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Impressive Iwasa and Victorious Vesti - Formula 2 Saudi Arabia Review · The Undercut Podcast

0:00
Hello and welcome to the Undercut Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Jesse Billington, and
0:14
you wrote my name wrong there. You said you wrote this week's in advance and you had all
0:17
this time to check your spelling.
0:18
If you're saying your own last name wrong, that's hardly on me.
0:22
This is very true. Anyway, we'll get back down to hardtacks. In this week's episode,
0:26
we'll be reviewing all the Formula 2 action from Saudi Arabia. And I say we are joining
0:31
me in this foray is none other than Mr Timo Albus-Dailey. How are you?
0:36
I'm pretty darn good for a Monday evening. Jesse Billington, how are you?
0:40
Not too bad. I'm busy, but it's been another sort of hectic press day for Classic Car Weekly.
0:44
But yeah, we're on top of things. All things are going well. And of course, it is not just
0:49
the two of us. We are joined by a friend of the show, motorsport journalist, LA Wilshaw.
0:54
How are you?
0:55
I'm really good. Yeah, it's great to see you. And thank you so much for the invitation.
1:01
Yeah, always happy to have you on to talk all things feeder series. And this week specifically,
1:05
it's Formula 2, as that's what we've enjoyed from Saudi Arabia, from Jeddah on the core
1:10
niche. And we'll jump right in with what the hell has happened. And of course, the sort
1:16
of opening part of the weekend, we saw Victor Martens take pole position and back to back
1:21
pole positions for ART in Formula 2. Obviously, his teammate, Theo Butcher, taking pole in
1:26
Bahrain. Now Martens stepping up to the plate. Good signs early on from the young French
1:31
driver, do we think?
1:34
Yeah, absolutely. He's F3 champion, obviously. So he's coming in with some talent, and he
1:42
certainly knows how to win races. So why not? You know, why shouldn't he come in and lay
1:49
out his table like a lot of rookies have previously?
1:53
Very much taking the one of two approaches that we see from the top end of drivers that
1:59
come from F3 into F2. You either have your two season approach drivers, or you have your
2:03
I'm coming in, and we're just going to do this now. And he's very much in that category.
2:07
So it's not too surprising that he's adopted that strategy for his own. And again, like
2:14
LA said, why would we not want that?
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It's a nice competitive sort of opening stints to his season and his sort of championship
2:21
run. And it's enough to start making Theo Butcher sort of get on his toes and really
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have to think a lot more about the way he's going to construct his battle this year. So
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it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out in the long run, certainly. But
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it's also good if you're ART as a team in the whole, because you've got two furiously
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competitive drivers that are able to extract a hell of a lot out of that car on two very
2:41
different circuits already, they've proven to be quite capable.
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Next up, we had of course the sprint race, Iwasa P1, Martins P2 and Deruvila P3. And
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Timo's notes next to simply say magical sprint race. It was not half bad, was it?
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It's going to be one of my favorite sprint races, nay races in Formula 2 to date, I think.
3:01
It was just all over the place. I mean, you could tell from the commentary as well, Brundle
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and Jake's were absolutely having kittens all over the shop. And rightly so. I can't
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remember if it was Brundle or Jake saying one point, but you've got five cars wide there.
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You can't even, the track's not even five cars wide. How were they managing that? And
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it was just, you really couldn't call it. And Iwasa, you just felt was, he must have
3:22
been so calm in there, but you just think if that was any of us in there, we'd be like,
3:26
oh Christ, what do we do? There's so many people behind us. And if I do one thing wrong
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on this street circuit of all the street circuits to be on, you could be, never mind off the
3:36
podium, you'd be down in P10, maybe P15 if you're not careful. So it was some very nice
3:42
stuff. And I'm surprised that we didn't get any more retirement or crashes, but I'm very
3:48
happy that we managed to avoid that as well, because it just showed that they can really
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take it to the limit.
3:54
Some very clean racing. And again, the pressure that mounts on Iwasa through that, you've
3:57
got a circuit where if you make one mistake, you're losing possibly sort of four or five
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spaces at a time. It's easily done. It did happen. And again, it proved that he had a
4:07
sort of stable enough head on him just to keep the pace, keep it on track, keep it
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pointing the right direction, which is harder said than done and harder done than said rather.
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And yeah, he was able to pull off a very decent sprint win, again, really firm up his chances
4:20
for a championship this year. Maloney did, again, this is, I'm reading Timo's notes here,
4:26
Maloney did a dead or alive tribute by spinning himself right round, baby, right round. Again,
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this is very much Timo's notes. Off the back of a relatively competent opening round, this
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isn't going to have been the performance he wanted. Obviously he really redeemed himself
4:37
in the feature in Bahrain and then sort of dented things again, coming through Saudi
4:44
Arabia. So interesting there. What do you think, Ella?
4:49
Yeah, he's obviously going to be one of those drivers that is going to take a little while
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to find his feet. I kind of feel to be a little bit fair to the rookies this season. If you
5:00
noticed in Bahrain, they started off absolutely frantically and you could clearly see a massive
5:07
divide between the F2 existing drivers and the rookies that had come up from Formula
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3 in that very first round. And I'd take a particular note of that. And to be fair to
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the F3 rookies, they're very much used to highly competitive racing with a lot more
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cars on the circuit. But there is quite a giant leap into F2 from F3. We all know that
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those that have been watching for a while, that they're not the same cars. There's a
5:41
massive difference in cars and there's a massive difference in those carbon brakes. So I do
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feel there's a big difference at the opening of this season to the F3 rookies and the F2
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existing drivers. You can see that in the standings. You can see that for the first
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time within a few years, there isn't a rookie. The first one is in P9 and it's Koshmany.
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Which I think the previous season before, if memory serves me correctly, there's been
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rookies leading and in the top three and top four, top five. So the first eight drivers
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this season after two rounds are all established F2 drivers from last year.
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It's taking this year's crop of F3 drivers moving up a bit of time just to get used to
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this new sort of chassis feel. As again, you said the brakes are one of the huge step-ups
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as well as the fact the car is a lot more overpowered than it is gripped. So it's a
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harder chassis to try and find the appropriate balance on and then throw in the fact that
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every time you want to get on the stoppers, it's trying to turn itself backwards into
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a corner. It's a big learning gap to try and bridge and it's going, I think it was very
6:47
abundant with Olli Berman and Arthur Leclerc in Bahrain. We saw how much they were overdriving
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the car and it wasn't proving to be a sort of conducive manner to try and get lap time
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out of the car. Certain drivers seem to be getting a handle on that a lot more. Martens
7:00
is a name that's going to likely keep coming up. He seems to have very quickly gotten to
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grips with how to extract pace and lap time from the car in a way that doesn't seem to
7:09
harm his tyres or put him at risk of chaos on the track, which is interesting. And if
7:14
anything, completely the opposites to what we saw from Thierry Pocher, who demonstrated
7:19
perfectly how not to overtake someone into turn one, taking out Berman and himself from
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the race. And the best part is he wasn't even really trying to make a move on Berman. He
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was passing his teammate Martens coming into turn one and just simply over sped into the
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turn and was sort of blindsided by Berman. And yeah, he took it all on the chin. He said
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he sort of openly apologised to him literally after they crashed as they stood on the off
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track. But is this a sign that potentially early on the pressure is getting to Pocher
7:46
or was this just an easy enough mistake anyone could have made?
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I want to say it was an easy enough mistake in your can make, but also it seems a bit
7:53
like a rookie mistake, which obviously he isn't. And I mean, I know LA, you like to
7:59
be nice to everyone and I applaud you for that, but I am not in that camp. So I'm going
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to just be mean. But it just, yeah, it's kind of like, normally you have this kind of problem
8:09
because you don't see a car in your mirrors, but this is a car in front of you. So it's
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not like it was a night race and it's dark colours and maybe you wouldn't have seen it
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or something. It's a bright red car that Berman's driving. You know, it can't get any more
8:23
obvious in front of you. So it's like, as much as you're focused on your teammate, you
8:27
need to be aware of other cars around you. And again, it wasn't like a five car wide
8:33
situation where it was inevitable something was going to happen. It was just him and Berman
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there as far as I can recall, other people behind them, but nowhere near enough for it
8:40
to do anything immediately. So it seemed a bit odd, but again, maybe like you say, it's
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a sign of the pressure getting to him. It would be curious if that was it though, because
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he doesn't seem like someone who after Bahrain was someone who would allow the pressure to
8:56
get to him. Essentially he put on such a commanding performance there that you'd think, well,
9:00
what happened in the two weeks there to completely reverse your mindset there. So a bit curious
9:06
and something that as we'll get to in a minute, just the feature race, it didn't really pan
9:10
out for him any better there and just kind of a very 180 for him weekend wise. And you're
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going to be looking at these other drivers, as we always say, consistency is key. And
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this is just wildly inconsistent of the two rounds we've got so far. I know it's very
9:25
early, we've got a long season, but if you base it just off what we know so far, it doesn't
9:29
look good. And LA was saying, Kushmine is the surprise both in Bahrain and Saudi doing
9:36
much better than I think any of us thought he would, no offence. But if he can be there
9:42
consistently, if Boschung can be there consistently, then their mistakes aren't as consequential
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there and they can just be, Pochay is already second to Boschung, which is something that
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pre-season would just be kind of, okay, what have you been smoking? I mean, we all like
9:58
Boschung, but what do you actually, what do you know that we don't? So it just seems very
10:02
bizarre, but hopefully when we go to Australia, then he will have sorted out whatever it is.
10:07
And at least even if he doesn't get a win or get a hand purge, it's not because of a
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rookie mistake like this, it's because it's just a very tight field and we just get some
10:17
cracking racing rather than anything else. LA, I'll let you come in on this. I've spoken
10:22
quite enough. I don't know really at this point, it's still sort of early days and early
10:31
doors and yeah, yes, I am a nice advocate for it all. I don't like to be sensational
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about everything and leave that to you Timo. But I mean, it was just a silly mistake. This
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is a circuit that is very, very tricky and you don't have to be even an F1 world champion
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to smash every single circuit. We've seen world champions before, even back to the days
11:02
of Jacques Villeneuve, who could not get to grips with Monaco with that street circuit
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and we've seen him almost win that championship in his rookie season and then win it in his
11:12
second season. So I don't think that certain circuits might suit every single driver. Maybe
11:18
this is one of those for Teo. I don't really know. I can't answer that. Obviously we know
11:23
from not last season, but the very end of the season before he had that almighty sort
11:29
of crash with Enzo when he couldn't get off the line and Enzo hit him from behind. So
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he actually doesn't, he's sort of like him and Enzo are one race less, if you like, as
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Formula 2 goes for this circuit. And I don't know, I'm going to give him every opportunity
11:47
because I still see an absolute diamond in there. And although of course he's fighting
11:55
for that ART with Martins, they're still in different academies. Obviously he's in the
12:03
Sauber Academy and that's not a direct threat from Victor who's in the Alpine Academy. So
12:09
come on Teo, we all believe, well, I believe in you so we know you can do it. And he's
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the hardest on himself. He doesn't need me sitting here judging him and he doesn't even
12:21
need words from the team and from the management. He knows he's talented. We know he's talented.
12:26
And I think he just needs to just take a little breath, enjoy Australia because Albert Park
12:32
is completely different for even the F1 guys. So enjoy Albert Park, take a breather in April,
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back to Baku and let's see where we go from there.
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There's a perfect sort of, like you said, there's this nice gap coming through where
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he'll be able to sort of sit back, take stock of the first three rounds of the season. And
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I don't think they're going to have been three wasted rounds. Obviously he had a fantastic
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performance in Bahrain with a very dominant win. So there's going to be a lot of him to
12:56
look back on positively as well as there's going to be things where he can build on constructively.
13:00
So it's still good for his season at this point in time. And again, we are two weekends
13:04
in for them. That's only four races. It's not a lot of distance under their wheels.
13:08
There's still plenty of time for him to not necessarily turn things around, but sort of
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get a firmer grasp on where he is. Peter in the championship, one point behind your rival
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is essentially your rival at this point in time is no bad place to be in. But interestingly,
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there is just a sort of two point spread across the entirety of the top three. It's tight
13:26
already, but again, it's started the season. So a few points have been allocated that in
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reality there's going to be tight gaps all around the place.
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We'll move on to the feature race where we saw a, well, two thirds of the podium were
13:37
rather different. We had Vesti P1, Dewan P2 and Deruvla again making up for a P3. So nice
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performance there from Deruvla, which do we think this is going to be his big season in
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Formula Two? I think he's finally listening to this podcast
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because I've been very tough on him. And as we've proven many times before, Jesse, tough
13:55
love on one week of podcasts, the next week, the driver suddenly starts to do well. And
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that's all I'm going to say on that. You do have a weird track record of being able
14:03
to chastise junior drivers into doing quite nicely.
14:06
It's for the greater good. Very true. The greater good.
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Deruvla, he could get that car together. He made a lot of mistakes last year with those
14:19
tyres and he knows it. And the best drivers that we ever see are those that learn. So
14:26
hopefully he's learned from last season and everything. I know he's a different team and
14:30
it was a different car, but he's with a new team. And if the MP car performs like it did
14:36
last season, then he's in a better car. He'll hook up those tyres. Well, he is hooking up
14:41
those tyres now. It's self-admitted. He spoke about the tyres himself. So I'm not being
14:46
sort of judgmental and critical about him. We all knew that those tyres went off too
14:51
quickly last season. He's managing those laps now. And we even noticed in Bahrain that he
14:57
crept up and crept up in the background ever so slightly. And then the next minute he was
15:02
there bang right on the back of the leaders. And again, we talk about the Alex's and they
15:09
were really shocked to see him. Where has he come from? Where's Deruvla come from? Which
15:14
is quite an amusing commentary. But Deruvla, yeah, he's here to stay. He's here to make
15:20
his mark. I'm not 100% sure he'll win the championship this year, but I think he'll
15:25
be an absolute contender. And if anything, he might come second to Dennis Hauger.
15:32
It's enough to really sort of certify himself for maybe Formula One, but if anything else,
15:37
certainly a different racing series, likely something along the endurance lines or GT
15:41
racing, because there is a fantastic driver in there. And again, it's just this fact of
15:45
trying to get a grip on what is ultimately a pretty hard to handle car. You assume the
15:50
F2 cars are going to be a bit softer around the edges and things like the F1 cars, but
15:54
because they lack that amount of downforce, that amount of sort of chassis sophistication,
15:57
they are in reality quite old fashioned beasts to try and manhandle and quite snappy. And
16:04
you're still talking the best part of sort of 600, 700 horsepower through a car that's
16:09
quite rudimentary. So if you're sort of able to extract these good performances and equally
16:14
find this very smooth, very organised way of driving the car that Deruvla seems to have
16:18
clicked with the MP this year, that's the sort of thing that F1 teams are going to be
16:22
looking at for testing development, but also GT and endurance drivers where you've just
16:26
got to hone that car over laps for hours on end, that's a perfect skillset to really show
16:31
off and show you've got, especially at this level. So positive things for Deruvla very
16:35
early on the season. It would be nice to follow his story as the year goes by.
16:40
Also, I was going to say also worth noting that doing P2 after Bahrain kind of being
16:45
nowhere, it's nice that he's bounced back so quickly. And in the future race as well,
16:51
where the big points ended out. And again, like I was saying, Australia next, he's going
16:54
to want to do very well. There's hopefully whatever he's figured out to get back in the
16:57
swing of things stays now because I think pre-season everyone and their dog is kind
17:03
of shouting for him to be the champion this year. And then Bahrain happened like, oh no,
17:07
what have we done? Have we cursed him? Oh dear. And now it's kind of, it's come back
17:12
a little bit. So hopefully that's a good thing. But I think the thing there is Vesti because
17:20
he's one of these drivers a bit like Deruvla. There's a great driver in there and we've
17:26
seen glimpses of it, especially in Formula 3. I go back to 2020, especially the final
17:31
round at Mugello where he, I think he had a mathematical chance of still getting the
17:36
championship, but no one, including himself, probably thought it was going to happen, but
17:41
he just thought I could just have a bit of fun here and make it difficult for the other
17:44
two are really fighting it out, which was Piastri and I can't remember the other driver
17:47
at that point, Sargent maybe. And we're just having a great old time racing there properly
17:53
on the edge, but we've never really saw that properly consistently since then. We've said,
17:57
like I say, we've only seen bits and pieces of it. So hopefully this is something where
18:01
he's gone back to Prema now. He wasn't with them last year. Obviously that didn't work
18:05
out too well. So went back to where this definitely works and P1. Mercedes will be happy with that.
18:12
Again, yeah, you're right with Vesti. He helped Prema to win that F3 championship in 2020
18:20
along with his teammates there that was Piastri. And there was also somebody else in that top
18:25
four. Vesti came fourth. Was it at the Tao or Duen? So Vesti is absolutely up there.
18:34
He's absolutely capable of this. Obviously he switched teams last season, but now he's
18:39
back home at Prema, which was a nice comment that he made after the feature race over team
18:44
radio of saying that he's home, he's back with family, and I love you. And I don't love
18:51
you, Timo and Jesse. That's what Vesti said. We'll accept that. So it's for me, he's now,
19:01
I think that, well, we all know this. This isn't just me and my thoughts. We all know
19:05
that psychology plays a huge part in any elite athlete's life. And when it comes to feeling
19:13
comfortable and feeling with your people and feeling at home, then of course you're going
19:17
to perform better. So Frederick's now at home. That's where he feels he should be and look
19:23
at the result that we got from him and that performance. But not just him and his performance.
19:29
The Prema car also looks like it's making a little bit of a comeback as well. You know,
19:34
don't forget two seasons ago, they won every single, you know, series championship that
19:40
they were in at that point. They wiped the floor with everybody. So that Prema car could
19:45
well be challenging again for that team's championship too with Vesti at the helm, you
19:51
know, because even though Ollie a little bit has, we've discussed that already, his performance
19:56
and him getting to grips with the car, he's still not doing too badly. You know, he's
20:02
still doing all right. So maybe Prema's back. It would be nice to see Prema sort of making
20:06
this comeback. And like you said, the idea of sort of having family, having a nicely
20:09
united team that sort of Vesti is a large part of that. With them all coming together,
20:14
it's going to be a lot more positive for everyone working in that environment and it's going
20:17
to hopefully drive them forwards. And again, the whole idea of having a comfortable team
20:21
to work at is something that spills out beyond, especially when you're a formative driver
20:25
in F3, F2. We saw it famously with Danny Rick and McLaren last year over the past two seasons,
20:31
having a team where you feel at home, where you're comfortable, where you enjoy working
20:34
with the team that you're working with seems to make a huge difference. And I think especially
20:39
when you're working your way up the ranks, when you're getting used to the sort of pattern
20:43
of a formula weekend, having a team and that's supportive and like Vesti said, a family to
20:49
them, that's a key element. And it's going to be good to see him sort of develop and
20:53
build on that and have a very solid and sort of, I was like caring doesn't seem like the
20:58
right word, but there's this sort of atmosphere that seems to be generating that environment
21:01
for him to sort of build off of. The next two points on the list, ones we've already
21:05
relatively touched on, poor Cher coming home with Nourpoix to add insult to injury. So
21:10
very poor weekend for him in that regard, but again, lots to reminisce on and sort of
21:15
build on positively. Even Nissan overtook him at one point, which was arguably not the
21:20
sort of thing you really want to be dealing with, especially if you-
21:22
That was my add in sort of to injury rather than the Nourpoix plus that.
21:29
And then obviously you've got Maloney and it's by Maloney Martins did his own dead or
21:34
alive tribute. So again, just proving that despite the fact that you can look exceptionally
21:38
competent in those cars, they can still bite. And again, Saudi with the high curbs and the
21:42
fast speeds through apexes, it's going to be a circuit that does eventually bite. And
21:47
I think with the natural unbalance of an F2 car, it's going to happen.
21:51
Vosrong P19 after leading the championship following the sprint race, poor performance
21:56
or just simply bad luck of a draw?
21:59
A bit of both, to be honest, a bit of bad luck and a bit of bad performance because
22:02
he's been on it for three races, more or less. I mean, I can't remember where he finished
22:06
the sprint race, but he did all right, I think. But I can say I didn't want it to be a flash
22:11
and pan thing about Rain. I wanted that to be something he can continue for the whole
22:15
season because I mean, he's been there for about 67 years at this point. It would be
22:21
nice to see him finally build a proper championship together. And even if he didn't get it, really
22:26
show that he's got all it takes because it's just what he deserves after having to fight
22:31
so hard to keep being there so consistently. So seeing P19, it was just a bit, I wasn't
22:38
sure if that was strategy, if that was bad luck or what was going on. There was nothing
22:43
immediately obvious as to why that was happening. We didn't see any spins or mistakes or anything
22:48
or lockups. It was just Bochong's P19. The hell happened there?
22:53
Yeah, maybe, you know, I mean, he was very fortunate the weekend before in Bahrain. I
22:59
described it as sort of like the Red Sea opening for Moses when the traffic sort of all got
23:04
together and the track opened up before him and he was able to make quite a lot of places
23:09
up. And I didn't quite see what went on at the start of that race. You know, he started
23:14
in P9, qualified in P9 and then finished in P19, which is 10 places dropped. And that's
23:21
quite a huge drop considering he's leading the championship. So, you know, it would be
23:27
interesting to maybe either go back over that myself this week and have a quick look if
23:32
I can spot anything that happened or maybe some news might come out from the team that
23:37
there was some kind of issue. But even in qualifying, his rookie teammate, Kushmaina,
23:43
who we've already mentioned, out-qualified him, you know, in qualifying as well. So,
23:47
I don't know, maybe he wasn't again, maybe it was the circuit, maybe he's not quite as
23:51
comfortable. Who knows? We might find out the reason for the next race.
23:56
Yeah, we'll see how it pans out for Bochong. But again, he's not got too bad a footing
24:01
to start the season off. And again, he had a sort of troubled season last year. I remember
24:05
he had sort of back issues through some big part of it. So again, kind of all neck issues
24:09
rather. So he sort of come back into this with sort of, I want to say the best season
24:13
to have built off of, but he seems to come back in sort of fighting fit form and again,
24:17
making the most of the sun when it shines, which is good things to see. So we'll move
24:21
on to the drivers that really stood out for us over the weekend. And Timo, I'll go to
24:26
you first.
24:27
Yeah, going for someone we've not mentioned at all yet, which is Richard for sure, who
24:32
again surprised both of the Alex's in commentary and surprised pretty much everyone else as
24:36
well for the reason why I chose him there. Not only just P20 to P5 in the feature race,
24:41
which was a pretty decent performance coming off a shocking qualifying for a driver of
24:46
his calibre, but then somehow also managed to get the fastest lap on lap 20. It didn't
24:51
last, but it was impressive because he did it on 20 lap old medium tyres of all things.
24:57
And that just deserves a doth the cap for me because it was just, how the hell did you
25:02
manage to do that? It seemed a bit kind of Lewis Hamiltonish in terms of my tyres are
25:06
dead fastest lap, next lap. They're like, wait, what? So I just, I love that from him
25:11
and it was kind of one of these nice little subplots to the weekend that didn't really
25:16
get much coverage elsewhere. So I thought I might as well just give him a shout out.
25:21
Elay, your driver that stood out for you across the weekend.
25:24
Yeah, I think I would have liked to have concurred, you know, with Vachor and, you know, bearing
25:31
in mind the others were on super soft as well, which was absolutely mind blowing. But because
25:36
I'll say something different then, not for sure. And I actually, can I say too really
25:41
quickly? I actually want to give a little shout out to Enzo Vittipaldi, who started
25:45
in 14th and finished in seventh. But a bigger shout out to someone I've just mentioned,
25:51
Dennis Hauger. He qualified in 15th and finished in P5. You know, he made up 10 places, obviously
25:57
not as many places as Vachor did. But bearing in mind that that was such a mixed race, a
26:01
feature race and very mixed strategies throughout that race. And he was absolutely storming
26:06
through in the end, Dennis. And I, you know, it's one of those races where you think, oh,
26:10
if you just had five more laps, you know, or three more laps, then perhaps you could
26:14
have gained even more places and finished a little bit higher. So yeah, I clearly had
26:18
my eye on Dennis over that feature race for sure. For sure, for sure.
26:23
For sure, for sure.
26:24
You BB'd to it there.
26:25
Yeah. I think that makes my sort of driver that stood out a little more sort of obvious
26:29
really for me. It really had to be Vesti. He sort of came from nowhere in the feature
26:33
race and sort of pleasant surprise. I think I sort of dipped out of the room for a minute
26:35
to get a drink, came back in and I was like, oh, hello, you're up there. That's nice.
26:40
I think again, sort of a decent pit strategy sort of played into his favor, but you've
26:43
got to be able to drive to those positions that make those pit strategies work for you.
26:47
So it's not, it's not all not his effort in that regard. So he's sort of been able to
26:51
get himself there and get himself up and running, which is good to see. And again, it's nice
26:54
that he's got a sort of positive building block to sort of, we've got a bit of a gap
26:58
until Australia, but he's got sort of positive framework to build off of move forwards going
27:02
into what could be a very unique Formula Two weekend in Melbourne. So the next thing we've
27:08
got is the Driver and Constructor Championship Top Three. Timo, do you want to read this
27:13
one?
27:14
Yeah, why not? So despite his P19 finish in the feature race, Ralph Boschong still clings
27:19
on to the championship lead at the moment with 33 points. One point behind him, despite
27:23
also having dropped the ball this weekend, Teopold Scherr with 32 points, and then Ayumu
27:27
Awase putting himself nicely in contention early doors with 31 points. So as we said
27:32
earlier, yeah, there's only been two rounds, so they're obviously going to be close, but
27:35
we probably weren't thinking this close either. So that's nice and juicy in classic Formula
27:40
Two. Constructors wise, we've got Campos in the lead with 51 points with a much bigger
27:45
lead of only two points this time over ART, who have 49 points and then Dammes in the
27:50
third at the moment with 44, which interesting because they've got obviously Awase and Leclerc
27:57
there and Leclerc had a bit of a quiet weekend in some regards. So it's nice to see them
28:02
kind of just lurking in the background there, just keeping touch with the top two so far.
28:06
And who knows as the season progresses, especially with Awase can keep up the pace and if Leclerc
28:11
can get to grips a bit more with stuff, then who knows they could be a dark horse this
28:15
season.
28:16
It could be very interesting to keep an eye on. And that is pretty much what we've got
28:21
time for on this week's episode. Join us again soon when we'll be previewing the Australian
28:25
Formula One Grand Prix. And of course, there'll be some Formula Two action and we've got Formula
28:30
Three as well down in Australia, haven't we? I believe we do. We do. So it's going to be
28:33
some very early starts or late nights and late nights. I'm going to try to stay up the
28:39
whole way and it's not going to be pleasant. You must hate your body. So make sure you've
28:43
liked, comment, subscribed and got notifications turned on to not miss anything from the Undercut
28:47
podcast. But in the meantime, Timo, where can the people find you?
28:51
It's a very good question, Jesse. I'm very grateful for you asking. On the curbs, Nitro
28:57
Rx podcast, which we just had a triple header season finale there, which is absolutely insane,
29:01
including van driving, which is just letting the crowd come in and drive their own vans
29:05
around the track, which is just silly, but great fun. And then also Panic Passion, Panic
29:11
Rarity and Is It First and Instagram, because I'm all across that these days.
29:16
Excellent. LA, where can you be filmed?
29:19
You can find me at sort of tinkering my name in and then I'm under road to F1, which is
29:25
my new platform on all of the platforms. I've even joined TikTok, which is a little bit
29:31
scary because I sort of feel a bit like a mum that's just gatecrash her teenager's party.
29:38
But I'm all right. We're contending with it and we're dealing with it and we're trying
29:43
to make a go of it this year.
29:45
It's a tricky platform to get a grip on because it's such weird short form content, but sort
29:49
of seems to do well. But I wish you the best of it. I'll drop you a follow because I can't
29:53
wait to see what you're starting to produce. And in the meantime, if you really want more
29:56
of me, you know, some people do. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram as at Jesse on
30:01
cars. And if you want more of my sort of work in the realm of cars in a more professional
30:05
sense, you can pick up the latest issue of Classic Car Weekly and you can find me talking
30:09
all things classic cars in there and a bit of classic motor racing when my boss allows
30:13
me to. So that's all we've got time for this week. Join us again for the Australian Grand
30:18
Prix preview.
31:09
you