July 10, 2025 • 35 mins
There’s been a major shakeup in Formula 1.
Yesterday, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner was fired after 20 years with the team, sending shockwaves throughout the F1 community. On today’s episode of The GIST of It, F1 girlies and co-hosts Ellen Hyslop and Steph Rotz dig into the curious timing of Horner’s sacking, digging into how Red Bull’s lackluster performance — not previous misconduct allegations — sealed Horner’s fate. Vroom vroom.
Show notes:
More on The GIST:
☎️ Leave us a voicemail! Call us at 1-437-564-5579 or hold down on this link
🎧 Subscribe: thegistsports.com/subscribepod
✉️ Email: pod@thegistsports.com
📷 Instagram: @thegistca @thegistusa
🐦 X: @thegistpod
Yesterday, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner was fired after 20 years with the team, sending shockwaves throughout the F1 community. On today’s episode of The GIST of It, F1 girlies and co-hosts Ellen Hyslop and Steph Rotz dig into the curious timing of Horner’s sacking, digging into how Red Bull’s lackluster performance — not previous misconduct allegations — sealed Horner’s fate. Vroom vroom.
Show notes:
More on The GIST:
☎️ Leave us a voicemail! Call us at 1-437-564-5579 or hold down on this link
🎧 Subscribe: thegistsports.com/subscribepod
✉️ Email: pod@thegistsports.com
📷 Instagram: @thegistca @thegistusa
🐦 X: @thegistpod
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
What's up everyone? Welcome or welcome back to another episode
of The Gist of It. I am so jazzed for
today's episode and I'm so glad that you all are
joining us. Today is Thursday, July tenth. We're your co hosts.
I'm Ellen Hissla.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
And I'm Steph France and well, I'm so excited.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Steph just gave a big yawn.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Sorry, it's just I'm just a sleepy girl today. Are
you talking to do with the topic? Yeah, my god,
because I was.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
This topic is literally anything but sleepy, and I have
been thinking about it all day and famously I don't
think about much, and this has been on my mind
for quite some time. We are going to talk about
Formula one, also known as F one, because there has
been a major shakeup in the world's premiere racing circuit.
(00:55):
As if you haven't heard it yet, Red Bull Team
principal and Jerry's vice's husband, Christian Horner, was officially fired
yesterday after twenty years at the Helm as principal of
Red Bulls F one team and with two decades at
the organization. There is a lot that we can say
(01:16):
about Christian Horner, and there's some good things as well
as some bad things about his time at red Bull,
and so we're going to get into all of that,
but we're also going to get into the question of
why now, because this could have happened beforehand. And this
is Christian Horner has been red Bull's only principle since
its inception in f one, so this is a huge deal.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
He's married to Ginger Spice.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yes, did you watch Drive to Survive?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Ya?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I think I've mentioned it on the podcast. Literally since
twenty twenty one, I have.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Watched a couple of seasons.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Okay, well, then you would have seen Jerry on there,
and I feel like you've always resonated with Jerry. I
feel like if you were to be a Spice girl,
all you would be posh or Ginger.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Sporty, erasure. I was always sporty growing up.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
I think I was sporty and that's why I moved you,
and that's why I moved you over. You did come
over to our school in grade four, so I think
I might have already claimed sporty before you could have.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
You would have had a group and I would have
had a separate group, and I was forty in my group.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yeah. Oh, dull. Okay, well we're both gonna be fighting.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Was just appropriate because today's all about the drama.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, okay, wow, sorry, I was just wrapping my head
around that fact. I felt like that should have been
in the outline because I was just gobsmacked. Sorry, folks,
I was. I'm not prepared for that to be a
reality because Horner so the guy we're talking about here,
Jerry Spice's Jerry Spic Ginger Spices Skin was accused of
inappropriate controlling behavior at the workplace last year, which is
(02:57):
not great, and he did end up keeping his role
as team leader during all of that, after both an
internal investigation and an appeal that dismiss the accusation. So
it is feeling all a little bit familiar, and a
lot has changed since then, and of course, one major
thing that's changed is Red Bull's performance on the track
(03:19):
in F one.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I feel like sef part of the reason why you
say it feels a little bit familiar is that when
people in positions of power who are good at their job,
when the organization wants to keep them in that role,
they're going to keep them in that role, regardless of
kind of what is going on amongst it. We talked
about this agnauseum with Christian Horner last year, but also
(03:41):
with people like Deshaun Watson, and the list continues and
goes on and on, especially in men's sports and in
women's soccer with the head coaches. Very similar thing here
and so now a lot of people are like, wait,
you wouldn't fire this cat last year, but you're firing
him now because of Red Bull's performance on the racetrack
and the fact that their number one drive, Max Verstappin,
is rumored to potentially be looking to race for other teams.
(04:06):
So there's a lot of drama. Whether you're an F
one fan or not, I think that you'll be interested
in this story because there is a lot of nuance,
and there's a lot of business side of things, and
there's a lot of I think things that can be
layered into other sports as well, and if anything too,
I hope that this podcast also encourages you to watch
(04:29):
Drives to Survive if you haven't yet, because it really
drives to survive change my life. It has honestly enriched
my life in so many ways, and I'm so proud
and happy to be an F one fan because my
friends bullied me into watching Drive to Survive.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
You don't get bullied into a whole lot.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
No, But I fully was like, why the hell would
I watch cars go in a circle on the same racetrack.
Now I can't wait to watch Racis. It's it's incredible,
And it's because they tell a story. They help you
understand things, They help build the character that these drivers are,
and these engineers and these teams. They do such a
good job of actually explaining everything that goes into Formula one.
(05:10):
And as someone who was not understanding or ignorant to
that beforehand, and who wasn't open to learning that beforehand,
I was really I really love the way Netflix kind
of laid that all out.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I am going to lock in on this topic, I
promise listeners, but I do want to rewind a bit
and say thank you, just sirs for letting Ellen and
I know that there was a restock on the Spice
Girls Admirals.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yes, soccer jerseys.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Ellen ended up getting one.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
So did you not end up buying one? No?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I passed it along to a woman that I play
soccer with who had sent it to me before you
had sent it to me saying I want one of
these but are sold out, so I let her know
I pass on the good news for context.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Did we talk about it in the last one.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
We did talk about it on the podcast, Okay, the
last one with the last last one, right.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
So there was a gister who literally commented on our
Instagram posts with these Spice Girls things, and she put
in the link in which I thought was just girlhood
at its peak, because it's not like you can click
a link in an Instagram comment. And I was just
kind of, you know, monitoring our comments, getting in there
as I normally do, and I saw this and I
went and then when I brought it into the computer browser,
(06:17):
it wasn't sold out. But Steph, you said it was
sold out in your mobile browser. So I had cash.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, got I cleared that cap near the cash.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Buy from your desktop or buy from your laptop, and
that's the way to do it.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah. So I am ready to talk f one now
that we've gotten Spice Girls out.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Because then you because you said soccer, and then I
was thinking about how England just absolutely dominated the Netherlands
yesterday in the arrows, and then I started thinking about
Spice Girls. So I was half listening to you half
going into women's soccer spice girl, lamb, but your.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Brain is a beautiful place. Before we get into F one,
we do have to call an audible. We have to
talk about Angel Reese's two K cover before we get
into Angel Reese. Last last podcast, we were like, do
you guys like the calling an audible because we had
it in our personal training session that some of our
gisters were like, maybe not, and so we had a
(07:06):
lot of people comment on it. If there was two
people in particular that we wanted to shout out, Lorna.
She was asking about the w NBA game in Vancouver
and she said, I am hashtag team calling an audible.
So Lorna was all in, thank you Laura so much
for the DM. Then Lindsay, my girl, Lindsay, we DM
all the time on Instagram, shout out and she's like,
(07:27):
I love the name calling an audible. I'm really into it,
but you need to stop explaining what it is. You
explained it before. We're really good and she goes, just
my hot take ky, love you gals, bye, and I
was like, that's a gister. That's a gister right there.
Call us out on it. But it's so in such
a kind way. So we're not going to explain what
an audible is moving forward, but we are going to
(07:48):
be keeping calling an audible for better or for worse
until you all give us better ideas.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Lindsay, I love how you spelling your name, by the way.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Very cool with an eye, Lindsay with an I anyway, Steph,
talk about angel.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
So she's a cover girl of course, naturally.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
So she is on the WNBA edition of NBA two
K twenty six, the twenty twenty six version, and it's
a very popular video game. You may have heard of it,
and the physical copy will only be exclusively sold at GameStop.
So if you do want to get your hands on
this cover this version, do act fast. That would be
my hot tip for me to you. And something else
(08:25):
with Angelries we do need to talk about. While we're
talking about her being on the cover of NBA two K,
have you seen.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Her new shoes? Oh my god's so sick gorgean, You's
so gorgeous.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
So this has been just an absolutely huge week for Angelry.
She released her first signature sneaker with Rebok, the Angel
Reese one. They are called the Diamond dusk colorway and
the whole promo surrounding it just feels so authentic to her.
And I'm so excited to get more details on the
launch shape, the pricing. That's not out quite yet, but
(08:58):
we can all put it on the Pinterest board at
this point.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
That's one thing I was going to say, Steph, is
that it all feels so Angel Reese, and shout out
to Angel Reese for only being two years in the
WNBA and being able to have a brand that we
can say that feels so authentically Angel, even though we've
never met her in our lives, but we feel like
we have this parasocial relationship with her, and I think
(09:23):
that's so unique. And I do think, Steph, that there
has been shoe drops or merch drops or things like
that that have missed the mark beforehand. But I think
that Asia Wilson and Angel Reese are probably the two
best players in the WNBA that where they drop things,
and when they drop things you can feel their fingerprints
on it. You can tell that they're part of the
(09:43):
creative process and that they take it very seriously that
their name is associated with that merchandise too. And I
don't know, I just think that it's so cool that
Angel has been able to accomplish that at such a
young age, two years into a league.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
You know, she's a very smart person.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah, very bigg brilliant.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
As we mentioned very excitedly at the beginning of the podcast,
F one constructor Red Bull stunned the motorsports community on
Monday morning, acting longtime team principal and CEO Christian Horner
after twenty years at the Helm. If you're new to
F one, we are going to make sure that we
explain any important or new terminology for you. For example,
(10:32):
a team principle is the person in charge of the team,
while a constructor is what each team is called because
they're literally constructing racing cars.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, and like we said at the top of the pod,
even if you're new to F one into the sport,
this narrative is not new. It's a film that we've
seen before. In February of twenty twenty four, Horner was
accused of quote inappropriate controlling behavior end quote by a
female colleague at Red Bull, but remained at the helm
of the team, of course until yesterday. And you might
(11:02):
be asking yourself, why did Red Bull not fire Horner?
Back then when the allegations were revealed, and we are
extrapolating here, we're inserting some personal opinions and thinking maybe
it's to do with the performance of the team.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
So for today's One Big Story, we'll briefly discuss Horner's
history at Red Bull to provide some context before digging
into an interesting comparison what the team looked like in
twenty twenty four when the allegations were revealed, and what
the team looked like leading up to this firing. And
one thing I want to say too. Today's discussion is
also inspired by our comments on social media and on Instagram,
(11:39):
and when we shared the news to our community, it
was so interesting seeing everyone's takes in the comments and
there were so many astute observations and interesting opinions of
what was going on. And so thank you all so
much for doing what you're doing in the comments, because
it really does help us as a media company also
(12:01):
understand what you're interested in, where your ideas lie, and
all that sort of stuff. So thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
So let's give you a brief history of Horner at
Red Bull. Horner is the first and only team principle
that Red Bull has employed because it's, you know, relatively
new in the grand scheme of things. Red Bull joined
F one in two thousand and five and that's the
year that they made their debut. Horner was the youngest
team principal back then, taking the Red Bull reigns at
(12:27):
just thirty one years old, and he oversaw eight World
Drivers' Championship titles, four for Sebastian Vettle and four for
Max Verstaffan, and six constructors titles during his time with
the team. So they did well. They did well, and the.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
World Drivers' Championship just goes to that individual driver and
then the Constructors Championship goes to the team who had
the most points between their two drivers.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, so that's why we mentioned the person at the
when we mentioned the World Driver's Championships and no person
for the Constructors' titles.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
With those steph there was kind of two dynastic sprints,
I guess you could say for Red Bull twenty ten
to twenty thirteen with Vettel and then twenty twenty one
to twenty twenty four with for Stappin, And that is
really the era that's also covered exceptionally well in Drive
to Survive.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
What a coincidence.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
What a coincidence, very very lucky. So you get to
know Christian Horner very well, you get to know Max
Restappen very well, you get to understand the Red Bull lore.
So let's talk about Red Bull in twenty twenty four
when these allegations came out. In some brief context on
these allegations, so, as Steph mentioned beforehand, he was accused
of inappropriate controlling behavior by a female colleague at Red Bull.
(13:42):
Red Bull completed an independent investigation that lasted for three weeks,
after which Horner was cleared of any wrongdoing. The alleged
techts were leaked at the end of February, but they
could not be deemed authentic. Interestingly, and probably not at
all related, the woman who filed the complaint, Gets Corner,
was suspended with pay in March of twenty twenty four.
(14:05):
The female colleague appealed the findings of the investigation during
the twenty twenty four F one summer break, but the
allegations again were dismissed. One thing I'll also say it
was really interesting seeing in the latest season of Drive
to Survive what the other principles and teams had to
say of what was going on at Red Bull While
(14:26):
this was all happening, it was also really interesting to
see what the Principles were kind of saying quietly out
loud to the media as this was going on. F
one is messy, and unlike any other sport, the drivers
and the principles kind of recognize that it's their personalities
and them allowing themselves to showcase their thoughts that actually
(14:49):
drives a lot more interest in the sport. So I'd say,
unlike any other sport, they're kind of willy nilly on
what they say, which I really appreciate. And in this case,
you could tell who really did not like Christian Horner
and who was going after him heavily from a principal perspective,
and so I found that very interesting in all of this.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
So other team leads, essentially other Principles were saying that
they don't drive with this guy, or well there was
the root of it.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
A lot of Principles do not drive with this guy.
And so a lot of people when these texts were
coming out and he was saying this is not true,
this is not true, they were essentially rolling their eyes
at it and making comments that they were like, well,
how could it not be in some of this sort
of stuff where I don't have the exact quotes right now,
and I think that they were still being cheeky with
(15:40):
the media while also being like, what the heck is
going on out there? And I think Steph, this is
also because they probably maybe felt similar to all of us.
We're like, Okay, he's dealing with these allegations, he's going
through these types of things. But at the same time,
in twenty twenty four, after twenty twenty four, so the
allegations happened before that twenty four season fully started. Red
(16:05):
Bull was coming off their second straight World Constructors for
Stappin was coming off his third straight World Drivers Championship.
They've absolutely dominated the first two seasons and or the
last two seasons rather, and the expectation was that they
would dominate again, And so you have all of these
principles already just frustrated and confused about how they're going
(16:25):
to beat Red Bull this year, and then they see
Christian Horner do all these things and they're like, oh,
I guess he's just at the top and he is
not going to be able to fall.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Was it also kind of like corroborating, like it from
a character standpoint, saying I believe because he's kind of
he is like that, or.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
I don't know that. I don't know if I would
go as far as character, and I don't think it
was all principles. I would say in particular, it was
the Mercedes principle and the McLaren principle, so total Wolf
and Zach Brown in particular, who have an out for
Christian Horner, and so you also have to take that
with a grain of salt. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, but
there was a little bit of nuance in gray area
(17:03):
of how other drivers and principals who were responding to
these allegations as well.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
And then of course the expectation would be that Red
Bull would once again dominate in twenty twenty four. So
we're taking you alongside all of this, these allegations and oh,
try and overlap it with the actual F one seasons themselves.
So in twenty twenty four, they did dominate to start
the season, Verstepen comfortably won four of the five first races,
and he still won his fourth straight World Drivers Championship
(17:33):
in twenty twenty four, but Red Bull as an overall
team didn't win the construction championship, so they didn't win
the one that is for the whole team, for the
two drivers, and tensions under the surface were certainly growing.
There's a growing disconnect between Verstappin, who, as Ellen mentioned
very briefly at the beginning of the episode, there were
(17:54):
some rumors starting to swirl around about a potential departure
from Red Bull, and Corner began to really I maybe
you know, react to that, you could say, and.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
I would say too, Steph. Max ended up winning, but
in the past he won by a long shot for
the most part, except for that famous year where I
don't think he should have won. It should have been
Sir Lewis Hamilton because of a weird ruling. But I digress.
But he and Red Bull were like so far ahead
of the pack that honestly, it was kind of boring
(18:27):
to watch as an F one fan because you knew
that Max was going to win, and you were more
so watching the battle for second versus in twenty twenty
four and last year, there was a lot of really
good teams, a lot of amazing racers, a lot of
amazing cars, and so you saw teams like McLaren really
move up and actually win the constructors, and it took
(18:47):
everybody by surprise because they didn't think that Red Bull
would fall back that much because they just dominated so
hard the years before. There's a few rule changes and
everything like that that are in the mix in the background,
but essentially Red Bull didn't keep pace ahead of the
other teams as much as they thought that they were.
So that's twenty twenty four. Let's put twenty twenty four
(19:10):
in the rear view mirror.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Sorry, it's sorry, I really yelled at you guys of
the year.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yeah, but now let's bring it to twenty twenty five.
So he was fired on Wednesday, and we say lee.
It said leave immediately, where like he was fired. But
they're making it seem like he is leaving. He says
Christian order leaves with immediate effects, So they're saying leaves
as if it's like him actually choosing to go. But
(19:37):
we can all read between the lines here. He got fired.
They're saying, we'll make it look good at the press.
You can say that you leave, you can leave with
the media effect. But we're not silly, we're not dumb.
We can read through the lines. So, and this was
just days after the British Grand Prix, which was so fun.
The results for a Red Bull in that Grand Prix
were not good. Max orsap and finished fifth, Yuki Sonoda
(19:59):
finished dead lad excluding the two cars who did not finish.
And it's been a really hard, i'd say season for
Red Bull so far, but also tumultuous eighteen months. There's
been a lot of senior employees who have left the
team and who are going to build the new team
for Aston Martin. Because of so many senior engineers leaving
(20:20):
the team, it's been really hard for them to create
a competitive car in twenty twenty five. And that's clear
stuff because in the standings they're forced in the constructors
and I would say the only reason that they're fourth
is because Max Verstappen is that guy. He somehow continues
to be able to pull the best out of that car.
(20:42):
At the same time, Steph, he's pissed off about it.
He's like, this car shit, I'm so annoyed about it.
He calls it very undrivable. He's so vocal. I love
this about F one. They have these driver radios and
you can listen to races as they're doing it, and
they're all swearing they're at like is just fantastic, and
Max Versappin does not hold back when he is not
(21:04):
enjoying what the car is putting out. And so the
fact that Max Versappin has only won two races this
year and they're constantly underperforming in that second seat, red
Bull's not having a good season.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Imagine imagine during a really heated championship or contests or
whatever you have, that every single athlete had a mic.
The things we would hear.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Oh my gosh, it's so much funny. One of my
favorite things on TikTok is just compilations of F one
drivers mouthing off or not even mouthing off. Sometimes they're
having a great race and having a good time and
they're singing at the same time, or they're saying something
really nice to their engineering team, and other times they're
being so curt and they're like, don't talk to me,
(21:49):
that was wrong. This is so bad, this car is undrivable.
Holy shit, Like, it's actually so funny. I would really
encourage everyone to just look up those driver compilations of.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Red Bulls one hundred and seventy two points for this season. Though,
do you need to point out the verstap and has
accounted for one hundred and sixty five of them. So
this is also adding to the tensions at Red Bull.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
There's already been.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
A driver swap for this particular team for that second spot,
the second driver, and that really hasn't paid off in
any shape or form at this point.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
And it's hard for the reason why that's a big
deal for Max to provide some context is that even
though he's competing against that person, that person's also supposed
to be his teammate and should be able to do
things like strategize with him to block off other drivers
and to be his kind of second person who he
can rely on. But because there hasn't been as much
(22:40):
development in the Red Bull kind of system as they
were hoping, and because this car isn't performing as well,
Max is literally out there by himself in comparison to
other teams like McLaren who have Lando Norris an Oscar
Piastre who can kind of like play off each other
at the same time to be able to play defense
against other teams. So that's really hard.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Like setting a pick exactly exactly, but we hope, hope, yeah,
exactly the Carvers and not dangerous because but because of
that Steff, so this Christian Horner news drops, and this
is almost like a week or so after, I see
online that Max Verstappin might be moving over to Mercedes,
(23:23):
which is really interesting because Lewis Hamilton left Mercedes for Ferrari,
and then all of.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
A sudden, I'm seeing on social media, Okay, Christian Horner
is at Red Bull, but rumor has it that immediately
Ferrari is potentially interested in picking up Christian Horner as
a principle because there's things over there that also need
to be cleaned up. I think that that is a
true rumor, and like, I don't think it has any
(23:50):
meat to it, but this Max Verstappin moving to Mercedes
would be exceptionally fiery stuff because Toto Wolf and Christian
Horner hate each other. I think the only other enemy
or bigger enemy to Christian Horner would be Zach Brown
a McLaren and so anyway, it's all very, very spicy,
but I think it still comes back to that main
(24:12):
issue of like, okay, there was only accountability for Christian
Horner when the team was bad, and this is something
that we see time and time again in any sport,
and then there's this layer of just the f one
carousel and all of the drama that we see amongst
principles and amongst drivers.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Now it's time for our personal training SASH. This is
where we'll answer your hard hitting questions about anything and
we meet anything in the sports world. And we'll also
just take feedback, take commentary, take that you know, anything
you want to throw at us, and we will interact
with it. Yes, that's what we'll do.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
And so said that this one was perfect. I'm excited
for this. So we're so excited for this one. But
also if you'd like to be featured in a future episode,
please call and leave us a voicemail at one four
three seven five six four five five seven nine that
numbers in the show notes, and you can also just
hold onto the number in the show notes and give
(25:16):
us the show. You can also DM Steph and I
on Instagram, Ellen at the Gist and at Stephanie Rods,
or email us pod at the sports dot Com. We're
we're partial to the voicemail though. We love hearing your
voices and being like real people listen to us. That's
so crazy. Anyway, in today's personal training sessh. We are
taking a perfect, perfect question from our friends Sammy in Philadelphia.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Hey, ladies, this is Sammy. I'm calling from Philly, which
we are so excited to get silently begetting at WNBA team.
First off, thank you guys for everything that you do.
It's truly impactful and inspiring, and I hope you guys
know that that's my question. I've been me to calling
for about a week, but I wanted to talk tennis,
specifically women ten So on the first day of the tournament,
(25:59):
I was watching Fritz is opening around match and it
was suspended to the curfew, a similar thing that happened
to Ben Sheilton, and both of these matches were really
intense and desot to keep going through the night. So
my question is, why is there curfew Wimbledon, especially when
the other tenant majors don't have one and the guys
will keep going and playing well into the night. So
(26:20):
I was just wondering, what's with the Wimbledon curfew? Thanks
so much, guys.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Honestly, such a good question and I'm so happy that
you brought this forward so that we could talk about
it today. So let's talk about the Wimbledon curfew.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Yes, and also Sammy, shout out to Philadelphia and shout
out to the WNBA coming to Philly. I live in
Philly for six months. I extended every single time I
tell people how long I live there, you really do.
But you know we're gonna go with six months this time.
And I love that city. I would move back to
Philly in a heartbeat. I had. We had such amazing
(26:56):
times there. That's actually the first city that we ever
expanded to as the GIST. That's where we launched the
Just USA was in Philly. And so I just love
so much that you're calling in from Philly and sorry,
and now let's talk about the curfew.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
I shouldn't let you start talk.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
You were so excited to get into the curfew, and
I was like, no, let's talk about Philly. Also, I'm
so excited that Kyle Lowry is coming back to the
seventy six ers he resigned for when we really signed
for one year, which I think is so fun because
he's a Philly boy. He's a Philly boy.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Yeah. AnyWho, Okay, but let's let's talk about the Wimbledon curfew.
So the curfew itself is for eleven pm local time,
you know where it's being played, not our personal time,
and it is regarded as one of the strictest rules
in sports.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
So let's give you.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
The background on the why and the how. The curfew
has been in place since two thousand and nine and
it was created with consideration for the residents of Wimbledon,
London after the All England Club unveiled the redesigned center court,
complete with spotlights on the roof. So it is quite
right and there's of course a lot of people that
(28:08):
come to this one spot for the event.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
That totally makes sense to me. Steph. I would be
so happy as someone living in Wimbledon that the lights
would go down and everything would get more quiet around
eleven pm, even during that tournament. But also at the
same time, I'm like, it's only for a couple of weeks.
Tennis is not allowed sport. It doesn't get exceptionally rowdy
at something like Wimbledon in comparison to something like the
(28:32):
Super Bowl, But I digress. The rule was also made
in consideration to all of the guests to the tournament.
The London's tube last ride is at midnight on weekdays,
and the eleven pm curfew allows ample time to walk
to the nearest station, which is fifteen minutes away. Steph.
Have you ever been on the tube in England?
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yes, in the summer there's no AC.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Oh no, there's no AC. But what I was going
to say is so I would Taylor Swift at Wembley.
It was amazing. It was a life changing experience. We
saw a couple of guests that was very cool. But
I got to experience firsthand how much British people love
a queue and how much they love order, and how
much they love getting from one place to the next
(29:17):
in proper timing. I have never left a concert and
immediately felt so organized and so safe. And it's all
because England loves queuing and they knew exactly how to
get all of us back onto the tube in order
to get to the main city. And so a part
of this too, I'm like, they are operational people and
it makes them so happy to make sure that people
(29:38):
can get on the tube safely.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Also, just talking about brick culture, pubs closed at eleven people,
so in general they don't stay out super late in England.
So that's a cultural difference between the US and within.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Yeah, let's go, we're saying late. So let's get into
what Sammy was talking about. Though. With Fritz and with Shelton,
both matches stopped long before eleven pm Eastern. Fritz's opening
match was halted about forty five minutes before curfew, while
Shelton's was stopped at nine to thirty pm local time.
(30:10):
Shelton's in particular, I have an issue with. I really
have a gripe with this, because he was about to
serve for the match when the umpire ended it. Unfortunately,
the electronic line calling system, which replaced the human line
judges this year, doesn't work well in the dark, which
is why the match is called off. So to me, though,
I'm like, put in some humans, humans, Please only put
(30:35):
in humans after dark. It is okay. They've been managing
calling the lines. I'm like, yeah, put use your AI,
use your technology throughout the day for the majority of
whatever you need to be doing, but like, give me
a break. Nine to thirty pm and with one minute left,
and I felt bad for Shelton too, and I felt
bad for the person who he was playing against, because
(30:56):
literally the next day the match lasted a minute and
it was just such a waste of time. And I'm
thinking oh, in consideration for the guests too. The guests
want to see a match actually be completed and be
able to stand up in their seats and cheer.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
You know.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
I felt bad for those folks that they didn't actually
get to watch it. So I felt like that was
so silly.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah. And since the implementation of this curfew, because like
we mentioned, the curfew has only been in place since
two thousand and nine, there's only been one instance of
breaking it at Wimbledon. Annie Murray's force that went back
in twenty twelve finished at eleven oh two pm.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Local ooh ooh, it's good. That's pushing it. And you
know what, maybe it's because he's from the UK. The
Brits liked to claim Andy Murray, but he always says
that he's Scottish, so maybe that's why. But in that case,
it was very much like Shelton's where Murray was serving
for the match when the clock struck eleven, when the
clock struck twelve, and he's served out the match and
(31:49):
won literally two minutes later. But when in Shelton's case,
again it had nothing to do with the curfew. It
had to do with the electronic line calling system, which
I'm like, hmm, care the one there was a solution
for that.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
And the final question that we have here is do
the other tennis majors have recurview And you're correct, Sammy,
they do not. And you could talk about cultural stuff
here too. Late night tennis at the Australian Open and
the US Open are pretty standard, and that's something that
players actively prepare for ahead of those slams, in addition
to you know, preparing differently for the hard courts, et cetera,
(32:21):
et cetera. And that's definitely something that people pride themselves on,
I would say, especially in the Australian Open.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
And sometimes though, don't you feel so bad for the
players stuff in the Australian Open and in the US
Open when the matches are going so late and you're like,
how are they still doing in at one am or
two am? In those cases, I almost wish that there
was a curfew. But at the same time, I think
that it's so smart and it feels like the flow
of the sport to just let the sport continue to play,
(32:49):
especially when there's lights.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
I just can't imagine, like from the American perspective, telling
people that they have to go home and not finish
the end of the match like that just wouldn't fly.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
I feel Astralian perspective to Australian. I feel like Australians
love to party. If anything, they're like let go like
that just reason that I get to have another bevy
and continue to watch the match, and it's both beautiful
weather at this time. So Sammy, thank you so much
for the question. We learned a lot in preparing this
answer for you as well, and hopefully Wimbledon is able
(33:20):
to adjust some things with respect to how they're managing
their electronic line system, because I think that was a
big takeaway for me here one.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Hundred percent at the very least that should be taking
a look out and with that might the end of
today's episode, Thank you so much for tuning in.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
We will be back in your feed with a new
podcast on Tuesday. In the meantime, if you enjoyed this episode,
we'd love for you to rate, review, and subscribe and
give us a show of course.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
This episode was edited by Savannah Held and produced by
Lisa min Utillo and Alessandra Puccio. Again, I'm Steph Rottz.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
And I'm Ellen Hissloup we'll be keeping an eye on
your social comments. Keep commenting, and we'll chat with you
again on Tuesday.
What's up everyone? Welcome or welcome back to another episode
of The Gist of It. I am so jazzed for
today's episode and I'm so glad that you all are
joining us. Today is Thursday, July tenth. We're your co hosts.
I'm Ellen Hissla.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
And I'm Steph France and well, I'm so excited.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Steph just gave a big yawn.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Sorry, it's just I'm just a sleepy girl today. Are
you talking to do with the topic? Yeah, my god,
because I was.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
This topic is literally anything but sleepy, and I have
been thinking about it all day and famously I don't
think about much, and this has been on my mind
for quite some time. We are going to talk about
Formula one, also known as F one, because there has
been a major shakeup in the world's premiere racing circuit.
(00:55):
As if you haven't heard it yet, Red Bull Team
principal and Jerry's vice's husband, Christian Horner, was officially fired
yesterday after twenty years at the Helm as principal of
Red Bulls F one team and with two decades at
the organization. There is a lot that we can say
(01:16):
about Christian Horner, and there's some good things as well
as some bad things about his time at red Bull,
and so we're going to get into all of that,
but we're also going to get into the question of
why now, because this could have happened beforehand. And this
is Christian Horner has been red Bull's only principle since
its inception in f one, so this is a huge deal.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
He's married to Ginger Spice.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yes, did you watch Drive to Survive?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Ya?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I think I've mentioned it on the podcast. Literally since
twenty twenty one, I have.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Watched a couple of seasons.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Okay, well, then you would have seen Jerry on there,
and I feel like you've always resonated with Jerry. I
feel like if you were to be a Spice girl,
all you would be posh or Ginger.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Sporty, erasure. I was always sporty growing up.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
I think I was sporty and that's why I moved you,
and that's why I moved you over. You did come
over to our school in grade four, so I think
I might have already claimed sporty before you could have.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
You would have had a group and I would have
had a separate group, and I was forty in my group.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yeah. Oh, dull. Okay, well we're both gonna be fighting.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Was just appropriate because today's all about the drama.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, okay, wow, sorry, I was just wrapping my head
around that fact. I felt like that should have been
in the outline because I was just gobsmacked. Sorry, folks,
I was. I'm not prepared for that to be a
reality because Horner so the guy we're talking about here,
Jerry Spice's Jerry Spic Ginger Spices Skin was accused of
inappropriate controlling behavior at the workplace last year, which is
(02:57):
not great, and he did end up keeping his role
as team leader during all of that, after both an
internal investigation and an appeal that dismiss the accusation. So
it is feeling all a little bit familiar, and a
lot has changed since then, and of course, one major
thing that's changed is Red Bull's performance on the track
(03:19):
in F one.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I feel like sef part of the reason why you
say it feels a little bit familiar is that when
people in positions of power who are good at their job,
when the organization wants to keep them in that role,
they're going to keep them in that role, regardless of
kind of what is going on amongst it. We talked
about this agnauseum with Christian Horner last year, but also
(03:41):
with people like Deshaun Watson, and the list continues and
goes on and on, especially in men's sports and in
women's soccer with the head coaches. Very similar thing here
and so now a lot of people are like, wait,
you wouldn't fire this cat last year, but you're firing
him now because of Red Bull's performance on the racetrack
and the fact that their number one drive, Max Verstappin,
is rumored to potentially be looking to race for other teams.
(04:06):
So there's a lot of drama. Whether you're an F
one fan or not, I think that you'll be interested
in this story because there is a lot of nuance,
and there's a lot of business side of things, and
there's a lot of I think things that can be
layered into other sports as well, and if anything too,
I hope that this podcast also encourages you to watch
(04:29):
Drives to Survive if you haven't yet, because it really
drives to survive change my life. It has honestly enriched
my life in so many ways, and I'm so proud
and happy to be an F one fan because my
friends bullied me into watching Drive to Survive.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
You don't get bullied into a whole lot.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
No, But I fully was like, why the hell would
I watch cars go in a circle on the same racetrack.
Now I can't wait to watch Racis. It's it's incredible,
And it's because they tell a story. They help you
understand things, They help build the character that these drivers are,
and these engineers and these teams. They do such a
good job of actually explaining everything that goes into Formula one.
(05:10):
And as someone who was not understanding or ignorant to
that beforehand, and who wasn't open to learning that beforehand,
I was really I really love the way Netflix kind
of laid that all out.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I am going to lock in on this topic, I
promise listeners, but I do want to rewind a bit
and say thank you, just sirs for letting Ellen and
I know that there was a restock on the Spice
Girls Admirals.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yes, soccer jerseys.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Ellen ended up getting one.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
So did you not end up buying one? No?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I passed it along to a woman that I play
soccer with who had sent it to me before you
had sent it to me saying I want one of
these but are sold out, so I let her know
I pass on the good news for context.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Did we talk about it in the last one.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
We did talk about it on the podcast, Okay, the
last one with the last last one, right.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
So there was a gister who literally commented on our
Instagram posts with these Spice Girls things, and she put
in the link in which I thought was just girlhood
at its peak, because it's not like you can click
a link in an Instagram comment. And I was just
kind of, you know, monitoring our comments, getting in there
as I normally do, and I saw this and I
went and then when I brought it into the computer browser,
(06:17):
it wasn't sold out. But Steph, you said it was
sold out in your mobile browser. So I had cash.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, got I cleared that cap near the cash.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Buy from your desktop or buy from your laptop, and
that's the way to do it.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah. So I am ready to talk f one now
that we've gotten Spice Girls out.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Because then you because you said soccer, and then I
was thinking about how England just absolutely dominated the Netherlands
yesterday in the arrows, and then I started thinking about
Spice Girls. So I was half listening to you half
going into women's soccer spice girl, lamb, but your.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Brain is a beautiful place. Before we get into F one,
we do have to call an audible. We have to
talk about Angel Reese's two K cover before we get
into Angel Reese. Last last podcast, we were like, do
you guys like the calling an audible because we had
it in our personal training session that some of our
gisters were like, maybe not, and so we had a
(07:06):
lot of people comment on it. If there was two
people in particular that we wanted to shout out, Lorna.
She was asking about the w NBA game in Vancouver
and she said, I am hashtag team calling an audible.
So Lorna was all in, thank you Laura so much
for the DM. Then Lindsay, my girl, Lindsay, we DM
all the time on Instagram, shout out and she's like,
(07:27):
I love the name calling an audible. I'm really into it,
but you need to stop explaining what it is. You
explained it before. We're really good and she goes, just
my hot take ky, love you gals, bye, and I
was like, that's a gister. That's a gister right there.
Call us out on it. But it's so in such
a kind way. So we're not going to explain what
an audible is moving forward, but we are going to
(07:48):
be keeping calling an audible for better or for worse
until you all give us better ideas.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Lindsay, I love how you spelling your name, by the way.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Very cool with an eye, Lindsay with an I anyway, Steph,
talk about angel.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
So she's a cover girl of course, naturally.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
So she is on the WNBA edition of NBA two
K twenty six, the twenty twenty six version, and it's
a very popular video game. You may have heard of it,
and the physical copy will only be exclusively sold at GameStop.
So if you do want to get your hands on
this cover this version, do act fast. That would be
my hot tip for me to you. And something else
(08:25):
with Angelries we do need to talk about. While we're
talking about her being on the cover of NBA two K,
have you seen.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Her new shoes? Oh my god's so sick gorgean, You's
so gorgeous.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
So this has been just an absolutely huge week for Angelry.
She released her first signature sneaker with Rebok, the Angel
Reese one. They are called the Diamond dusk colorway and
the whole promo surrounding it just feels so authentic to her.
And I'm so excited to get more details on the
launch shape, the pricing. That's not out quite yet, but
(08:58):
we can all put it on the Pinterest board at
this point.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
That's one thing I was going to say, Steph, is
that it all feels so Angel Reese, and shout out
to Angel Reese for only being two years in the
WNBA and being able to have a brand that we
can say that feels so authentically Angel, even though we've
never met her in our lives, but we feel like
we have this parasocial relationship with her, and I think
(09:23):
that's so unique. And I do think, Steph, that there
has been shoe drops or merch drops or things like
that that have missed the mark beforehand. But I think
that Asia Wilson and Angel Reese are probably the two
best players in the WNBA that where they drop things,
and when they drop things you can feel their fingerprints
on it. You can tell that they're part of the
(09:43):
creative process and that they take it very seriously that
their name is associated with that merchandise too. And I
don't know, I just think that it's so cool that
Angel has been able to accomplish that at such a
young age, two years into a league.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
You know, she's a very smart person.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah, very bigg brilliant.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
As we mentioned very excitedly at the beginning of the podcast,
F one constructor Red Bull stunned the motorsports community on
Monday morning, acting longtime team principal and CEO Christian Horner
after twenty years at the Helm. If you're new to
F one, we are going to make sure that we
explain any important or new terminology for you. For example,
(10:32):
a team principle is the person in charge of the team,
while a constructor is what each team is called because
they're literally constructing racing cars.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, and like we said at the top of the pod,
even if you're new to F one into the sport,
this narrative is not new. It's a film that we've
seen before. In February of twenty twenty four, Horner was
accused of quote inappropriate controlling behavior end quote by a
female colleague at Red Bull, but remained at the helm
of the team, of course until yesterday. And you might
(11:02):
be asking yourself, why did Red Bull not fire Horner?
Back then when the allegations were revealed, and we are
extrapolating here, we're inserting some personal opinions and thinking maybe
it's to do with the performance of the team.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
So for today's One Big Story, we'll briefly discuss Horner's
history at Red Bull to provide some context before digging
into an interesting comparison what the team looked like in
twenty twenty four when the allegations were revealed, and what
the team looked like leading up to this firing. And
one thing I want to say too. Today's discussion is
also inspired by our comments on social media and on Instagram,
(11:39):
and when we shared the news to our community, it
was so interesting seeing everyone's takes in the comments and
there were so many astute observations and interesting opinions of
what was going on. And so thank you all so
much for doing what you're doing in the comments, because
it really does help us as a media company also
(12:01):
understand what you're interested in, where your ideas lie, and
all that sort of stuff. So thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
So let's give you a brief history of Horner at
Red Bull. Horner is the first and only team principle
that Red Bull has employed because it's, you know, relatively
new in the grand scheme of things. Red Bull joined
F one in two thousand and five and that's the
year that they made their debut. Horner was the youngest
team principal back then, taking the Red Bull reigns at
(12:27):
just thirty one years old, and he oversaw eight World
Drivers' Championship titles, four for Sebastian Vettle and four for
Max Verstaffan, and six constructors titles during his time with
the team. So they did well. They did well, and the.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
World Drivers' Championship just goes to that individual driver and
then the Constructors Championship goes to the team who had
the most points between their two drivers.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, so that's why we mentioned the person at the
when we mentioned the World Driver's Championships and no person
for the Constructors' titles.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
With those steph there was kind of two dynastic sprints,
I guess you could say for Red Bull twenty ten
to twenty thirteen with Vettel and then twenty twenty one
to twenty twenty four with for Stappin, And that is
really the era that's also covered exceptionally well in Drive
to Survive.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
What a coincidence.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
What a coincidence, very very lucky. So you get to
know Christian Horner very well, you get to know Max
Restappen very well, you get to understand the Red Bull lore.
So let's talk about Red Bull in twenty twenty four
when these allegations came out. In some brief context on
these allegations, so, as Steph mentioned beforehand, he was accused
of inappropriate controlling behavior by a female colleague at Red Bull.
(13:42):
Red Bull completed an independent investigation that lasted for three weeks,
after which Horner was cleared of any wrongdoing. The alleged
techts were leaked at the end of February, but they
could not be deemed authentic. Interestingly, and probably not at
all related, the woman who filed the complaint, Gets Corner,
was suspended with pay in March of twenty twenty four.
(14:05):
The female colleague appealed the findings of the investigation during
the twenty twenty four F one summer break, but the
allegations again were dismissed. One thing I'll also say it
was really interesting seeing in the latest season of Drive
to Survive what the other principles and teams had to
say of what was going on at Red Bull While
(14:26):
this was all happening, it was also really interesting to
see what the Principles were kind of saying quietly out
loud to the media as this was going on. F
one is messy, and unlike any other sport, the drivers
and the principles kind of recognize that it's their personalities
and them allowing themselves to showcase their thoughts that actually
(14:49):
drives a lot more interest in the sport. So I'd say,
unlike any other sport, they're kind of willy nilly on
what they say, which I really appreciate. And in this case,
you could tell who really did not like Christian Horner
and who was going after him heavily from a principal perspective,
and so I found that very interesting in all of this.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
So other team leads, essentially other Principles were saying that
they don't drive with this guy, or well there was
the root of it.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
A lot of Principles do not drive with this guy.
And so a lot of people when these texts were
coming out and he was saying this is not true,
this is not true, they were essentially rolling their eyes
at it and making comments that they were like, well,
how could it not be in some of this sort
of stuff where I don't have the exact quotes right now,
and I think that they were still being cheeky with
(15:40):
the media while also being like, what the heck is
going on out there? And I think Steph, this is
also because they probably maybe felt similar to all of us.
We're like, Okay, he's dealing with these allegations, he's going
through these types of things. But at the same time,
in twenty twenty four, after twenty twenty four, so the
allegations happened before that twenty four season fully started. Red
(16:05):
Bull was coming off their second straight World Constructors for
Stappin was coming off his third straight World Drivers Championship.
They've absolutely dominated the first two seasons and or the
last two seasons rather, and the expectation was that they
would dominate again, And so you have all of these
principles already just frustrated and confused about how they're going
(16:25):
to beat Red Bull this year, and then they see
Christian Horner do all these things and they're like, oh,
I guess he's just at the top and he is
not going to be able to fall.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Was it also kind of like corroborating, like it from
a character standpoint, saying I believe because he's kind of
he is like that, or.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
I don't know that. I don't know if I would
go as far as character, and I don't think it
was all principles. I would say in particular, it was
the Mercedes principle and the McLaren principle, so total Wolf
and Zach Brown in particular, who have an out for
Christian Horner, and so you also have to take that
with a grain of salt. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, but
there was a little bit of nuance in gray area
(17:03):
of how other drivers and principals who were responding to
these allegations as well.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
And then of course the expectation would be that Red
Bull would once again dominate in twenty twenty four. So
we're taking you alongside all of this, these allegations and oh,
try and overlap it with the actual F one seasons themselves.
So in twenty twenty four, they did dominate to start
the season, Verstepen comfortably won four of the five first races,
and he still won his fourth straight World Drivers Championship
(17:33):
in twenty twenty four, but Red Bull as an overall
team didn't win the construction championship, so they didn't win
the one that is for the whole team, for the
two drivers, and tensions under the surface were certainly growing.
There's a growing disconnect between Verstappin, who, as Ellen mentioned
very briefly at the beginning of the episode, there were
(17:54):
some rumors starting to swirl around about a potential departure
from Red Bull, and Corner began to really I maybe
you know, react to that, you could say, and.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
I would say too, Steph. Max ended up winning, but
in the past he won by a long shot for
the most part, except for that famous year where I
don't think he should have won. It should have been
Sir Lewis Hamilton because of a weird ruling. But I digress.
But he and Red Bull were like so far ahead
of the pack that honestly, it was kind of boring
(18:27):
to watch as an F one fan because you knew
that Max was going to win, and you were more
so watching the battle for second versus in twenty twenty
four and last year, there was a lot of really
good teams, a lot of amazing racers, a lot of
amazing cars, and so you saw teams like McLaren really
move up and actually win the constructors, and it took
(18:47):
everybody by surprise because they didn't think that Red Bull
would fall back that much because they just dominated so
hard the years before. There's a few rule changes and
everything like that that are in the mix in the background,
but essentially Red Bull didn't keep pace ahead of the
other teams as much as they thought that they were.
So that's twenty twenty four. Let's put twenty twenty four
(19:10):
in the rear view mirror.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Sorry, it's sorry, I really yelled at you guys of
the year.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yeah, but now let's bring it to twenty twenty five.
So he was fired on Wednesday, and we say lee.
It said leave immediately, where like he was fired. But
they're making it seem like he is leaving. He says
Christian order leaves with immediate effects, So they're saying leaves
as if it's like him actually choosing to go. But
(19:37):
we can all read between the lines here. He got fired.
They're saying, we'll make it look good at the press.
You can say that you leave, you can leave with
the media effect. But we're not silly, we're not dumb.
We can read through the lines. So, and this was
just days after the British Grand Prix, which was so fun.
The results for a Red Bull in that Grand Prix
were not good. Max orsap and finished fifth, Yuki Sonoda
(19:59):
finished dead lad excluding the two cars who did not finish.
And it's been a really hard, i'd say season for
Red Bull so far, but also tumultuous eighteen months. There's
been a lot of senior employees who have left the
team and who are going to build the new team
for Aston Martin. Because of so many senior engineers leaving
(20:20):
the team, it's been really hard for them to create
a competitive car in twenty twenty five. And that's clear
stuff because in the standings they're forced in the constructors
and I would say the only reason that they're fourth
is because Max Verstappen is that guy. He somehow continues
to be able to pull the best out of that car.
(20:42):
At the same time, Steph, he's pissed off about it.
He's like, this car shit, I'm so annoyed about it.
He calls it very undrivable. He's so vocal. I love
this about F one. They have these driver radios and
you can listen to races as they're doing it, and
they're all swearing they're at like is just fantastic, and
Max Versappin does not hold back when he is not
(21:04):
enjoying what the car is putting out. And so the
fact that Max Versappin has only won two races this
year and they're constantly underperforming in that second seat, red
Bull's not having a good season.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Imagine imagine during a really heated championship or contests or
whatever you have, that every single athlete had a mic.
The things we would hear.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Oh my gosh, it's so much funny. One of my
favorite things on TikTok is just compilations of F one
drivers mouthing off or not even mouthing off. Sometimes they're
having a great race and having a good time and
they're singing at the same time, or they're saying something
really nice to their engineering team, and other times they're
being so curt and they're like, don't talk to me,
(21:49):
that was wrong. This is so bad, this car is undrivable.
Holy shit, Like, it's actually so funny. I would really
encourage everyone to just look up those driver compilations of.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Red Bulls one hundred and seventy two points for this season. Though,
do you need to point out the verstap and has
accounted for one hundred and sixty five of them. So
this is also adding to the tensions at Red Bull.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
There's already been.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
A driver swap for this particular team for that second spot,
the second driver, and that really hasn't paid off in
any shape or form at this point.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
And it's hard for the reason why that's a big
deal for Max to provide some context is that even
though he's competing against that person, that person's also supposed
to be his teammate and should be able to do
things like strategize with him to block off other drivers
and to be his kind of second person who he
can rely on. But because there hasn't been as much
(22:40):
development in the Red Bull kind of system as they
were hoping, and because this car isn't performing as well,
Max is literally out there by himself in comparison to
other teams like McLaren who have Lando Norris an Oscar
Piastre who can kind of like play off each other
at the same time to be able to play defense
against other teams. So that's really hard.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Like setting a pick exactly exactly, but we hope, hope, yeah,
exactly the Carvers and not dangerous because but because of
that Steff, so this Christian Horner news drops, and this
is almost like a week or so after, I see
online that Max Verstappin might be moving over to Mercedes,
(23:23):
which is really interesting because Lewis Hamilton left Mercedes for Ferrari,
and then all of.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
A sudden, I'm seeing on social media, Okay, Christian Horner
is at Red Bull, but rumor has it that immediately
Ferrari is potentially interested in picking up Christian Horner as
a principle because there's things over there that also need
to be cleaned up. I think that that is a
true rumor, and like, I don't think it has any
(23:50):
meat to it, but this Max Verstappin moving to Mercedes
would be exceptionally fiery stuff because Toto Wolf and Christian
Horner hate each other. I think the only other enemy
or bigger enemy to Christian Horner would be Zach Brown
a McLaren and so anyway, it's all very, very spicy,
but I think it still comes back to that main
(24:12):
issue of like, okay, there was only accountability for Christian
Horner when the team was bad, and this is something
that we see time and time again in any sport,
and then there's this layer of just the f one
carousel and all of the drama that we see amongst
principles and amongst drivers.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Now it's time for our personal training SASH. This is
where we'll answer your hard hitting questions about anything and
we meet anything in the sports world. And we'll also
just take feedback, take commentary, take that you know, anything
you want to throw at us, and we will interact
with it. Yes, that's what we'll do.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
And so said that this one was perfect. I'm excited
for this. So we're so excited for this one. But
also if you'd like to be featured in a future episode,
please call and leave us a voicemail at one four
three seven five six four five five seven nine that
numbers in the show notes, and you can also just
hold onto the number in the show notes and give
(25:16):
us the show. You can also DM Steph and I
on Instagram, Ellen at the Gist and at Stephanie Rods,
or email us pod at the sports dot Com. We're
we're partial to the voicemail though. We love hearing your
voices and being like real people listen to us. That's
so crazy. Anyway, in today's personal training sessh. We are
taking a perfect, perfect question from our friends Sammy in Philadelphia.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Hey, ladies, this is Sammy. I'm calling from Philly, which
we are so excited to get silently begetting at WNBA team.
First off, thank you guys for everything that you do.
It's truly impactful and inspiring, and I hope you guys
know that that's my question. I've been me to calling
for about a week, but I wanted to talk tennis,
specifically women ten So on the first day of the tournament,
(25:59):
I was watching Fritz is opening around match and it
was suspended to the curfew, a similar thing that happened
to Ben Sheilton, and both of these matches were really
intense and desot to keep going through the night. So
my question is, why is there curfew Wimbledon, especially when
the other tenant majors don't have one and the guys
will keep going and playing well into the night. So
(26:20):
I was just wondering, what's with the Wimbledon curfew? Thanks
so much, guys.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Honestly, such a good question and I'm so happy that
you brought this forward so that we could talk about
it today. So let's talk about the Wimbledon curfew.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Yes, and also Sammy, shout out to Philadelphia and shout
out to the WNBA coming to Philly. I live in
Philly for six months. I extended every single time I
tell people how long I live there, you really do.
But you know we're gonna go with six months this time.
And I love that city. I would move back to
Philly in a heartbeat. I had. We had such amazing
(26:56):
times there. That's actually the first city that we ever
expanded to as the GIST. That's where we launched the
Just USA was in Philly. And so I just love
so much that you're calling in from Philly and sorry,
and now let's talk about the curfew.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
I shouldn't let you start talk.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
You were so excited to get into the curfew, and
I was like, no, let's talk about Philly. Also, I'm
so excited that Kyle Lowry is coming back to the
seventy six ers he resigned for when we really signed
for one year, which I think is so fun because
he's a Philly boy. He's a Philly boy.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Yeah. AnyWho, Okay, but let's let's talk about the Wimbledon curfew.
So the curfew itself is for eleven pm local time,
you know where it's being played, not our personal time,
and it is regarded as one of the strictest rules
in sports.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
So let's give you.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
The background on the why and the how. The curfew
has been in place since two thousand and nine and
it was created with consideration for the residents of Wimbledon,
London after the All England Club unveiled the redesigned center court,
complete with spotlights on the roof. So it is quite
right and there's of course a lot of people that
(28:08):
come to this one spot for the event.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
That totally makes sense to me. Steph. I would be
so happy as someone living in Wimbledon that the lights
would go down and everything would get more quiet around
eleven pm, even during that tournament. But also at the
same time, I'm like, it's only for a couple of weeks.
Tennis is not allowed sport. It doesn't get exceptionally rowdy
at something like Wimbledon in comparison to something like the
(28:32):
Super Bowl, But I digress. The rule was also made
in consideration to all of the guests to the tournament.
The London's tube last ride is at midnight on weekdays,
and the eleven pm curfew allows ample time to walk
to the nearest station, which is fifteen minutes away. Steph.
Have you ever been on the tube in England?
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yes, in the summer there's no AC.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Oh no, there's no AC. But what I was going
to say is so I would Taylor Swift at Wembley.
It was amazing. It was a life changing experience. We
saw a couple of guests that was very cool. But
I got to experience firsthand how much British people love
a queue and how much they love order, and how
much they love getting from one place to the next
(29:17):
in proper timing. I have never left a concert and
immediately felt so organized and so safe. And it's all
because England loves queuing and they knew exactly how to
get all of us back onto the tube in order
to get to the main city. And so a part
of this too, I'm like, they are operational people and
it makes them so happy to make sure that people
(29:38):
can get on the tube safely.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Also, just talking about brick culture, pubs closed at eleven people,
so in general they don't stay out super late in England.
So that's a cultural difference between the US and within.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Yeah, let's go, we're saying late. So let's get into
what Sammy was talking about. Though. With Fritz and with Shelton,
both matches stopped long before eleven pm Eastern. Fritz's opening
match was halted about forty five minutes before curfew, while
Shelton's was stopped at nine to thirty pm local time.
(30:10):
Shelton's in particular, I have an issue with. I really
have a gripe with this, because he was about to
serve for the match when the umpire ended it. Unfortunately,
the electronic line calling system, which replaced the human line
judges this year, doesn't work well in the dark, which
is why the match is called off. So to me, though,
I'm like, put in some humans, humans, Please only put
(30:35):
in humans after dark. It is okay. They've been managing
calling the lines. I'm like, yeah, put use your AI,
use your technology throughout the day for the majority of
whatever you need to be doing, but like, give me
a break. Nine to thirty pm and with one minute left,
and I felt bad for Shelton too, and I felt
bad for the person who he was playing against, because
(30:56):
literally the next day the match lasted a minute and
it was just such a waste of time. And I'm
thinking oh, in consideration for the guests too. The guests
want to see a match actually be completed and be
able to stand up in their seats and cheer.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
You know.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
I felt bad for those folks that they didn't actually
get to watch it. So I felt like that was
so silly.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah. And since the implementation of this curfew, because like
we mentioned, the curfew has only been in place since
two thousand and nine, there's only been one instance of
breaking it at Wimbledon. Annie Murray's force that went back
in twenty twelve finished at eleven oh two pm.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Local ooh ooh, it's good. That's pushing it. And you
know what, maybe it's because he's from the UK. The
Brits liked to claim Andy Murray, but he always says
that he's Scottish, so maybe that's why. But in that case,
it was very much like Shelton's where Murray was serving
for the match when the clock struck eleven, when the
clock struck twelve, and he's served out the match and
(31:49):
won literally two minutes later. But when in Shelton's case,
again it had nothing to do with the curfew. It
had to do with the electronic line calling system, which
I'm like, hmm, care the one there was a solution
for that.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
And the final question that we have here is do
the other tennis majors have recurview And you're correct, Sammy,
they do not. And you could talk about cultural stuff
here too. Late night tennis at the Australian Open and
the US Open are pretty standard, and that's something that
players actively prepare for ahead of those slams, in addition
to you know, preparing differently for the hard courts, et cetera,
(32:21):
et cetera. And that's definitely something that people pride themselves on,
I would say, especially in the Australian Open.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
And sometimes though, don't you feel so bad for the
players stuff in the Australian Open and in the US
Open when the matches are going so late and you're like,
how are they still doing in at one am or
two am? In those cases, I almost wish that there
was a curfew. But at the same time, I think
that it's so smart and it feels like the flow
of the sport to just let the sport continue to play,
(32:49):
especially when there's lights.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
I just can't imagine, like from the American perspective, telling
people that they have to go home and not finish
the end of the match like that just wouldn't fly.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
I feel Astralian perspective to Australian. I feel like Australians
love to party. If anything, they're like let go like
that just reason that I get to have another bevy
and continue to watch the match, and it's both beautiful
weather at this time. So Sammy, thank you so much
for the question. We learned a lot in preparing this
answer for you as well, and hopefully Wimbledon is able
(33:20):
to adjust some things with respect to how they're managing
their electronic line system, because I think that was a
big takeaway for me here one.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Hundred percent at the very least that should be taking
a look out and with that might the end of
today's episode, Thank you so much for tuning in.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
We will be back in your feed with a new
podcast on Tuesday. In the meantime, if you enjoyed this episode,
we'd love for you to rate, review, and subscribe and
give us a show of course.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
This episode was edited by Savannah Held and produced by
Lisa min Utillo and Alessandra Puccio. Again, I'm Steph Rottz.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
And I'm Ellen Hissloup we'll be keeping an eye on
your social comments. Keep commenting, and we'll chat with you
again on Tuesday.
Popular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com