilyoffended or a fan of Red Bull
Racing, turn back now.
We aren't neutrals, though.
We do our best to be at leastas unbiased as the shills on the
Liberty Media or Sky Onepayrolls.
This week we're talking aboutthe 2023 Dutch GP, which,

(00:23):
frankly, promised to be Dull asdirt.
We expected a predictable raceand a predictable winner, with
very few overtakes and 300,000fans celebrating the very thing
driving the rest of the F1fandom crazy.
Instead, the raid mumbled inyet again and showed the current
strengths and weaknesses ofevery team and driver on the
grid.
We got the most overtakes in F1history, more pit stops than
laps of the race and a fill-inrookie covering for rebound

(00:45):
driver under the most chaoticcircumstances imaginable.
Sadly, we still got thepredictable winner this time,
tying the record of nineconsecutive wins originally set
by Sebastian Vettel.
The sigh.
My name is Heather and with me,as always to talk about all
things, anvort, is the almostbirthday girl, jen.
Jen, one day older.
Where are you and what are youdrinking so that I can join you

(01:08):
in honor of you this evening.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
I am in a spare room of my friend's house in
Vancouver-ish sort of in betweenhouses right now until I get
settled, and she has crackedopen a bottle of Indian whiskey
which is really delicious.
It's called Paul John and it isan Oloroso cask, cask select.
This will be a horrible mediumfor audio, but I'm holding it up
to Heather.
It's this beautiful, dark, darksort of mahogany color and it

(01:35):
is delicious it's fascinating tosee.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Right, very nice.
I am drinking water because 24hours ago Jen and I were still
in the same city, on the sameside of the border, and we
indulged for her birthday andit's possible I had a little
more than I should have.
I am going to not drink tonightto ensure that I can still be a
functional human being tomorrow, because I have a whole series

(01:59):
of meetings that are going torequire me to face people who
she tailed and bright-eyed.
But what we are here fortonight is to talk about
Zandwork.
It was not anything like Ithink anyone predicted going
into the weekend, which has kindof been a recurring theme.
Chaos has ruled supreme.
One of the things we haddecided that we wanted to do
moving forward after the summerbreak was to change the format

(02:22):
of how we approached our recapsof the weekends, and so we're
going to focus a little bit moreon the structure of the weekend
.
Just briefly touch on things asthey occurred.
All right, free practice in 30words or less Piazery off.
Ricardo doesn't let go of thewheel and breaks himself.
Red flags, orange smoke,leclerc off again and again

(02:45):
Sergeant in the wall.
Mercedes has decent race pace.
I think that pretty much summedup free practice.
It was a regular weekend, as itgoes.
We didn't have a sprint thisweekend.
We weren't trialing anythingnew and exciting Tires in
quality.
It was a straightforward raceweekend, with the weather once
again being the thing that wasjust messing with people.

(03:08):
The track was very slick attimes.
We saw it have dramatic impactsin F2.
Free practice there were moreoffs, frankly, than I think
could be counted in at least oneof the practices, but there
seemed to be a sense throughoutthat section that most of the
teams were there there aboutNobody really understood what

(03:28):
the pecking order was going tobe going into the race itself,
so that was practice.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Practice was wet, man , as you said, fucked with F2.
And it's hard to say if some ofthe drivers who were going off
were going off because it's awet or because of the tweaks
that have been made to the carsover summer breaks and them not
having been in a car for acouple of weeks.
It was an interesting time, orso I was told through texts with
Heather, because I was drivingdown to Seattle at the time.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Well, and that took us to Saturday, and Saturday the
weather was again changeable.
The hardest kind of conditions,I think, for qualifying,
because it meant anything couldhappen.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
So tell us what did.
As part of our redesign overthe summer break, we, as Heather
said, are trying a couple ofdifferent things.
We're going to try and doquality in 30 seconds or less.
What the fuck, lewis?
For all the promise thatMercedes showed on free practice
, it was not the case here.
There was much yelling at theTV from both Heather and I,
because we were in the same citywatching the race.

(04:25):
Norris nearly had MaxVerstappen he was nearly not on
pole, but then all that hopedisappeared.
Albon was spectacular flyingand that William Sargent did
really well too, until he didn'tand hit into the wall, pulling
out a red flag, which was, ofcourse, no help to Lewis, who
went out in Q2.
After quality how was Sonodathe only one who got a penalty

(04:46):
from pitting?
The argument can be made eitherway.
For Lonzo I'm more towards.
He should have got the penalty,but, goddamn, it's still 100%
needed to get a penalty for that.
So that's my 30 seconds, ormore or less.
I forgot to hit my stopwatchtimer.
Better luck next time.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
We'll track that as an insert.
When you're listening to this,we'll be able to tell you how
close we got to 30 seconds.
Yeah, I think it was very mucha case where impeding was a sub
theme.
It definitely impacted somedrivers more than others, but
the level of traffic and thechangeable conditions really set
up a few people to be furtherdown the pecking order than they

(05:26):
should have been, and Lewisdefinitely got the brunt of it.
Check out was off by milesagain.
George snuck a great lap in andput himself in P3.
And there were six differentteams in the top 10.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, which was great .
It's lovely to see so manydifferent teams up there.
It'd be nice if differentdrivers were up there.
I also think for his first timeever driving an F1 car doing it
in the rain.
Lawson did fuck it amazing Likewell done him.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
Where did Lawson end up in Quali?
I've already forgotten.
He started 19th.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, but he kept it all on the track right.
That's his first time everdriving an F1 car, so I think he
did a phenomenal job.
There are guys out there withfar more experience who spanner
at it, but good.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Cool.
So that's 30 seconds worth ofQuali update, plus another two
or three minutes over the top Gous, which then, of course,
brings you to the race, and Ithink we probably could have
done this podcast by just sayingpoor strategy and poor pit
stops, just left it at that andwalked away.
I'm sure we have more to saythan that, but I will kick off

(06:30):
the fact that this was aMercedes disaster class as far
as strategy goes.
There was plenty of poorstrategy to go around, but, boy
howdy, you knew, when they tookthe tire blankets off and Lewis
Hamilton was the only driver onmediums with rain approaching,
that something hadn't reallybeen thought through.

(06:52):
I was already shaking my headat that point.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
I don't understand how, when they split the
strategy for tires on the start,they did not split the strategy
for tires for when everybodycame in for their injures Like,
how do you not bring in the guywho's asking to be brought in?

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah, I mean, I think we have to say the race starts.
The rain came in faster thanpredicted, heavier than
predicted, so it became a matterof which team reacts quickly
and understands the implicationsof what they're doing and isn't
conservative.
And I think we saw Red Bullbring Checo in immediately.
It was one or two other peoplewho reacted right away to the

(07:33):
rain and came straight in forenters, and that allowed them to
leapfrog.
We literally had about threelaps of that race where it was
like you were watching twocompletely different races
happen.
You had the people who had goneon to enters and the people
who'd stay on slicks, and thepeople on enters were just
flying by the people on slicks.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Even Leclerc, who came in, had the most Ferrari
pit stop that they'd Ferrari'din a while, made up a bunch of
that time.
Right, you had like a 10 second, not penalty, at a 10 second
pit stop, but he was stillmaking up time, yeah, ferrari in
that first one, the fact thatthey were not ready at all when
Charles came in.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
And the excuse is made well, he, he decided on his
own to come in, but they didnot have the enters ready for
him, like there was some otherchoice that they could possibly
have been putting him on.
And why would you not havethose tires ready to go Ferrari?
So yeah, at that point you hadan entirely new race.

(08:31):
After that first round of fuckups from most of the teams on
the grid, you had a handful ofdrivers who had repositioned
themselves or effectively gainedout of that moment, and a whole
bunch of drivers who lost out,including George Russell, who
went from being third on thegrid and leading momentarily at

(08:51):
one point on Sunday down to 17.
You had Lewis Hamilton, who hadstarted exceptionally well,
fastest off the line on thoseday on mediums, by the way, and
really did well until sort ofthat immediate phase where
anybody on soft tires was goingto be faster.
So he started to slip back alittle bit.
But had Mercedes not been tooconservative for about the 800th

(09:16):
time in the last few years, hecould have been one of those
people who leapfroggedsignificantly ahead, and George,
by all accounts, didn't want tocome in, and Mercedes allowed
themselves to use that as thereason not to bring Hamilton in,
and I, just I, am at a loss.
Like you said, there's noexplanation, or not at least

(09:37):
splitting the strategy andtaking a gamble if that's what
you considered it to be with thedriver who's already all the
way down 13th or 14th at thatpoint.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah, no hope of points, let alone a podium, was
the prediction.
So bring him in.
You have your eight, seven,eight times world champion
saying he needs to be brought infor inters.
Fuck him, bring him in, he'sout of the points.
What does it matter?
And you can see by that pointthat the drivers that are on
inters are second a lap fasterthan those who are still in

(10:08):
their softs and Hamilton's onfucking mediums.
That must have been as ifwalking on ice like that with
Goose shit, like there was noway he had any traction.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
I'm gonna say it is a huge Hamilton fan.
I think one of the things thatis not Lewis's strong suit is he
was absolutely saying it's toowet, but he needs to be more
demanding of the team.
He needs to be in a position tosay I'm coming in.
We've seen Russell do that inthe past.
We just talked about Charlesdoing that.
In the past, we've heard CarlosSainz dictating strategy to

(10:38):
Ferrari, and God bless him,because if you were a Ferrari
driver, you too would be doingyour own strategy.
Witness Sebastian Vettel forthe last year or two he was at
Ferrari.
There's a necessity at times todevelop a level of confidence
that you're gonna make the rightdecision, and I sometimes think
Lewis doesn't demonstrate thatas well as he could or should.
You know he knows, he knows.

(10:59):
He just has to say this is thetime I'm gonna come in, and I
can't remember a time where he'sdone in recent history.
Him waiting for the team togive him direction has bitten
him in the ass.
In my observation, more than notLast time I can think of
strategy really paying for himto follow their lead was
probably Spain in 2021, whenthey managed to pull a hungry on

(11:21):
Red Bull.
I think that the only thingthat has resonated for me with
the post race reaction from thevarious and sundry in the
Mercedes camp total has this, inmy opinion, tendency to sort of
brush stroke very broadly whentalking about why things don't
work.
You know it's everybody's issueand so does Lewis right, we win
and lose together.

(11:42):
He was doing that in the sensethat he was saying well, it was
also, it was the drivers and thestrategists and the engineers
that all had a role to play, andI think that's actually really
spot on.
I think the drivers in one caseyou had a driver making the
wrong call and the whole teamfollowing that and another
driver with seven slash, eightslash, let's just say eight

(12:04):
championships who really shouldknow better.
He just should have said I'mcoming in, coming in, give me
the answers.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
Okay, let's just go, and if I have to come in again
for the full wet switch couldhave been a possibility that was
always going to happen.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
They were going to drive a whole race on the
interest.
It was a.
It was a split secondcalculation.
You're taking two pit stops,but can you make up more time to
your point?
We watched it check.
Au pair has picked up sevenseconds in a single sector.
After he put the interest onthe moment that he got through
the first five corners,everybody else on the grid
should have instantaneouslydemanded that their drivers come

(12:39):
in.
It would have chaos in the pitlane.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
We'd probably had some other outcome just because
there would have been so manypeople diving in at the same
time there were some really holyshit what just happened in the
pit lane that no one really gotpaying for.
But I think Mercedes wasn't theonly team that did that right.
Mclaren kept piazzed Gio on hissofts for the entire time.
That just sort of bollocksed uphis race.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
Good and proper too yeah, and there were some teams.
I mean, the thing was is youhad to commit, you had to make a
decision.
You saw what Williams did withAlex Albonne.
Albonne drove on that set oftires for 10 years, 45 plus laps
.
Albonne put on those softs,never came in, and that served
him in the end, because theproblem was you had to do one or

(13:22):
the other and the teams thatwere slow to react screwed
themselves.
And so, you're right, it wasnot just Mercedes, but I do
think Mercedes was the mostegregious because, frankly, they
had the position in one handand they could have gained in
the other, and they managed tofuck it up and did neither.
Hamilton comes out 20 basicallyby the time he's done with all

(13:43):
of this and then spends the restof the race having to make up
places.
I don't know if we'll ever seea race again that doesn't suffer
from DRS drainage.
You spend half the race justwatching the same three or four
cars follow each other aroundendlessly the front of the grid.
There were some, I guess,interesting things happening,
including the fact that FernandoAlonso had an amazing start,

(14:04):
irrespective of all the crapgoing on with strategy and rain
and tricky conditions and all ofthat kudos.
The man got off the line andhad a great race.
He drove really well.
Yeah, that Aston looked muchbetter again this weekend in his
hand.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
I don't remember Alonso ever really putting a
foot wrong or a wheel wrong,like he got up and two laps he
was up to second place and hejust fucking belted through the
race right like he didn't haveany whips of daisies.
He didn't seem to have any badRG barges we didn't really have
his team radio, but nothingreally came across the team
radio either that they played onF1 TV.

(14:41):
Everything seemed to just gosmooth for them, head down, head
out, fucking floor it, which hedid, and he did really really
well.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yeah, he was aggressive without compromising
his race, because that was arace where, to your point, you
got yourself off the dry line insome moments or you made the
wrong judgment of where anotherdriver was or what they were
going to do, and you could be ina serious amount of trouble
really quite quickly, and hejust didn't.

(15:09):
He managed to come back ontrack after pit stops, including
almost nine second pit stop atone point in that race, and
still ended up P2.
So kudos to him for the firsttime.
Don't really have heartburnabout him getting driver of the
day, even though there have beensome instances this year where
I was less impressed with thatcrowd selection.

(15:30):
I think we all know who won.
I don't know that we need todwell on that.
I think it's probably worthtalking about the other driver
who had a great race and endedup on the podium, and he again
was one of those drivers whomade the right choice early on
and then just drove a solid racenot, I think, as impressive

(15:52):
maybe as Alonzo's in the sensethat he wasn't doing
awe-inspiring overtakes, but hewas rock solid and, I think,
absolutely deserved to spot onthe podium, and that was Pierre.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
He got pinged 5 seconds for speeding in the pit
lane and you know what?
He took it on the gin, kept hishead down and just did what he
needed to do.
Like he made up that 5-secondpenalty.
Not no problem, but he made itup pretty well right.
I was really happy to see himon the podium.
He deserved that.
He did really well how hedidn't get Driver of the Day or
Lewis didn't get Driver of theDay versus Alonso, who did put

(16:22):
in a solid race.
I'm not saying anything againstAlonso, but I think Gazzly and
Hamilton had more overtakes.
They had to do more defendingthey had to do.
Yeah, I think.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
Albon.
If I recall correctly, alonsogot 20% of the vote and you
mentioned that they don'ttypically share the detail of
the final.
I would be shocked if thatwasn't split a lot between
Alonso, gazzly, hamilton andAlbon.
Hard to say, hamilton doesn'ttend to get much respect on
these things, or it surprises mewhen he does.
I really thought any one of thefour of them was a candidate

(16:54):
just based on where they managedto put themselves, versus in
most cases where they startedthe race itself.
There was a lot more thathappened.
It was actually an excitingrace.
You can't talk about a racethat just shattered, frankly,
the number of overtakes.
This is a track that generallyhas very few.
I think last year there was 23.
That might not be the exactnumber, but it was a really low

(17:14):
number of overtakes, at leastthat weren't DRS assisted
overtakes.
I think we were at what?

Speaker 2 (17:20):
189 on this race.
Yeah, at least it was somethingridiculous.
Say, just for argument's sake,that 89 of them, or even 100 of
them, took place while peoplewere in the pits faffing around
with their tires.
Say it's 89 on track overtakes.
That's fucking phenomenal.
That's something we don't eversee in F1, right, that's a four
mili-e style race and I thoughtit was fantastic, yeah it was

(17:42):
fun to watch.
Yeah, there were all sorts ofreally interesting and sometimes
heartbreaking overtakes thatwere happening on track.
You watch poor Sonoda talkabout just a shitting your bed
tire strategy.
Alphatori left that poor guyout there I don't know at least
10 laps past his tire, to bestmy day, and he got seven
overtakes and seven laps.
And they were not that hardovertakes when people just came

(18:03):
by him and like well, and healso had a terrible pit stop.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
That was one of the other things I mentioned.
At the top of the pod is youstill have some amazing pit
stops, I think for step and head, two that were 2.2.
Second stops, the tallyboardfor the top 10 stops.
They were all sub 2.4, 2.5,mostly in the low, low.
Two points At the other end ofthe spectrum, though, you had

(18:28):
I'm not even going to talk aboutMercedes consistently crap.
That first stop of Charles wasterrible, the second stop where
he had to come in, because I'mnot even sure I remember anymore
.
I think it might have been withPiaz-Tree.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
Forgive me if I'm wrong, he had minor contact.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
It was enough to clip the front wing in plate off
which subsequently although wedidn't necessarily know exactly
what had happened, we knewsomething had happened to that
car, went under the floor anddid enough aero damage to affect
, apparently, about 20% of hisdownforce levels.
He tried and tried and tried,but that second stop to fix the

(19:05):
wing was also just over the toplong, not just because of the
wing.
We talked about Alonso havingthat eight plus second stop.
Checo had a 10.9 second stop atsome point in the race.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
So unusual to have Red Bull have such a long stop.
Them and Williams are like themasters of amazing stops,
Tinfoil hat.
They're like yeah, Checo, Markwas already said, you're not
coming back next year, If youread between the lines and
they're like whatever we do,what we do with you, we're fine
till the end of the race.
We already won everything wewant to win.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Yeah, I think there's plenty of room for the tinfoil
hats where anything related toRed Bull is concerned.
Unfortunately, not all Williamsdrivers had the success this
weekend.
While Alex Albon was once again, you know, sort of proving that
he can drive any distance yougive him on any set of tires,
logan Sargent, for the secondday in a row after having bended
and quality bended again in therace, we did hear from James

(19:56):
Val after the fact that it was ahydraulic failure but it was a
hydraulic failure from goingover the curbs, correct.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
So it's definitely like the car lost a technical
aspect of it, but it lost atechnical aspect of it due to
something the driver did.
It wasn't sort of like ahydraulics failure, a seal wend
or something like that.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
Correct.
And you know, I think,regardless of the crash itself,
there was something just sort ofbizarre about the fact that A
he was out on the fringes of thetrack and, unlike what you see
90% of the time, where thedriver does you know the walk of
shame or the ride on the backof a scooter of shame to get

(20:39):
back to the garage, the boy wasjust left sitting by the side of
the road somewhere, unhappy andmiserable for all to watch.
Throughout the entire rest ofthe race, which was just super
weird.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
At one point he's obviously commandeered a chair
from someone because he'ssitting on a folding chair for a
while, but his head down.
But he knows too right, likeboth times he bend it into the
wall.
He had set personal bests inthe sector before, so he knows
he's driving for his F1 careerand he's just cutting that edge
too close.
Right, that's two days, twowalls.
That does not make anyone happy, including the bean crunchers

(21:12):
who are looking at the cost cap.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
I don't think that there's a big likelihood that
Sargent's still going to be inthat car next year.
I don't know why he would be,given the fact that there are
many other drivers who arecapable of filling the seat,
even if it's not higherperformance.
Frankly, a bit more charisma,and I'm sure we're going to have
plenty of time, as the rest ofthe season progresses, to
discuss who's in that secondseat, because I think we're

(21:35):
going to start hearing about itpretty soon.
So we also had another DNF, soyou go forward through the race.
I would say that there was amid part of the race that sort
of settled into a groove.
There was again a lot of DRStrains.
You're not seeing a huge amountof shuffly shuffly tire
strategy.
At one point, once the rain hadstopped, everybody comes back in

(22:00):
for their new set of slicks.
At that point Mercedes made yetanother interesting choice put
George Russell on a pair ofhards after a relatively short
stint on SOFs.
That then he drove for a verylong time.
So he was I think he was downin that sort of 16-17 range for
a long time.
You're seeing a little bit ofmovement throughout the field,

(22:20):
people picking away as you gothrough the pit stop phase.
Then the rain came back.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
And I don't know why.
Even before the rain came back,I don't know why Mercedes was
like well, these hard tires areabsolute shit.
You could see everybody wastalking about the rain coming
back.
Put them on fucking SOFs, letthem burn through a pair of SOFs
and go up the field a bit.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
Or a pair of mediums.
Frankly, albon proved that youcould drive SOFs for 45 laps and
they're faster than the mediums, which are faster than the
hards.
So by what math did you do thecalculus and go?
Let's put him on the slowesttire for the longest time.
That's ridiculous by anymeasure.
And it's just one more way thisweekend where you just went.
What is happening?

Speaker 2 (22:59):
There's no logic.
They left Lewis out way toolong and his tires after he came
back in.
And he finally came in and hecomes back out, having worked
his way up the order.
Pretty well, he comes back outon 14th, but man, he just kept
going and going and going untilthe rain came, like he worked
his way up to, I think, six onthose tires.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
Depending on your interpretation, he actually was
net fifth at the time.
The red flag came out Once therain came back again, seemingly
catching all of the teams flatfooted, catching the FIA flat
footed.
Suddenly it was a skating rinkbecause they were hydroplanes,
At which point a number ofdrivers turn one had been a

(23:43):
problem, particularly for Cherylin the earlier phases of the
weekend, but several drivers ina row had issues.
Checo had been off.
I can't remember who else hadbeen.
Lewis had an off.
Everybody was basically makingit across the gravel trap.
Checo had come in for new tiresat this point.
At that moment, Lewis was netfifth and would have been fifth

(24:05):
on track if the red flag hadn'tbeen called the red flag.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
we had a joke on you in the wall and bought us in the
wall Not in the wall, but offright after him as well in the
same place, but was able tocontinue racing.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
This was not a great time for everybody who had to
try and keep their car intact,briefly, and we had a pretty
long red flag at this point.
I mean you always get theconversation there's three hours
of racing time.
There was no great danger thatthey were going to hit three
hours, but it was a pretty longstretch to repair the barriers.
It's the count back effectwhich, even though, again, lewis

(24:41):
was net fifth at that pointbecause Checo had been in fifth
the lap before the red flag wascalled, meant that he got to
come back out in fifth at therestart.
The restart was effectively asprint race.
There were, I think, six lapsat that point.
They were going to do twobehind the safety car and then a
rolling restart.

(25:02):
I give kudos to the FIA as manytimes as I've been frustrated by
them.
At least this time theyactually just told everybody
look, it's going to be a rollingrestart.
After the cluster fuckery thatwe saw in Australia earlier in
the year, they didn't messaround.
They have the ability to waituntil the last second to tell
everybody whether it's going tobe rolling or standing.
But they were just like, yeah,no, it's going to be a rolling

(25:22):
restart, two laps behind thesafety car, done Much better, in
my opinion, to just telleverybody.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
And so all the drivers prepare mentally for
what they need to do.
So I think you're right.
I think having the FIA tellingeverybody what's going on, how
it's going to happen, is a muchbetter way than everybody
sitting around for like half anhour waiting to find out what
the FIA rules.
I think the rolling restart atthis point was right.
Having them all start from stopwould have been a fucking

(25:50):
cluster fuck of carnage.
It would have been so chaotic,tires would have been cold it
was still wet, though obviouslyit wasn't raining by this point
anymore.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
We totally jumped over the other recurring
Mercedes theme of 2023, which isthe Mercedes drivers nearly
taking each other out.
Oh Jesus, right, fuck.
So in that Epicard's tire stintof Georgia's at one point he's
driving around on the hard tiresthat are well past their due

(26:21):
date.
He's all over the track.
Louis is coming up on him withfresher tires and much better
pace.
George not only doesn't get outof the way, he sticks a tire on
the grass, as everybody saidpulls it out of his ass to keep

(26:41):
that car from shunting fullyinto the wall Like it's magic,
and almost catching Louis aswell, then drives for another 5,
10 seconds in front of Louis,costing him time when there are
on wildly different tirestrategies.
What is going on with that team?
That is, three times in eitherthe last four or the last five

(27:05):
races Spain, spa, this race whatam I forgetting?
They've nearly taken each otherout.
What the fuck, mercedes?
I yeah.
Anyway, just that team is a hothot mess.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
I think they need to do some sort of
intercommunications trainingbetween all of them.
I think the big thing is is thedrivers aren't getting the
messages or they're not tellingthe drivers things.
I get in the race, I don't.
Actually that's not true.
I don't get in the race.
Why you wouldn't let yourteammate buy?
From wildly differentstrategies.
However, if you're told to letyour teammate buy, you let your
teammate buy, but some of itthey just didn't know the other

(27:43):
one was coming up.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
Oh, that's it.
I don't, yeah, I agree.
I don't think George is being adick, I just think the
communication is terrible.
Yeah, it's super lacking,correct it's.
I have never felt like it hasbeen intentional in any of those
instances.
It's just been lack ofawareness in some cases, because
I do think that these arepretty sharp drivers and they

(28:06):
tend to know where the othercars are.
But it's fundamentally the teamisn't giving them the info.
You're dead on.
It's unforgivable because it'scompletely avoidable.
If it was intentional, thensomeone's just being a dick.
That's its own problem.
But I think this is all.
It doesn't need to be happening, but it keeps happening, which
is ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
The fact that they haven't really taken each other
out the last couple of races isa fucking miracle.
Yeah, it's especially this one,like I don't know what magic
Russell has, that that car didnot completely snap when that
tire went off on the grass, LikeI.
Whatever sacrifices he has madeto the various goddesses and
gods and you know, happy littlelittle fusion goat people like

(28:49):
keep doing it man.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Yeah, let's hope he hasn't used up all that luck,
because I don't think thatthey're going to keep getting
lucky and near missy the waythey have been sooner or later.
They keep it up, it's going tocost them even bigger than it
ultimately did this weekend,because they get going after the
restart.
And by this point again,because of pit stops and just

(29:11):
sort of the timing of what'sgone on between what we were
just talking about and the redflag and the rain, russell's
gotten himself all the way backup from 17th, where he was at
his low point, to, I think,eighth.
At that point he's eighth orninth.
And then on the restart he gotspicy and he had good pace

(29:33):
because the Mercedes ultimatelyon race day somehow manages to
be better by the third stint ofevery race.
He gets aggressive around Landoand with just the most minor
contact gets a puncture and yeah, that was pretty much game over
for him.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
That was the end of his race Right around the same
time that Russell's pippingNorris Paris is coming in for
new tires and gets pinged forspeeding in the pit lane.
And actually Red Bull does geta five second penalty.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
No, actually you know what's weird about that one?
That pit lane violation wasfrom the one right before the
red flag.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Oh, that's right that was.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah, that was.
That was the FIA fuck-up of theday, in my opinion was he got
that in his haste to come in andchange tires He'd had his off.
That's right.
He was going to go back toInter's sped in the pit lane and
he hit the wall when he wascoming in right.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
That's the pit, that's the pit stop where he hit
the wall coming in and nearlyrear-ended someone.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
I don't know that he nearly rear-ended anybody, but
he definitely he may have.
I distinctly remember thereplays, because I didn't.
You didn't see it in in realtime, they weren't showing it on
the replays.
You caught that he had whackedthe pit wall and they waited
until the restart, till afterthe cars were driving again.
No, this way, that's 45 minuteslater.

(30:50):
This was a long red flag, whichis a huge dick move, right,
right they didn't let him knowuntil after he was on the road
driving again that he has thisfive second penalty, which was
so weird, like there was noreason for them to not tell him
no it's a dick move for Paris.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
It's a dick move for all the other drivers and
strategists who have plannedwhat they're going to do and
they're like wait, we actuallyonly need to be within this
space or we need to push to getwithin this space.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
Yeah, it was a.
That was the weird call of theday for me was their decision to
defer communicating that for anentire 45 or 50 minute window,
whatever it was.
And to your point, it had aneffect, because or it was
important, it did have an effectand it was important
information.
We get the restart and Hamiltonhas way more pace than signs

(31:45):
who is right in front of him.
So Hamilton's back in six.
You've got signs.
You've got Paris starts infifth but gets by signs fairly
quickly.
The first three are kind ofdown the road.
You've got Verstappen, alonzoand Gasly and I don't think
there was ever any danger on therestart that that shuffle, that
that was going to shuffle.
But signs has Hamiltonliterally up his tailpipe for a

(32:09):
five laps.
He is losing it on the radio.
He's, you know just and blesshim.
But the car, the Ferrari, isfaster on the straights and
there's no DRS.
So it stayed where it was butin the meantime, what did say?

Speaker 2 (32:25):
I can't remember what did say on the radio he's too
close or he's bullying me orsomething he's I think he said
something about he'sintimidating me that he's
intimidating me like dude.
It's not quality.
The dude doesn't need to backoff.
He's active, it's notintimidating, it's racing.
For fuck's sake.
That's the whole point.

(32:46):
The dude's trying to get pastyou.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yeah, I think it's funny.
You know it was frustrating assomebody who is watching it and
really wanting to see Hamiltonget by.
There was just no way, eventhough he had the faster car,
and that's just a byproduct ofwhere we're at with the the cars
, and the Ferrari does have, orat least in this instance, but
generally, I think, has betterspeed and storyline, and so that

(33:10):
just wasn't going to happenwithout DRS to assist.
But Paris does lose a spot atthe end, effectively nets a
lower spot, because science waswithin the five second window
and I think we've, you knowwe've seen a more interesting
race than I would ever haveimagined.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
Well, and that cross of the finish line.
I don't know if Lewis was like.
Well, I guess we're just goingto take it easy like.
Nor is it 0.023 seconds behindLewis, like for fuck's sake.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
Yeah, another 100 yards and Lando is ahead of him
by a significant margin.
I'm with you.
I don't know if if he just letup too soon and was so focused
on science that he forgot thefact that Lando was up his
tailpipe as well, or was by thetime they got to to the finish
line.
But when I was watching it thefirst time, I almost thought
Lando had pipped him because heflew by so quickly on the left

(34:05):
side that I was like, wait, wait, what just happened?
Right?

Speaker 2 (34:08):
and the way they were showing it.
I mean, it was after the racewhen they were cooling down and
Lando had slingshot by him, butyou didn't get that they crossed
the checkered line.
But at point two, because theywere so close, like holy fuck,
what just?

Speaker 1 (34:19):
happened.
Yeah, I bet Lando they didn't.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
I don't remember anybody talking to him about it
or I didn't hear it, but I'msure he was irritated he didn't
get that spot like we don'tlisten to Lando, but I wouldn't
mind going back just in this,this instance, and listening to
what his radio was as you crossthe finish line.
Yeah, no kidding.
I think I just do it for my ownedification yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
So I would say for this race.
Clearly, the headlines thatcame out of it had to do with
the fact that Firstappen tiedVettel's record again.
I don't think I'm speaking outof term when I say I couldn't
possibly care less.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
And here's the thing about Firstappen, who's to us
very uncharismatic.
I would like somebody whothinks he's charismatic to
explain to us why they thinkhe's charismatic.
But also he 100% did the samepose that Vettel did when Vettel
made that record.
Like, at least be fuckingoriginal, or you know.
There's really so many ways youcan hold up nine, switch the

(35:17):
hands or something like to standin the exact same way with your
hands in the exact sameposition that Vettel did.
No man, that's just fuckingcreepy yeah, I, I, I.
I've got nothing to say abouthim so one of the other
formatting changes that we'regoing to do is some ranking
systems for all of us.
So, heather, who do you thinkwas the luckiest driver of the

(35:38):
day?

Speaker 1 (35:38):
well, you already talked about George Bussell not
bending it in the wall and thefact that he definitely seemed
to have sacrificed a chicken toa god somewhere to have not
stuck it in the wall.
I sort of thought the Checo,who basically was given the
right strategy great pit stops,took an off, kept it going, hit
the pit wall, benefited from thecount back reset and the

(36:01):
ability to fix the car that hedamaged, pitting and sticking it
in the wall had a 10 second pitstop, got a penalty that only
cost him one place basicallybecause of the fact that Carlos
Sainz was so obsessivelyworrying about Lewis Hamilton
behind him that he ended upnetting into fifth place
benefited from a lot ofcircumstances.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
I think it's an interesting thought activity.
Then, if Lewis had gotten bySykes a Sykes have just rolled
those coattails if they wouldhave come close enough to Paris
to bump them both up positions.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
I'm 100% think that if Lewis had found his way past
signs that Lewis would havenetted ahead of both of them, I
there's not a doubt in my mindthat he would have.
It was it was way too close,and that's what I'm saying.
I think Checo was lucky as hellthat he only lost one position
in the end of the day, and Ialso think there's very little

(36:57):
likelihood he's going to be inthat second Red Bull seat next
year, so he should enjoy theselect while it's benefiting him
, because it's, I think, veryunlikely yeah, assuming Denny
Rick's hand heals up properly,there's no way his ass isn't
back in that seat next year.
Yeah, I don't know there's beena lot of talk about whether he

(37:18):
still makes sense in theAlphatorie.
If they're really trying tobuild that brand, I just can't
come up with who they will putin that second seat if it isn't.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
Denny Rick, no, they.
I mean they have a couple ofyoung drivers coming up, but
none of them are ready for F1.
I don't think none of the F2drivers they have are really
ready to be in that Red Bullseat.
You might be able to put Wassaup into Alphatorie, but I don't
think he's ready to be a numbertwo driver for the number one
team.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
I don't even see a Wassa in the Alphatorie seat
next year, so there's going tobe some moves coming.
I think people are starting toreally marginalize Yuki, who had
a tough damn day.
You know, you called it earlier.
He was hung out to dry onstrategy, was well in the points

(38:06):
, drove a excellent race andfell out of the points entirely
because of his team, and that'spretty frustrating because he's
driven really well, in myopinion, the last few races and
he's just not coming away withthe points to show it.
But it's not a reflection ofhis driving.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
I agree.
I think he's doing really,really well for the car that he
has, because that car is afucking backwards ass horse
that's eating its own shit.
Like that, car does not goanywhere.
When they have their cheatercar next season it's going to be
an interesting, different story, but for right now, I right,
and I sort of feel like Yukideserves a chance to drive the

(38:48):
cheater car at this point.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
You know if, if he's going to take all the hits that
he's currently taking, I reallywish that he'd get an
opportunity to drive a car thatis as fast as this year's Red
Bull, which, by all accounts, isall they're planning to do.
You know, every third story isthe fact that they're just going
to redo the entire car nextyear and, yeah, it's just going

(39:10):
to be the RB 19 rebrand speakingof poor lock, who do you think
the unluckiest driver of therace was?

Speaker 2 (39:16):
Charles.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
Charles.
For me it was Charles.
I think he was the person ofall the drivers again, only a
handful of them directed andmade the right call for the
tires at the right time.
He was one of them and theywere so ill prepared to change
him onto the tires that thatpenalized him.
To start with, the relativelyminor damage.

(39:38):
It was not a big whack, it justwas enough to do the kind of
damage that sometimes happensand he stayed out there so long.
I mean, the poor guy got passedby almost everybody on the grid
.
I think Liam Lawson who, yeah,we have to talk about next is
the only driver who didn't passhim at that point and yeah, that

(40:02):
that just sucked for him.
And I have to say for LiamLawson it's unluckiest in, or
poor bastard, right like, ifyou're gonna draw your first F1
race out of a hat, it's notgonna be this race by choice,
with the incredible crap drivingconditions.
Your first time in F1.
Oh my god.

(40:22):
This was a nightmare scenariofor a first time driver.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
The fact that he finished the race, I think
speaks a lot to the type ofdriver he can develop into.
Absolutely that he kept it onthe track.
He is not one of the ones thatwent, as far as I can remember,
he's not one of the ones thatwent off the track.
He kept it on the track.
He finished the race, which ismore than several of them can
say with multiple.

(40:47):
You know, checa went off, louiswent off, bodas went off,
sergeant went off, shav went off, sikes didn't go off, sikes
went off and Kuali and then infree practice, like so many of
them, went off who, between them, have hundreds of thousands of
races under their belt?
Niva guy, he was half no, noraces under his belt and, like

(41:08):
he has shitty, his conditionsfor when he first drives the car
are super shitty conditionsthat are not typical of what
that race track would be for himto drive on.
I think Lawson did himselfproud.
I think he did a really good,solid race for his conditions
and his experience couldn'tagree more.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
I thought it was a fantastic debut F1 drive,
looking forward to seeing whathe does in the next few weeks.
By the time we're recordingthis, there has been
confirmation that, because ofDanny Rick breaking his wrist,
in free practice too, he is postsurgery, in recovery but
unlikely to drive again untilSingapore at the earliest.

(41:46):
Lawson will have that seatuntil he's back.
So he'll get a chance againthis weekend in Monza.
At least a couple more racesunder his belt and looking
forward to seeing what he can dowhen it's maybe not as crazy.
The weather forecast for Monzathis weekend is not great.
It's a little.

(42:06):
It depends, apparently, whichforecast you're looking at, but
it does currently include rainfor race day.
I will hope for all involvedthat we get a dry weekend.
I think we need one at thispoint for the sport, frankly.
But yeah.
Lawson did a great job.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
Heather and I were joking this weekend that you
know.
Bring it to the PacificNorthwest.
If climate change has donenothing, it means we are no
longer a wet climate from, sayJune until August yeah, they
really should be up heresomewhere.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
One other new award that were or designation that
we're going to be including isdouche canoe of the race.
Who did you have in mind forthat award?

Speaker 2 (42:43):
well, I had for luckiest driver of the day, I'm
luckiest bastard of the day anddouche canoe they're all George
Russell.
For me I think he ticked allthree of those.
The fact that we talked aboutearlier that off that he had,
that he didn't go off like Jesusmad strategy, his, his, and
what Mercedes did for him.

(43:04):
That just fucked the bad.
The fact that he I still don'tunderstand how he got a puncture
with like that minimal tap,that like I don't understand
there had to be a flaw in thetire.
That doesn't make sense.
That he got a puncture at theend and ended up in 17 and I
think his sort of bitching andmoaning a bit this weekend and
the fact that they told thatthey asked him to come in or
they said he should come in fortires and he was like no, these

(43:25):
were fine and he didn't come in.
I get questioning Mercedesstrategy.
But you see all the otherdrivers coming in.
How do you like?
Okay?
Well, everybody else is comingin.
This is obviously the thing todo.
At least the top teams arecoming in.
This is obviously what weshould do, like shut up, come in
.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
It's bucketing down, put on your fucking angers yeah,
let's hope everybody's gained alittle experience and let's,
more importantly, hope that theylearn from some of it.
I'm, you know, I don't knowthat I can put up with one more
post race generic blah, blah,blah about we're gonna take away
these lessons.
Stop making the mistakes, Idon't.

(44:03):
I don't care if you learn tolesson if you don't actually
apply it, and that's the problem.
I will.
You're right, I think, in termsof just sheer piss poor luck.
I still don't understand howGeorge got the puncture, and you
know that that did suck for him.

(44:24):
It sucked for Mercedes.
They dropped out of the.
That was the lowest scoringrace of the season for Mercedes
and George started third and youcould tell by his initial radio
communication with the teamafter the first round of pit
stops that was not the day hewas expecting to have.
Sad for him.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Sad for him and for you.
Who is douche can you havetoday?

Speaker 1 (44:45):
You know, it wasn't like there was a glaring flag
for me in this one.
I sort of thought signs, therewere a few defensive moves and I
oh yeah, not necessarilyconcentrating on that last
section at all like I think thethe all out sprint post restart.
I wasn't.
You know, I wasn't particularlybothered there.

(45:06):
Just during the main phase ofthe race.
There were a couple of latemoves that I thought were a
little on the edge and therewere a couple of other black and
white flags.
I apparently missed an entirethe part of the race where
Hulkenberg got a black and white.
For really poor defensive movesyou can end up with a black and
white as well as as Hulkenberg.
So there there's an argument tobe made that sciences maybe

(45:29):
were not the most offensive butthe one of what I saw.
There were.
Several times I was like uh-uh.
No, no, I don't think so, notin this weather.
Uh-uh, I agree with that.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
Like I have in my notes like how did he not twice?
I have in my notes how did henot get a penalty or at least a
warning?

Speaker 1 (45:44):
yeah, like the fact that he never got any warnings
is mind-boggling to me, you'dhave to spend 20 minutes of
every race recap talking abouthuh head scratch to your point
earlier of the multitude, therewere four separate impeding
incidents in that first stretchof quality that were really you
know, they weren't even, itwasn't a question.

(46:05):
And only one driver gets thepenalty and the only non-white
driver.
The only non-white driver getsthe penalty.
And again, with this sort ofstuff, you're just like well,
who's making the call?
The inconsistency is it burns,that it burns.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
Alright.
Another new feature is we aregoing to rank drivers from
bottom to top.
So Heather, bottom driver,sergeant, one-year couple of
words for him.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
I'm actually not gonna spend as much time with
words.
I'm going to actually grade thedrivers for this round.
I will say I gave mr sergeantAD.
I, to your point, recognizethat he had a factor.
He played a role in hishydraulic pressure leak.
He just wasn't really there.

(46:57):
He had a great quality,originally gave him a C but at
the end of the day he went froma possibility of points to dead
last because he was the firstone out in lap 16 yeah, I have.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Sergeant goes fast crashes.
Sergeant goes fast crashes.
Now he's a sad mean boy next.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
Leclerc, I gave Sharala C plus.
He made the initial call, whichwas really important, but I
also think this is a trend thathe's having a lot of offs.
He struggled all weekend infree practice.
I know he's really unhappy withthe car and that may have

(47:40):
played a role in whatevercontact he had, but he was only
there.
There abouts in quality startedeffectively mid-pack and his
race was really over after oneor two corners.
I don't know.
I just don't think it was agreat weekend.
For sure not because he's notcapable, it just I have for a
little prayer.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
Fuck by Ferrari, fucked by himself.
He's now a sad boy, seems fair,joe, I gave Joe a B I think he
was.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
You know that for me, oh, it's just seemingly a
terrible, terrible car.
Neither here, veltrie, have hadgreat qualifying performances
consistently, so he didn't startin a great place but he was
right there.
He got himself to the front ofthe pack because, again, a good
call on tire timing and stayedthere and really was competitive

(48:33):
until the crash.
And I am really sad, not justbecause I think he deserved
points, like we were saying forSonoda earlier.
He drove a great race up untilthat point and I think he
deserved a better outcome thanhe got yeah, I agree my words
for snow death.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
Great race, great defensive driving, great
offensive driving.
Hit the wall, lost fuckingeverything will put.
Russell, who is the firstdriver on this list to finish
the race.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
I suspect we'll have slightly different takes on this
.
I actually gave George a B.
I'm probably being generous.
I think the fact that he madethe wrong call at the start cost
him enough that I probably ambeing overly generous here.
But he did manage to pullhimself back up, despite being

(49:25):
on the hard tires, to gethimself back into a competitive
place for the restart.
I don't really know how to makea judgment on whether there's
any role of fault.
It seemed like it was suchinconsequential contact that
it's hard for me to see thatthat was anybody's fault,
including his same.
It's the worst fucking luck.
I don't know how he got.
Maybe there was something elsegoing on that we didn't see or

(49:47):
haven't heard about.
I am making the assumption thatthe near miss incident and
failure to get the fuck out ofthe way for Hamilton coming
through on a much faster racetire strategy was not his call.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
I agree as well.
My, my ranking, my word rankingfor him was podium potential to
last finisher fucked by himself, fucked by his team, fucked by
weather.
Next one sonoda.
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
Yuki.
I gave a solid B.
We I think we already coveredit I think he he was treated by
a whole bunch of circumstancesthat he did not have control
over.
If you took the same phrasingyou just used for George, with
the tweak of the team had a much, much larger role in fucking
Yuki, then I think it did.
I think George fucked himself.

(50:36):
I think Yuki got fucked by histeam.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
That's sort of what I have.
Alphatorie tire fuckery.
Lost him the position, lost himpoints.
Seven positions down, sevenlaps.
What the fuck next?
Ron asks.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
I gave Valtteri a C I .
He, I think it was an anonymousrace.
He started 18th, finished 15th.
Some stuff happened in themiddle.
You know, there's there's notmuch that.
That jumped out for me.
If I missed it, I missed it.
But yeah, I I think it was asort of average race on an

(51:09):
average day in an add a somewhatless than average car.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
I have for bodice likes his teammate.
Enough to see if Joe was okayonce he spattered it into the
wall, so he went off as well,just to be okay, just to make
sure Joe was okay but up bumpnext.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
Magnuson, also a C, started in the pits to finish
14th.
He's driving that has.
I don't remember a single thingabout him in the race.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
So yeah, that's what I got the only thing I have no
worthy for Magnuson is that hedidn't run anybody off track.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
Hey, and for him that is saying something go,
magnuson, you didn't ruinanybody else's race today.
Yeah, next Lawson, yeah, I gavehim a firm fat.
A started 19th, finished 13th.
Could not have had a morespectacularly difficult set of
circumstances to make your F1debut in absolutely fantastic.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
I have for Lawson trial by rain.
Beat it all.
Well done kid.
Next Holkenberg.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
I gave Holkenberg a D , started 14th, finished 12.
I think had some hinky driving,including the, the what.
What got in the black and whiteflag?
Yeah, I'm not there for that.
I think that is a problem,particularly in those kind of
weather conditions where theconsequences can be even bigger
yeah, they can be catastrophic.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
Right, I have for Holkenberg.
He was there.
Heard about some hinky shitafter the race where he got a
black and white.
Not sure what that's all about.
I just don't remember anythingabout him being on track at all.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Yeah, well, next stroll I gave stroll a C,
started 11th, finished 11th,anonymous, not nearly on par
with his.
His teammate who finished up insecond was miles off throughout
the weekend.
Nobody who's been watching theseason is surprised about it.
I think it would be verypractical to give him an even

(52:56):
lower score in verse of theDelta that's continuing to
happen between him and Alonso.
But I just think it was ananonymous race.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
I have for stroll.
He stayed on track, he stayedthe exact same position.
He didn't hit anyone, hooraynext all gone, all gone.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
I gave a B plus.
I think SD, who started 16thand finished 10th, could have
finished a bit higher if hehadn't sort of had a bobble in
terms of timing on the tiresthey had just called him in.
He was deeply, deeply unhappyabout that during the red flag.

(53:35):
He had driven a really goodrace and I don't think the final
position reflected the racethat he was having and the the
shuffle that happened sort ofright in that stretch before the
red flag cost him and he hedrove better than that finish in

(53:57):
terms of position reflex every.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
I also have team fully fucked him with full weds.

Speaker 1 (54:03):
Yeah, kind of sums it up right, all right, next piazz
tree mr piazz tree started 8th,again not quite as strong and
qualifying as his teammate, butbasically I think drove a good
race.
I gave him a B minus.
He started 8th, finished 9th.
He just didn't quite seem tohave the pace of the others in

(54:27):
front of him during that backhalf of the race, but he
continues to have some greatovertakes.
The kids got skills, you knowhe's.
He's a really good driver.
I just don't think it was afantastic race for him, but
again, it was a.
You know this was a tough raceand he's a rookie.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
I agree, and I also think Piastri was one of the
drivers that stayed on hisslicks.
So I have trial of Softs in theRain came out, meh, because
McLaren didn't call him in.
He was one of them.
I think there's like five orsix drivers that just stayed on
their slicks and sort of skatedaround as best they could.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
Again, I don't want to take anything away.
I think he's having a greatstretch.
I agree.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
I think the fact that he kept it on the track while
he was on those slicksAbsolutely Good on him.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
Albon.
Alex Albon got an A from me.
He started fourth and finishedeighth but as we talked about
earlier, he also stayed on slicktires.
He took those Softs 45 lapsthrough every kind of weather,
changing variables of trackconditions and the drivers

(55:38):
around him at different speeds.
Because again we went throughthat entire phase at the front
where you had folks onintermediates lapping 10 seconds
a lap faster than those thatstayed on slicks.
I think anybody to your pointabout Piastri that did that and
didn't bin it, just trying tofigure out where people were
relative to them for those firstchaotic laps.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
The visibility was just non-existent.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
I struggled a little bit and this will be one of
those things that we refine Ithink about.
You know, are we waiting Kualiinto this or not?
It's worth mentioning, whetherwe do or not, that for him to
put that damn Williams in fourthin Kuali is ridiculous.
He is driving so well right nowand is taking that Williams in

(56:25):
places that it doesn't reallyseem possible.
It's going.
Yeah, I got nothing to sayexcept he drove a really good
race.
He's another one that really,frankly, probably deserved to be
a bit higher than he did andyou know, just drove really
really well I have one day maybethey'll forget to bring him
into the pits.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
Amazing tires from Albon, 45 plus laps on those
softs.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
Norris Lendonorris started second, finished seventh
I gave him a B plus.
He really did have a good race.
I know he was superdisappointed because he got
stung by the strategy issues atthe beginning.
I don't think that he reallyhad the pace that we've seen out
of the McLaren in some of therecent races, but I do think
that he drove a really strongrace, had some good passes and

(57:12):
overtakes, kept himself in itdespite the initial issues and
considering all that chaos.
Seventh I know it wasn't whathe wanted.
I know he wanted the podium,but it wasn't to be is all I
would say for this weekend.

Speaker 2 (57:27):
Yeah, and my sort of couple of words for Norris are
holy, fuck me shit balls.
0.023 from six.
Also fucked by his team in thewet with El Lube.

Speaker 1 (57:39):
Lovely.
I'm not big of a classie man.
You are Capital K classy.
Next, lewis I gave Lewis an Aminus.
I talked a little bit about thefact that I do think he has at
least a sliver of accountabilityfor the fact that he needs to
learn to be more assertive aboutsome of these things, in these

(58:02):
situations, and I think he wasscrewed by his teammates,
strategy being the one that theteam chose.
He was screwed by the fact hewas on the mediums to start with
to have come from 20th to six,with every reality being that he
would have been able to get byscience if there had been DRS

(58:25):
and he would have finished atleast as high as fifth.
I think he had a fantasticdrive.
He was just head down.
He didn't bitch in wine when hewas told he was dead last, he
just got it done and he hadreally good race pace again and
had some good overtakes.
Didn't get taken out by histeammate, even though I think

(58:47):
some other drivers might haveunder those particular
circumstances and he could havequalified better.
But I think by and large, hewas impeded in ways that just
you know it happened and again,he didn't bitch about that
either.
Right, it was just head downOkay, the shit happens, was
literally the quote.
We're just going to pickourselves up and keep going.

(59:08):
That attitude carried him onSunday.
I believe it Absolutely, and hewas fastest off the line.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
And the fact that he came back from losing so many
positions multiple times tofinish six.
So I have for Lewis once again,the FIA fucked him over with
the restart, his team fucked himover pretty good.
The fact his teammate didn'ttake him out yet again From last
to six, with several backslidesand plaw up climbs along the
way.
Well done, lewis, agreed.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
Sykes.
Mr Sykes finished fifth,started six.
I gave him a B.
I already commented I wasn'talways impressed with Carlos's
defensive moves on Sunday.
I don't know what it is aboutSykes that just I think he's
finishing higher than I feellike he's his driving deserves

(59:55):
and I think that's kind of beenthe case multiple times this
season, like it's consistentlybeen a little head scratchy to
me that he's ending up finishinghigher than Sharl.
I don't have anything againstCarlos, I just don't find him a
particularly compelling driverand I don't find that I am
impressed by anything he's doing.
I agree, I think he's if thatmakes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
that makes perfect sense.
I agree with you.
Like he is a solid driver.
So I don't think Stroll is abad driver.
I just think that they're doingvery different things with the
cars they're in, and there Ithink Sykes is much better and
more confident at makingopportunities happen when he
needs them to.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Yeah, I would say that one of the things that the
science does that we alluded toearlier is science is not shy
about managing his own strategy.
I do think he's smart aboutthat.
He he wants information fromthe team.
He knows what he's asking forfrom the team and he doesn't shy

(01:00:52):
away from telling them no.
I don't agree with that.
Now you can say that's good orbad depending on your
perspective and on thecircumstances.
And does the team have moreinformation?
And if it was probably anyother team on the grid, you
might think that was acompelling argument for a driver
to be following their lead withFerrari.
It's a survival strategy.
Oh, it has been for yearsCorrect and he's adapted to it.

(01:01:16):
I don't think Charles is asgood at doing that as you hear
it once in a while and you dohear some frustration from
Charles from time to time buthe's not as good at just being
like, yeah, no we're not doingthat.

Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
Yeah, it's a bad plan .
We're going to lose positions.
He's come in multiple times atFerrari's insistence and it's
lost in podiums.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
Correct.
So I will give signs, kudos onthat front.
But I think again, if we'rejust talking about this race, I
don't know it's weird to havesomebody we talked about people
down in the you know 12 to 15range seeming sort of anonymous.
I think the only thinginteresting that happened with
science the entire race wasLewis scaring the hell out of

(01:01:56):
him for those five last laps.
Yeah, I have there, just wasn'tmuch else there that was going
on.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
The only thing I took notice of was like, apart from
the five last laps there withthe battle Lewis for him I have.
How the fuck doesn't he have apenalty, because I feel that
there were multiple instanceswhere he was.
He'd made that second and eventhird sort of deke, and how that
?
Did get him a penalty.
Is white boy privilege orsomething.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
Paris.
Yeah, checo started seven,finished fourth.
I gave him a C plus.
Despite that, he's driving aRed Bull I know it's not the
same thing as Maxis Red Bullwhether the car is simply ill
suited to him, which I'm sure itis, or somehow has a difference

(01:02:43):
, which maybe it does, I don'tknow.
He's just not doing it.
He was the first one in.
Verstappen, came in a lap laterwhatever it was two laps later
for Inter's and overtook himlike crazy fast.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
He was like two seconds on the same tire
strategy.
Verstappen was two seconds alot faster than Paris was.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
Paris was like.
What do you?
I think we all want on somelevel, to justify it, in part
because, yeah, I don't likeVerstappen.
Also because I legitimatelythink there are reasons why
Verstappen is benefiting fromthe car.
But you watch performances likethese and you just think how

(01:03:28):
the hell?
Yeah, and the thing with himbeing so lucky this weekend is
he got fourth, with all thatassistance, with every star
aligning for him.
Frankly, he was able to bethere, so yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
I don't know.
I have my words for Paris,which we've actually already
talked about.
Who will be in his seat nextseason?
Yeah, he did not cover himselfwith Laurie Addle.
The fact that he finished wherehe finished had nothing to do
with his driving and everythingto do with luck.
Correct Podium number threeGasly I gave him a solid A.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
I really just think he did all the right things
throughout the entirety of therace, not just one good thing at
the beginning, which put him ina position that carried him to
where he was.
That was part of it, but healso just drove really well
through the entire race, throughall the different circumstances
.
To have gone from 12th on thegrid to third on the grid,

(01:04:30):
that's fantastic.
He absolutely deserved to be onthat podium.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
I agree I have for Gasly Philly Stasio.
He was speedy everywhere, onthe track and in the pit lane.

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
Alonzo.
I also gave Alonzo an A.
You know I'm not a fan, but Ihave nothing but respect.
I think it was a solid drive.
I think he got the most out ofthe car under incredibly
challenging conditions, wasaggressive in the right ways in
the right places, knew what hewanted, made it happen and kept

(01:05:02):
his head and got himself as farup the grid as it's possible to
get in the year 2023.
He deserved to be on the podiumtoo.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
My words for him are words that I think are far
overused, but in this case we'renot used at all this weekend
and deserves, which ismasterclass from the Wiley Old
Fox Touche.

Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
You're stopping.
I gave Max an A.
I agree with the concept thatin general, he doesn't deserve
to be applauded.
When you're driving a car thatis clearly faster than everybody
else on the grid, the onlything you have to do is hold on
to first place for all of thelaps of the race.
I think this was less clear cutthan many of the races this

(01:05:44):
year.
I do think he actually had toget through some traffic a
couple of times in a way thatwasn't as straightforward as
it's generally been.
I think there was more pressurebecause it was the home race
with the nine victories in a rowthing, and he didn't really do
anything wrong at any point allweekend.

(01:06:04):
He had one weird stint in Q1where he was unhappy with the
car.
He had a good week.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
I don't disagree.
He had a solid weekend, alsofor me Bored now.

Speaker 1 (01:06:16):
Oh, totally, 100%.
It doesn't make him any moreinteresting.
It doesn't make me care Like Iliterally could not care less
about him winning nine in a rowand that's pathetic.
Yeah, I understand the peoplewho are making the argument out
there that, like we should alljust be enjoying that we're
seeing history being made.
I'm not enjoying watchinghistory being made.
I don't give two shits that MaxVerstappen is winning.

(01:06:39):
No, I don't care about him as ahuman being or a driver, I just
there's no, there, there it'snot interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
Like when Lewis was making history, apart from all
the stuff that was going on offthe track, there were some races
where there were some legitinteresting battles going on up
front and we haven't had one allseason bar one, and that wasn't
even an interesting race.
Like it was just a fuckingfluke that Checo won that race
and this has just been paint bynumbers at the front.

(01:07:05):
It's been so boring.
Max hasn't had any challenges.
He hasn't had any sort of evenchallenges that are not of his
own making or from.
You know something that'shappened to the red when Lewis
won in Silverston on three tires.
That was really fuckinginteresting.
Like that wasn't like a holyshit.
Like he went from having and hedid get a massive lead and he
won on three tires.

(01:07:25):
You know what?
I'd be interested to see howMax handles that situation this
year Right, like, have you know,have a brakes on fire, have
something that's fuckinginteresting.
Obviously, no car is going tobe interesting in front of you
because that's just nothing.
You're not going to have anyonein front unless you're laughing
.
Willow said it best, man Bored.
Now One of the other things weare going to try out for a
little while is we're going tohave one word for each team,

(01:07:48):
starting with the lowest rankingteam.
So Alpha Tori Tri-Hearts DoneAlpha Tori for a male MIA,
disappointing.

Speaker 1 (01:07:56):
Haas, nowhere missing .

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
Williams, ascendant, closer Alpine climbing Feliz,
das Ja McLaren thereabouts whinyFerrari, ridiculous Ferrari'd
Aston Martin dichotomy dualityDid be.
And just so everybody knows,we've made these lists on our

(01:08:20):
own, without looking at eachother's words.
Mercedes pathetic shitty.
Red Bull Monotonous board.
Now, oh, I guess that's twowords back to board.
Just a quick couple of notesfor other races that happened.
Props to Chloe Chambers, whohad an amazing weekend in the

(01:08:45):
North American supercar seriesfor Porsche.
She came in first in several ofthe races and Came in with
points in all the rest of them.
So good to her.
She seems to be thriving thereand I couldn't be happier for
her.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
Completely second that.
I still scratch my head thatshe didn't get a shot at F1
Academy, but she seems to bereally developing really well
supported in that series and isdoing so well.

Speaker 2 (01:09:13):
F2, who raced in Zandvoort with a support race
for F1, had a very interesting,very shitty weekend.
We didn't have time to watchthe whole race but, goddamn, I'm
going to go back and watchbecause the amount of Drivers
that changed positions becausethey were racing in the red the
rain, in fact their Race endedup being red flagged.

(01:09:35):
F2 had a new winner withClemence Novelac.
That makes now 13 differentwinners for F2, which is kind of
fucking phenomenal.
And none of the top five inthat feature race were from the
top five of who the driverStendings are right now and the
top drivers in the feature racehad just the most amazing shit

(01:09:59):
happened to them, and some ofthem you just sort of scratch
your head.
I'm definitely going to go backand watch that.
Those races.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
Yeah, when you saw the clip of Frederick Westie
who's in the fight with tailporch hair Before the
championship of F2, behind asafety car Suddenly lose both
back tires and spin out, youknow something has gone around
and by lose she doesn't mean helost the back end.

Speaker 2 (01:10:24):
Both tires fell off the car and wheels, tires,
wheels, everything bouncing downthe fucking track and he's
parked and can't go anywhere.
And he's parked on the fuckingracetrack with no fucking back.

Speaker 1 (01:10:37):
Those on yeah, I don't know how preemus shit the
bed on that in a way that Iwould have expected from Ferrari
.
What hot.
I don't know if it's the colorred, but I am telling you, the
only thing that saves that frombeing even more epically Awful
than it was is that poor shareended up in the wall and Didn't

(01:10:58):
score either, so it was sort ofa neutralized Problem, but that
could have so easily been thedifference in who won the
championship.

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
I mean every wasa ended up in the wall.
Oh my gosh, I'm blanking onwhich team it is, but there was
tea and everybody's okay, whichis why it's kind of haha what
the fuck happened.
But thank God for halos,because that saves a life cars
parked perpendicular to eachother one on top of the other
right on top of the halo, and Ithink that was that one of wasa
one off, somebody one off first,and then those other two went

(01:11:30):
off.

Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
Yeah, I don't know who went off.
I don't know what specificallyPrecipitated those two having
been off.
We've had such a rough fewmonths with deaths in
motorsports, and you will neverneed to stop being grateful for
the halo.

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
Oh yeah, the halo has turned what could have been a
tragedy into a WTF moment.
I know they weren't racing, butformulae this week had a couple
of WTF moments of drivers whoare Racing unexpectedly back on
the grid next season.

Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
Yeah, so Ollie Roland is gonna be back, which is fun.
I'm a little head scratchyabout Some driver shifts within
teams.

Speaker 2 (01:12:09):
Sam bird going over to McLaren.
Like I did not have that on mybingo cars, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:14):
I did not have that on any card.
I I Literally cannot think of aless likely scenario than bird
going to to McLaren.
So we'll see who else lands in.
These things are happeningdaily right now.
So yeah, interesting times.
Well, f1 got super boring, fvis anything but yeah he's having

(01:12:38):
a whole bunch of drivermovements.

Speaker 2 (01:12:39):
They've also released their end of season stats,
which was kind of interesting tosee just the pie charts, who
led what laps and how many laps,and the different drivers that
have done it.
There were seven differentwinners this season.
It was just fantastic.

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
Yeah, I think when you talk about 13 Different
drivers winning in F2, or sevendifferent drivers in formulae,
it's challenging for me tobelieve that there's an entire
fabricated narrative beingshoved down our throats on a
near hourly basis right nowAbout how we all just ought to

(01:13:14):
be thrilled that one person iswinning every fucking thing in
F1, which is supposed to be thepinnacle of motor sports.
Today there was an articleposted about.
You know how we should all takeit as a sign of how healthy F1
is that one team and one driverare completely dominated and
it's like.
This is pathetic Propaganda.

(01:13:35):
Now, 100%.
This isn't even journalism.
This is the shills being paidto sell a narrative, because
more than half of the peoplewatching are bored out of their
minds, you've had only one teamwin and, apart from one race,
one driver win.

Speaker 2 (01:13:53):
And when you think about how many fewer races there
are in a season, in F2 andformulae and that's their stats
or the Formula Academy they'vehad, I think, eight different
winners.
Now I could be wrong.
I don't have that stat in frontof me.

Speaker 1 (01:14:08):
I'm not sure I said hi, but it's.
It's the podiums.
Yeah, you know the number ofthe drivers that have been on
the podiums.
It's a maiden season.
All of them are learning somuch we don't.
I don't think F1 needs a 2012season.
Right, it's not that you needto have Half the drivers on the

(01:14:31):
grid capable of winning orhaving a shot it wins for it to
be a good season.
That's, that's the dream.
It would be fantastic to seethat level of competitiveness,
but there's something betterthan this, and it's really hard
to think about two more years ofthis.
I am curious that if there wasever a machine that wasn't

(01:14:53):
driven by the self-interest ofLiberty Media or the desire to
make money in a certain subsetof the F1 viewing fandom
Primarily I mean the DTS groupthat would ever think this was
the goal.
Yeah, we'll see.
I Don't think we're likely tosee changes in any of the
upcoming races.

(01:15:14):
The curse be damned.
The Monza curse could be savingus, but I don't think you know
me, neither I wish I wish I'dpay hard, cold buckets of cash
to see Charles Leclerc win.
I'll settle for him on thepodium, but I want him on the
podium in Monza.
I think that would be the thingI could settle for.

(01:15:37):
I don't see the Mercedes inthat tractor of theirs getting
anywhere near Podium, not atMonza, I don't want that old
asshole back on the podium againthis weekend.
I think he had a great race, butI don't.
I don't want to go back To thepodiums we had at the beginning
of the year.
This one was only madetolerable by the presence of
Pierre Gasly, 100% agreed.
So that's all we got this week,kids.

(01:15:58):
Okay, I'm gonna get some sleep,alright, guys.

Speaker 2 (01:16:01):
Have a good.
What fucking day is itWednesday?
Have a good couple days.
We're gonna be back to watchingcars go around a track.
Who can do more than you know?
Move your left and we'll seehow it goes over the weekend at
Monza.
See you next time.