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The Motorsport Brief: Dutch Grand Prix-view · Rusty's Garage

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A listener production.
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Welcome to the Motorsport Brief.
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Formula One is back after the summer break and today we'll preview the Dutch Grand Prix with the virtual Statman.
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G'day everybody, Rusty here.
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For this ep of the shortcast, we have the stats guru that all the big networks around the world use joining us.
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Sean Kelly is already in Europe and we'll get to him in just a moment.
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Yesterday, our latest feature ep dropped.
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It's with Emma Gilmore, round winner in the New Zealand Rally Championship, a title runner-up there on more than one occasion.
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Her love of the sport and the pursuit of it,
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has taken her all around the world and back again.
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There was Rally Cross.
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She competed in Japan, tackled the iconic New Zealand WRC rounds, and recently was a part of the legendary McLaren team in Extreme E. Now, what I didn't realise before we recorded is that Emma...
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hadn't spoken in detail about a major crash she had last year.
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She opens up on that, her very diligent approach to the recovery and getting back behind the wheel of her awesome Citroen Rally car.
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Two great parts, that pod, an inspiration for women in motorsport in this corner of the world.
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But Emma does it through this relatively straightforward approach, just being a competitor.
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Now, the F1 season is crazy busy, so everyone involved deserves a break, right?
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Hasn't stopped our thirst for info while we all waited for Zanford to roll around.
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For a look at the season so far, the all-important back end of the series, and we'll do it from a numbers perspective because that tells a little more of the story, we have Sean Kelly, the go-to for this type of data.
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He probably...
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Properly loves it, better known as the Virtual Statman, as I said.
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It is his garage debut.
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Hello, mate.
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Thank you for coming on.
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Good morning to you, sir, from the other side of the world.
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We're in the Netherlands this week.
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We're starting to get back to the second half of the Grand Prix season and back to my role as
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professionally jet lagged, I think is probably the best way to describe my role.
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You wear many caps on race weekend too.
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Just give our listeners a sense of that.
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And if you're comfortable sharing, because you work with a number of broadcasters and you supply them with some all important data that helps them when it comes to commentary and telling the stories.
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Yeah, effectively, I have two concurrent jobs in Formula One.
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Mainly, my main job is I'm essentially the chief statistician to the TV broadcasters.
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So if you've watched Formula One on television, which I presume most of your audience will have done, the chances are the facts and figures they've heard in the broadcast were written by me.
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Whether you've seen them in the graphics, whether you've heard them mentioned by the announcers themselves, a vast majority of that content is written by myself.
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Um, and then also when I'm at the track, I'm also the master of ceremonies for F1 experiences in their champions club.
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So, um, they figured, um, instead of having me as the, uh, as the expert guest, they thought, well, why don't we cut out the middleman and make you the host?
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And then if you, when you're interviewing people, you can be a nerd with them as well.
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Um, so yeah, when the cars go back in the garage, I go back on the stage and say, well, what a practice session that was folks.
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And my next guest is blah, blah, blah.
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And you do that in different ways with supplying stat packs, which set you up for the weekend as a broadcaster.
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And there is a live blog element to it as well, which greatly assists us.
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Correct me if I'm wrong here.
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Irish heritage now living in the US.
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Does the love slash obsession with statistics come from being good at numbers as a kid and kind of having this crazy retention for milestones?
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When, where, how did it all start?
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It was an accident, honestly.
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I didn't, I kind of fell into it because I, the way I watched Formula One as a fan, I found that interesting without realizing I was finding it interesting.
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I thought everybody who watched Formula One had just as deep of an interest in the facts and figures behind it as I did.
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So I would sit there watching it on television and I'd say,
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Well, that's not happened since 1968.
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And, you know, and of course, whoever would be commentating whatever broadcast, whatever country you'd be in, they wouldn't say it until 25 minutes later.
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And people would say to me, why don't you get a job doing that?
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You'd be really helpful to them because they're probably wondering that when you're saying it at the television, they're probably wondering what the answer is to that.
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Why don't you get a job?
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And initially I thought, wow, I don't know, is that job really exists?
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But it turns out that job didn't really exist in terms of doing it for everybody.
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I just sort of flied into it.
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It was just like a case of improvising a job because once I decided I wanted to get into Formula One, I was like, well, what will I do?
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So I got hired in that capacity.
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21 years ago as a researcher.
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And then, of course, once you get into Formula One, you just think, right, well, you're not kicking me out of here.
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This is really fun.
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So I started to think, well, what about all the other broadcasters?
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Doesn't everybody need this sort of work?
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So it grew from there.
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And, yeah, as I always say to people, if you like stats,
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If you're into your stats when it comes to Grand Prix racing, you're welcome.
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And if you find it a real distraction from what you've come to watch, I'm sorry.
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But either way, it is my responsibility to come up with that content in a broadcast.
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And I'll bet there's been an uptick of interest with the success of Drive to Survive as well.
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Let's look at 2024.
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Variety of winners, lots of stories, a decent battle in the constructors.
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Are there, you know, kind of in an overall sense, some numbers that make you think this year might stand apart a little bit from more recent seasons?
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Oh, without question.
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This season has been a very...
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Jekyll and Hyde season because of the first five Grand Prix, we were just watching a rerun of last year where Max Verstappen was clearing off into the sunset and we're all running out of ways to dress this up in terms of an exciting thing because with all due respect to Max Verstappen, what he and Red Bull did has been completely phenomenal and we shouldn't downplay that.
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It has been something with dominance we have never seen in Grand Prix history.
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The first five Grand Prix, six Grand Prix up to Miami this year, Max's
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average margin of victory whenever he would finish was 14 seconds.
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So he wasn't just winning the Grand Prix.
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He was annihilating everyone.
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And then from Miami onwards, we got a completely different season.
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Not that Max and Red Bull suddenly became uncompetitive, but all of a sudden it was as though that they were brought down to everyone else's level.
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So suddenly it was anybody's race.
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Now we're coming into this weekend.
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The Dutch Grand Prix is next.
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It's the 15th race of the season.
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So we've got 14 Grand Prix so far.
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We've had four constructors win a race and not just win a race.
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They've won multiple Grand Prix.
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Now, we haven't had any Grand Prix season where four constructors have won multiple races since 1990.
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It's been 34 years since we had four constructors all winning multiple Grand Prix.
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Now, what's amazing is they've done that in the first 14 races of a season.
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The last time four constructors had multiple wins in the first 14 races of the season was in 1985.
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So it's been four decades since we've had a season quite like this one.
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And it seems phenomenal.
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If you bear in mind where we were around about four months ago, when Max and Red Bull looked completely indestructible, that we've suddenly come to this situation where it's anybody's race.
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We're going into East Grand Prix now thinking,
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I have no idea.
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I mean, as recently as the last Grand Prix in Belgium, Toto Wolff completely wrote off Mercedes' chances of winning the race right before the race, in the grid walk before the Grand Prix said, I don't think we've got a chance today.
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And they ended up finishing one, too.
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Now, I know George Russell was disqualified, but that just shows you even Toto Wolff was going into it thinking,
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Nah, I don't think we've got a shot at this.
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And suddenly his team comes up one, two.
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And this is fantastic.
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It's fantastic for me, even as a statistician.
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I always say Formula One is never more exciting than when you or I go into it and say, I haven't got a clue who is going to win this one.
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I love it.
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Something to kind of salivate or be excited about for the second half of the season.
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I'm glad you brought up Mercedes.
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Let's go to Sir Lewis Hamilton.
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The kind of fairytale involvement of his in Formula One, that story continues.
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Wins and podiums in a year, as you rightly say, where Mercedes didn't really think they would be
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in the mix.
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This is a nice bookend, Sean, to his time there.
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Maybe just remind people of a couple of the numbers for him because it goes deeper than just the seven world titles.
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I mean, there's some crazy impressive things he has done in his time in the sport.
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Without question.
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I mean, when you go to the record books, you'll find Hamilton number one in almost everything.
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Of course, there's the very
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controversial end to the 2021 season, which cost him an eighth world title.
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Many people would say in inverted commas, he is an eight time world champion.
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As it is, he's tied with Michael Schumacher for seven world titles, but he leads in wins.
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He leads in pole positions.
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He just got his 200th career podium finish.
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He's closing in on the only, the only real performance record he doesn't own is the record for fastest laps.
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And he's only 10 behind Michael Schumacher on that one.
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So he's nearly got that one as well.
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He leads all time most laps led, most points, most wins with a single team, which is what, 84, I think it is with Mercedes.
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He's got 105 in total in Grand Prix racing.
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The numbers are off the scale.
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And of course, he's driven cars that are powered by Mercedes since the start of his F1 career.
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He's never driven a Grand Prix in his life.
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that wasn't powered by Mercedes-Benz, whether it was McLaren or with the works Mercedes team.
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Now, we should say
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But when he moved from McLaren to Mercedes at the start of 2013, we all thought he's committing career suicide with this move because he was moving from a team in McLaren where he won the championship and were regularly in contention.
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It's a masterstroke.
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Yeah.
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Retrospectively, it's a masterstroke.
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But at the time, he was moving to Mercedes, who had won a grand total of, I think, one Grand Prix or maybe two Grand Prix.
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I think it was one Grand Prix at the time.
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Should have looked this up before I started, really.
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I think it was one.
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But yeah, in three seasons back as a work team, they were back.
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I know they certainly didn't win anything in 2010.
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They didn't even get on the podium in 2011.
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That's amazing.
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Imagine Mercedes not getting a single podium finish in a season.
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That happened in 2011.
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And by 2013, Hamilton was driving for them.
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And, of course, he ushered in an era of dominance, which is not entirely...
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You know, it's not a fluke is what I'm trying to say.
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It's not just like, oh, he just jumped straight into the best car.
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Now admittedly, Mercedes made, made the best use of the hybrid regulations.
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Um, but McLaren of course went into the doldrums once Hamilton left.
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So it was a perfectly timed move.
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And that doesn't mean looking at his move to Ferrari.
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Uh, at the moment we're looking at it thinking at the start of this year, when Mercedes were in the doldrums, you're thinking, yeah, okay.
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Sounds like a good idea.
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Move to a team that's winning races.
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Admittedly, they're not winning races like Red Bull are winning races, but at least they're winning races.
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Now, all of a sudden, we've got this almost unprecedented situation in living memory where suddenly all the four teams can win a race, and Mercedes have won three of the last four, and suddenly you're like, ooh, I don't know.
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Why is he leaving Mercedes now?
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It's just getting good.
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But that could easily, honestly, the wind can change direction right now.
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It's so very close.
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And you know, who knows in the next couple of weekends, it could be Ferrari that wins.
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And then suddenly it looks like a game, a genius move.
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So, uh, it is, it's a fascinating time for Lewis Hamilton and for Lewis Hamilton fans.
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He's going to be 40 years old when he starts his career at Ferrari.
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Now, bear in mind when the last half a century of Grand Prix racing, we've had just one Grand Prix, one Grand Prix, one by a driver over the age of 40.
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And of course.
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That was in Australia.
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That was Nigel Mantle in Adelaide in 94.
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So it will be very, very unusual, statistically speaking, to Hamilton to make a success at Ferrari after he turns the age of 40.
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You normally see an athlete going to decline, but they don't always.
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Fernando Alonso was on the podium eight times, I think it was last year, over the age of 40.
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So it doesn't always work that way, but it's a challenge, put it that way.
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Quick thoughts on Zandvoort this weekend.
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Incredible atmosphere in that place.
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I love the fact that that legendary venue is back on the calendar in relatively recent years.
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Any potential milestones that might be chalked up there this weekend?
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Well, the most obvious one will be Max Verstappen reaching his 200th career Grand Prix.
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And what a place to do it.
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I mean, Zandvoort is...
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It's almost like a Dutch national holiday weekend.
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To anybody who's ever been to the Dutch Grand Prix, you will know that everybody is decked in orange.
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There's orange smoke and flares and all that stuff.
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And not only that, but Max Verstappen has lived up to instilling.
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So far, going into this weekend, Max Verstappen has won
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every Dutch Grand Prix from pole position that has taken place in his lifetime so far, because the Dutch Grand Prix fell off the calendar after 85, Max was born in 97, it came back in 2021 on the top of his popularity, and he's won every single time from pole at Zandvoort.
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So he gives the fans what they want.
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Will he be able to do it this weekend?
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This will be the hardest test because he will go into this one knowing
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that the car is not where it should be.
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And it's not that the, it was always the race pace that was convincing.
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With that said, you know, he had the first seven poles of the season.
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He's only started from pole once in the last seven since then, but he still has a single lap pace.
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You know, bear in mind in, in Spa, for instance,
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In Q3, it was more than half a second quicker than everybody else.
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Admittedly, there was a 10-place penalty.
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He didn't start from pole position.
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But Max still has the pace to be quickest.
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It just now where Red Bull had a margin of error, they now do not have that margin of error.
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They have to execute perfectly.
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And if things don't go quite the way that they need it to go, Max doesn't win the race anymore, whereas previously he could have recovered from it.
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Um, so I know I'm sure Matt will be very keen to win on his, uh, 200th Grand Prix start.
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Uh, but it is certainly not a foregone conclusion.
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I mean, he never ran in the top two in the Belgian Grand Prix, nevermind leading a lap.
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He didn't even finish.
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He didn't even complete a lap in second place, uh, in that Grand Prix.
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And the thing is, I can't believe we're saying it based on where we were earlier this season.
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Red Bull could lose the lead in the constructors championship in this race.
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It has been, by the time we get to the race day, it'll be 826 consecutive days that Red Bull have led the Constructors' Championship.
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They took the lead after the 2022 Spanish Grand Prix.
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They have not lost the lead since then.
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But McLaren are within striking distance.
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I think the gap is 41 points.
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There's 44 points, the maximum point you can score in a Grand Prix.
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If Red Bull have a nightmare weekend and McLaren have a perfect weekend, we could see a change at the top.
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Now, I'm not saying it will happen.
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It is a long shot.
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But that is the trajectory of McLaren right now, who have clearly been the fastest two-car team.
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Maybe you could say Max has been the fastest car.
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But McLaren, clearly, in the last three months or so, have been the fastest two-car team.
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And they have been chipping away at that gap.
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And McLaren now look almost like the bookies' favorite, I'd say, if they're not.
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to win that Constructor Championship.
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Still 10 Grand Prix to chip away at that 40-odd-point lead.
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Hey, Sean, can we get you to hang on there for just a little bit?
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We're going to squeeze in a quick break on Rusty's Garage.
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Back with more in just a few moments.
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We'll be right back.
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This is the Motorsport Brief, our garage shortcast.
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For all sorts of news and stories happening in our game, with Formula One firing up for the second half of the 2024 season, we thought we'd get on Sean Kelly, the stats guru for the sport.
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You can find him at virtualstatman, one word, on Instagram and X.
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Let's get back to the convo with him now.
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Let's have a little bit of a kind of Tasman focus towards the end of our conversation here.
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Some have compared Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo's performances at RB to kind of make judgments on both of them respectively.
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What are you kind of seeing in the numbers?
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And I'm asking that without even kind of looking, Sean, I feel like recent form for Dan, not to mention being fired up about what Jacques Villeneuve said in Canada, has maybe helped reduce a bit of the microscopic focus around him.
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I think there's obviously been a lot of speculation about Ricciardo because he is a big net.
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And there is no doubt.
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I mean, when he was sort of shoveled back into that Alfa Tari drive last year, I said at the time, I said, this is, I mean, how's he going to make this work?
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He has to completely destroy Tsunoda because if Tsunoda beats him,
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It's curtains for his career because it seems that Red Bull, for whatever reason, don't fancy Tsunoda alongside Max Verstappen.
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So no matter how good Tsunoda does, Ricciardo will have to be better than that.
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And how could he ever achieve that when he's been shoved into the car in mid-season?
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Now, of course, it was this race last year where he broke his hand and he had to miss all those Grand Prixs.
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But he did have some fantastic runs.
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Mexico City last year, I think he was fourth on the grid.
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He had a great run in the Miami Sprint this year.
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But he is still trailing Yuki Tsunoda, I think, by 10 points in the championship right now.
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So Tsunoda's had the upper hand in qualifying and the Grand Prix as a general trend.
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So that puts Ricardo in a very awkward spot.
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Because it's a case of, well, you know, we were expecting a little bit more.
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It's probably the best way of putting it.
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Um, with that said, Liam Lawson came in last year and I didn't have very high expectations of Liam Lawson.
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I've been, I watched him in, in F3 and F2 and I thought, well, you know, okay, um,
19:03
know i don't look at him and thinking oh this is the next best app and coming along but they put him in that car and i thought to myself wow he has really done a spectacular job like and the thing is it's these small moments where you really make your career those moments where the opportunity knocks absolutely it doesn't come very often in formula one and it you know there are only 20 seats in formula one and there's 20 000 drivers who want them so when those opportunities come and you shine that's like wow
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nailed the audition there, Liam.
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That was fantastic.
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Like it's almost like the previous results you had in your career no longer apply.
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What we remember is an outstanding job in a deputizing role.
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And to me, I've had many, many Kiwi fans come up to me at Grand Prix this season and say, what do you think about Liam Lawson?
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What can he do to further increase his chances of getting a drive?
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And I said, to be honest, he's,
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sit on the bench, don't do anything else.
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He's already proven to us he should be in the conversation.
20:02
He's ticked all the boxes, yeah.
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Yeah, yeah.
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So it's almost like if they put him back in and say, here you go, have another quick go just to prove it to us.
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To me, it's like, no, I don't need that.
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I've already shown you I can do the job.
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Like, give me a full time seat.
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I don't need this sort of stand-in role.
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And it does, it puts a lot of pressure on someone like Ricciardo, who of course, as I said, is a big name.
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but probably has, let's say, probably earned a little bit more money than the likes of Liam Lawson, who would bite your hand off to get a drive.
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So it is an interesting time in the Red Bull market.
20:37
I noticed that while Red Bull have decided to keep Perez on, there's a lot of speculation about whether or not he was going to replace Checo Perez.
20:45
They didn't say definitely, okay, that's it.
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We're definitely not making any more changes this season.
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All they did was basically say.
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everything's the same for now.
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So there's an interesting option for Ricardo where he could get promoted to Red Bull because they don't fancy Sonoda and they don't want to put Lawson in alongside Max because you'll get, you could get eaten alive as a rookie goes straight into Max's team as a rookie driver.
21:10
So you want to put somebody in there who's been in that pressure before.
21:13
Hello, Daniel Ricardo.
21:14
Yep.
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Been in that drive before.
21:15
Or,
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But conversely, depending on what Helmut Marko feels like on any given day, it could be, Ricardo, you're right.
21:23
I'm putting Liam Lawson in the car for the rest of the season because I'm not impressed by you.
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So if ever there was a moment where you could light a fire under Daniel Ricciardo, it's right now.
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It's like, wow, it's everything to play for.
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It could be a career promotion or it could be career wilderness.
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So if ever you're going to try and drag a performance out of Daniel Ricciardo, it's going to be in the next couple of weekends, I would say.
21:45
Just one of the fascinating subplots to follow for all sorts of reasons.
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And we hope Liam does get a seat at the table, certainly full time in 2025.
21:53
Bit of chat as you and I record that Jack Doohan might land the seat at Alpine next season.
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Now, hopefully with Mercedes power there.
22:01
My brain is fried, Sean.
22:03
Been a while since we've had three, if it were to stay that way in 2025, three Aussies on the grid.
22:09
That would be amazing.
22:11
Yes.
22:12
And I didn't know you were going to ask me that question.
22:13
So I think off the top of my head, if I remember rightly, the last time we had three Australian drivers start a Grand Prix was the 1976 US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen.
22:24
And that would have been... Crazy.
22:28
It would have been Alan Jones, I think Larry Perkins and Warwick Brown, I think, are the three drivers that I'm talking about there.
22:35
Um, I have you, I've, I've had, I've run that stat before, so I, I, I'm, I'm fairly certain that that's right.
22:40
Um, but it's been a long time since it's been three Australian drivers and it is fascinating.
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We're, we're subject right now in, in global motorsport.
22:48
So a bit of a takeover from the Australians and New Zealand.
22:51
It's amazing.
22:51
It's amazing to me.
22:53
And it's particularly even more impressive that New Zealand's doing it.
22:56
New Zealand's turning into the Finland of the Southern Hemisphere.
22:58
Exactly.
22:59
You know, it's not a very big population, but massive success, you know, because you've got, you know, Scott McLaughlin and Scott Dixon in IndyCar.
23:08
You know, that's when people like Will Power aren't winning for Australia.
23:11
And then you've got Nick Cassidy and Mitch Evans in Formula E. And now you've got Liam Lawson trying to come through in Formula One.
23:19
That's a huge, as a percentage, that's huge that Kiwi drivers can achieve so much from such a relatively small population and from so far around the world.
23:30
Because it's not easy being an Australian or a New Zealand driver having to go to Europe and all that sort of stuff.
23:35
So it would be very impressive if we would have three Australian drivers on the grid and maybe, who knows, maybe even another, and a Kiwi as well.
23:44
You could have four drivers from that part of the world.
23:47
Um, which would be, which would be incredible.
23:50
You know, I mean, I'm sure you remember rusty.
23:52
I mean, there's been plenty of times in the recent past where there were none at all, um, before really Mark Webber broke through, there was a long period of wilderness.
24:02
Um, so, uh, it's fascinating.
24:04
And on a personal note, I just love it for the Australian grand prix, which is one of my absolute favorite weekends of the year.
24:10
When, you know, if you've got Aussies doing well, uh, and, and some New Zealand drivers in the mix.
24:14
It just makes the atmosphere even better at the Australian Grand Prix, which is one of the top venues of the year.
24:19
Fans ask me all the time as the host, they say, oh, which Grand Prix do you think we should go to next?
24:24
And I'll say, well, it depends what you like, blah, blah, blah, blah.
24:27
But one of the ones at the very top is always Albert Park, because I always say, oh, trust me, you cannot fail to have a fantastic time at that one.
24:34
And if there's Australians at the front, the more the merrier.
24:38
Well done on pulling that stat out to about three Aussies at 3 a.m. in the morning.
24:44
I'm very conscious of the timing of our chat here.
24:47
Hey, you've been great with your time.
24:48
To finish, Sean, who wins on Sunday given the special number that's going to be racked up for Max Verstappen?
24:56
I mean, who knows based on the recent form, obviously, but it'd be, you know, to use that word I pulled out of the dictionary before it would be a fairy tale if he could do it at home there, wouldn't it?
25:07
It would.
25:08
And I must say, I think Max, privately at least, I don't know if he'd ever admit this, I think he prefers it when he has to really get the elbows out.
25:19
Because we see Max at his absolute maximum Max, if you will, when he has to really fight for it.
25:25
Because I'm of the opinion that Max
25:30
showman drivers of Grand Prix racing.
25:32
I think he belongs in the category with Nigel Mansell and Gilles Villeneuve and Ronnie Peterson, like drivers who I would pay to watch that guy race a car because you know, you know if there's even a hint of a chance, he will just throw the car up there and say, right, let's see.
25:47
Let's see what happens at the apex.
25:49
I'm going to throw it up the inside and we'll see what happens.
25:51
And I love that about Max.
25:53
And we've lost that a little bit in the last year or two because he's been sailing off into the sunset.
25:58
Now, all of a sudden,
26:00
they're in a battle, particularly for the Constructors' Championship.
26:02
It might be, he might still win the Drivers' Championship, but the Constructors' is up for grabs.
26:06
So, what's that going to do for Max's psyche?
26:09
The possibility of going to a Dutch Grand Prix and seeing someone else win.
26:13
Because I think we go into it thinking that McLaren are probably the favourites right now.
26:19
But what does being the favourites mean?
26:21
Because,
26:22
as I said, you know, the wind can change direction and you could have a Leclerc on pole or, you know, and then suddenly, you know, there's, there's a bit of a back marker hold up and it's George Russell on pole.
26:31
It's fantastic right now that we have this, this almost chaos theory at the front.
26:37
So I would go in saying McLaren, we would rate as being the slight favorite, but what, you know, that, that's a, that's a big caveat on that because we thought Mercedes were nowhere in spa.
26:48
And of course they were one, two across the line.
26:50
So, um,
26:51
Yeah, I love that.
26:53
I love being able to say, I don't know.
26:57
Because for the last couple of years, we've all known who is going to favour it.
27:01
And now we're going into it thinking, I've got to watch this because it's anybody's race.
27:06
And even if Verstappen is sixth on the grid, we'll all go into it thinking,
27:11
Max could win it from six on the grid.
27:13
Oscar Piastri could win it from six on the grid.
27:16
Charles Leclerc could win it from six on the grid or whatever.
27:18
In fact, funny fact, the last six Dutch Grand Prix, the winner has either come from pole position or 10th on the grid with nothing in between.
27:28
So maybe the key to success this weekend is to be slowest in Q3.
27:32
If you can't be on pole position, be slowest in Q3.
27:35
And it's going to be one of those two drivers, whoever's first or 10th on the grid.
27:39
That's what the numbers say.
27:40
Don't shoot me.
27:41
I'm just a statistician.
27:42
Awesome insights from you, as always.
27:44
Good luck with the jet lag.
27:46
Go well with the jet setting for the rest of the season.
27:48
And, Sean, thank you so much for coming on the pod today.
27:50
Pleasure.
27:51
I look forward to speaking to you soon.
27:53
Now, naturally, stats don't paint the full picture you need to know about.
27:57
Engineering, driver performance, and a whole lot more.
28:00
But I love some of the things that he has unearthed there along the way.
28:04
Before we wrap up this edition, a moment for some heavy stuff.
28:08
Hear me out here.
28:09
Words, in many ways, really aren't good enough for this.
28:13
Please keep the Katik family and the little family and all their friends as well in your thoughts.
28:20
We lost Wayne Katik, former CEO of Supercars, who did some incredible things as well at Dick Johnson Racing.
28:27
Wayne was the perfect complement to Tony Cochran as the sport went through rapid growth.
28:32
He was an incredibly fair man, a great boss who made things happen.
28:37
His funeral was in the past week and just days ago, we also lost...
28:43
Campbell Little, whose CV on the engineering side of the game, two and four wheel, has some incredible highlights.
28:50
He was at Stone Brothers Racing, you'll remember, during that golden period.
28:54
And Craig Lowndes talks about the impact that Campbell had when they were together at Triple Eight.
28:59
He also worked for the sport, Campbell, in recent years and made a big impact there.
29:05
I was very saddened to hear of his passing too.
29:09
Campbell always made time for you.
29:12
He had this kind of gentle side to him.
29:15
He was serious, but a gentle side, and he was always willing to share his knowledge bank.
29:21
We hope both rest in peace.
29:23
It gives a little bit of perspective, doesn't it?
29:25
When we get caught up in moments of tension in sport, on and off the track, we're going
29:31
We are very lucky to do it, right, and to enjoy it as fans.
29:34
Look after your loved ones and feel fortunate that those two passed our way and made a real difference to the sport that we will all continue to benefit from.
29:45
That's it for this week.
29:46
Bye for now.