Maxi-Muscle

Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
Welcome to the Grand Prix Project podcast.

(00:35):
Welcome once again this is the Grand Prix Project podcast.
This is AF1 episode reviewing the.
Emiliano, Romania Grand Prix. OK, which is in.
Italy, sure. That's which is in Italy, Yeah.
It's actually that's, that's allthe that's Yeah, that's how they
pronounce it. They officially the Italian

(00:57):
Grand Prix will be Monza, Yeah. Emilia, Romania Grand Prix,
Yeah. OK, good, tongue twisted here,
but you got it. Yeah, Piastra stamps don't have
a pole. Lando struggles the 4th like
hey, what's going on in in What's the dynamics?

(01:17):
What's going on with with do yousee Piastra as as the guy in in
the McLaren team now? No, I don't think so.
I still think it's relatively close between the two of them.
And I think where Lando's problem lies, it's not unsolved,
It's not race pace, it's his qual, it's his one lap
qualifying. That seems to be the problem

(01:39):
that he needs to work on becauseonce he gets into the race, he's
he's shown that he has the pace to either match or even beat
Piastre. So I don't think that's I don't
think that's the case of saying Piastre is the man, right?
No, is is he in a good Vena form?
Absolutely. And based on that, people would

(02:01):
want to say, yeah, he's the man.But I still think it, again,
it's too early. It's 7 races out of what, 24?
So we have another 17 races to go.
I still think, yeah, it's too early to make that call, but I
can't. But we can't agree that in terms
of who's in the best form right now, it's Oscar because, you

(02:24):
know, go back to our last episode from what was the last
race, Miami, where I mentioned or he was born before that where
I mentioned what Landon needs. He just needs a clean weekend.
And I think if he can put a clean weekend together, he'll be
that will kind of like help boost his confidence or his or

(02:49):
whatever it is again. But right now his struggles is
definitely in qualifying because.
The issue with that, right, needing a clean weekend.
We've been saying that for a couple of races now.
Right now we're 1/4 of the season, just over 1/4, as we
just mentioned, just Grand Prix in the season.

(03:09):
So I could see, I could see thatbeing said just based on what
I've seen, right, I could see that being said until a halfway
point and all of a sudden we're saying that at a three quarter
way point and. No, no, I don't think we we'll
say that up to that point. But the thing, the thing that's

(03:34):
saving Lando right now is even with his poor qualifying form,
the gap to his teammate is not unsurmountable.
It's not something that he cannot claw back within maybe
two or three races, you know, So, yeah.
So he's so he's still win the he's still in the fight.

(03:56):
He's not dropped out. He's not lost or anything like
that. He's still consistently.
I mean, he's only has he missed the podium in any races here, I
don't believe. Where did he miss the podium?
Was it Jeddah? Because Charles finished on the
podium in Jeddah. No, it wasn't no, Max didn't

(04:18):
finish on the podium in Jeddah. God, I need to remember.
But either but either way, Landois still consistently he's
getting he's putting the McLarenon the podium, which is good.
So if his teammate is winning the races and he's on the
podium, it lessens the the points gap to some extent.

(04:38):
It's. But consistently over season,
you lose a championship. Yes, which is why he's going to
have to regain his form in qualifying and if he fixes that,
like I said in the race, he's still relatively quick in the
race, consistent pace throughoutevery single race so far.

(04:59):
He just hasn't been able to put together again.
His cleanest weekend was Australia.
He had no issues in Australia, qualified on pole, drove a clean
race and you've you felt like hewas going to build on that and
then everything started to fall apart in China.
So let me ask you this, right? We already know that the one of

(05:21):
the hardest issues to fix because you're he's in a good
car, as we already know, right? So when you're in a good car
that's fast, offer any cars. As a matter of fact, the hardest
thing to to overcome if you've got an issue is your quality is

(05:42):
that one lap pace. I, I, yeah, I disagree.
I disagree with that. I disagree with that because
again, the the issue he could behaving over the one lap, it
could be tire related, it could be a balance issue or something.

(06:04):
It, these are things that can befixed.
It's not like he doesn't have one lap pace.
He has the one lap pace. He just needs to get the car on
that one lap 'cause if you look all right, look at if you look
at his qualifying, every single session is fine up until the
final runs in Q3. Are we feeling that's?

(06:25):
Well, basically the same thing that Lewis went through at
Mercedes. To the last.
Yeah, a lot of time he went through and he said when it
comes down to the car, just it'sjust a total.
Yeah, OK. Yeah.
So probably it's final two yearsI'm receiving.
Yeah. It's final two years I'm talking
about because the reason the reason why I alluded to the fact
that the one lap thing is probably more difficult to to

(06:47):
fix. I get it.
You're saying it's dear about isis qualifying top four.
It's not terrible, but it's justthat what you mentioned, you
said it that his issue is qualifying, right?
So the reason why I said qualifying is one of the
probably one of the most difficult home to fix, whatever
may be the cause is that we've seen it.
We've seen where it's like drivers may struggle in

(07:10):
qualifying and then they're justrapid in the race.
Well, it but in that case it depends on the the car in
question, because if you have a good car, a good car is a good
car qualifying or in the race. So you expect which is McLaren a
so you expect him to, you know, be good in qualifying.
So whatever the issue is he's having, it could be a simple

(07:34):
case of I don't maybe just the pressure of having Oscar knowing
Oscar is there, knowing that he has to be absolutely perfect
because if he's not, he's going to get all qualified by either
Max, Oscar or even George. And maybe that maybe that maybe
that that in itself is playing in the back of his mind.
I don't know, just assuming here, here.

(07:56):
But whatever the issue is, it's just that's the only thing he
needs to clean up and he still has a lot of time.
He's only what, 13 points behindin the championship?
He still has a lot of time available.
And what we do know, we've seen in Formula One, there's going to

(08:19):
be a bad patch for somewhere forOO's going to have his his
moments where, you know, he's having difficulties as well.
The question now is how does Oscar deal with that, these
moments? So Lando just needs to like just
come just kind of like take a deep breath and if if in in some

(08:41):
ways kind of like retrace his step, yeah to what he did well
in Australia and just try and replicate that 'cause like I
said, the form, the pace is there in him.
So, you know, if he gets that, fine.
If he gets that sorted, then he'd be all right.
Yeah, man. Yeah, I, I just, I just think

(09:07):
whatever it is, right? So he had one clean weekend and
then he's at six. That is not so great, right?
Man, that's a lot of races. Yeah, and again, like I said,
you'd and you'd assume within those six races, Oscars won,

(09:30):
what, 4, right. He'd have thought that he'd have
had a much bigger gap. He doesn't.
Oscar's won the last what? Prior to yesterday, I won the
last 3-4 races. Oh, last four?
No. Last last four, Three in a row.
Was it three in a row that you did?

(09:52):
Yeah, he won. That's when he broke the record.
He won Jeddah after after Max won in Japan.
What was after Japan? God, let me just check 'cause I
my car remember all of this stuff.
Three in a row because he was the first driver since since
Senna. No, since Akinen.
I can. So he won.

(10:13):
He won Bahrain. Yeah, he won Bahrain, Jeddah and
Miami. He also won Australia, China.
So that's, those are his four ways.
Yeah. He'd have thought, you know,
he'd have built up a bigger lead.
So whilst it looks daunting for Lando, it's still pretty much

(10:37):
not as bad as how it could have been for.
Yeah, because the points gap is not, it's not huge.
It's only 13 points you're talking about.
That's him winning the next two races and Oscar finishing third
in those two races. That's 20 points.
His gain of Oscar immediately 7 points ahead of him again.

(10:58):
So I think it it becomes a worry.
Is it a worry now? Yes.
To what extent? Maybe 20%.
It becomes a bigger, a more bigger percentage.
If we get to the halfway points of the season.
That's what I was. And it's the same and it's the

(11:18):
same thing happening. And he's not winning races and
Oscars winning races. Then you pretty much know, yeah.
You're not gonna say you're not.Halfway mark not figuring this
out, right? Yeah.
His all enabling issues are he, he, he.
Yeah, he's going to start looking.
And it's and when you consider that the Red Bull is now
starting to look a much better package.

(11:40):
Actually, we'll get to that because that's one of the thing
that we have that that we need to discuss.
Yeah, right. That's one of the thing that we.
So, so the, the, the qualifying was, was brilliant from us
because again, he delivered. He delivered when it matters.
And you know, we all thought Maxwas going to steal it and what

(12:02):
we realized with the the circuitas well, 'cause they barely
brought the softest compounder tyres in the range.
That was it. C 4-5 and six, which are the
three softest compounds. Right.
And we saw that there was mixed all the cars in the top ten set
the times on different tyres. Yeah, well, was it 7 theater?

(12:27):
The seven cars set the times on different tyres.
The Mercedes the and the 2 AstonMartins did use mediums in Q3
and George on mediums out qualified Lando, which you know
when you saw Orlando's lab when PSG was up a 10th and 1/2 at the

(12:49):
intersector 2 Lando was almost 3/10 down and I was like, yeah,
it's not coming together and then you know, you thought OK,
he had secured a third position because you didn't know what you
didn't really think George is going to qualify him on the on
the medium ties above of pops George and he's off off the
well, he's still on the 2nd row,but he's made his job a bit more

(13:13):
difficult because you know he's behind the Mercedes where
naturally he'd want to be probably be behind Max on the
grid or something like that, which gives him a better chance.
But yeah, hats off to to Oscar, you know, did his thing again,
did that delivered another excellent poll.
You know, the 2 Aston Martins had some upgrades this over the

(13:35):
weekend. I heard it was a large package.
Lance, Lance. And they qualified where they
qualify. Let me tell you where they
qualified. They qualified 5th and 8th.
Alonzo in 5th strolling it againwith with that's basically

(13:57):
sandwich the 2 Williams of science and Albon ajar again in
the in the Q3P9 and ghastly P10.The two Ferraris boy genuinely
don't know what's going on therewhen when it comes to their
qualifying because again, we've seen what happened in Miami

(14:19):
where they set the best times onthey set the time on used ties
and went out on brand new ties and there was no improvement on
the brand new ties. So what's going on there?
They've got it because it's likeit seems to, but we'll discuss
the whole Ferrari thing later onbecause I've got questions.

(14:43):
All right, in here. So we started out and so on the
pay a street thing, I said shoutout to pay a street.
Keep doing this thing, you know,because doing a lot of
consistency, you know, and growth actually, Yep, in in, in
everything. And he's driving.
Yeah, he's he's doing a great job, Max.
So Max goes on to win his secondrace of the season right after a

(15:05):
hey man, that move, that move was brilliant.
After what we after what we knowis basically a Max move Max
pretty much kind of like, look, he knew he had to lead the lead
the first lap because that his race depended on that.
I think if he hadn't done that, he would have probably

(15:27):
struggled. So Pastor MacLean, even though
if you look on his pace, I thinkhe was the Red Bull, were
genuinely quicker than the McLaren this weekend in the race
stream. It just looked it doesn't.
I mean, there was once after, was it like 567 laps and you saw

(15:54):
the leader over 1 1/2 seconds. I thought to myself, well, OK,
maybe the McLaren are just taking their time, bringing the
tires in slowly and know they'regoing to start to chip away at
the time. But it never transpired and Max
didn't look like he was ever going to be put under pressure
by either McLaren. He just like, you know?

(16:16):
When I'm looking at it, the reason why I, I beg to differ on
that, right? Unless you got like ARB 19,
right, whereas no matter what's what is behind, it's just going
to drive up and signal maneuver and go like in this, in this, in
this time. It's like your best can if

(16:39):
you're out in front, even on my client, right?
And the if the Red Bull gets outin front of you, it could change
everything about that race, right?
And it could look, as you say, probably the Red Bull based on
what happened, the Red Bull looks faster to you.
And if the if PS3, if Max didn'tmake that move off a sudden the

(17:05):
the the the my client stretches his legs up the road.
Leave the rainbow. See, you know what we talk about
like when it comes down a lot oftimes is track is track position
is king, right And. Yeah, which is why I said it was
important for Max to lead the race.
Because I think, because if Oscar maintained first, I think
could have galloped. That's what I'm saying.
That's what I said. It was important for Max to lead

(17:26):
the the race. That's why he went for that
movie. Knew how important it was to
lead the race because if becauseif, if he found himself behind
Oscar, it was he pretty much knew it was going to be a
struggle to pass to MacLean. No, it was what?
Referring to when you said you'dthink Red Bull would would.
Yeah, make a car. Yeah, I, I think, and this is
This is why I say that because when Oscar pitted right and

(17:55):
Landon moved up into second place after he had passed George
and he moved up into second, by the way, the move on Landon put
on George was a nice move where he did it.
So, you know, he stopped. He's he's he's he heard the
criticism. I know he's starting to get a
bit ballsy and and kudos to him.Kudos to him for doing that.

(18:16):
But when Oscar got, when he got up behind Max, he was about 9
seconds I believe it was. And you thought OK, let's see
the Mclarens pace now let's see them unleash that pace and see
how quickly Landock can eat intothat time.
He didn't. The gap really remained

(18:37):
relatively around the same 9 second mark.
He didn't have any pace to claw back from Max and Max at that
point in time. You did.
You didn't think Max was pushinghis tires that hard.
You felt like he was managing his piece so you could.
You don't. Think Lando used up tires behind
George. Not to the extent that it would,

(19:03):
because the McLaren is extremelygood on its tires.
So it's not to the extent that it would cost them that much
performance because we've seen it before.
If you look at Miami, how much tire did he use up to get past
Max? But once he got past Max, he
drove away from him and at the same time he was eating into

(19:25):
Oscar's gap. So that wasn't the case this
weekend. I just feel like on pure Race
pit this weekend, the Red Bull was probably the quicker car.
Definitely, definitely. No, to say that to say that,
right? So are you also saying that he
probably could have caught PS3 on the road and beat him on race

(19:47):
base? Who?
Max. That's what I'm saying, right?
It's my song. This might contradict my
original point, but when you're following, it's more difficult
because what? What?
What it? Because if the cars are evenly
matched pace wise, right, the delta you would need to

(20:11):
overtake. I believe Ant was saying it was
something like maybe 7/10 to a second per lap in delta you'd
need to overtake a roll that track because you saw what
happened with the DI restraint. So and the McLaren likes clean
here. If the McLaren is out in front,
it's pretty much lethal. So which is why I go back to my

(20:35):
original point that Max knew hisrace relied on him leading the
first lap, Andy Bisque, and that's why he went hell for
later. It's either a win or a boss, you
know what I mean? What's that Murray Walker used
to say? Your car, what's that?
You can't win a race at the first corner, but you can't lose

(20:56):
it, which I said that's not really true because you can't
win it at the first corner as well.
That's exactly what Max did. He won the race at the first
corner and you know, and had so often because he, you know, he's
up for this championship fight. And the MacLean guys are going
to have to realize that, yo, we're up against a four time

(21:18):
champion. We're up against a guy basically
where his entire team is going to be pushing behind him.
They're not concerned about the constructors championship
anymore. So Yuki's basically kind of like
it is what it is. He's just there.
They don't care about that. They want the drivers
championship and they're going to do everything in their power

(21:38):
to give Max the best opportunitypossible because they had an
upgrade package this weekend as well.
You know what I mean? So and that upgrade package
looks like it brought it broughtthe car back into a favorable
position for Max because what you find is what you notice is
in practice sessions that seem to be nowhere but by COM

(22:01):
qualifying, FB3 qualifying, they've managed to fine tune it
and get it to where they need toneed it to.
I know it starts to work. So you know.
I'm glad that you did, because yesterday in the spaces I did
ask the question. Right.
What's that? Is McLaren because, as we said,

(22:24):
it's safe to say that my client should have won six out of seven
or my client should have been seven out of seven.
Yeah, you could say that, You could say that.
But then again, the brilliance of Max Max is there, so it's

(22:49):
never was never going to be a kid, never was going to be an
easiest thing for them to deliver.
But yeah, you could say they should have won out several.
Weeks because the reason why I'masking that from what I'm
seeing, I think McLaren is lingering around to get Red Bull
to get Max back in the game. Again.
But here's the problem with thatlingering around In what sense?

(23:11):
Because it's not like they have two competitive drivers, so
they've got. So it's very likely that they
were going to split, take pointsoff each other.
Yeah, so the biggest, so the biggest, the only way.
If one driver was winning, then majority of the points would be

(23:31):
going to that driver. So then Max would have a bigger
problem to deal with. But the fact that.
I mean, strategically, right where I see McLaren should have
been way more aggressive in in the way I see the way that my
clients are faster. My clients are and it's just
Max. If if Max is leading the race

(23:54):
and they're they're second and third, they have to be
aggressive in in strategy to have a use one of the cars.
Max at some point they have to do something.
They can't just do what Max is doing because they're leading
the championship. You know, they don't need to
take, they don't need to to, to,to say pull the trick like
yesterday, yesterday. I think they got that, that,

(24:16):
that old strategy for that, thatfirst step for PS3.
I think it was a wrong call. Yeah, it was definitely the
wrong, wrong decision to make because once he the gap to Max
was what, 2 1/2 seconds? So as long as it's within that
window and if Max isn't pulling away at rate of knots, then you

(24:39):
go as long as you possibly can because even then you they're
still quicker than everybody else behind them.
And if and if PS3 had just carried on, carried on, we don't
know, maybe you know, we could, then we could then see a sudden
change in performance and he started to eat back into that

(25:00):
gap. But the fact that they pitted
him so early pretty much give Red Bull out a free pass because
Lando was already too far behind.
So combined Lando was about whatsay what, 10 seconds behind Max?

(25:21):
The moment you move PS3 out the way, it was easy picking some
for Red Bull and especially whenyou consider that they pitted
PS3 back out into traffic. That's the, that's the, that's
the part that didn't really makeany sense 'cause I tell you,
we're when he pitted, he came back out.
He pitted from second on lap theend of lap 13, right when he

(25:46):
came back out on lap 14, he cameback out in 12 in 12 position.
He came, yeah, he came back out in lab in 12 position just ahead
of Charles Russell and Sainz andAlonzo and Gasly and so on.

(26:07):
So you pretty much pitted him intraffic where no, he's going to
have to use up his tyres to get through traffic and by.
And you have Max just going leisurely at a pace, just doing
the same amount of laps, which you know, for him creates A tyre
offset. So when he pits.
So even if PSG was ever to like fall within its pit window or

(26:31):
surpass him in in terms of the, the, the time, because I think
the pit last time was something like 30 seconds.
And at one point the gap when PSG finally made his way through
past Lois, I think Lois was the last person he passed.
Let me see where it went up to he passed.

(26:52):
At the time. Yeah, he partner.
He passed Lewis. He passed Lewis on lap 2627 he
passed Antonelli and 2080 passedHajjar right.
Yeah. So by that time, by the time he
got up to those position he talking about, he had to pass

(27:12):
the likes of Sonoda. He spent 3 laps behind Sonoda,
then he went, then he had to pass a bit, then he was behind
Biermann colour Pinto. I think he spent no past those
guys really quick so. After that Sonora that three

(27:33):
laps is a bit is he wasn't he took once he caught him, he
passed him he. Didn't.
Yeah, he wasn't directly behind him, but he had to close that
gap, dog, it was. A gap, but once he.
Took him yeah it took him basically 3 laps to close one
because he came back out on lap 14 so 15/16/17 so it took him 3

(27:54):
laps and then he passed him on lap 18.
But the point is he had already,he used up a lot of his tires
getting through to that position.
So once he got back up into intowhere did he got up to?
He got up to P4 on lap 28 beforethe VAC, before the VAC came up.

(28:17):
And that's when Lando pitted andhe jumped in.
He had already ran through his ties.
So the likelihood is there was no it would have been a struggle
for him to get to the end of therace on those ties.
So what's the plan then? To pit him a second time?
Because looking at what Red Bullwere doing, Max was never going

(28:37):
to do a two stop. Yeah.
So somebody needs done. They need to explain the logic
behind saying pit in Oscar that early when all they had to do
was just mirror what Max was doing.
That's all they had to do because it because it was only
Pierce should know who could actually beat Max because Lander

(28:58):
was too far behind. Lando was never going to close
that nine second gap to Max to win the race.
So PSG was your only bet, but you moved them out of the way.
I think Max pitted on lap. Max pitted under the VSCI
believe. Yeah, Max pitted on lap 29 or 20

(29:19):
or 30. I believe it was under the VSC.
Or when you consider that PSG pitted on lap and the lap 13, so
there was a, there's basically, what's that 1515 lap tire
offset. So even if the VSC hadn't come
out at that point in time, Max Max already had a pit stop over

(29:40):
Piastra. Yeah.
And the fact that, and This is why when it happened, I'm like,
are they missing a trick here? What are they doing?
Because they know the old paddock, knows the old F1
sphere, knows that their car is the best with tire management,
right. But what I'm looking at, I'm
like, OK, it's two points. Probably just backing off not to

(30:02):
just follow Max. Like you have no reason to pick
Piastra before Max in that situation.
Because if you go back to when Red Bull was winning and Max is,
they just go long because. Yeah, because where do when you
have the fastest car? Yeah.
Yeah, when you have the fastest car, there's no, there's no such
thing as a bad strategy. When you have the fastest car,
there's no strategy that you canlook at and say that's a

(30:24):
terrible one if you have the fastest car on the grid.
And whilst they were pretty muchan equal match for each other
this weekend, and I still somewhat say Red Bull had the
slight advantage, that was a dumb decision from them to to
make It shouldn't. And again it left.
It was a. Very fast car.

(30:44):
Yeah. And it showed the same thing
we've talked about before that McLaren aren't used to winning.
They've not won since let's if you go championship, they
haven't won. We we all know they haven't won
the championships. They didn't win a champion prior
to last. They didn't win the championship

(31:05):
since 2008. So they've probably forgotten
how to win, right? And it shows up in the decision
they make. Even Jacques Villeneuve said it
post race that he didn't doesn'tunderstand what they did.
And again, it shows that in moment, in critical moments,

(31:27):
them they're still making silly decisions whereby Red Bull
they're it's, they know what to do at the right point in time.
And you, you had mentioned it yesterday in the spaces and I'm
still going to stick to my thoughts on that, right?
Whilst they haven't won a championship prior to last year

(31:47):
since 2008, right? Well, driver's champ because I
won the driver's championship to2008, right?
I'm still looking at yesterday. It wasn't one of those ones
where you had to really. It wasn't really a lot of data,

(32:10):
number crunching type of situation where like you're like
this, like it was just a simple,straightforward really
championship. We've got a great car.
We're going to follow him. As long as Oscar doesn't come on
the radio and say my tires are falling off a Cliff.
You really you speak to your driver.
Oscar, are you feeling in this situation?
Yeah, my tires are good. I think I still got some pace.

(32:32):
OK, Follow him. If he pits, you go.
You go on ahead, right? We're not going to pit before
them, right? Or or worst case scenario, if he
pits, you follow him into the pits.
Let's see if they mess up on a pit stop and we jump them there.
But not pitting him before was never the right thing to do.

(32:52):
But just I just thought about it, did they react to Charles
and George? Is that the reason why they pit
him? Because if you look when they
pit him, if I'm not again, let me just check the lap by lap
thing. He came back out when he came

(33:14):
back out on lap 14, he came backout ahead of Charles and George.
And remember when and remember when Charles pitted first,
Charles pitted on and ended lap 9 and Charles was in P9 when he
pitted. So did they react?

(33:36):
Did they see the lap times that Charles was doing and reacted to
that? Because if that's the case,
that's even, that's even Dumber than and you.
It doesn't matter what Lewis, Charles, it doesn't.
Matter. That's what I'm saying.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Red Bull, you focus, you focus
on massive Verstappen. Even if whatever Charles RR

(33:58):
George did and it won in the race, as long as you're not
beaten by that Red Bull, that's what your thought.
Should be. Yeah, it, that's what I'm
saying. Just focus on teams that are not
even a championship and lose thechampionship.
Yeah, and that's what Red Bull'snot going to do.
If I if I, Red Bull's not going to Red Bull wouldn't have made
that mistake. Yeah, if, if, if, if, no matter
what, if, if, if the strategy means that at the end I finished

(34:22):
9th and Max finishes 10th. I'm OK with that as long as
you're not beaten by him, right?You can't be focusing on these
other teams, right? Focus.
So, and it may mean that to to watch what's going on and and to
play this game, you may have to,you may have to put yourself in
a situation whereas like anotherteammate win the race, focus on

(34:43):
beating Max in the red. Bull.
That's it. Yeah, because Max is Max is so
focuses to beat them. Yeah, he's Max doesn't care
about Ferrari or Williams or Mercedes.
No, Max only goal is I need to beat the two Mclarens.
That's all I if I do that, I'll win the championship exactly
because I'm I know I have the pace to beat the Mercedes and

(35:05):
the Ferrari and everybody. These are the guys I need to
focus on and. It's just like I said, even if
it means I finish third and theyfinish 4th and 5th, I'm OK with
that. Yeah, Max.
Is OK because you because you'reincreasing and you're increasing
your points over them. And that's the type of mentality
my client needs to have. Don't worry who pit it and what
lap time they're doing. Focus on the guy that you're in
a championship with. So yesterday was a big old.

(35:25):
Cock up. Yeah, I just, I just thought
about it because when he came out, he wasn't that far ahead of
Charles when he came out. So was it a case of they looked
at Charles and thought, yeah, ifwe don't pit him, no, Charles is
going to jump us. But I'm thinking if you had
carried on, you probably would have opened up that gap.

(35:47):
You pit him back out into traffic, Wait, no, he's gonna
get delayed. Use tires to get past all of
those that traffic get delayed and that in that moment, Max
advantage grows because Red Bullliterally once they saw where he
was gonna come back out, they pretty much know.
Yeah, we've got this risk one now.

(36:08):
There's no Max can because he's going to have loose time coming
through the traffic. If it was a case of where he
pitted and he came back out in clean air, no one in front of
him where he could exploit the pace of the McClain, then Red
Bull would have pitted Max. But that wasn't the case.
And lap 14 was way too early in the race to do that either way.

(36:32):
So strategically, yeah, they definitely made a mistake.
And not only that, you then lookat the the final safety car,
right? Oscar was on hard ties that were
some like what, 20, 20 laps because he pitted again under

(36:53):
the the second virtual safety card that came the first virtual
safety card that came on 17. Laps old tire was on.
Yeah. So he pitted on, I think he
pitted under the VSC with each came on lap 29 or 30 or
whichever one it came on, right.And then so that would have been

(37:14):
his second stop. So that would have been the
second stop for another set of hard ties.
So he had no, no more ties available to him, right?
Lando had a fresh set of hard ties.
Now you'd have thought to yourself, OK, who has the best
chance of trying to win this race?

(37:36):
Or Max? Obviously, it's going to be
Lando. Yeah.
So once the race started, it wasa case of they should have
probably got on the on to Oscar.Like once they cleared, I'll
just say the first lap or half alap, Oscar let Lander through,

(37:57):
let him through, let him chase after Max and see because he was
going to pass. Lander was going to pass him
eventually. Lando was going to pass him
because he didn't have the tiresand fresh tires, and the pace of
the that McLaren means he was pretty much guaranteed he
wouldn't. Be like you, you, you lost a it
wouldn't be like you gave up a podium to Lando.
Exactly, exactly. Because you were going to lose

(38:19):
it anyway. But he spent three laps behind
trying to pass Oscar, and withinthat three laps, Max drove off.
So you're like, come on, man, guys, what are you doing?
You are. And and again, and I think this
is what Jacques Villeneuve said in his post race comments is
like they're scared of pulling the trigger and offending Oscar.

(38:42):
Like in that situation, you're giving you gave Red Bull away.
You made the mistake already by pitting Oscar too early.
I know you're making it easy forthem by saying letting the two
of them fight for what? For T for TV.
And even and even in in that situation, I'm sure Oscar would
understand that I was going to lose the position.

(39:03):
But Oscar knew he was going to lose the position.
Everybody watching the race knewhe was going to lose that
position. And the crazy that that Jacques
Villeneuve said that you remember in this space is what I
said. I said Zac Brown is going to let
them race until he let them raceout of a championship win.
Exactly. And you know me, I'm always the
one that that that likes the pure racing.
We always have this conversation, right?

(39:25):
Amen. I like pure racing but in a
situation like this when you have one apart from last, you
know on the you haven't won the drivers championship since Lewis
Hamilton, right? Don't let them race you out of a
drivers title bro, you know whatI'm saying?
Let them beat you. Let them have to work for it.
At this point, it has to make sense, and in this scenario it

(39:47):
made sense. As you say, jump on the radium
like, hey, Oscar, move on, move on.
Wait, because you're going to lose a position.
It's pointless having have Landorace for a position that he's
going to gain even if it took him 3 laps Max just scanted up
the road. But because by the time Lando
got past Oscar, Max was like 5 seconds up the road and he like,
that's three laps you wasted that.

(40:07):
You could have just said move out the way.
Oscar let go on the radio behindthe safety card and say Oscar
let Lando pass as quickly as possible.
What? This way, McLaren displayed a
classic case of stepping on yourown tail yesterday.
Yep. They give, they they gave the

(40:28):
me. Yeah, they, I think they gave
Red Bull that way because This is why I said it.
You said it because I was going to ask on the first thing I was
going to ask you when we started.
The part when we got to this topic was did Red Bull win that
race or did McLaren basically EFT it up?
McLaren messed it up, but that'safter Piastra messed it up.

(40:53):
Yeah. Because Piastre.
I get that move. Max should have never passed him
on the outside. Piastre basically fell into the
trap Lander fell into last year at Monza.
He thought because he got to thecorner first, it was done.
He got to the breaking zones first.
Breaking zone at the corner first.
It was done. He had the corner forgetting who

(41:16):
he's racing against because if you watch the start right,
George got a better start than. Max.
Max and he then got the tour from Oscar because if you you
saw the on board, he could see Oscar.
He was looking left, he was looking right and he was looking
where Max was. And what he did was the last

(41:38):
time he looked, he looked to hisleft, he didn't look back to his
right to see where Max was because he felt like, OK, we've
I pulled away from Max, though Ihave the corner.
So when he went into that corner, I think he was surprised
to see Max just steam up on the outside of him.

(41:58):
So he didn't he didn't do well going into that corner.
And again, I'm not really the biggest Jack Villeneuve fan
because he's a bit wishy washy at times with his comments, but
he was right. He said there was no way Max
should have come out to that corner leading the race.
Yeah. And not only that, Oscar so
focused on the wrong car, right,Because the the start that

(42:21):
George got right. And that's, and this is where my
issue comes in. And I'm probably going to bring
it. Chalk it up in inexperience,
right? Because.
If there was going to be a car that should have led, that
wasn't Oscar, it should have been.
It should have been George, yeah.
Oscar should have done Ollie do everything that he can to keep
Max box him in and let George goup the inside and know that you

(42:45):
I can catch you. I know I've got a way back the
car than yours. So exactly, and this is my issue
and this is where my client got to be careful with your drivers
and the strategy that they pull because they're going to have to
pick their battles correctly because guess what, come
checkered flag Abu Dhabi, we might see a Red Bull drivers

(43:07):
champion. We might see before Abu Dhabi
because we know, we know, we know the battles Red Bull are
going to pick. They only have one driver.
They don't. Again, this came on the Senate.
Their focus is to win the drivers championship.
They're two. There's no way they can win the
constructors. They're too far behind.
And with Maxwell, they're scoring what, 99.9% of the

(43:28):
points already? That's beyond them.
So their focus is the driver, sowe know what their fight is
going to be and everything is going to go in to beat those two
Mclarens. And McLaren is going to have to
batten down and there's probablygoing to come a point in the
season where they're going to have to sacrifice a driver.

(43:49):
They should have sacrificed 1 yesterday.
Right. That's because and if and if
they're not thinking that bro, they have no business racing bro
like. Look.
Look, you know, if they're not and this if they're not going in
these meetings and are going through this championship thing,

(44:10):
it's going to come up, become a point where we're going to have
to look at the points and see say, for instance, Lando was in
the lead, Piastre is in second. But the point's different
between Max isn't that great between Piastre because if he's
leading the championship at saidpoint and be like, hey, Lando,
we need this five. You got to pull over Bird, you

(44:33):
got to pull over. You got to.
It's similar to it's similar to Louis.
And if you go back to 2018 when Louis finally, when he won in
Germany, I believe the next racewas Sochi in Russia.
And Bottas should have. And if we're being honest, a lot

(44:53):
of people don't want to be honest about that.
Bottas should have won the Russian Grand Prix in 2008.
No, it was. 2018 you mean? 2018 so no.
It was after Singapore, so they had Russia right?
And it was close in the championship between Lewis and

(45:14):
Seb, but I should have won that race if we're being honest.
But Mercedes told Bottas, yo, weneed those.
And at that point Lewis was. I believe Lewis had taken the
lead in the championship but wasn't a big points gap.
So they pretty much said to Bottas, yo, we need that, those
extra points 'cause he was. Lewis was in 2nd and I believe

(45:39):
Seb was in 3rd at the time. So the points game difference
would have been what, second gets 18, third gets 15.
So it would have been three points.
So this set about us here move out the way, let Louis through.
Louis won the race. Louis, it was a net gain of

(45:59):
what, 7 points? So rather than gaining 3 points
over slip, he gained 10 points because they told Bottas.
And at that point, Bottas wasn'treally in the championship.
But the same logic apply will apply to McLaren that if it gets
to a stage in the season with someone, whoever is leading the
championship, if that person is in front of you, you're going to

(46:21):
have to tell him to move over because why would you want to
take points off the guy that's more likely going to win in the
championship? You know when the guy that
you're chasing, when the guy that's chasing you is literally
right behind him. You want to you want to build a
gap to him. You don't want to you want to
get the Max most points you can get.

(46:42):
So if you, if you see a situation where you can get, we
can get from gaining 3 points togaining 10, you're going to have
to take it gaining an extra 7 tomake it 10.
You're going to have to tell somebody move over.
But I remember last year someonewas saying to me that Oscar's
contract basically says he's nota #2 driver or whatever it is.

(47:04):
And I'm thinking, why would one,why would why would Red Bull
even? Why would McLaren even sign such
a contract? ETC.
But even Yeah, I. Why would they sign?
What type of contract? Saying Oscar's not a #2 driver,

(47:26):
like OK. And again, it probably goes back
to the Weber thing cuz Weber, soweb-based, is manager, but I'm
kind of going off track here. But the point is.
Let's keep it a book. No one really knows what these
guys contracts. Are yeah, yeah.
But at some point, McLaren is, like you said, at some point

(47:47):
they're gonna get to a stage where they're gonna have to make
a decision and somebody's gonna have to end up, somebody's gonna
end up losing, won the championship anyway.
Prides made at some point of theseason.
Yeah. Because what's gonna happen if
not, you're gonna take points off each other and the Red Bull
is gonna win the championship. It's gonna end up like similar
to 2007. That's what's gonna end.

(48:11):
It gonna end up like possibly end up like you have the fastest
car right now and it's very likely come the end of the year,
neither your driver won, wins a championship and then you're
going to be like what happened? And then you're going to be
looking at weekends like this, like dumb decisions like that
costing the championship. Yeah, so message to Zac Brown.
Don't let them race yourself outof a drivers championship this

(48:33):
year bro. Exactly.
Y'all need to get it right? Yeah, we love racing as fans,
but we're also not stupid, right?
You know there, there's a lot atstake when it comes down to
racing, especially F1 racing. So don't let them race yourself
out of a driver's title. That's all I'm gonna say on
that. McLaren made a lot of mistakes

(48:55):
yesterday. First one that really messed
them up was Oscar should've never lost that position because
he went into that corner far enough ahead of Max that
should've never happened. Then two that pits that early
pit stop for him. You couldn't see the logic
behind it because you're talkingabout he would have needed to do

(49:16):
was it 50, basically 59 laps on the hard tires.
And again, it's still it's on the softer side of the compound.
So we don't know if it would have gone the distance and Max
did 20 yard laps on the medium. So why did you?
Pit him. Yeah, it.
Didn't make him. And then and then to compound

(49:37):
it, you have the guy who won brand new tires against the guy
who's on 20 lap old tires fighting for three laps was the
guy you want to, you want to tryand win the race from drives off
into the distance. Like come on, sometime I I get
the idea of about wanting them to fight, but sometimes you have

(49:59):
to use common sense. They're like, yeah, we could
move on from the window. Right.
So we could just to close out this topic, is that what we
said, right. My client is like playing poker,
right? What they did yesterday was take
their old hand and turn it over and show it to Red Bull.
Because. Once you did that, you told Red
Bull, yeah, we're two stopping from here.

(50:22):
Yeah, because that's what it looked like they were going to
do with Oscar. It was going.
To so even The thing is what even if Red Bull was planning to
two stop Max once they saw that that went through the window.
Yeah, but The thing is Red Bull would never planning on 2
stopping Max. He was never noted.
Even if that was a thing, what my what my client did yesterday
was show their hand and once they saw that, hey, that's a two

(50:45):
stop. Now we're in.
Hey, we're just going to run offin the distance.
We're going to one stop, right? So my client kind of they, they,
they flunked that, that, yeah, yesterday they, they, they
flunked that one. They made it easier for Max,
that nation. There's no logical reason even
Zac Brown or their strategist could come and tell fans as to
why they made that decision, because there's none.
We're not stupid. Yeah, right.
They made it easier for that. It needed to be for Max, so

(51:08):
yeah. Let's talk about Yeah, so that's
it on McLaren and their shenanigans.
Yeah, let's go over to the red cards.
Qualified terribly, terribly. The worst qualifying session of
the year so far, 11th and 12th. Raced up well.
Yeah, yeah, They had a good recovery, aided by the VAC and

(51:31):
the safety car. But it's the same for everybody.
You know, it's the, you know, the VAC.
It's not like the VAC or safety car came up for them
specifically, but Charles had a good start.
Both Lewis and Charles had a good start, but Lewis had to
check up because Charles moved over on him.
And I think that move, that checking up basically meant

(51:51):
that, you know, he couldn't gainany more positions.
He lost a position to Antonelli.So he dropped from 12th down to
13th. But Charles made some move on as
well. You know, pretty, he got up to,
he got up to 9th from yeah, he got up to the highest he got to
was 9th. So he passed.

(52:14):
Was it Hajar? Just let me just let me just
check and I'll tell you. I'm trying to remember who he
passed. He passed Gazly.
I know he passed Gazly because he did put up a move, a nice
move on Gazly. Gazly tried to defend that
position when, let's be honest, he pretty much knew that
position was gone. So.

(52:35):
Yeah. So he jumped Antonelli and then
he passed Hajar and then the horse.
Then he passed Gazly, moving up to 9th and he was pretty much
there until, you know, it's hardly stopped.
Lewis again lost that position and he was pretty much stuck in

(52:57):
ADRS train for oh God, that was a long time.
And that's the problem with Imola.
Once he gets stuck in ADRS train, that's pretty much it.
That's where you're going to be for a lengthy period of time.
And it's not like the Mercedes was a slouch, you know, I mean,
it was relatively quick and it had good straight line speed.

(53:18):
So that was, you know, that was pretty much the start where
their race kind of pretty much plateaued until plateaued until,
you know, the call for. Well, I didn't I didn't even see
when Charles paid because I believe he was the first person
to pit at the end of lap 9. And I'm trying to still trying

(53:38):
to figure out why they pit him so early, because if you picked
him on lap nine, that means he would have needed to do 54 laps
on a set of hard ties. So are you, you're pretty much
signaling, yeah, this is going to be a two stop race for him.
And my concern with that is Imola has one of the longest pit
lanes, right, Which means the pit time lasts with pretty much

(54:02):
like 30 seconds, 30. Seconds run about here.
Yeah, run about 30 seconds. So you don't want to do a two
stop, even though the Pirelli strategy thing said if you go
medium, you can do medium for 12/12 laps, then you do 2 stops
on the hard, you change your medium to hard and second stop

(54:24):
hard. But Charles pitted much earlier
than the recommended amount of laps.
Yeah. So that means he was definitely
going to two stop because there's no way he would have
been able to do the whole entirerace on that and keep pace
because it's very likely he would have been hanging on for

(54:44):
dear life at the end. So, you know, that was his race.
And he was a bit annoyed becausehe felt like, you know, the
safety car ruined VSC and the safety car ruined because when
the VSC came out, it gave Louis an opportunity to pit.
And, you know, it's pit on the second my phone just keep

(55:10):
buzzing to pit and come back outin front of him, right.
Yeah. You know, So yeah.
What was I saying? Sorry, I got kind of distracted.
So yeah. Yeah.
So that allowed Louis to pit andcome back out in front of him

(55:31):
and hold his position. Charles fell down to, I believe
what he he pitted again because he pitted also under the VAC and
he lost two positions to Stroll and Alonzo, right.
Lewis I don't even know how to what to say about various, to be

(55:53):
honest, because it was pretty much I don't even know what to
say. It it it it was a bad weekend
for Ferrari was the recovery recovery to 4th and 6th looked
good on a Saturday on a Sunday. It's still AI felt it was a bad
weekend because you expected more from them and to go out in

(56:17):
Q2 like the way they did. Again, it's a it was a repeat of
Miami. They were quicker on a use set
of ties than they were on a brand new set.
And it seems to be this year if they have a car that in race
trim it's relatively good, but in qualifying it's absolutely
terrible. And that's a problem that

(56:38):
they're going to have to fix because you're putting yourself
on the back foot on a sun going into a Sunday where you have to
basically try. You're recovering rather than
trying to start near the front and move forward, move in that
direction. So yeah, I, I don't know, I, I

(57:00):
don't know the whole Ferrari thing to me, just, you know,
where I stand with. That that's the whole thing.
Just a quote after the race, Lewis did say, he said and I
quote, I did. I did think we would make an
improvement this weekend. So with something I'll fix and I
think there's more to come. The set up again, the car felt

(57:23):
really mega and the team did a fantastic job on strategy and
pit stop. But basically he's saying that
he he said I. So it seems like he's saying
that he figured out he fixed something in the car and there's
more to come. Well, I mean, he's, did he not
say that in where did he say that?

(57:43):
Was it China? Did he not say the same thing in
China? You know, about?
There was, yeah, after Grand Prix, yeah, where they
identified an issue and you know, it was a, it was what's
causing the deficit, the ones that gets fixed, etcetera,
etcetera. He should be fine.
But then, you know, since then his pace has been pretty much

(58:05):
nowhere. But if you look at the last, if
you look at Miami and this weekend, he was much closer to
Charles than in the previous three races, Yeah, 3 races Sin
Yeah. So he was much he was much
closer to Charles in terms of performance.
So but they still have a lot of work to do on that car.

(58:29):
I think it's everyone. I think it's fundamentally
flawed, right? And so they just have to do
their best. But in saying that they did,
they made the right calls at theright time, which you have to
give them credit for because again, they don't normally do
that. And Lewis, you know, he made-up

(58:52):
positions because he had to pass.
Where did he where was he? He had to pass the likes of he
was in 7th. He was in 7th when the 12345,
yeah, he was in 7th when the safety car came in and he

(59:12):
passed. He had to pass Russell, Albarn
and Charles and move up into into 4th.
And this is where, you know, we had a discussion yesterday about
the safety car, right? And I think the safety car
somewhat robbed him of an opportunity to actually be on
the podium because I think if the safety car had come in maybe

(59:35):
3 laps earlier, because it's been, I think it took from lab
46 to lab 53. So that's 7 laps.
It took 7 laps to clear, what's his name, Antonelli breaking
down. And I felt like if if they could
have cleared that car within 3 laps, Louis probably would have

(59:56):
been on the podium. So.
Because he finished, I think he finished about second and a half
behind Oscar. It was just to play devil's
advocate, right? I guess we could also say the
same that if it wasn't for the first VSC it wouldn't have been
in contention. The same safety car that cost
him the podium. Mm hmm.
Right within the DRS train. So it was the VSC and the safety

(01:00:19):
car we got it brought him back in the contention.
So it's like. Yeah, it gets Lewis race was
tracking to finish 'cause if therace hadn't that safety car
hadn't come out, he was trackingto finish 4th anyway.
Mm hmm. Because he was behind Albon.

(01:00:39):
He was behind Albon in 5th and he was catching Albon at a
relatively decent pace because he was told by his engineer that
he should catch Albon within five with five laps remaining.
So he was basically tracking to finish 4th anyway.
So even that and that was beforethe final safety car and even

(01:01:01):
with the VSC, the VSC only lasted what I think 2 laps,
which is why even then. Which is why I said it.
So it's right for position on its fourth right.
The the if the safety car had cleared, it would have been
like. I don't know if it would have.
I don't know if it's right for position, but if you remove the
verse VSC, if the race had went as planned with no VSC or safety

(01:01:22):
car, I think he would have probably finished in the top
five. Yeah, because I think he,
because he was running so long, he would have then come out on
the medium tires, which would have been a much better tires.
Because when he pitted under theVSC, the safety car, at first he
didn't really want to pit because he said, you know, he
didn't want to lose any positions.

(01:01:42):
But Ricky said look, you'd only lose like 3 positions, but you'd
be on brand fresher tires compared to those was going to
jump because those they didn't have any tires left.
George didn't have any tires left.
Who was it? George didn't have any tires
left and Albon I believe was on.No, Albon was on new tires

(01:02:06):
actually, but he should have hadthe pace to to jump Albon.
Yeah. So yeah.
So, you know, they made the right calls at the right time
and they got the, the results that the performance showed this
weekend. I think they I think they were
probably quicker than the the, what's that?

(01:02:30):
The Mercedes this weekend in race trim, obviously not in
qualifying. I don't know what happened to
the Mercedes. They were just pretty much slow.
George's complaining about instability at the rear, he
thinks something like a track rod was broken or something,
something of the sort. And you know, Kimi had his
issues. I mean, Kimi raced well for the

(01:02:51):
1st 14 laps prior to the VSC, kept Lewis behind him and he
looked comfortable doing it as well.
But once he picked it, for some reason, you know, it seems like
his tires went off. He couldn't manage his tires and
that was pretty much that that that for him before the
retirement. But going back to Ferrari, you

(01:03:12):
know, on Lewis's side, they did everything that they needed to
do. Right on with Charles.
There was some indecisiveness with him and his team because he
was asking them when they said to a pit.
And he was like, what ties do I have?
And they say, yeah, he went, do we have any new sauce?

(01:03:32):
And he's they're like, yeah. And he's like, oh, I want the
sauce. And they're like, well, we don't
think the sauce can go to the end because at that point in
time there was only 17 laps and you to be out.
Then obviously they would have put him on the soft eyes, but no
one was supposed to was supposedto know they would have spent 7
laps. Again, I think that thing was

(01:03:53):
inefficient. To save.
This the Marshalls and cleaning the vehicle, the antenna's car
was very inefficient. You shouldn't have taken them 7
laps and when they told Charles.The box.
He didn't. He changed his mind because he
saw. Louis coming in.
And he went, oh, I don't want todouble stack because I'd be

(01:04:15):
lose. I'd lose a lot of time and
positions. And I'm thinking, well, but
you'd come back out on a brand new set of soft tires, which
would have given you an advantage over those who would
have jumped you. So by that, by making that
decision to not pick it pretty much cost him I think the

(01:04:38):
opportunity to probably even finish ahead of Lewis or even
5th for that matter, because youknow, he he had to give the
position back for the whole incident with Alban, which I
think he did force him off track.
So there was no arguing in saying, you know why when they
told him to give the position why why he needed to.

(01:04:58):
He was either that or you get a 5 second penalty.
So either we might as well just give it up.
They probably should have told him to give it up much earlier.
But then again, Albon would havedrove, driven away from him.
He was even asking look asking him to tell Louis to stay in DRS
to give him DRS. And I'm thinking Louis is on
brand new tires Mate. That means Louis would have to
be driving so. Slow to give to give.

(01:05:19):
You, the DRS and when you and when you consider that the
carrot in front. Of him dangling was.
Oscar on 20 yard lap, all hard tires.
Why would you want that to him to do that in the 1st place?
You know, you're taking an opportunity away from him from
finishing on the podium. So I guess he wouldn't have
known that Lewis was that close to Oscar probably.

(01:05:42):
That's the word. Well, he should have known
because it was a safety car. I.
Remember, everybody was bunched up on the safety car, So.
And Lewis only needed to pass. Who did Lewis pass when the
safety car? He only needed to pass.
No, he had to pass Alban. Well, he had to pass all three
of them. Yeah, You know, and the move and

(01:06:02):
the move that the move that withCharles and Usk and Alban pretty
much kind of like let Louis through and, you know, that was
it. He drove a Louis drove a good
race. I think he managed his race
well. This team, the communication

(01:06:23):
between him and Ricky was decisive.
It was, you know, there was no yeah, but yeah, you know, So
when he was having his conversation with Ricky about
pitting on the day safety car, he was like, how many positions
am I going to lose? And look, Ricky said like I
think he said some like, too, but you would be on brand new

(01:06:46):
tires. That's right.
They're coming In Sync sounds like.
They're they're they're, they'resinking now.
Yeah, that relationship is eventually it's going to.
It's gonna come good 'cause when'cause see, Lewis did pit,
'cause when Lewis pitted, Lewis was ahead of Charles Hajar,

(01:07:07):
Russell and Sainz, and when he pitted, he lost positions to.
He just lost the two positions. Yeah.
So which he basically, which he basically.
Quick. No, he didn't.
No, Albon was already in front of him, so he didn't really lose
a position to Albon. So because he came back out
behind Alban, Charles, Alban andRussell, but Alban was already

(01:07:30):
in front of him anyway before. So he didn't really lose a
position to him, but he just lost to to Charles and George,
which he quickly dispatched George.
Yeah. So let me back to this Ferrari
and how do you? Ferrari, are you the How do you
rate them on strategy this week?This weekend, like I said, on
Lewis's side of the garage, they.

(01:07:52):
Call the strategies right. They made the right decisions at
the right time. The the on.
Charles's side. Maybe they needed to be a bit
more decisive and clear when Charles, when they told charged

(01:08:12):
the box, they should have insisted that he boxed, but he
made the decision not to and then said, OK, I can't do it
again. Which they basically said, well,
you can't do it again because hewould have lost more than the
two, then the two, whatever amount of positions he was going
to lose if he had actually kind of like what's that we call it

(01:08:33):
again, double stack. Because all he had to do was
when Lewis sent to the pit lien,he didn't have to go as hard.
He just kind of like needed to drop back maybe one or two
seconds and give himself more ofa gap.
The pit stop was only going to be about 2 1/2 seconds.
So if he gave himself maybe a four second, five second gap to

(01:08:55):
Lewis probably wouldn't have lost any time.
But you know, it is what it is. But overall, overall the weekend
for them, I think if you're going to grade them the weekend,
you'll probably get them AB minus because they didn't stink
up the place this weekend on. Strategy.
Yeah, that's what it comes out to.

(01:09:15):
Usually because I stink up the. Place.
Yeah, they didn't. They didn't do a Miami.
Yeah, they showed improvement. On strategy, I didn't say.
They didn't about to to wrap so championship prediction, OK, but
before we do that. We'll probably just need to give
a honourable mention to the Williams, you know what I mean?

(01:09:36):
Again, Alex Alban doing his thing.
He was comfortably running in the top five.
Look, you know, didn't look out of place.
At one point he was in a podium position, but we all know that
was never going to happen. You know, Oscar Carton passing.
So the finish in the points again, the finish where the
finish, the double points finish.

(01:09:58):
Album finish. What's that?
5th science finish. What's that?
6th science finish? Eight.
You know, so they've been somewhat of a.
Surprise in the last two. Races, especially in qualifying,
they've looked really, really quick and Ferrari needs.

(01:10:20):
To address. That as well because they've all
qualified in the last two races and I don't think that should be
happening to Ferrari, but it's also a testament to what James
Vowers has managed to do within that team to get him to turn
around the the turn around is actually brilliant because what

(01:10:41):
Harbin is on 40 points, the science is on 11.
I think this is the best points all they've had.
I think going back to the pre ground effects era if I'm not
mistaken. I could be wrong, but I'd have
to. Double check I didn't.
Really check that, but shout outto Williams, you know the

(01:11:02):
quietly doing the thing. I think right now if you're
ranking the cars in terms of performance, it's them, It's
MacLean, Red Bull, MacLean, Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari and I
think I'd put Williams as the fifth fastest car right now on

(01:11:23):
pure pace. I think they're they're.
Clearly much better. Than they are they are they?
Yeah, they they're clearly a better.
Car than the V. Car V Car the Aston.
Again, who I think are. An absolute disappointment.
You can't. You know, they brought a raft of
upgrades this weekend and OK, you know, Alonzo's screaming on

(01:11:48):
the radio. He's the effing.
Unluckiest guy in the world. I don't think that's the case.
I think you report you saw this is all karma coming back to him.
But you know you'd think you, you don't.
You don't. You're not seeing any progress
from Aston Martin. Can you not do a podcast without
showing your disdain for Alonzo?Bro, no it's not possible.
That's like me. That's.

(01:12:09):
Not me, like me not breathing right.
And so yeah, it's not possible. Championship predictions so you.
Put it here so it seems like. You.
You're. Thinking about it like.
Who you think is? Going to win the championship.

(01:12:30):
Honestly, I think who? Do I think is going to win the
championship? All right.
And this caveat it's. Not a.
It's not a straight up answer tobe.
Honest, if McLaren get their acttogether and not do dumb stuff
like they did yesterday, I'm going with Oscar.

(01:12:52):
Well, the quest, OK, OK, so. Yeah, 'cause there's more
drivers than constructors, so I think we're pretty much in
agreement. They're going to win the
constructors championship. Yeah, I'm talking about the
driving, I think. Yeah, I think they're going to,
to be honest. Let's keep it.
Let's be honest. No fan care about.
Constructors Championship fans care about drivers Championship.

(01:13:12):
Yeah, the team cares about constructors and sponsors.
And the brand itself. Yeah, fans care about drivers,
right? Yeah, I'm you know what I'm
gonna say, Lando. I'm gonna.
Say Lando and the only. Reason why I'm saying Lando
because you guys have coming down are coming down on him so

(01:13:34):
hard and I think it it is it justified?
Oh, so you're going to say Landajust because of that?
Are you really Landa? Because you think he can?
Are you just saying it because weird as harder?
I think he can I've. Always maintained that I think
he can win the championship because he has the car.
He has the car and he has the talent to win the championship.

(01:13:54):
He just needs to get his. What I said is caveat to that is
because. My champion depends on a lot of
things and like I just mentioned, if my.
Client get their act together and.
Not do shit crazy stuff like they did yesterday.
I'm going with Oscar if they keep.

(01:14:14):
Doing stuff like that, I'm going.
With Max, so it's it's a tricky one for me.
So basically you're hedging yourbet, but you can't hedge your
bet. You have to pick.
One, you have to pick one, you can't hedge your bet.
All right, I'm gonna go with Oscar.
I'm gonna go with Oscar. That's it.
You can't. You can't.
No, I'm going with Oscar. And I'm also putting trust in my

(01:14:35):
client to figure. It out to not lose.
Stuff like this, No Oscar, you just need to pick one because if
we don't want to hedge in, no bet.
We just need I'm going Lando yousaying Oscar?
I'm going to ask her, but I wouldn't be surprised if Max is
champion. But I'm.
Going to ask her. Of course, we're not going to be
surprised because again, Max is Max.
Verstappen you know, I mean, I don't think it's just going to
be because Max is Max. It's going to if Max wins the.

(01:14:57):
Championship. It means that McLaren effed up
several times this season. Max is not going to hit it.
Max is not going to beat the. McLaren the both drivers in
McLaren just off. Beat Max McLaren should not pull
that up. They're going to have to help
him in some reason. Exactly, they did show.
Lines of that yesterday yeah. So I'm going I'm going Lando.

(01:15:18):
I know people are going to stoneme with, stone me with.
Yeah, I'm, I'm going to go with Lando.
I, I don't know. I just, I just have this feeling
that he's gonna, he's gonna figure it out and once and once
he figures it out, he's just gonna Yeah, quarter of the
season already passed. So yeah, yeah, there's still.
3/4 left. That's still more than.

(01:15:38):
That's still more than 1/2. So, you know, as you say, yeah,
you you have to go off what you see and I'm.
Seeing quarter of the season pass and he's still having the
same issue. So let's see, that's the rate,
the race, rate the race. What did we have was.
The the ranking again dude, you need to.

(01:16:01):
Write these down because I. Don't I don't remember.
But if I'm rating the race, oh God, does it get on your podium
so far after 7 races? No, no, it's.
Never. It's never.
That's never good. That's.
That's definitely not making thepodium because what we have for
the podium, if I'm not mistaken,we have Saudi Arabia, I believe

(01:16:26):
was top. It was.
Saudi Arabia. Bahrain and Miami on the podium,
so if I'm going to rank it, it'sdefinitely better than Japan.
It was a better race than Japan,let's be honest.

(01:16:48):
By far Japan is the worst race we've had out of the seven so
far. So I think if I'm going to rate
this race, I'll probably give ita six.
Out of the 10. 6 but no more than that.
Yeah, but no more than that. Hold him.
No. Yeah, where do I go with?

(01:17:09):
This race doesn't make the podium for me either.
I'll give it probably A5 initially because I tweeted that
this thing is boring. I was watching him like man
this, this is boring. And then obviously.
The the the. The VSC.

(01:17:30):
And the safety car, yes, I'll give it a five.
It was, it wasn't. It's not a race that I'm going
to probably this is the last time I ever speak about this
race. It's not something honestly,
it's not a race that I'm going to be.
You remember. This This no.
It's not one of them ones, right?
So no, it's not. It's not, it's.
Not maybe. Because I don't think there's

(01:17:57):
anything that really happened init that you know, could make him
ever apart from the past that that Max pull on pull on PS3.
Yeah, that's probably going to that.
You're probably going to see that that clip more than you
actually you're going to have to.
If you see that clip again, you're going to be like, what?
Which race was that again? Yeah, So it wasn't it.
Wasn't it wasn't earth shattering or anything like

(01:18:20):
that, but yeah, well before we but before we close just.
Just do a quick. Preview of the next race
upcoming which is the Monaco Grand Prix, which is arguably
the the most boring race in F1'shistory.
How you see? How you see that plays out?
What's your predictions? You know who you think's going

(01:18:42):
to win going into that race? Because I already think the
mercy, the Ferrari are going to be in trouble in that race in
the this weekend. I'm just going to go with.
My client, just because they've got they've got the best car.
Always going to go. I The thing is that Monica, if
you if you if you was to say Andre, you can hibernate and

(01:19:03):
sleep over the whole race weekend.
Which one would it be? It would be Monica.
Yeah, I personally don't like the race.
It's I just. Watch it because I love F1.
I'm not watching the Monaco Grand Prix just because I don't.
I don't even think it should be on the calendar.
But hey, guys, Playground. So who am I?
Yeah, because the risk basicallycomes down to Saturday.

(01:19:25):
Qualifying, wherever you qualifyon Saturday, that's pretty much
where you're going to finish because there's little to no,
there's no overtaking and it's what people are going to do is
to prevent on the card or whatever.
They're just going to drive slowas hell until they're ready to
do a pit stop, then they're up the pace.
So it's just that we pretty muchknow how the pattern at that
rate. So it's going to come down to

(01:19:46):
qualifying. So like I said, I don't trust.
We pretty much know the Ferrari's not really that great.
It's not a good car. It's it lacks balance, it lacks
grip, it lacks traction, it hitscorners.
It's it's, yeah, it's it's rotation, it's low and

(01:20:08):
everything in our own Monaco, you don't want that because you
have to race as close as hell tothe barriers to get lap time
and. And, and in some ways, Monica is
more. About drivers than it is.
Somewhat car, but you still needa good car around here.
And I think we could, we could potentially be more about, it's
more about, it's more about the driver who can.

(01:20:30):
Qualify or could get a qualifying operandi out of a
decent enough car. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because The thing is, you might go to Monaco and the fastest car
is. Not on pole, Yeah, because the
because the driver. I mean, yeah, we've seen that.
We've seen that with driver for the Mercedes car may not, may
not have the car owners. Not only that, maybe the car

(01:20:54):
just doesn't. Work on that day.
We saw it with Mercedes, but youknow the the close cars in
Monaco. It's just the guy who can hang
it out, right? You might find fast cars down
there, but as I I need but you'dneed a good car for you to.
Hang it out like that. You you have to trust the car
for you to really hang it out. So I think, I think we might be

(01:21:16):
in for a surprise this weekend. And I'm going to throw a name in
the hat. Yeah, throw it in.
George Russell. George Russell.
I'm not. Mad at that.
Yeah, I'm. Not mad, I think George could
surprise. Because his qualifying has been
pretty. With the exception of Japan, his
qualifying this year has been pretty.

(01:21:36):
Epic pretty. I'm mad at that.
Really, really gorge. And then Kimmy shot useful
exuberance. I mean, if Kim.
Again, Yeah, let's see you let'ssee how Kimmy does because you
know he's improving. I think pace, pace wise, he has

(01:21:57):
pace. His issue is he needs to
understand how to manage his ties and I think once and.
Again, that will come with. Experience.
It's only his seventh race in the sport.
But I think this weekend, GeorgeRussell could spring a surprise
on everybody. And I I fear for the Ferraris.

(01:22:21):
I fear for the Ferraris. You know what I want?
But this weekend to come and go,that's what I want.
That's and I'm just. Being honest, I'm not even.
Wanting my punches. If there's a is if you, if you
put a calendar in front of me and say make a decision, the
race that you would erase it would be the Monaco Grand Prix.

(01:22:42):
Yep. Right, because let's keep it.
Let's be honest. The Monaco.
Grand Prix is just where rich people go to play for the
weekend. It's nothing about racing.
It's yeah, it's who? It's who has the biggest.
Yacht. Yeah, it's it's it's let's see,
let's who was the biggest super yacht watching the Monaco Grand
Prix is just because I love. I'll just watch.

(01:23:02):
It, but I'm not looking. Hey, it's the Monaco Grand Prix.
I honestly do not care. Yeah, we're going to be in for
70 plus laps of boredom. Just processional racing and I
think, I think Croft and Brundlewere back this weekend because
they weren't in commentary this weekend.
And I'll tell you what, it's kind of refreshing.
I have a here in two different people.

(01:23:24):
I like Anthony Davidson in commentary because he's far more
as a driver. He he explains things some
somewhat better than Brando. The guy's not a dinosaur.
When was the last time Brando driver?
Come on. Like, yeah, yeah.
So he's currently. And he's driven a lot of he's.
Driven endurance cars. So if I'm going to listen to

(01:23:48):
someone, yeah, if I'm going to listen to a current commentator
in the F1, that's in the F1, right?
It'd be it's going to be he. Explains it's going.
To be him, it's going to be button.
Right. If work around right and as bad
as you didn't last long. Even Julian Power.
I don't want to hear nothing from Martin Bruner or you drove

(01:24:10):
the last phone car you drove there was it was a manual
transmission. I don't want to know your ear
from you. No, I don't think it was Manuel.
It was Manuel. No, I'm just taking liberties.
I'm. Just saying.
I'm just saying that bro. I don't want to hear from you
with a with a gated gearbox F1 car, bro.
Like, yeah, yeah, I think it wasrefreshing here in the
different. Comments.
And like I said with Ant, what Ilike with antis because he has

(01:24:31):
more, because I think he's stillpart of the Mercedes test team,
so he'd simulate a work for Mercedes.
So he's more current and he offers more, he explains things
better, put it that way. So you understand, by car
balance, whatever, whatever. When the driver says this, he,
he can actually explain it to the the US, the listeners, far

(01:24:54):
better than and they make less mistakes than Crofty and all
that. So, yeah.
But yeah, Monaco Grand Prix thisweekend, it's going to be a bore
fest. I fear for the Ferraris
genuinely do, because that's just a terrible car in every
aspect of it. Especially in qualifying.

(01:25:15):
But my surprise is going to be George Russell wins the Monaco
Grand Prix. That's it.
This. It's a wrap.
For this edition of the Grand Prix Project podcast, the you
want to say the name No, your turn, because I said at the
beginning. I said at the beginning.

(01:25:38):
Your turn. Try, try.
I'm. Not even going to try it.
This is this has been. Emiliano, Romania.
Grand Prix this has been. The review of the.
First of the two Italian Grand Prixs for 2025, the Emilia
Romania Grand Prix. OK.
There you go, and once again, thank you to listen for.

(01:25:58):
Listening to the Grand Prix Project?
Please go follow us on X-ray, the GP Project pod.
We're on YouTube, The Grand PrixProject podcast, Instagram, the
Grand Prix Project podcast, and we also have the website, which
is www.thegrandprixproject.com. We're on Spotify, we're on Apple
podcast. We're everywhere that you could
consume podcast, we're there. So please go follow, like, leave

(01:26:23):
your comments, tell us how biased we are.
Tell us how you like us. Tell us how you dislike us and
tell us. Tell me to stop and tell me to
lay off. Alonzo Yeah.
So, you know, never going to happen.
So yeah. It's a wrap for this.
Episode of the Grand Prix Project podcast.

(01:26:46):
Thank you for listening to the Grand Prix Project podcast.

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