Latest / Pit Talk / Piastri in control, but what's going on with Red Bull's drivers? Chinese GP Review - 25/03/25

Transcript

Piastri in control, but what's going on with Red Bull's drivers? Chinese GP Review - 25/03/25 · Pit Talk

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Pit Talk, brought to you by Shannons.
0:02
Speaker 1: On today's episode, Oscar Piastre claims his third Grand Prix
0:07
Speaker 1: victory in a Shanghai Sunday cruise, and it's Hero to
0:11
Speaker 1: zero four Ferrari, with Lewis Hamilton winning the sprint, but
0:14
Speaker 1: both cars disqualified from the Grand Prix. My name is
0:18
Speaker 1: Michael Lamonado. It's great to have your company and the
0:21
Speaker 1: company of my co host. He's just got off the
0:23
Speaker 1: phone with Christian Horner and he's next in line for
0:25
Speaker 1: the Red Bull Racing drive. It's Matt Playton.
0:27
Speaker 2: That's actually not too far from the truth, you know.
0:29
Speaker 2: I reckon if I actually picked the phone up and
0:31
Speaker 2: call Christian, perhaps what he's on the set of Drive
0:33
Speaker 2: to Survive so he can pretend he's actually speaking to
0:35
Speaker 2: a driver lock he did with Sergioperus a few series ago.
0:38
Speaker 2: I reckon, I'd be half a chance of being in
0:40
Speaker 2: the top five to get a drive for that team.
0:42
Speaker 2: But yes, that's a topic we'll discuss a little bit
0:45
Speaker 2: later on in this podcast, and a topic we've discussed
0:47
Speaker 2: once or twice before.
0:49
Speaker 1: Yes, well, you at least know you're not last on
0:51
Speaker 1: his list because that place is reserved for Yuki Sonoda.
0:54
Speaker 2: Or is it home Manu.
0:55
Speaker 1: A bit later on we got to start, of course
0:58
Speaker 1: with Oscar Piastre and there is to the Chinese Grand
1:01
Speaker 1: Prix big win for him, not just in the context
1:04
Speaker 1: of where he's increased his victory tally by fifty percent,
1:07
Speaker 1: third win of his career, and not just because it
1:10
Speaker 1: was such a comprehensive weekend. They sort of had to
1:12
Speaker 1: go back and think because he's become such an established
1:15
Speaker 1: driver so quickly that actually, well, first pole position, win
1:18
Speaker 1: from pole, almost led every lap with quite a few
1:21
Speaker 1: laps and pretty much controlled the entire race. But that
1:23
Speaker 1: picture of the championship, and it's way too early to
1:25
Speaker 1: talk about points. Obviously he's now ten points behind Lando Norris.
1:28
Speaker 1: But it's that idea that if this is going to
1:32
Speaker 1: be an all McLaren tidle battle, you definitely don't want
1:35
Speaker 1: to be the driver starting from a long way back,
1:37
Speaker 1: kind of like he did last year when things started
1:40
Speaker 1: to enter that championship winning picture. How important do you
1:43
Speaker 1: think it was for him to claim this victory, And
1:46
Speaker 1: of course a week after the Australia disappointment.
1:49
Speaker 2: I think it was important to claim the victory for one,
1:51
Speaker 2: I think it was important to claim a victory in
1:53
Speaker 2: this manner. I think because you look at his previous
1:56
Speaker 2: two wins where you know Hungary, there was all of
1:59
Speaker 2: the team with Norris being in front after the pit stop,
2:02
Speaker 2: and as Abaijan he was very attacking and then onto
2:05
Speaker 2: the defensive from Charlote Claire. As we remember last year,
2:08
Speaker 2: we've not had one of these race weekends for Oscar
2:10
Speaker 2: where he's qualified really well and converted it in the
2:13
Speaker 2: manner that these are the days that win you world
2:15
Speaker 2: championships when you do what you're supposed to do in
2:18
Speaker 2: the best car on the grid. We've seen that as
2:20
Speaker 2: a tried and true recipe. So to get ahead of
2:23
Speaker 2: Norris and qualifying for the first time I think it's
2:25
Speaker 2: in the last nine races the first time he's outqualified him,
2:28
Speaker 2: and then to convert that with a complete lack of fuss.
2:31
Speaker 2: It was I wouldn't say an absolute thriller, bit roller
2:34
Speaker 2: coaster right of a race, because he controlled it so
2:37
Speaker 2: well that he didn't really give anybody else a look in.
2:41
Speaker 2: So to my mind, it was more the way he
2:44
Speaker 2: won it rather than that he actually won it. That
2:46
Speaker 2: was the key. Thing, and these are the sorts of
2:48
Speaker 2: days that make you think, right you string a few
2:50
Speaker 2: of these together, they clearly have a car advantage. We
2:53
Speaker 2: can see that after the first two rounds. These are
2:55
Speaker 2: the days that put you in world championship contention rather
2:58
Speaker 2: than these amazing rearguard actions or attacking drives that we
3:02
Speaker 2: were talking about with Azerbaijahan. So an important win in
3:05
Speaker 2: the context of how he wins races. I don't think
3:07
Speaker 2: it's going to be the last time we see it either.
3:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, the qualifying I think point is a really important one,
3:12
Speaker 1: considering he was belted in the qualifying head to head
3:15
Speaker 1: by Lando last year. I think it was twenty to
3:17
Speaker 1: four that he was defeated. That the average margin wasn't massive,
3:21
Speaker 1: but you know, it is certainly cumulatively not a good
3:24
Speaker 1: look for him. It was the way that he was
3:26
Speaker 1: the faster driver at McLaren all weekend as well, that
3:29
Speaker 1: I think is really important because there's there is an
3:31
Speaker 1: unknown about Piastria. We ultimately will we all expect him
3:34
Speaker 1: to be title contending material. We don't know, because he
3:37
Speaker 1: hasn't been around long enough, he hasn't done it. And
3:40
Speaker 1: Lando found that extra gear late last year when he
3:44
Speaker 1: was theoretically in title contention, and we did also see
3:46
Speaker 1: Oscar fade a little bit in the final rounds. He
3:48
Speaker 1: put that down to those being those tracks he has
3:50
Speaker 1: less experience at. For him to come out and comprehensively
3:54
Speaker 1: have Lando's number this weekend, I think was really quite
3:56
Speaker 1: a big win. And something that Team Prince and Andrea
3:59
Speaker 1: Stella brought up after the race is that he's dominated
4:02
Speaker 1: at a track where last year he was pretty awful. Well,
4:05
Speaker 1: it was early in the year, obviously, similarly early as
4:08
Speaker 1: it was this season, so you're still putting together the
4:11
Speaker 1: gains he'd made in the previous year after his first
4:13
Speaker 1: season in Formula One, but he was something like forty
4:16
Speaker 1: seconds behind Norris at the end of the race last year,
4:18
Speaker 1: and the tire management was no good new surface admittedly,
4:21
Speaker 1: but same layout. Obviously. I think that for me is
4:26
Speaker 1: almost the most interesting part of this is we got
4:28
Speaker 1: a really good comparison into the step he appears to
4:32
Speaker 1: have made this year, and if it is that big, well,
4:35
Speaker 1: I think that sounds been really good. Stead.
4:36
Speaker 2: It's part of the evolution, isn't it. I Mean we
4:38
Speaker 2: saw it in twenty twenty three and the race craft
4:41
Speaker 2: and the ability to get his elbows out and fight
4:43
Speaker 2: cleverly in combat has been there, and the time management
4:47
Speaker 2: was an issue in the first year. He acknowledged that
4:49
Speaker 2: that was where he had some problems. That improved last year.
4:52
Speaker 2: It's still not perhaps as good as it needs to be.
4:54
Speaker 2: That the arrow was definitely going up on that. But
4:57
Speaker 2: then the thing last year was, well, you know, he
4:59
Speaker 2: was out qualified by his teammate twenty times in twenty
5:01
Speaker 2: four Grand Prix and that was even before McLaren had
5:04
Speaker 2: a car. Advantage's not so much the back end of
5:06
Speaker 2: the year. So the way he was able to put
5:09
Speaker 2: this weekend together from really from Friday with Sprint qualifying
5:13
Speaker 2: and then the sprint and then natural Grand Prix qualifying
5:15
Speaker 2: on the Saturday. I like the fact that he's just
5:18
Speaker 2: methodically ticking these boxes off as you go, step by step,
5:21
Speaker 2: and you would hope that that would be the trajectory
5:24
Speaker 2: of a driver in his third year. There's not a
5:26
Speaker 2: lot of weaknesses in his game, and I don't want
5:28
Speaker 2: to say that the qualifying has been a weakness. It's
5:30
Speaker 2: a relative weakness compared to his strengths. If he starts
5:34
Speaker 2: to get on top of that then I wouldn't say
5:36
Speaker 2: it's the final frontier because you know, we still don't
5:39
Speaker 2: know how he is in an intra team title fight,
5:41
Speaker 2: because neither he, nor Norris or McLaren have actually been
5:44
Speaker 2: in one for something meaningful the way this season is
5:48
Speaker 2: shaking out. And then I think the looming specter of
5:51
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty six rule changes is another factor here,
5:54
Speaker 2: because there will undoubtedly be some teams that start to
5:56
Speaker 2: turn the tap off for with twenty six looming. So
6:00
Speaker 2: maybe the title fight with a number of different drivers
6:03
Speaker 2: in a number of different teams doesn't burn quite as
6:05
Speaker 2: long as it did last year. I could see it
6:07
Speaker 2: shaking out to be a few drivers battling for the
6:10
Speaker 2: big prize quite early in the season. As long as
6:13
Speaker 2: he's one of those names, then it's a different championship
6:16
Speaker 2: from maybe, you know, the last two thirds of the season.
6:18
Speaker 2: But to have a weekend like these and to show
6:22
Speaker 2: that perhaps this relative weakness is being worked on to
6:24
Speaker 2: a point where it can become a strength I think
6:26
Speaker 2: was super important for him.
6:27
Speaker 1: This was McLaren's fiftieth one to finish in its history,
6:31
Speaker 1: only it's third since twenty ten with Yes Button and
6:35
Speaker 1: Lewis Hamilton, which is I think quite illustrative of the
6:37
Speaker 1: journey McLaren has been on the last two prior to
6:41
Speaker 1: this one came in only the last few years, of course,
6:43
Speaker 1: Daniel Ricardo and Landon Norris in Monza and then Hungary
6:46
Speaker 1: last year, so it's very much been a gradual build
6:49
Speaker 1: up to the position where McLaren is now capable of
6:52
Speaker 1: at least occasionally dominating races. It could so easily have
6:54
Speaker 1: been in Australia as well, had the weather played ball
6:57
Speaker 1: and Osco Piastri not spun off the row. But there
7:00
Speaker 1: is this question, and we are again only two rounds
7:03
Speaker 1: in a sample size of only two circuits, so we
7:04
Speaker 1: don't have all the information. But this was another race
7:07
Speaker 1: that McLaren won from pole position. The question of the
7:11
Speaker 1: advantage now perhaps as a barometer, perhaps not as a
7:14
Speaker 1: barometer at all. The comments of George Russell, who last
7:17
Speaker 1: week in Australia said, well, McLaren, they could stop developing
7:20
Speaker 1: this car and they'll win both titles easily. He's up
7:22
Speaker 1: the Ante this week and he said it is a
7:24
Speaker 1: car with the biggest advantage of any car ever, including
7:27
Speaker 1: all the Red bullcars that have come before it, and
7:29
Speaker 1: that includes presumably the twenty twenty three Red bullcar, which
7:33
Speaker 1: won all but one Grand Prix. Matt, that seems like
7:36
Speaker 1: a bit of an exaggeration, but what's your gut instinct
7:39
Speaker 1: on the team's advantage, because while this was ultimately a
7:41
Speaker 1: straightforward race for Oscar from Pole, it didn't feel like
7:45
Speaker 1: McLaren had it easy over the weekend.
7:48
Speaker 2: I thought their pace margin relative to the rest was
7:52
Speaker 2: bigger in Australia. We just didn't really get to see
7:54
Speaker 2: it at Park on Sunday because of how sketchy the
7:56
Speaker 2: weather was. It felt they were more dominant there than
7:58
Speaker 2: they were in Shanghai too. Totally different circuits as we know.
8:02
Speaker 2: Not sure. I mean, George Russell was racing in twenty
8:04
Speaker 2: twenty three and kept seeing the same team and certainly
8:07
Speaker 2: the same guy winning most of them, So there's a
8:08
Speaker 2: little bit of recency bias in those comments. I think
8:11
Speaker 2: that I don't know what you thought, but I thought
8:13
Speaker 2: they looked to have a greater advantage in Melbourne than
8:16
Speaker 2: they did in China. But that may be a bit
8:19
Speaker 2: circuit specific. I reckon if there was if it was
8:23
Speaker 2: a dry weather Australian Grand Prix, I think they would
8:25
Speaker 2: have absolutely slaughtered the rest of the field in Melbourne,
8:27
Speaker 2: such was the advantage they had in qualifying. So we
8:30
Speaker 2: probably need a greater sample size of circuits and circuits
8:35
Speaker 2: that you can race on now, much as we love
8:37
Speaker 2: Suzuka that's coming up in the next round, it's a
8:40
Speaker 2: fantastic driver's track. I don't know if it's a fantastic
8:43
Speaker 2: racing track just by virtue of the nature of the
8:45
Speaker 2: cars are so big and wide these days. It's a
8:48
Speaker 2: very narrow, one line, high speed, great driving challenge, not
8:51
Speaker 2: maybe a great race track. So that might be a
8:54
Speaker 2: bit of an asterisk on that one, But you look
8:56
Speaker 2: at what's coming up after that with Bahrain and Saudi.
8:59
Speaker 2: By the time we get to the end of round five,
9:01
Speaker 2: you've almost got every type of track type characteristic that
9:05
Speaker 2: you probably could see across the course of the season.
9:08
Speaker 2: Then if Nat McLaren goes five for five to start
9:11
Speaker 2: the season in whichever order those drivers win, then perhaps
9:13
Speaker 2: Joe Russell's comments have got a little bit of weight.
9:15
Speaker 2: But you and I sat through twenty twenty three. There
9:18
Speaker 2: are a lot of late nights. We used to joke,
9:20
Speaker 2: you know, to get people behind the curtain here, we
9:22
Speaker 2: used to laugh after lap one start writing your race
9:24
Speaker 2: report because you pretty much knew what was going to happen.
9:27
Speaker 2: I don't think we're quite at that level of dominance yet,
9:29
Speaker 2: but I don't think it's beyond the realms because the
9:32
Speaker 2: car clearly seems to be good. The other teams all
9:34
Speaker 2: have their various problems with drivers or consistency, and also
9:39
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six that I mentioned before, so it could
9:42
Speaker 2: end up being an intro team battle for the title.
9:44
Speaker 2: But whether they have that sort of advantage that Verstappan
9:46
Speaker 2: had in twenty twenty three, it's hard to imagine that
9:48
Speaker 2: anyone could have that. Quite frankly, well, at.
9:51
Speaker 1: A minimum it'll be a competition between two drivers, not
9:53
Speaker 1: just one. If it is, we're dominating, so you know
9:57
Speaker 1: it's not all doom and gloom. I guess twenty there
9:59
Speaker 1: were great seasons. There was at least one and a
10:01
Speaker 1: half great seasons of Mercedes domination in terms of the
10:04
Speaker 1: championship battle anyway, so there is that to look forward to.
10:07
Speaker 1: But I think you're right. In Australia it certainly looked
10:09
Speaker 1: like a bigger margin and there's still and it is.
10:12
Speaker 1: I think there is a track specific element of this.
10:14
Speaker 1: And Lando Norris in particular point to this, how the
10:17
Speaker 1: car is a bit more knife edge this year and
10:20
Speaker 1: it's a little bit easier to fall out of its
10:22
Speaker 1: window than it was last year, because he was uncharacteristically
10:25
Speaker 1: off the pace pretty much until Sunday, Okay, in Grand
10:28
Speaker 1: Prix qualifying, but it really was Sunday that the car
10:31
Speaker 1: started to come to him. So I think there's a
10:32
Speaker 1: little question mark there. And we'll talk about Ferrari in
10:36
Speaker 1: a moment. After all, they did win sprint qualifying and
10:39
Speaker 1: the sprint race, so there's something in that. But Fred
10:42
Speaker 1: Vassa and look, I'm not we can't talk about this
10:45
Speaker 1: a little bit more moment, But I'm not convinced whether
10:47
Speaker 1: or not I think this is just him defending his
10:50
Speaker 1: team and sort of deflecting a bit, or whether I
10:52
Speaker 1: do sort of buy into it. But he points to
10:54
Speaker 1: the fact that at the end of last season, the
10:56
Speaker 1: last four or five rounds, there was a different winner
10:59
Speaker 1: in all of the and all of them looked dominant,
11:02
Speaker 1: and Mercedes dominated in Vegas Ferrari, it's very convincing. Weekends
11:05
Speaker 1: Max Withstaffan was very convincing in Katar against explanation expectations
11:09
Speaker 1: and McLaren was relatively weak there despite having expected to
11:13
Speaker 1: dominate that weekend. And I think in Australia it was
11:17
Speaker 1: very straightforward from McLaren, even though the weather made a
11:20
Speaker 1: little bit more difficult, and here it just looked a
11:22
Speaker 1: little bit more marginal at various points. That makes me
11:24
Speaker 1: think a few more tracks we might see a couple
11:27
Speaker 1: of different performance profiles and actually realize that it's maybe
11:31
Speaker 1: McLaren does have the quickest car, but that's not necessarily
11:35
Speaker 1: enough to automatically win every race, and that could be enough.
11:38
Speaker 1: As we know last year things can change relatively quickly.
11:41
Speaker 1: You wouldn't have picked McLaren to have won the Constructor's
11:43
Speaker 1: Championship at this point in twenty twenty four, so I
11:46
Speaker 1: think it's early, but certainly those pre season expectations that
11:49
Speaker 1: McLaren is the fastest car I think have proved to
11:52
Speaker 1: be accurate. Matt Before we look at Ferrari and the
11:56
Speaker 1: remarkable weekend they had. We've got to pick move of
11:59
Speaker 1: the week by Shannon's because we did have some overtaking
12:04
Speaker 1: only one weekend, only one race weekend, by the way,
12:06
Speaker 1: at this weekend, obviously only the Formula One Grand Prix,
12:08
Speaker 1: Moto GP on a break, so be cars on a break,
12:10
Speaker 1: So limited number of overtakes I think to choose from,
12:13
Speaker 1: but there were a few worthy of Move of the Week.
12:16
Speaker 1: Do you want to kick us off?
12:17
Speaker 2: I was actually going to nominate term one Lap one,
12:20
Speaker 2: but it was more a keeping of position than an overtake,
12:23
Speaker 2: wasn't it with an Oscar Piastre squeeze George Russell on
12:25
Speaker 2: to the inside curve there and left a nice little
12:27
Speaker 2: gap for his teammate to sweep through to second place.
12:29
Speaker 2: So that wasn't really classify as an overtake, but the
12:32
Speaker 2: one for me, and it looked much better with the
12:34
Speaker 2: offboard camera than it did the on board was Esteban
12:37
Speaker 2: Ochon on Kimmi Antonelli down into the hairpin Lap fourteen
12:41
Speaker 2: I think it was, And when you saw the off
12:43
Speaker 2: board it was a Ochon had two wheels on the
12:45
Speaker 2: grass and managed to keep the car a in a
12:48
Speaker 2: straight line and made you manage to make the move
12:50
Speaker 2: stick at a hairpin where well we know it's a
12:52
Speaker 2: good place to hit people careering down the inside. I
12:55
Speaker 2: seem to remember a very young Max for Staff and
12:56
Speaker 2: doing that to sebascinnivisual back in the day, but you know,
13:00
Speaker 2: probably the galand or a really really good weekend for hearts,
13:04
Speaker 2: which is not something that we're saying this time seven
13:06
Speaker 2: days ago. But to my mind, that was an outstanding
13:09
Speaker 2: move by Look, we know what Ocon's like in battle.
13:12
Speaker 2: He's one of the guys that you know what you're
13:14
Speaker 2: going to get and it's going to be pretty robust
13:15
Speaker 2: and there's going to be some elbows out. But to
13:17
Speaker 2: make that stick on a Mercedes was a little bit
13:20
Speaker 2: compromise that had some damage, as we know, but to
13:23
Speaker 2: my mind that was the overtaker of the Grand Prix.
13:25
Speaker 2: I'd be curious to see if you're going to argue
13:27
Speaker 2: with me on this one.
13:28
Speaker 1: No, I look, I quite like that one. It was
13:30
Speaker 1: a very oc on move, wasn't it to just put
13:32
Speaker 1: wheels on the grass and hope it was going to
13:33
Speaker 1: be fine and be a part of me? When I
13:35
Speaker 1: saw that, I was like, oh, this is not going
13:36
Speaker 1: to be fine. Pulled it off. Must have done a
13:39
Speaker 1: bit of an off road track walk on the Wednesday
13:41
Speaker 1: to just double check the quality of the run off
13:43
Speaker 1: there and well executed it arguably bit unnecessary down the
13:47
Speaker 1: straight but look, you got it done and you can't
13:49
Speaker 1: argue with that. I'm going to nominate probably similar. Actually
13:53
Speaker 1: we've both picked overtakes on drivers that have damaged cars.
13:57
Speaker 1: But Max Vestafan's move on Charlotte Claire laid in the
13:59
Speaker 1: race turns one, two, and three. I just really liked
14:03
Speaker 1: that he was forced. It's rare to be forced to
14:06
Speaker 1: the outside at all parts of this three part corner
14:09
Speaker 1: or complex, if you like. He had to take the
14:10
Speaker 1: outside of turn one because Charlott Clair defended the inside line.
14:13
Speaker 1: At turn two, they both ended up on the outside.
14:16
Speaker 1: He switched to what then became the outside of turn
14:18
Speaker 1: three and still got it done. They had a bit
14:20
Speaker 1: of a car advantage at that point because, for reasons
14:22
Speaker 1: he couldn't explain, his Red Bull Racing card suddenly was
14:26
Speaker 1: quicker late in the race when it certainly wasn't the
14:28
Speaker 1: first half of the race, and Leclaire was cambering damage
14:31
Speaker 1: that well. Actually, despite the damage he's cast seemed to
14:33
Speaker 1: be pretty quick in the first half of the race,
14:35
Speaker 1: So a lot of mysterious performance factors at play there,
14:39
Speaker 1: But I just liked the little bit of racecraft between
14:41
Speaker 1: him could so easily have been a crash at turn
14:43
Speaker 1: two when they both ended up wide but well navigated
14:46
Speaker 1: by both, and Max got a result that I think
14:48
Speaker 1: he didn't expect. I'm not sure who will give you.
14:50
Speaker 1: I don't know if we're obliged to give it to anyone.
14:52
Speaker 1: I think we're allowed to have two. I'd have two
14:54
Speaker 1: moves of the week.
14:55
Speaker 2: No, they can share it. It might be the only
14:57
Speaker 2: thing Max for step at wins for a while, so
14:58
Speaker 2: perhaps he can. He can half of it. Mister man
15:00
Speaker 2: knock one can have the other half.
15:02
Speaker 1: Doesn't share too often either, So a dual Move of
15:04
Speaker 1: the Week by Shannons this week, let's move on now,
15:07
Speaker 1: Matt to Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton. This was very much
15:11
Speaker 1: the good news story a few days ago, but twenty
15:14
Speaker 1: four hours later not such a good news story, because
15:17
Speaker 1: right I looked like the ultimate bounce back from Australia,
15:19
Speaker 1: didn't it, with Lewis Hamilton taking that sprint pole position
15:23
Speaker 1: and then on Saturday sprint victory, which annoys me because
15:28
Speaker 1: has he won his first race for Ferrari? I don't know.
15:30
Speaker 1: I don't know where we sit on that, because on
15:32
Speaker 1: Sunday he definitely didn't win his first cron free for Ferrari,
15:35
Speaker 1: pace was again nowhere. He was slower than Leclaire, even
15:38
Speaker 1: though the Claire had this damaged front wing. A bit
15:40
Speaker 1: of a kerfuffle with radio, although that seemed to be
15:42
Speaker 1: more about broadcast. They did to be about the team
15:45
Speaker 1: and came home fairly anonymously, one of the few to
15:48
Speaker 1: stop twice in Lewis Hamilton's case. Charlotte there stopped on
15:50
Speaker 1: any once and they ended up roughly the same place
15:53
Speaker 1: on the road. So not an ideal conclusion to this weekend.
15:57
Speaker 1: Ferrari is still obviously pointing towards the performance on Saturday,
16:01
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about double disqualification that put a very
16:04
Speaker 1: much a punctuation mark at the end of this Grand
16:06
Speaker 1: Prix for them. But I don't know, is this a
16:08
Speaker 1: positive weekend for Ferrari? What what are we meant to
16:11
Speaker 1: think about?
16:12
Speaker 2: It was Ferrari's Gennaro Gattuso weekend, wasn't it?
16:16
Speaker 1: Look it up?
16:16
Speaker 2: Kids? If you ah, I had to slip that in
16:20
Speaker 2: there somewhere, But I think the did he win it's
16:24
Speaker 2: a sprint? Oh no, it doesn't count. I think the
16:26
Speaker 2: only thing that annoys you bore is when they start
16:27
Speaker 2: issuing half points places that they go the full distance.
16:30
Speaker 2: See a decimal place in the points table is something
16:32
Speaker 2: that gives you the errits. But look, it was such
16:35
Speaker 2: a I am confused. I mean I'm confused, they're confused.
16:39
Speaker 2: I'm confused by what Ferrari are doing at the moment
16:42
Speaker 2: because when it's good, it actually looks really accomplished and repeatable.
16:46
Speaker 2: And there was absolutely no doubt that Hamilton was going
16:49
Speaker 2: to win that sprint, and where it was jarring, it's like, oh, yeah,
16:52
Speaker 2: Lewis Hamilton's winning a sprint, never won a sprint before,
16:55
Speaker 2: which was a bizarre stat that came up. But also
16:57
Speaker 2: doing it in a Ferrari, it looked very normal. Yeah,
17:00
Speaker 2: that looks pretty polished, pretty normal. We're expecting to see this,
17:03
Speaker 2: really excited to see what they're going to do in
17:05
Speaker 2: the Grand Prix, and then it just didn't happen. So
17:08
Speaker 2: the swings in performance are pretty wild at the moment.
17:12
Speaker 2: I thought that the Cleare drive on Sunday was pretty typical.
17:17
Speaker 2: Charlotte Claire really in that really dogged and determined in
17:20
Speaker 2: a car that was compromised two corners into the race
17:23
Speaker 2: after hitting his own teammates, which was not fantastic. But
17:27
Speaker 2: it's so hard to read where they are because to
17:30
Speaker 2: my mind they're the team with the biggest variants at
17:33
Speaker 2: the moment, and I think when it's good, they can
17:35
Speaker 2: genuinely be really, really good. I think when it's good,
17:38
Speaker 2: they can be faster than Mercedes. But we just haven't
17:41
Speaker 2: seen it on a Sunday yet. But I'm just so
17:45
Speaker 2: I'm not underwhelmed because I think there's a good promise
17:47
Speaker 2: there for them. But it is really confusing, isn't it,
17:49
Speaker 2: with what they've done in these first couple of race weekends.
17:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think for me the telling aspect of this
17:54
Speaker 1: that doesn't really decode to what's happened, but gives maybe
17:57
Speaker 1: a little bit of context, is that up until Sunday,
18:01
Speaker 1: maybe even Saturday night. But let's say Sunday, Lewis Hamilton
18:04
Speaker 1: was the faster Ferrari driver, contrary to expectations. Then again,
18:08
Speaker 1: he's always been really good at this circuit, but considering
18:10
Speaker 1: that he just looked comprehensively off the pace, not by
18:12
Speaker 1: a lot, but comprehensively in Australia made that a little
18:16
Speaker 1: bit of a surprise. But then by the time we
18:17
Speaker 1: got to Sunday, that dynamic had very much reversed. Charlotte
18:20
Speaker 1: Clair had made the changes he needed for the car
18:22
Speaker 1: to be faster even with the damad's front wing, which
18:24
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot and Lewis said afterwards, look, heah,
18:27
Speaker 1: we felt really good in the sprint. We made changes
18:29
Speaker 1: that we thought were going to work, not only for
18:31
Speaker 1: the evolving track conditions, et cetera, but that we thought
18:33
Speaker 1: was going to make the car better, and he incidentally
18:36
Speaker 1: made the car worse. I think that speaks to him
18:39
Speaker 1: still not understanding how to set up this car. You know,
18:41
Speaker 1: we often find this when teams, when drivers changed teams
18:45
Speaker 1: to get those final few percent, to know which levers
18:47
Speaker 1: to pull, to know what configurations to change is difficult.
18:50
Speaker 1: Charlotte Birkley knew which ones to pull at least to
18:52
Speaker 1: improve his form, but Lewis ended up going backwards. So
18:55
Speaker 1: I think that at least explains a little bit of
18:57
Speaker 1: why the inter team result was on predictable. But you're right,
19:01
Speaker 1: it's a car that a car that looked that convincing
19:04
Speaker 1: on Saturday shouldn't have been so anonymous on Sunday in
19:08
Speaker 1: normal circumstances. I guess that also maybe speaks to this
19:12
Speaker 1: being the last year of the regulations, these rules, I
19:15
Speaker 1: don't know. Do you asked me the second half of
19:16
Speaker 1: last year, should we keep these rules longer? I would
19:18
Speaker 1: have said, well, obviously yes, because the competition seems so close,
19:21
Speaker 1: that's what you want. But it does feel like we
19:24
Speaker 1: might be entering into a little bit of random territory.
19:28
Speaker 1: We know these cars are really peaky, and if we're
19:30
Speaker 1: going from not even weekend to weekend, but day to day,
19:33
Speaker 1: and even the teams aren't sure how their cars are
19:35
Speaker 1: going to perform. I mean, on the one hand, you
19:37
Speaker 1: could argue, well, that's pretty exciting. Who knows he's going
19:39
Speaker 1: to win, But it's sort of I don't know a
19:42
Speaker 1: little bit in two minds about it, but it sort
19:43
Speaker 1: of makes you think, well, maybe we are really at
19:45
Speaker 1: the end of life of these rules, because no one
19:47
Speaker 1: seems to understand why the cars work or don't work.
19:51
Speaker 1: So I think there's a little bit of that at
19:53
Speaker 1: play in Ferrari as well. But they insist, you know,
19:55
Speaker 1: as I said earlier, Fred Bastin says, well, look, you know,
19:58
Speaker 1: next week we could dominate, and then who knows what
20:00
Speaker 1: the story is going to be, and that won't and
20:01
Speaker 1: I like it. Even that won't be convincing, you know.
20:03
Speaker 1: After the split race he sort of said, oh, I
20:04
Speaker 1: don't understand why we've won. We need to go and
20:06
Speaker 1: figure it out. I think that kind of just sums
20:08
Speaker 1: it up for Ferrari in my mind. And things really
20:12
Speaker 1: only got worse after that, though, didn't they Because it
20:14
Speaker 1: wasn't just about the bad performance. It was a double disqualification.
20:17
Speaker 1: You're more You're more of a history buff than I
20:19
Speaker 1: am in Formula one, so I want to ask you
20:21
Speaker 1: this question. I don't know the answer to it, so
20:23
Speaker 1: please don't feel pressure. When was the last time a
20:25
Speaker 1: team had two cars disqualified but for different reasons.
20:28
Speaker 2: What you're politely saying is that I'm considerably older than you,
20:31
Speaker 2: which is correct. Yeah. Look, honestly, when that happened that
20:35
Speaker 2: my first thought was go straight to Sean Kelly, Yeah,
20:38
Speaker 2: and try and find out what's going on with this,
20:40
Speaker 2: Because at virtual stapmads you go to with things like this.
20:43
Speaker 2: I can remember Ferrari cars being disqualified, but not both
20:48
Speaker 2: in the same race and for different reasons. I'm sure
20:51
Speaker 2: Sean will come back and say in the nineteen fifty
20:54
Speaker 2: eight non championship Targer Florio or something or other. He'll
20:59
Speaker 2: have something at the moment. It's just so bizarrely. Look,
21:02
Speaker 2: I remember Laclure getting disqualified in the USGP was at
21:06
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. I think it was a similar situation,
21:09
Speaker 2: was like, and I think Hamilton was disqualified that day too,
21:12
Speaker 2: but they were teammates of course at that point. But
21:14
Speaker 2: maybe that's what I'm thinking of. But it's such a
21:16
Speaker 2: bizarre thing to have two cars thrown out of Frankly,
21:19
Speaker 2: Ferrari doesn't get out of bed to finish fifth and six.
21:21
Speaker 2: So I don't think they're going to be crying too
21:23
Speaker 2: much about it, other than the fact that they're now
21:25
Speaker 2: fifth in the Constructor's Championship, equal with Williams, which is
21:28
Speaker 2: another story. But after the race, look the underweight thing.
21:33
Speaker 2: You can see how that may have happened for the
21:36
Speaker 2: clear when this race became a one stop. It was
21:38
Speaker 2: a little bit like George Russell at SPA last year,
21:41
Speaker 2: wasn't it when what looked to be a nailed on
21:43
Speaker 2: two stop ended up being a one stop tie? Where
21:47
Speaker 2: is such that perhaps that had a factor in the
21:50
Speaker 2: car coming so close to being the minimum weight but
21:52
Speaker 2: being underneath it. So maybe that was a factor there.
21:55
Speaker 2: The plank where thing to my mind with Hamilton's car,
21:58
Speaker 2: is that not just a byproduct of you only have
22:01
Speaker 2: one practice session, you're straight into sprint qualifying on Friday.
22:03
Speaker 2: You don't get to do that really extensive long running
22:06
Speaker 2: that you normally do it a Friday FP too, and
22:09
Speaker 2: teams are always a little bit underdone on these sprint
22:12
Speaker 2: weekends and it's not a case of cross your figures
22:14
Speaker 2: and hope for the best, but they certainly don't have
22:16
Speaker 2: anywhere near the amount of data running to put something
22:20
Speaker 2: like that to bed, because I think that's something that
22:22
Speaker 2: you would have determined, perhaps in a longer practice session
22:25
Speaker 2: on the Friday and adjusting your right heights accordingly. But
22:29
Speaker 2: it's funny these things, whether it's a coincidence or not,
22:32
Speaker 2: these things tend to happen on sprint weekends, don't they.
22:34
Speaker 1: Yes, well, I was going to say exactly that, Like,
22:35
Speaker 1: I don't think it's such a coincidence to say that
22:38
Speaker 1: that's probably what's happened here, even though when it happened
22:41
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three to both Mercedes and Ferrari, and
22:44
Speaker 1: there were suspicions a lot of other cars that weren't
22:46
Speaker 1: checked probably had the same problem at that time. You
22:48
Speaker 1: couldn't ad just set up after FP one or after
22:50
Speaker 1: sprint qualifying. Now you can, like you say, you have
22:53
Speaker 1: limited data to make those changes. Anyway, it's only really
22:56
Speaker 1: the sprint race, which is much shorter than Grand Prix,
22:58
Speaker 1: so it's not like you have that validation time. So
23:01
Speaker 1: I think you're right. It's not that surprising, but it is.
23:04
Speaker 1: I mean, it says two things, right. It says Ferrari's
23:05
Speaker 1: pushing really hard to try and understand a car to
23:08
Speaker 1: get the most out of the car, when they know
23:09
Speaker 1: maybe they don't have the capacity to build in a margin.
23:13
Speaker 1: Considering both cars were disqualified for reasons, you'd say, what
23:16
Speaker 1: to summit up Lewis Hamilin's cars run a little bit
23:18
Speaker 1: too low and the curse cars run with a little
23:20
Speaker 1: bit too much too little ballast is fundamentally whatever it is,
23:24
Speaker 1: whatever reason the miscalculation was made, they were clearly pushing
23:27
Speaker 1: hard against those limits. But to make that, to make
23:32
Speaker 1: both mistakes on the same weekend, I think it's obviously
23:36
Speaker 1: a bad loock to have both cars disqualified. But it's
23:38
Speaker 1: just a little bit after Australia, where I think we
23:40
Speaker 1: sort of said, oh, this is a bit had a
23:42
Speaker 1: bit of a rough weekend execution wise, Well, this can
23:44
Speaker 1: only be considered much worse if we're talking about Ferrari execution.
23:48
Speaker 1: I think if this is going to be a title
23:50
Speaker 1: contending year, I mean, obviously the loss of points this
23:53
Speaker 1: weekend is going to count against them, but this kind
23:55
Speaker 1: of execution style is going to count against them. It's
23:58
Speaker 1: not as bad as McLaren was last year, but I
23:59
Speaker 1: can't but think maybe they are at least a year
24:03
Speaker 1: behind McLaren on that trajectory of becoming a championship ready team,
24:06
Speaker 1: because so far from what we've seen from McClaren against
24:09
Speaker 1: only two weekends and a lot and change, but they've
24:11
Speaker 1: been really slick in that regard, really polished in a
24:13
Speaker 1: way they weren't last year. It feels like Ferrari is
24:16
Speaker 1: now putting up against that ceiling of needing to find
24:19
Speaker 1: that next level in terms of preparation, and they're tripping
24:23
Speaker 1: up on all the same Ferrari hurdles we've become used
24:25
Speaker 1: to them a few years ago.
24:27
Speaker 2: Well that's the key thing, isn't it, Because it's Ferrari.
24:29
Speaker 2: We talk about this through a completely different prison because
24:32
Speaker 2: we've seen what pre Vassur Ferrari was like. It was
24:35
Speaker 2: pretty calamitous, pretty regularly calamitous. So I'm not saying it's
24:40
Speaker 2: a revisit to the bad old days of how it
24:43
Speaker 2: was before he took over, but there's definitely echoes of it.
24:46
Speaker 2: And if this sort of thing happens to other teams,
24:49
Speaker 2: I think we're having a really different discussion. It's because
24:51
Speaker 2: it's Ferrari, and you know they clearly you look at
24:54
Speaker 2: the driver lineup and the pedigree and where they should be. Look,
24:58
Speaker 2: I mean, do we really stickly think their championship contenders
25:01
Speaker 2: this year? No, but I think the building blocks of
25:04
Speaker 2: what they do this year they need to clean all
25:06
Speaker 2: this sort of stuff up because there is an opportunity
25:09
Speaker 2: next year by virtue of the fact that we've got
25:10
Speaker 2: this big regulation reset. They need to be completely on
25:14
Speaker 2: it now. If you're going to be making mistakes the
25:16
Speaker 2: first two rounds of a season, you know it's better
25:19
Speaker 2: now than later, perhaps, But you don't want to have
25:22
Speaker 2: too many more weekends like this because it feels like
25:24
Speaker 2: they're kind of beating themselves to a point at the
25:26
Speaker 2: moment and not achieving the results they should be for
25:29
Speaker 2: things that they can control, and that's what you've got
25:31
Speaker 2: to try and clean up.
25:31
Speaker 1: All right, Let's look at the big well on and
25:34
Speaker 1: off track story this week, and that is Red Bull Racing.
25:38
Speaker 1: Another fine week well not fine, it's not what they want,
25:41
Speaker 1: but fine weekend for Max withstaffn finished third and the
25:44
Speaker 1: sprint forth in the Grand Prix. With that, as we mentioned,
25:47
Speaker 1: unexpectedly reasonable pace late in the Grand Prix to pass
25:51
Speaker 1: both Ferrari drivers and finish better than I think you expected.
25:54
Speaker 1: But that he says, the car deserves, but it's the
25:57
Speaker 1: car and the other car that is the talking point,
26:00
Speaker 1: both the quality of the car and the driver in
26:02
Speaker 1: the other car. Because Liam Lawson had another weekend to
26:04
Speaker 1: forget twentieth in both qualifying sessions, failed to score in
26:08
Speaker 1: either race. I mean it's not great, a good start.
26:11
Speaker 1: Actually I enjoyed this one. Was that's the worst two
26:13
Speaker 1: rounds of qualifying consecutively any drive in Red Bull history
26:16
Speaker 1: has ever had. The closest was David Coulthard in two
26:20
Speaker 1: thousand and six or seven when he qualified seventeenth and
26:24
Speaker 1: nineteenth consecutively, So not quite as bad as eighteenth and twentieth,
26:29
Speaker 1: but close. But was obviously a long time before Red
26:31
Speaker 1: Bull had any kind of expectations to be a good team.
26:34
Speaker 1: So it's not great whichever way you cut it. Alarmingly,
26:37
Speaker 1: Matt though, we're not even two full weeks into this
26:42
Speaker 1: season yet, two rounds into this season, and already Red
26:45
Speaker 1: Bull Racing is considering dropping Liam Lawson. I mean they couldn't,
26:50
Speaker 1: could they?
26:51
Speaker 2: Yes, they could because they're red I mean you mentioned,
26:55
Speaker 2: you know the quality of the driver in the second
26:56
Speaker 2: car and the performance of the second car. If this
26:58
Speaker 2: podcast existed in twenty nineteen, you could have said that
27:01
Speaker 2: exact same sentence. Because this is Red Bull Racing's Daniel
27:06
Speaker 2: Riccardo problem, and I've framed it as this a couple
27:08
Speaker 2: of times before, and people look at him and say,
27:09
Speaker 2: what are you talking about. They have not found a
27:13
Speaker 2: competent second driver in that team since Riccardo left at
27:18
Speaker 2: the end of twenty eighteen. This has been a problem
27:19
Speaker 2: that you use the analogy of kicking the can down
27:22
Speaker 2: the road. I'm not sure how much is left of
27:23
Speaker 2: his can at this point. Are so scuffed by bitchuman,
27:25
Speaker 2: but they've just kept booting this thing down the road
27:27
Speaker 2: for year after year after year. Before we go down
27:31
Speaker 2: that path, Can I just say something nice about Red Bull,
27:33
Speaker 2: because I think we should probably temper it a little bit.
27:36
Speaker 2: Max Verstappen is driving incredibly well at the moment given
27:41
Speaker 2: what it is that he has to drive, what he's
27:43
Speaker 2: doing in that car. He's second in the World Championship.
27:45
Speaker 2: Now he's not probably going to stay there. But what
27:48
Speaker 2: he's achieving with what he's been given to drive right
27:50
Speaker 2: now is absolutely outstanding. So if I had a hat,
27:53
Speaker 2: I would be tipping it to Max Forstappen right now.
27:56
Speaker 2: But this second car in your original question, they couldn't
27:59
Speaker 2: drive Billy and Lawson after two races, could they? They couldn't.
28:05
Speaker 2: Probably would like to hand on heart. Yes it's bad.
28:09
Speaker 2: It's really bad at the moment. And you know there's
28:12
Speaker 2: all the caveats about he'd never raced anything in Melbourne,
28:15
Speaker 2: he went to Shanghai a million years ago, so on
28:17
Speaker 2: and so forth, compared to how long they hung on
28:21
Speaker 2: to Sergio Perez, where it was demonstrably bad that it
28:24
Speaker 2: cost them two places in the Constructors Championship in the
28:27
Speaker 2: year they won the Driver's World Championship. For Lawson to
28:30
Speaker 2: be on the chopping block after two races is completely insane,
28:34
Speaker 2: for one, and completely in keeping with what an absolute
28:39
Speaker 2: rabble this driver pipeline has turned into. And while I'm
28:43
Speaker 2: on my soap box here, this could be like a
28:44
Speaker 2: ten minute monologue. So they put the catalog. This is
28:46
Speaker 2: the bit that I don't get right. I'm going to
28:48
Speaker 2: bounce this off. This is a bit I don't get
28:51
Speaker 2: Red Bull has two teams. Theoretically they have double the
28:55
Speaker 2: chance of any other team of getting this right because
28:58
Speaker 2: they have a pool of four drivers can put in
29:00
Speaker 2: Formula one seats and not two. For this to be
29:04
Speaker 2: a worse situation than any other team at finding two
29:08
Speaker 2: competent drivers is absolutely crazy to me. You've literally got
29:13
Speaker 2: almost an unfair advantage in air quotes to get this
29:16
Speaker 2: more right than every other team, and you routinely get
29:19
Speaker 2: it wrong year after year after year, and the same
29:22
Speaker 2: people are in the same management positions, and we have
29:24
Speaker 2: the same conversation. Would it be very harsh on lem
29:28
Speaker 2: laws and to get the boot after two rounds, particularly
29:31
Speaker 2: with A we've got tripleheader coming up. B We're off
29:34
Speaker 2: to Suzuka next, so there's none of this. He hasn't
29:36
Speaker 2: driven here, He's done a full season of super Formula.
29:39
Speaker 2: He knows Suzuka really well. He has raced in Formula
29:41
Speaker 2: one there and being good. It would be bonkers to
29:44
Speaker 2: get rid of him before the next race. And what
29:47
Speaker 2: are you going to do if you do get rid
29:48
Speaker 2: of him, You're going to put Yuki Sonoda in there,
29:50
Speaker 2: who you've basically told for five years isn't competent to
29:53
Speaker 2: be the second driver next to Max Ofastappan. That's a
29:57
Speaker 2: very very long winded way of saying. Is it insane
29:59
Speaker 2: that they could drop Lawson? Yes? Do I'm more than
30:02
Speaker 2: half expected to happen given that team's track record. Also, yes,
30:06
Speaker 2: but I'll climb down off my site box and give
30:08
Speaker 2: you a go on it. How are you reading this situation?
30:12
Speaker 2: Because after what they did last year with Perez, I
30:14
Speaker 2: thought keeping him on was possibly the silliest thing they've
30:17
Speaker 2: ever done for as long as they did, but this
30:18
Speaker 2: might actually top it if they get rid of Lawson
30:20
Speaker 2: after two weekends.
30:21
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's just pure panic at this point,
30:23
Speaker 1: isn't it, Because there's no rational reason to drop him.
30:27
Speaker 1: Obviously hasn't scored any points and so you can say, well,
30:29
Speaker 1: there's a championship reason to do it. But it's so
30:32
Speaker 1: early that you can only describe this as panic. I
30:36
Speaker 1: think if they do bring if they bring Yuki Sonoda in,
30:40
Speaker 1: it is one of the great monumental political batflicks backflips
30:44
Speaker 1: in formud one history. Because, as you said, for years now,
30:47
Speaker 1: they've told him he's not going to do it. He said,
30:49
Speaker 1: he got phone. You've got three different phone calls when
30:51
Speaker 1: Liam Lawson got the drive from various Red Bull management
30:53
Speaker 1: figures explaining to him that oh, you know, it's this
30:55
Speaker 1: and that, telling him essentially in a bunch of different ways,
30:58
Speaker 1: that they just don't want him. Christian Horner called him
31:02
Speaker 1: the perennial bridesmaid last year and said essentially that he'd
31:04
Speaker 1: be dropped at the end of this year because there's
31:06
Speaker 1: no reason for them to keep him because he's never
31:08
Speaker 1: getting a Red Bull Racing.
31:09
Speaker 2: Drive and no Hondolins either.
31:10
Speaker 1: Yes, and even Honda has now said well, at this
31:12
Speaker 1: point it's sort of up to him and it'll be
31:14
Speaker 1: interesting to see how that evolves, depending what happens the
31:16
Speaker 1: next couple of weeks. So the idea that he might
31:20
Speaker 1: get the drive now is just it is absurd. It's absurd.
31:24
Speaker 1: The point Red Bull has put itself in here, but
31:28
Speaker 1: it's a problem, as you've said, completely of its own making.
31:31
Speaker 1: Had a lot of decisions to make in the middle
31:33
Speaker 1: of last year, and you can't help but wonder we've
31:35
Speaker 1: sort of run through some of the scenarios in the
31:38
Speaker 1: background of this at an article at Fox sports dot
31:40
Speaker 1: Com at a usually go and read that was published
31:42
Speaker 1: on Monday afternoon last year. It decided suddenly that it
31:47
Speaker 1: would retain Sir Joe Perrys in August at the mid
31:49
Speaker 1: season break after a pretty terrible run into the mid
31:51
Speaker 1: season break that continued after it. That subsequently meant Daniel
31:55
Speaker 1: Ricardo was sacked after a few more rounds at the
31:58
Speaker 1: Singapore Grand Prix. We all remember, we sh meant Liam
32:00
Speaker 1: Lawson was brought in for a few races to for
32:03
Speaker 1: a reason that really in retrospect isn't clear, because clearly
32:06
Speaker 1: they weren't going to put Yuki Sinoda in the seat.
32:08
Speaker 1: They already knew that Lawson was quick enough to be
32:10
Speaker 1: in Formula one and that seems to have been the
32:12
Speaker 1: only criteria to get the promotion once Pais was dropped
32:14
Speaker 1: at the end of the year. But as a result,
32:16
Speaker 1: several things happened, right They were on a trajectory to
32:19
Speaker 1: put a driver with eleven Grand Prix into a Red
32:22
Speaker 1: Bull Racing seat the hardest in Formula One, not only
32:24
Speaker 1: because their teammates with Max, but because the car is
32:27
Speaker 1: so difficult to drive, and was so difficult to drive
32:29
Speaker 1: last year that even Max couldn't drive it. Let's not
32:31
Speaker 1: forget for a few races around about the Italian Grand
32:33
Speaker 1: Prix even he said this is too much, and clearly
32:36
Speaker 1: the progress this year has been minimal on that front.
32:39
Speaker 1: It dispensed with the only experienced driver in its lineup
32:42
Speaker 1: that has a history of success at Red Bull Racing,
32:44
Speaker 1: which was Daniel Ricardo. Now we can argue about whether
32:47
Speaker 1: or not a driver who failed to adapt to the
32:49
Speaker 1: Claren car and was okay against Yuki Sinoda would have
32:52
Speaker 1: been able to cut it. You could also argue, though,
32:54
Speaker 1: on the other hand, that well, that's where he's driving
32:56
Speaker 1: style was developed in cars built by Red Bull, so
32:59
Speaker 1: surely having brought him back to racing balls or whatever
33:01
Speaker 1: it was called at the time, he was worth a crack,
33:05
Speaker 1: considering that at this point they were at the bottom
33:06
Speaker 1: of the batrel with no decisions to make. But then,
33:09
Speaker 1: most of all, the driver that they've spent millions in
33:11
Speaker 1: developing with Honda, they've continued to let wither on the vine.
33:15
Speaker 1: It's almost like they've chosen the most difficult option and
33:18
Speaker 1: had hoped that that would be enough that they'd pull
33:21
Speaker 1: it out of the bag. That would be a miracle move.
33:24
Speaker 1: But it just doesn't make any sense that the logical
33:28
Speaker 1: decision making there. And I think there's also another element here,
33:30
Speaker 1: And I thought it was interesting that Liam himself sort
33:33
Speaker 1: of pointed to it on Sunday night. He didn't use
33:35
Speaker 1: his excuse. He's been really trying to front up and
33:38
Speaker 1: cop all the responsibility in the blame. And I guess
33:40
Speaker 1: not a lot else you can do when you're qualifying last.
33:43
Speaker 1: But he said, compared to all the other rookie drivers
33:45
Speaker 1: who've had in some cases thousands of kilometers of testing
33:49
Speaker 1: in previous editions of their team's cars, And think of
33:52
Speaker 1: Andre kim Antonelli year, even Jack Do and a few others,
33:56
Speaker 1: despite him being a red bull driver, he's had almost
33:59
Speaker 1: none the odd test here and there. Often they've been
34:02
Speaker 1: in Alpha TAWI or RV or racing bulls cars when
34:06
Speaker 1: you want to call them. So there's a Minati thrown
34:07
Speaker 1: in there as well, but didn't have that testing program.
34:10
Speaker 1: I mean the car that is now notoriously difficult to drive,
34:14
Speaker 1: and after only not even one and a half days
34:17
Speaker 1: of preseason testing, considering he lost a lot of his
34:20
Speaker 1: sole day to both weather and technical problems. Remarkably, that
34:24
Speaker 1: is a pretty difficult position to be in. And you know, okay,
34:27
Speaker 1: there's all those people have to say. Oh, you know,
34:28
Speaker 1: if one's not a finishing school and you're not on anything,
34:30
Speaker 1: you've got to be the finished product whatever. That's a
34:33
Speaker 1: pretty raw way to come into a team that expects,
34:35
Speaker 1: probably against realistic expectations, to try and win both championships
34:40
Speaker 1: this year. So it's a rough way to be But
34:43
Speaker 1: I think whatever way you cut it, Red Bull Racing
34:45
Speaker 1: has continuously, through its decision making, made this problem for
34:49
Speaker 1: itself and now it's panicking and doesn't know what to
34:52
Speaker 1: do about it.
34:52
Speaker 2: Panic's a good word, by the way, f one's not
34:54
Speaker 2: a finishing school, thank you, Mark Webber, one of his
34:56
Speaker 2: favorite sayings. So if that's the case, maybe maybe signed
35:00
Speaker 2: Carlos Science when he's available. He'd probably be a pretty
35:02
Speaker 2: decent candidate for that second seat. But that's another story.
35:05
Speaker 2: But your point on Lawson not being able to just
35:09
Speaker 2: hammer around a bunch of testing tracks like Antonelli did
35:12
Speaker 2: last year is really valid, and you do wonder that
35:16
Speaker 2: there's no pace or statistical justification for having Ricardo in
35:20
Speaker 2: the car for the back half of last year. If
35:22
Speaker 2: they'd gotten rid of Perez at the mid season break,
35:25
Speaker 2: which was being mooted, at least we would have got
35:28
Speaker 2: some sort of decision on whether Daniel was the right
35:30
Speaker 2: person for the job if you put him in for that.
35:32
Speaker 2: Because the Constructors Championship was toased at that point, that
35:34
Speaker 2: wasn't happening, So I'm not really sure what you're going
35:37
Speaker 2: to lose by actually finding out whether he could adapt
35:39
Speaker 2: to that car. You had probably a seven or eight
35:41
Speaker 2: race sample size. The answer, based on the evidence that
35:43
Speaker 2: we've seen before, was probably not. But then at least
35:46
Speaker 2: Lawson gets to do all of the getting all the
35:49
Speaker 2: bugs out and doing all that outside of the spotlight,
35:51
Speaker 2: like Antonelli did, like Jack Doing did. As you mentioned,
35:54
Speaker 2: maybe that was the right course of action in retrospect,
35:57
Speaker 2: but this is the question. So say they make the
36:01
Speaker 2: swap for Suzuka and Yuki Sonoda, who they've publicly rejected
36:04
Speaker 2: a thousand times at this point ends up in the
36:06
Speaker 2: seat next to a Stappan. Why is he going to
36:09
Speaker 2: do any better in a car that's clearly got its
36:12
Speaker 2: limitations and is clearly going to be difficult to drive
36:15
Speaker 2: for anyone else other than one of the best drivers
36:17
Speaker 2: in the history of Formula One. And the parallel that
36:21
Speaker 2: I'll make here taking two wheels off here and putting
36:24
Speaker 2: my motor GP hat on is We only really found
36:27
Speaker 2: out how bad Honda was when Mark Marskeys got injured
36:31
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, because he papered over the cracks of
36:34
Speaker 2: where that bike was going developmentally for the latter part
36:37
Speaker 2: of the twenty tens and just kept winning world championships
36:39
Speaker 2: because he was Mark Marquez. And as soon as he
36:41
Speaker 2: got injured and was not himself for the best part
36:43
Speaker 2: of four years, that bike and that program went absolutely nowhere.
36:48
Speaker 2: It was probably hiding in plain sight, but he was
36:50
Speaker 2: so brilliant that he was papering over the cracks. And
36:53
Speaker 2: you look at what Vstapan's done at Red Bull the
36:54
Speaker 2: last couple of years, yes, twenty twenty three. It was
36:56
Speaker 2: clearly a fantastic car, so fantastic in fact, that even
36:59
Speaker 2: Sergia Perez WANs and races in it, but as soon
37:02
Speaker 2: as it became a difficult car. We saw what he
37:05
Speaker 2: did last year, particularly in the back half of last year.
37:08
Speaker 2: That's not a championship that too many other drivers would
37:11
Speaker 2: have won last year, and I think that's where you
37:13
Speaker 2: see his quality. The fact that he's scratching around trying
37:16
Speaker 2: to get random fourth places out of a car that's
37:18
Speaker 2: clearly more difficult this year than last shows you a
37:21
Speaker 2: how good he is and b how much that car
37:23
Speaker 2: has lost its way. So if you stick Yuki Sonoda
37:25
Speaker 2: in there, or Christian Horner wakes up one morning and says,
37:28
Speaker 2: let's get Avid Lindbladd in here, let's get him a
37:30
Speaker 2: super license, or they go and get Valterie Botass off
37:33
Speaker 2: the Mercedes bench or something to put in that second car,
37:36
Speaker 2: why is it going to be any better than Lawson,
37:39
Speaker 2: who a few weeks ago they were investing in him
37:42
Speaker 2: and they were going to give him time. I go
37:45
Speaker 2: back to what I said originally, he has got to
37:47
Speaker 2: be in the car for Suzuka because that takes one
37:49
Speaker 2: variable off the table. He knows the circuit probably better
37:52
Speaker 2: than any circuit on the Formula one calendar, and he
37:55
Speaker 2: raced there before. If it's this bad again after Suzuka,
37:58
Speaker 2: then knock yourself out. Fine, somebody else to put that
38:00
Speaker 2: second seat. The question is if it's not him, then
38:03
Speaker 2: who is it?
38:04
Speaker 1: Yeah? And if they do make the swap and Yuki
38:06
Speaker 1: so to qualify as eighteenth at his first race, then
38:10
Speaker 1: what do you do? What do you do after that?
38:12
Speaker 1: And I think that's the more philosophical, the deeper question here,
38:16
Speaker 1: And to return to your Honda analogy, because I think
38:19
Speaker 1: it is a really good one and it's interesting that
38:21
Speaker 1: we have two, i think, very similar examples in two
38:24
Speaker 1: different sports. If Maxwstaffen were to leave the team at
38:30
Speaker 1: the end of the season, as is often being rumored,
38:32
Speaker 1: are you going to tell me that whoever replaces him
38:34
Speaker 1: alongside Liam Lass? And Nuki said, whoever are going to
38:37
Speaker 1: be qualifying this car? Okay, we're different rules next year,
38:39
Speaker 1: but whatever, just at the back and we'll just have
38:42
Speaker 1: to assume that Red Bull Racing is a midfield at
38:44
Speaker 1: best car when in the hands of someone like maximstaff
38:47
Speaker 1: and it's capable of finishing on the podium. It's a
38:50
Speaker 1: question that Red Bull Racing has to grapple with and
38:52
Speaker 1: it's sort of interesting because next year's car is all
38:55
Speaker 1: theoretical at this point, right, but it's being built by
38:57
Speaker 1: the same people we've seen in the past. Similar characteristics
39:00
Speaker 1: carry across even quite significant regulation changes, even if the
39:03
Speaker 1: car ultimately behaves in a different way. What guarantees there
39:06
Speaker 1: that you build a car that isn't as extreme to
39:09
Speaker 1: drive as this because this is all you've known for
39:11
Speaker 1: the last now what is it seven or eight years
39:13
Speaker 1: since Daniel left, probably including the last year or two
39:15
Speaker 1: of Daniel's career there. I think that that is a
39:18
Speaker 1: bigger question for Red Bull Racing because the second that,
39:21
Speaker 1: like Honda learned, the second your main guy leaves, you're
39:24
Speaker 1: in a lot of trouble and you were on the
39:26
Speaker 1: back foot and you were possibly years away from returning
39:28
Speaker 1: to where you thought you were because you only have
39:30
Speaker 1: access to drivers who are not the greatest of the generation.
39:33
Speaker 2: Well, Marquees was world chairmaned in twenty nineteen, hurt himself
39:35
Speaker 2: in the first race of twenty twenty and missed the
39:37
Speaker 2: rest of that season, and Honda has not fired a
39:40
Speaker 2: shot since. Marquez won a few races when he came
39:43
Speaker 2: back with one working shoulders because he's Mark Marquez and
39:46
Speaker 2: there were a few anti clockwise tracks in there, and
39:49
Speaker 2: Alex Rinz won one race for them in twenty twenty three,
39:52
Speaker 2: and they have basically been nowhere for six years. To
39:55
Speaker 2: think of a manufacturer that just won Constructors championships for
39:59
Speaker 2: fun in that s for so many years. You think
40:01
Speaker 2: of that repsol hon the bike and all the amazing
40:03
Speaker 2: riders that rode on it, and they've been an absolute
40:05
Speaker 2: after thought since the one difference maker they had was
40:09
Speaker 2: first injured and second left. And this is the conundrum
40:12
Speaker 2: that Red Bull is now in because you look at
40:14
Speaker 2: these other teams. McLaren's got this settle driver lineup of
40:18
Speaker 2: two guys on a similar age range and trajectory. Ferrari
40:22
Speaker 2: has Charla Clair, who's the peer of that generation and
40:25
Speaker 2: the greatest driver statistically in world championship history as his teammate,
40:29
Speaker 2: and Mercedes says Antonelli, who's eighteen and clearly the future,
40:32
Speaker 2: and George Russell's not half bad either. But it's just
40:35
Speaker 2: such a mess. But as you said before, it's a
40:37
Speaker 2: mess of its own making, and you do wonder what
40:41
Speaker 2: the course of action needs to be now so publicly
40:46
Speaker 2: go against what they said about laws and so soon
40:48
Speaker 2: into a twenty four race season where he hasn't had
40:51
Speaker 2: a chance to drive circuits that he's actually raced on before.
40:54
Speaker 2: Would be completely crazy, but because it's them, I'll actually
40:58
Speaker 2: believe it.
40:58
Speaker 1: If it happens, only team you'd believe. And of course
41:01
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be a driver market situation without Franco Colopindo's
41:05
Speaker 1: name being mentioned only very briefly here, but reports out
41:08
Speaker 1: of Spain suggests that Red Book could be returning to
41:10
Speaker 1: that well is of course the reserve driver at Alpine.
41:13
Speaker 1: I think there's probably more of a contract play there,
41:15
Speaker 1: just reinforcing to Alpine, which I think. I don't know
41:18
Speaker 1: if you'd say they've been impressed with Jack Douhan, but
41:20
Speaker 1: certainly with his speed because he's been a match pretty
41:22
Speaker 1: much with pire gasllyin qualifying. No has a pretty ordinary
41:25
Speaker 1: set of races in China, but nonetheless has been quick.
41:28
Speaker 1: You know, if you're Franco Colopindo's management thinking, oh, actually,
41:30
Speaker 1: hang on, it might be in a little bit of
41:32
Speaker 1: trouble here because Franco was quick, but he wasn't, by
41:34
Speaker 1: any stretch outstandingly quick. Maybe you're just saying, well, we've
41:38
Speaker 1: got options if you're not going to promote us and
41:39
Speaker 1: our sponsors to the main seat.
41:41
Speaker 2: So I'm just scratching Franco Colopinto off my podcast Bingo
41:45
Speaker 2: kar because we're contractually obliged to mention him. But the
41:48
Speaker 2: curiosity for me, so if he ends up in a
41:50
Speaker 2: Red Ball, so if.
41:51
Speaker 1: You wouldn't rually going to straight to Red Bull Racing
41:53
Speaker 1: either or you're considering.
41:57
Speaker 2: Very possibly, But who's getting the transfer payment there? Given
42:00
Speaker 2: he's a Williams driver on loan to alp and he'll
42:02
Speaker 2: be on loan to Red Bull at this point, Colopino
42:04
Speaker 2: might just drive for every team between now the end
42:06
Speaker 2: of the season.
42:07
Speaker 1: He's the ultimate subletting situation. Decision could be made as
42:11
Speaker 1: soon as this week, or we might be hanging out
42:14
Speaker 1: to Japan. Who knows. Maybe Red Bull just choose not
42:16
Speaker 1: to turn up and answer no questions as a result.
42:18
Speaker 1: I'll wait and see, But that does seem like a
42:20
Speaker 1: timely time to make a couple of big predictions. Thanks
42:24
Speaker 1: to our complete home filtration Crystal Ball, we've got a
42:28
Speaker 1: couple of established rules. Now. I guess you can make
42:30
Speaker 1: any prediction you like next week, next month. Twenty twenty
42:33
Speaker 1: nine f one Supercarsman and GP. Whatever you want, so
42:37
Speaker 1: why don't you kick us off? Matt? What's your bold prediction?
42:39
Speaker 2: I am looking ahead to this tripleheader with Japan, Bahrain
42:43
Speaker 2: and Saudi Arabia. The last two horrible time zone for
42:46
Speaker 2: Australian fans, one for the enthusiast. Japan's fantastic because it's Japan.
42:50
Speaker 2: I don't think McLaren's going to win the first five
42:53
Speaker 2: races of the season, and I think they're going to
42:55
Speaker 2: lose one of these next three races in Japan, bar
42:57
Speaker 2: Rain and Saudi. And my prediction is that standing on
43:00
Speaker 2: the top step of the podium, because of their mercurial
43:02
Speaker 2: form at the moment, is going to be a Ferrari driver.
43:05
Speaker 2: I think charlote Clare's going to win one of those
43:06
Speaker 2: three bases.
43:07
Speaker 1: Nice I like it a lot. I'm going to go
43:10
Speaker 1: with also one for this triple header, but specifically the
43:13
Speaker 1: Japanese Grand Prix. I'm not going to predict this Red
43:15
Speaker 1: Bull driver situation because good luck with that. A mug's
43:19
Speaker 1: game with Red Bull, but I am going to predict
43:22
Speaker 1: that regardless of the team, Yukisy Nota will stand on
43:25
Speaker 1: the podium at his homegrown prox. Oh wow, you can
43:28
Speaker 1: decide why or what happens. I haven't looked at the
43:31
Speaker 1: weather forecast in Japan, but I just think regardless of
43:35
Speaker 1: whether he's either going to get to Red Bull and
43:37
Speaker 1: he's having a great time because he's in such good
43:39
Speaker 1: form and I think he's got the right I think, weirdly,
43:41
Speaker 1: he's got the right mindset as a result of all
43:43
Speaker 1: the shenanigans that have happen in the last twelve months.
43:45
Speaker 1: I think he's just sort of stealed himself with this
43:48
Speaker 1: being his lot and he's just got to make the
43:50
Speaker 1: most of it. But on the other hand, he's been
43:52
Speaker 1: in really great form, even for racing bulls, you know.
43:54
Speaker 1: I like that. Max sort of suggested, well, they're pretty
43:56
Speaker 1: close to me, and it shows you how much easy
43:59
Speaker 1: the car is to drive. You know, it'll be interesting.
44:02
Speaker 1: I don't know if the car is going to suit
44:03
Speaker 1: the circuit, but I just think he's been doing such
44:05
Speaker 1: a good job of kind of proving Red Bull wrong
44:08
Speaker 1: and I think it's gonna be the ultimate performance one
44:10
Speaker 1: way or another.
44:11
Speaker 2: I do like that, and I would like it even
44:12
Speaker 2: more if it was in a racing bulls car rather
44:14
Speaker 2: than a Red bull Car because you look at the
44:17
Speaker 2: Constructors Championship after these first two rounds, to see them
44:20
Speaker 2: down where they are and only three points is absolutely
44:23
Speaker 2: no way representative of how fast that team's been so far.
44:26
Speaker 2: You look at both Sonoda and Hadji were both really
44:28
Speaker 2: quick in China. The car actually looks like something that's
44:31
Speaker 2: predictable and you can get a lap time out of
44:33
Speaker 2: They just have been incredibly unlucky with crash damage, a
44:36
Speaker 2: few operational erarors and what have you, so a big result.
44:39
Speaker 2: They kind of feel due for that. But wow, a
44:42
Speaker 2: Japanese driver on our home podium. I was there the
44:44
Speaker 2: last time that happened, Kamu Kobe Ashy, and I know
44:47
Speaker 2: that you'll be in Suzuka. Seeing a Japanese driver on
44:50
Speaker 2: their home podium is one of the great joys of
44:52
Speaker 2: covering international motorsports. So for your sake, I hope it
44:55
Speaker 2: comes true.
44:55
Speaker 1: Yes, I'd love to see it. A great story the way,
44:57
Speaker 1: but that's all the time. We have a pit Talk today.
45:00
Speaker 1: You can subscribe to Pittalk wherever you get your favorite podcast,
45:02
Speaker 1: and you can leave us a rating and a review
45:04
Speaker 1: as well. This weekend, a reminder is the America's Grand Prix.
45:07
Speaker 1: That's six am Eastern daylight time on Monday, or even better,
45:11
Speaker 1: the sprint is at seven am on Sunday morning. Very civil.
45:14
Speaker 1: You can keep up to date with all the latestef one,
45:15
Speaker 1: Supercars and MotoGP news at foxsports dot com dot au.
45:18
Speaker 1: From Matt Clayton and me, Michael Lomonado. Thanks very much
45:21
Speaker 1: for your company. We'll catch you next week.